“The hell we will!” Eddie snaps at Atlas, turning his attention to the bigger man. “You’re still on my contract!”
“This is too much,” Atlas growls, “I want that evidence destroyed, and I’m backing my men out, you’re insane.”
“Fuck that, I’ll double your pay to get both these bitches back to the lakehouse and-”
Molly fires.
Eddie screams and puts a hand to his ear, half of which has been shot off, as Atlas and the guards duck down for cover.
Immediately, I grab Molly and pull her down before firing shots at the guards to keep them moving.
“Get her, you fucks!” Eddie croaks.
“Get her phone!” Atlas barks.
“Get to the car!” I shout to Molly, and the two of us take off in the opposite direction, into the maze of metal boxes.
The two of us sprint side-by-side, moving from cover to cover as fast as possible while we hear the sounds of boots on the ground behind us and one car revving up. The car must be Eddie, running off with his tail between his legs.
“There!” I hear someone shout behind us, and I grab Molly, diving for the nearest cover before gunshots ring out over us.
Once we’re behind cover, I fire back blindly a few times before noticing Molly, whose eyes are wide, my gun still in her hand.
“Are you hurt?” I ask urgently, and she shakes her head quickly.
“I-I almost killed him!”
“Pretty good shot, considering,” I muse, waiting for the shots to ring out over us before firing back once more. I hold my hand out for my gun. “Do you mind?”
She nods, handing me the weapon and taking a breath, snapping herself out of it and looking around. “We’re close to the car now--if we can get them off our backs, we could get to it.”
She’s able to get a hold of herself surprisingly fast, considering how fast things just boiled over.
“That’s a big if,” I grunt as one of the bullets ricochets off the metal we’re hiding behind. “Are you sure we can’t just give them the phone?”
“Hell no,” she says, “I want damning evidence, and Eddie just gave it to us and then some. I want his ass locked away forever.”
“Fair enough,” I say, reloading one of my guns and firing back. It’s only a matter of time before the mercenaries get us really pinned down, and then we’re in serious trouble. “Any thoughts on-”
I follow Molly’s gaze, and I realize that she’s looking at a small gap in two of the freight crates to our left that lead to the little opening where we left our car. I couldn’t squeeze in there, but she could.
She gives me a look. I grit my teeth, but then a bullet pings off the wall to our right, and I take the keys out and hand them to her. “Do not get shot,” I say, half-joking, but she’s already started moving toward the gap. I see her start to wiggle through it faster than I thought possible, then have to tear my eyes away to fire back at the men.
“Freelancer!” I hear Atlas bark as the bullets stop, and I hold both guns at the ready. “We’ve got you surrounded! I don’t know who the fuck you are, but you’re in way over your head!”
Well, he isn’t lying.
“You spared my men, so I’ll cut you a deal,” he calls. “Hand over the girl and that phone, and you walk away. No bullshit.”
“Takes a lot of balls, going after a teenage girl like that,” I mock Atlas, trying to keep him talking while Molly gets to the car. “Was it just too risky to go after the shampoo model? Or are your men specialized in combat with Instagram models?”
That’s met with a spray of bullets, and I grin as I fire back over the top of the metal. Through the bullets, I hear the sound of a car engine start, which is exactly what I was hoping to cover up. As I hear the car roaring around, I take action.
I kick over a metal barrel next to me and roll it out into the opening. That draws their fire just long enough for me to pop out of cover and fire off two rounds at the men. I hear a grunt and know that I’ve hit one of them--a man goes down, and Atlas and the last guard turn their attention to me as I dart out with both guns blazing, moving from one side of the opening to the other. A second man hits the ground, gun clattering to the floor, but I feel a bullet from Atlas graze my side, and I take cover again.
“You’re wasting your time, working for these Hollywood brats, you know,” Atlas taunts me, and I can hear the crunch of his boots moving out into the open. I saw the big guns he was toting, and I know they’re pointed right at the barrel I’m crouching behind now. “Shame I didn’t get a hold of you beforehand, you would have done well in NSS. Too late now.”
“Too late for you,” I grunt.
At that moment, my car’s brights turn on, flooding the makeshift alley with light, and I come out of cover in time to see Atlas whirling around to face my car, driven by Molly, as she floors the gas pedal and accelerates forward.
Atlas raises his gun, but I fire mine, putting a bullet in his arm to keep him from shooting, moments before Molly hits him at full force. His body hits the ground after rolling over the car, and I run to his prone form and put a bullet in his head before he can move at the same time as Molly screeches to a halt.
And damn it all, I can’t help but grin at the car and its driver.
Without another moment to waste, I rush to the car, sliding over the hood as Molly gets out. “You drive!” she says to me hurriedly, and I don’t need any more prompting.
Nearly killing two people in one day takes a lot out of a person.
Once we’re both in the car, I throw it into gear and tear off in the general direction I saw Eddie go.
“It’s a long shot,” I growl as Molly fumbles to get her seatbelt on, “but if I can see where that bastard left the docks, I might be able to catch up with him, even if he got a head-start.” They’re empty words, though--there’s no way I can do anything but try to stay on that Porsche’s trail.
“You don’t need to,” Molly says, getting a hold of herself and looking at me with wide, resolute eyes. “I know where he’s going.”
“You do?”
“He said Andie is at the lakehouse,” Molly explains, nearly breathless. “That’s a place he owns outside the city, a little retreat we all used to go sometimes when we were kids--I-I have good memories there,” she trails off, and I can see tears trying to well up in her eyes again until she fights them back, and she blinks them away, looking at me. “He’s headed to her there, and I remember the way. Follow my directions.”
A cocky smile comes to my face as I turn my attention back to the road. “You got it, Miss Parker.”
From here on out, it’s a race against time.
15
Molly
“Turn onto the highway,” I direct Wes, leaning forward in the passenger seat of his car.
“The next exit coming up on the right?” he clarifies.
“Yes. Right there,” I answer. I sit back as he makes the turn. I realize my body is totally tensed up, my jaw tight and aching. With a deep breath, I make a concentrated effort to calm down and relax my body, if not my racing mind.
“Now what?”
“Just drive for awhile. It’s a long way down this highway,” I tell him.
“Are you okay?” Wes asks quietly.
I can feel the undercurrent of what he’s not saying. All the things he hasn’t brought up. Those questions burning, crackling in the small space between us.
“I don’t know,” I reply, shaking my head. “No. I’m not, actually.”
“You know the way, right? For sure?” he asks, looking over at me.
I give him a slow nod. “Yeah. I know it by heart. We used to go there all the time when I was a kid. Eddie’s lakehouse. We spent summers laying out on the lawn, hiking in the hills, fishing off the dock. He had this little red rowboat. My sister and I used to take it out and paddle way out onto the lake, play card games on the open water, just drifting. Getting crazy-awful sunburns and then paddling home, exhausted, to eat hamburgers and hot d
ogs my dad and Eddie grilled on the back deck. Those are some of my happiest memories, Wes.”
I look over at him, now not even trying to stop the tears prickling in my eyes and rolling down my cheeks. “How did this happen, huh? How did it come to this? How did the man I trusted, even maybe loved, as a kid… end up being such a fucking evil creep? It makes me question all those good memories I made back then. The whole time he was pretending to be my parents’ best friend, my goofy uncle-- was he just planting the seeds for what he had planned later on? Was this his goal all along? To make me trust him so that I would make an easy target as an adult?”
Wes shakes his head. “I don’t know, Molly. I’m so sorry.”
“How dare he do this to me? To Andie? God, to my parents! We all trusted him. We all fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. He seemed so genuine, that lying bastard. Tell me, how the hell am I supposed to trust anyone now? Ever?” I cry, running my fingers back through my hair in frustration. Wes is conspicuously silent.
Which only reminds me of something Eddie said during the fight at the docks.
“Especially with you associating with that mafioso.”
My stomach flip-flops. If I don’t say something now, I’ll regret it. I can’t let this-- whatever this is-- go any further without getting some answers first.
“Go ahead,” Wes says suddenly, his voice gruff. “Ask.”
“How did Eddie recognize you?” I murmur, almost afraid to look at him.
There’s another long, painful silence. He’s mulling it over, choosing his words.
“Are you sure you want to know?” he asks. For some reason, this just pisses me off.
I round on him with a glare, my cheeks burning hot. “I asked, didn’t I? Come on, Wes. It’s not like I haven’t had suspicions. The way you fight. The shady skills you have. The stack of burner phones. The fact that you won’t tell me a damn thing about yourself and your past even though I’ve spilled my fucking guts to you. Who are you? What are you?”
Wes closes his mouth, a steely expression on his face. He’s clamming up on me.
“You told me to ask, and I asked. Now you have to tell me,” I demand.
“I take it back. We’re not talking about that shit,” he says, a warning note in his voice. But I don’t care. I’m not just going to drop it. Not now.
“No. You don’t get to go back on your word,” I tell him, shaking my finger at him angrily. He glances over at me with those beautiful blue eyes flashing, but I won’t back down.
“Now is not the time, Molly,” he says.
“Are you fucking kidding me? Everything is falling apart around me. Everyone is lying to me, sneaking around, doing shit behind my back. I’m relying on you, Wes. Right now, you are all I have. Can I trust you or not? I’m so fucking tired of being lied to. Give me the truth now or stop the car and let me walk the rest of the way!” I shout, my voice cracking as tears pulse down my cheeks. Wes heaves a sigh, shaking his head. I can tell I’ve struck a nerve. Good.
I put my hand on the door handle, a warning sign to him that I mean it.
He clicks the door lock.
“You want the truth?” he asks in a low, dark voice.
“Yes! That’s what I want, Wes. I want you to tell me who the hell you are.”
“Fine. You really want to know? Okay! I’m Wes Jameson, former mafia grunt worker. I’m from Las Vegas, Nevada and I’ve been running away from that place for years, afraid to look back and see it following me. When I was a kid, I lived with my mom. She was a single mom, working her damn ass off to make ends meet. Vegas isn’t cheap. She was a blackjack dealer at a casino, working all hours of the night to put food on the table and clothes on my back. She’s a fucking superhero to work as hard as she did. She was exhausted all the time. Never took a sick day or a vacation. When I got a little older, I got so tired of watching my mom run herself ragged. I worked odd jobs, trying to help out after school and on weekends, but it never made much of a difference. We were dirt-poor, living on the outskirts of town, surrounded by all those neon lights and the glamor and money of Vegas life without being able to even touch it ourselves. So, yeah. The mafia recruited me. Offered me a life I’d only dreamed of. Money, notoriety, women, fast cars-- the world I’d stood on the outside of for my whole life. And you know, Molly? For years, it was fucking awesome. They gave me easy jobs. Drive this car. Stand guard at that door. Follow that mark. Until that wasn’t enough for them.
“That’s how they get you. Hook you in with promises of easy, fast money, and then they escalate it. Give you harder work. Dark work. Things nobody should be doing, especially a dumbass kid like I was. They made rob stores, stalk people. Send threats. Did I want to do any of that? No, of course I fucking didn’t. But I had no choice. It’s not like a regular job. You can’t just put in your two weeks’ notice and leave with a letter of recommendation. If they say jump, you say how high. And then they bumped it up too far. They ordered me to kill this guy, this poor alcoholic gambler who was a regular at my mom’s casino. He owed the mafia big money, and they found out he was planning to skip town. So they demanded that I lure the guy out to the desert and kill him.”
“Jesus,” I swear. “What did you do, Wes?”
“I got out. They were threatening to kill my mother, Molly. The most important person in my whole world. The reason I got involved with the mafia in the first place. So, I ran. I ran away to Los Angeles and started over, doing the only barely-marketable skill I learned with the mafia: using my physical strength to protect some people and threaten others. I’ve tried to bury where I came from, who I used to be. But that’s how I know who Eddie is, and that’s why he knows me. We come from the same dark place. His real name is Eduardo Abruzzi, and he’s been in the area for a long time. He was sent here as an emissary to recruit and stake a claim for this one-deadly crime family from New York,” he says.
“Once-deadly?” I ask.
“Yes. The organization has more or less collapsed by now, but Eddie is resourceful. Versatile. The family didn’t know what they had in him. Underestimated his ability to blend in and make do with the cards he’s been dealt. He made a new life for himself out here,” he says, “and I guess he got lucky. Fell in with the right people. Smooth-talked his way to the top. Met people like your parents, and gained their trust.”
My mind is racing. It seems so fucking crazy. Eddie… a secret mafioso?
But then, certain memories come floating back to me. Times when he would disappear for weeks at a time on some mysterious business trip, always returning with lots of cash to spend. Conversations he would sneak out to his car to have. Hush-hush discussions with sketchy-looking guys who would come to the lakehouse out of nowhere.
It was there in front of me all along. Eddie Arnold… actually Eduardo Abruzzi.
“He was lying to us all along,” I mumble. Then, an even more horrible thought occurs to me. “Or maybe he wasn’t. What if-- what if my parents knew?”
Wes shakes his head. “No, Molly. I’m sure they had no idea. Guys like Eddie survive by keeping that shit under wraps. He wouldn’t have ever shown that side of him to people like your parents. He needed them to believe he was squeaky-clean. It helps his image to have folks like that on his side. Potential alibis. Character witnesses. No, he was living a double life, like so many of them do.”
“And what about you, Wes?” I ask, my voice trembling.
“Where do I turn?” he asks, ignoring my question.
I glance out the window, wracking my brain for the right instructions. I recognize a field from my childhood. We’re getting close. “Turn up at that next street. To the right. It’s in the woods, further in.”
Wes is quiet as we turn down the little country road, the rarely-maintained road rough and uneasy. The car shakes and grumbles over the gravel. I’m still staring at the side of Wes’s face, waiting for him to answer me. I’m not going to just let this go. I need to know the truth.
“Wes,” I say, prompting him.
> He ignores me, staring straight ahead. My heart sinks.
“Wes!” I cry out. “Answer me. Please!”
“What? What do you want to know, Molly? I’ve already told you everything. What else is there? You got my pathetic, tragic life story. What more could you possibly want? I don’t tell anyone this shit, you know? Nobody knows who I am. Where I come from,” he shoots back, those eyes blazing with a fiery rage. And something else. Sadness, maybe. Regret.
“I want to know if you’re still in that life,” I ask, enunciating every word. “I want to know if the guy I’ve been hiding out with, the man I’ve been fucking, is someone I should be afraid of. I want to know if I’ve been sleeping with the enemy.”
“I’m a bodyguard, Molly. That’s why I’m here right now.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.”
“My friend Cody got me started. Hooked me up with the protection agency your stuffy-ass lawyer hired me from. I’m doing my job,” he says firmly.
“This? This is just your job? You said it yourself, this is more than that,” I say.
“Fine. You want me to spill that part of my soul, too? I feel-- something for you, Molly. I don’t know why I can’t just treat you like any other client. I don’t know why I’m going out on a limb for you and your family. I don’t have the answer. I’ve worked with beautiful women before. I’ve had assignments that felt too personal. But nothing like this. Nobody like you,” Wes fires back at me, gritting his teeth.
“Then tell me the truth,” I plead. “If you feel something for me the way I feel something for you, then be honest. Give me the ending of that story, Wes. That man the mafia made you lure out to the desert. Did you kill him? Did you kill that guy, Wes?”
The car rolls to a stop. Wes, still silent, points straight ahead. I tear my eyes away from him and look out in front of us. The lakehouse sits in the near distance, shielded partially by beautiful, slightly overgrown flowering hedges.
“We’re here,” Wes says.
Rock Hard Bodyguard: A Hollywood Bodyguard Romance Page 14
