by Katie Ruggle
“Fine.” The man looked at Sonny expectantly.
“Let me see the papers first, Lubchek,” Sonny said. “Then I’ll send you the file.”
Bastien stiffened visibly, his head whipping around toward Sonny, but Lubchek didn’t seem to be offended. Pulling a large envelope from his laptop bag, he handed it to Sonny. “The file is complete?”
“Just like we promised,” Sonny assured him as he pawed through the contents of the folder. “It has the personal and financial details of every one of LZH Finance’s clients.”
Molly absorbed that information, a little shocked. She’d expected drugs or weapons or even black-market laptops, but financial data theft was not what she’d thought Sonny would be hocking. The way they were doing this right in front of John was a bad sign. She needed to act before they made sure he could never testify against them.
Lubchek snatched the envelope away from Sonny.
“Hey!” Sonny protested.
“Send me the file, then you get this and the rest of the payment we agreed to.”
Now! she texted.
Praying with everything in her that her hastily cobbled together, half-assed plan would work, she lifted a piece of wood that had broken off one of the pallets. Cocking back her arm, she threw it as far as she could to her left, desperately hoping that Cara was not close to where it landed. The wood hit the metal bracing on one of the shelves and clattered noisily to the concrete floor.
All four of the men turned toward the sound, all but Sonny drawing their guns in unison, as if they’d rehearsed it. The burly guy and Bastien took off toward the sound, while Sonny slipped off in the other direction, leaving Lubchek with John. Without pausing to dwell on the utter insanity of her plan, Molly darted out of her hiding place and sprinted toward Lubchek. His eyes widened as he swung around, bringing his gun up as he turned.
“H—!” he started to shout, but her shoulder hit him squarely in the midsection, driving the air out of his lungs and bringing both of them to the floor. The impact clacked her teeth together and sent a jolt through her. Ignoring that, she grabbed for the gun he still clutched in his right hand. Grasping the barrel, she pushed up and twisted, yanking the pistol from his grip.
As soon as she had the weapon, she pushed off him, drawing another grunt as her knee dug into his lower belly. She backed up several steps, the gun aimed right at Lubchek’s still-heaving chest.
Keeping the gun in her right hand trained on a glaring Lubchek, she yanked a folding knife out of her pocket and used her teeth to open it. Once the blade sprang free, she sliced through the tape holding John to the chair—arms, then torso, then legs.
He pulled free of his chair just as Bastien gave a shout, and he and the bouncer look-alike came charging back toward them, guns raised. Molly threw the knife at them, but it flew wide. John grabbed the back of the chair and shoved it so it barreled toward them, knocking into the bulky guy and tripping him up. Bastien didn’t slow, his lips drawn back in a grimace as he aimed his gun at John.
Aiming her own gun toward the cop, Molly fired twice. The first shot winged his arm, and he dove to the side, taking cover behind one of the plywood partitions as the second shot missed him completely. Turning back toward Lubchek, she saw he was already up and lunging toward her. She brought the gun around, but she knew she was going to be too slow. He was going to take her down, and it was going to hurt.
Before he reached her, John’s booted foot connected with his temple, and Lubchek dropped to the floor. She barely even blinked in reaction before John was grabbing her arm and dragging her behind a nearby toppled shelving unit.
As soon as they were concealed from the others, he squeezed her in the quickest, hardest, most welcome hug she’d ever experienced. “That was amazing. I love you. You’re insane, but I still love you. If you ever do that again, I’ll… Well, I’ll probably have a heart attack, so don’t ever do that again.” As he continued to mutter, he crouched and ran to the opposite end of their overturned shelf, towing her behind him with a firm grip on her hand.
“Maybe don’t get captured and punched in the face a bunch of times, and I won’t have to,” she whispered, handing him the gun. “Here. You take this. I love you too, and I’m very glad that you’re not dead…yet. Cara’s in here somewhere, and Norah’s in the car.” As soon as he accepted the weapon, she checked her phone, but there weren’t any new texts. “I think she’s still parked and waiting for us, but she’s a horrible communicator. She could be driving back to Langston, for all I know.”
“At least my car won’t get shot up, then,” John said, quickly peeking and then firing twice over the top of the shelf. There was an answering volley of shots, and Molly flinched, hoping that the wooden barrier would at least slow the bullets down a little.
“Always the optimist,” she muttered once the shooting stopped. Needing to know what was happening, she poked her head up just far enough to see. Lubchek was still down, apparently unconscious, sprawled where they’d left him. She couldn’t see Bastien, but the burly man was very unstealthily sneaking between the shelves toward them. “Bouncer guy who likes punching at three o’clock.”
“Thanks. May I use your Taser for a minute?” John handed her back the gun. Accepting the pistol with one hand, she dug out her Taser with the other. “You’re pretty comfortable with that,” he whispered as he took the Taser from her. “I thought you didn’t like guns.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t know how to use them,” she said. “Now shoo. Go take care of business.”
With a bloody, crooked grin, he rushed at the approaching man. Keeping alert for any sign of Bastien, Molly also managed to watch John take down the burly guy. As she grinned, finding a deep satisfaction in watching Mr. Punch-A-Lot writhe on the floor, a movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention. She turned, bringing the gun up, to see Bastien bearing down on her. Aiming squarely at the center of his chest, she ignored the panicking corner of her brain telling her that she could never kill someone intentionally and pulled the trigger.
Click.
Horror dawned just as he dove at her, bringing her down to the ground. It felt as if a car had landed on her when Bastien’s weight drove the air from her lungs. The empty gun went flying as her arm cracked against the floor. She struggled, but he had her pinned, and no matter how she twisted or tried to turn, she wasn’t able to roll them over so she could get the upper hand. Her right arm was numb and unresponsive, so she swung with her left, but the angle didn’t allow her to get in a solid hit, and her fist harmlessly glanced off the side of his head. She switched from punches to trying to gouge at his eyes, hoping to hit a vulnerable spot, but he grabbed her left hand in his right and wrenched it down to the ground.
His face was grimly satisfied as his free hand wrapped around her throat, cutting off her oxygen. She kept fighting, but darkness started to edge her vision, and panic threatened to overwhelm her brain. All she could see was his stupid, homicidal face, and it pissed her off like nothing else that it was going to be the last thing she saw before she died.
Suddenly, there was a loud thump, and the pressure was gone as Bastien slumped limply to the side. Molly gasped in long, ragged breaths that hurt her throat but still felt incredible. She blinked, clearing the blurry, oxygen-deprived haziness from her vision, and Cara came into clear focus. She was standing over them, a Maglite in her hand and a fierce expression on her face.
“Get him off,” Molly managed to wheeze, shoving at the unconscious man’s shoulder. “He’s freaking heavy.”
With Cara’s help, she pushed him off far enough that she was able to wiggle out from underneath him. As soon as she was standing, she grinned at her sister. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.” Although she could tell Cara was trying to sound casual, her voice shook.
“Molly!” John was suddenly there, hugging her hard and then running his hands over her as if checki
ng for injuries. “What happened? Are you okay? I was preoccupied with dealing with them…” He gestured toward the guy he’d just been tasing, who was bundled up in so much duct tape he looked like a spider’s next meal. Lubchek, though still unconscious, was lying next to him, also bound with tape.
“I’m fine.” She ignored her still-numb arm, glad that at least it wasn’t hurting. “We should get this one secured before he wakes up, too.” She let herself give him one solid kick to the ribs, figuring he deserved that and so much more. “Did Sonny escape?”
“Looks like it.”
Losing Sonny yet again made Molly want to scream in frustration, but she shoved it down. They’d get him. They had to. Her family was depending on her to do this.
“Let’s get this guy restrained and then see if we can catch up with him. We still have that new ID that he wanted so badly.” John nodded at the envelope that lay abandoned on the floor. He grabbed Bastien’s arms and dragged him over to the others, making quick work of binding his arms and legs with duct tape. Molly tried to help, but she was pretty much useless with her dominant arm out of commission.
“Time to call the cops?” she asked with a wince. This was going to be a long night.
“No.” Sonny walked out of the shelves, pulling a terrified-looking Norah along with him. Molly’s gaze immediately dropped to the belt Norah was wearing, but her brain refused to accept what her eyes were telling her. Those couldn’t be explosives wrapped around her baby sister’s waist. They just couldn’t. She lurched forward, automatically trying to reach her, but Sonny yanked Norah farther out of reach.
“Don’t touch her,” Molly snarled, unable to look away from the belt that circled her sister’s thin hips over her T-shirt.
“What happens to her is up to you,” Sonny said, looking disturbingly gleeful as he clutched a cell phone in one hand and Norah’s arm in another. “I just want to leave this town. There’re people who want to kill me, and I’ll be a sitting duck back in jail. You, I’m assuming, don’t want this bitch to be blown to little pieces.” He cocked his head as Molly vibrated with growing rage. “And all of you, too. This baby’ll have quite the range.”
“It’ll take you out, too. You’ll be just as dead as us,” John said, moving in front of Molly, to her terrified annoyance. How was it better if he had his face blown off rather than hers? They were going to have a long talk about his self-sacrificing tendencies when they got home…if they got home.
She immediately shut down that line of thinking. It wasn’t helpful. What she needed was a plan or at least something other than the panicked voice shrieking in her head.
Sonny gave a twitchy movement that might’ve been a shrug. “If I don’t get out of here, I’m dead anyway. Might as well have the satisfaction of taking all you with me.” His grin was all wrong, spiking a shiver down her spine. “You would’ve just kept chasing me if I ran, anyway.”
In the tense silence that followed, there was a faint wail of an emergency siren, and Sonny’s head snapped up. The sound was both welcome and bitter, because Molly knew they’d arrive too late to do any good. It was up to them to save each other. “Hey, Norah. Remember Brody Knick?”
Before Norah could respond, John was already in motion, taking advantage of Sonny’s moment of distraction to plow into him, bringing all three of them to the floor. Grabbing Sonny’s wrist, John pounded it against the floor, and the cell phone that he’d turned into a detonator went skittering away from them. Sonny, his expression filled with fury, tucked his legs in and then double-barrel kicked John in the stomach, knocking him back. Twisting back around, Sonny reached for Norah. As his hand wrapped around the belt, Molly knew exactly what he planned. He must’ve designed the belt to detonate if it was removed, and he was about to rip it right off Norah’s waist, dooming them all.
Time seemed to slow as Molly ran toward them, her functioning arm outstretched in a futile attempt to prevent what was happening. As Sonny’s fingers closed around the belt, Norah moved toward him and drove her knee right between his legs. Apparently, she did remember the Brody Knick incident after all. He screamed, his grip releasing, and Norah rolled out of reach, the belt intact.
Molly stepped forward, preparing to dive on top of Sonny and subdue him, but something tightened roughly around her ankle. Her entire body stiffened with fear as her leg was yanked out from under her, making the world spin. Disoriented, she blindly struggled, her mind filled with nightmare images of impossibly strong men who could flip her so easily upside down, holding her painfully by her ankle as she struggled helplessly like a fish on a line. How could she ever hope to fight back against that?
When her shocked confusion cleared and the scene around her stopped spinning, she saw the cord that was wrapped tightly around her ankle. That’s what had flipped her and yanked her off the ground by her foot, leaving her dangling upside down. She’d been snared by another one of Sonny’s traps.
She could only watch helplessly as Sonny scrambled to his feet and sprinted away. John shifted, as if to chase after him, but then moved toward Molly instead.
“Get him!” She flailed her arms in a shooing motion, but John still advanced, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her so that the rope around her ankle loosened. “He’s getting away!”
“We’ll get him,” John promised. “If not today, then soon. Can you reach up and get that off?”
Despite his words, frustration still coursed through her. He’d slipped away from them again and again. He’d put a bomb on Norah. Molly didn’t want to catch him someday. She wanted to bring him down now.
Reaching up, she wrestled the snare off her boot. Seeing that she was free, John turned her right side up and set her down. As soon as her feet were on the ground, she took off after Sonny, shouting over her shoulder, “Don’t unbuckle the belt!” Norah and Cara nodded, their faces pale with shock, as Molly focused on finding the bastard who’d tried to blow up her sister.
She was done with his nonsense.
Even as she ran, John keeping pace right next to her, she kept her eyes open for other traps and trip wires. As she reached the end of an aisle, she turned the corner, catching a glimpse of movement to the right as Sonny ducked into a deeply shadowed corridor.
“This way,” she mouthed to John, who nodded grimly. From the look on his face, he was just as fed up with Sonny as she was. They chased after him, and Molly felt a dreaded sense of déjà vu. Except for the lack of patrons, this was just like the night they’d chased him through the bar, the night that ended in a huge explosion. Who knew how many bombs Sonny had planted around the building? The whole thing could go up, killing them all, and there’d be nothing Molly could do to save them.
Shoving the morbid thoughts out of her head, she concentrated on speeding up as they entered the dark corridor.
“Wire!” John shouted, and Molly jumped, hoping that her timing was right to clear the trip wire that was hidden to her in the darkness. When nothing caught on her lower legs, she let out a breath of relief.
“Thanks!”
His teeth flashed white, even in the dim light, as he grinned at her without slowing down. “Nice jump.”
Molly gave an amused snort and was amazed. Only John could make her laugh while chasing a bomb-loving skip. No wonder she loved him so much.
Sonny darted to the left, and Molly sped up, not wanting to lose sight of him. In this maze of a building, it’d be almost impossible to find him again if he disappeared. As soon as she turned down the hallway after him, she dug deep and sprinted even faster. An exit sign lit up the darkness with an eerie green light.
They couldn’t let him get outside. Once he’d left the warehouse, there was nothing to keep him from blowing the entire thing to pieces.
John must’ve had the same thought, because he put on a burst of speed, his long, powerful legs churning as he pulled in front of her. In the dim light of the sign, Molly
saw Sonny come to a skidding stop halfway down the corridor. He dug in his pocket, and she flinched, expecting another detonator, but a small flame flared from the object instead. A lighter. She felt relieved for a fraction of a second before she realized that a lighter was just as effective as a detonator.
Bending down, he touched the flame to the end of a fuse. As soon as it lit, he dropped the lighter and took off for the exit door again. The fire ran quickly—too quickly—along the length of the fuse, and Molly felt her lungs freeze, refusing to suck in any oxygen. Time seemed to slow as her gaze locked on the flame. It felt surreal that such a tiny thing was going to kill them all.
“Got it.” John’s steady voice, so confident, allowed her to rip her gaze from the burning fuse, the world reorienting again. Despite his bruises and the blood streaking his skin, he was still the most beautiful person she’d ever seen. Just looking at him allowed her to breathe again.
Diving for the explosive device, John grabbed the lit end of the fuse in his fist, smothering the flame. She swallowed a protest as his unprotected hands wrapped around the fire. As he extinguished the burning fuse, her horror at his injuries was mixed with pride. Of course John Carmondy ignored his own pain to save her and her family. That was John. He was part of her family now. She loved him, just as he loved her, and they’d have each other’s backs. Always.
Trusting him to extinguish the fire and save them all yet again, Molly dashed past John and the explosives, putting on one final, impossible burst of speed.
Launching herself into the air, she flew toward Sonny as he reached for the door. For a terrible moment, she thought that she’d misjudged and would miss, but then her arms were wrapping around his lower legs, bringing him down just as effectively as a trip wire.
He hit the floor with an oof before immediately trying to crawl away. Filled with adrenaline- and rage-fueled strength, Molly flipped Sonny onto his back and started punching him, needing to punish him for what he’d tried to do to her family. As Sonny weakly tried to fend off the hits, she thought of the explosives strapped around Norah’s skinny waist and swung a solid punch.
