Clay would be free.
And then I saw something in my peripheral that distracted me, and faster than I could react, a hand had grabbed my own with the gun, twisted it enough to make me cry out and let go of the gun, then arms were tugging my hands sharply behind my back.
I opened my eyes, and saw Jimmy and his father both in front of me, with identically satisfied looks on their faces.
Shoot Off
Clay
Fuck.
I didn’t like this plan at all.
There I was, hiding, as Lara got caught by a couple of Eric's guys. They weren’t going out of their way to be gentle, but at least they hadn't tried to break her arm.
With all of Eric's people mobilized, trying to keep poor little Jimmy from getting his head blown off, I’d managed to sneak into the premises. Someone even left the gate open. If there had been residential homes or shops anywhere near, people would have gotten an eyeful.
I stood in a bush, a large one that covered all of me. Lara's body cam, that somehow survived on her, since all Jacque had done was snap a few connecting wires, was on me and I had it running. I'd managed to hack into its feed, and I glanced at the screen of my phone. I used it to zoom in on the picture, so Eric, Jimmy, and Lara were all in the frame, plus a few of the goons.
I waited until she shoved Jimmy away from her before getting the cam running, even managed to get a shot of him moving away from her, looking hostile, so it would look like he'd tried to attack her, and she'd pulled her gun; a moment later, they'd grabbed her. That way, there was no proof of her taking someone hostage. I didn’t want to have to edit the image, in case they could tell it had been edited.
I'd managed to sync our phones last night—or earlier in the morning. The range was wide enough that our phones were connected in this distance. When I started the camera, her phone started recording the sound, transferring it to my phone so I could hear it too. I had an earphone piece in my ear so as not to alert anybody. I grinned to myself as the sound carried loud and clear.
I lost the grin quickly as I focused on the conversation.
"Really, Miss Foley. Won't you reconsider? I'll even pardon you for Jacque's life. I'll pay you handsomely to just disappear and not return."
"I thought you were going to kill me."
"Ah, but you see, you are still being searched for by the police. You arrested my son and he gets out on bail. You show up to where my son and I are celebrating his release, and your partner is shot by your gun. Then you and the gun disappear. I would like nothing more than to hurt you, believe me, but those circumstances… would damn me. As well as my son."
"No."
I smiled grimly. Good for you, Lara. Just don’t get yourself killed out there.
He could talk all about how it was convenient, but it would hardly be the first similar situation he had to get himself out of. He could even use me as a scapegoat, say I ran off and took Lara, probably disposed of her somewhere. I didn’t doubt evidence proving it would appear from somewhere after they found her body. Which would bring me to the limelight, and that was the last thing I wanted. I'd done good at pretending ghost, and I wanted to keep it that way.
"Absolutely nothing?" he repeated.
Lara laughed, and it sounded strained. "It just burns you, doesn’t it? The one person you can't bribe, when my testimony is all that it would take to send your son to prison."
Jimmy made a sound, and he was about to go forward, probably to hit her. I fisted my hand at my side so I wouldn’t do anything stupid. Eric stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, and he froze and backed off, though reluctant.
"You're right," he said clearly.
I could feel my jaw drop that he would say that out loud. But then again, Eric was a man that loved control. He'd held it since he was young. There was never a situation where either bribery or murder didn’t work, so they were his most-used strategy. Before Lara, no one that defied him lived. Before Lara, very few even had the desire to. And she was scared, she made no secret of it, but she did it anyway.
That must have burned his butt. Enough that he would admit it out loud. It was… almost too easy.
"You are right, Miss Foley. I have met and bought—those I couldn’t kill—a lot more people of much greater significance than yourself." He stepped closer, and Lara flinched, but she was held. "You acting like some morally upright cop personally offends me. I am angry that I cannot seem to be able to buy your compliance from you."
He stepped aside, falling behind his son's shoulder. He was surprised when he got a light pat on the shoulder that pushed him forward, but the sulky look turned into a vicious grin.
"But, Miss Foley, there are plenty more ways to break a human being. I've heard from Luke that you don’t seem to care much for your parents. I don’t particularly care. They are your blood, so that's enough for me to kill them."
"Wait—" her voice sounded panicked.
She cut off with a cry. One of the bastards holding her must have twisted her arm or something.
"You have no friends, sadly, but no matter. Before we go looking for other people to hurt, we have you right here, so I'll show you my favorite way to break a person."
"Aren't you—" her voice was strained, and she cut off with a grunt, but persisted anyway. "Aren't you being just a bit egotistical?"
"How, so?"
"We're right in front of your house. The iron bars of your gates, or your fence, won't be enough to hide what happens here. If someone were to pass by…"
"Very few people use this street. There are plenty enough diversions and my people encourage they use them. So, don’t worry, this will be kept private. Jimmy?"
"Yes, Dad?"
"She held you at gunpoint, locked you up in her trunk. You get the first shot at her."
He hadn't stopped grinning. He didn’t even reply to his father, cracking his knuckles as he stepped closer to Lara.
That was the limit for me. I had all the proof I needed, the proof that Lara was innocent in everything. I shut off the camera, but Jimmy got in one punch.
The car I'd gotten from the docks held a few borrowed guns that I'd thought to go into the motel with, once I bought myself a few clothes, I mixed them in with the stuff, and hid them before Lara came out of the shower. It wouldn’t have done her any good to see it. I trusted my aim with a handgun, but there was too much distance and the scope of the sniper rifle I'd filched came in handy. I'd had to dismantle the whole thing to make carrying easier, but putting it together was easy.
Lucky me, this street wasn’t a very much used one. I'd assembled it in the street before making my way over. Still, getting it into position without giving away my hiding spot was annoying. Jimmy managed to get in a second hit. I saw Lara stumble, but the two guys holding her arms kept her up. I decided they would take my next shots.
I had a couple of other guns already clipped on a holster at my hips, the sniper on a sling over my back. I brought it forward and held it to my shoulder, fit my eye into the scope, and was in time to see Jimmy try to get in a third punch.
I aimed for his fist, following the movement of his arm so I would release at just the right time. I took aim, pulled the trigger, and shot Jimmy's hand off.
Love = Freedom
Lara
I wasn’t all that sure what was happening. My ears were still ringing from the punch, and I could feel the numbness spreading along my cheek. He got me where Jacque had just hours ago, and Jimmy didn’t hold back with his punches. But then I was suddenly released, and I looked to see the two guys that were holding me were on the ground.
I heard Eric Randolph's voice, loud and angry, and I turned to him. Jimmy was screaming, clutching at his hand, and I was sure I could see blood. He dropped to his knees, and Eric, looking stunned, was going to his son.
He didn’t make it. He took maybe a step, only to stumble back like he'd been hit with something, his expression still stunned. Another hit had his body flying back, until he laid still, on the
ground.
Then suddenly there was shouting everywhere, the sound of guns being cocked, shots being fired. A couple of guys in suits tried to run to Eric, only to get shot themselves. I turned around, too much in shock to have the sense to get on the ground so I wasn’t in the line of fire.
But then I saw him, Clay, stepping out from behind a bush, a rifle held by a strap over his shoulder, a gun in both hands, taking shots as he moved steadily forward. He somehow managed not to get himself shot, doing a lot of the killing. When I couldn’t hear any more return fire, the sudden silence loud, he dropped the guns and ran over to me. I stumbled some steps forward, shock leaving me without the coordination to work my body. And I would have gone to my knees if he wasn’t suddenly there to grab me by the shoulders.
We left Jimmy rolling on the ground, clutching his hand that was bleeding profusely. Clay didn’t even seem to realize he existed or didn’t care. He was crying, not so quietly, but Clay just tugged me a short distance away from him.
His hands were rough when he tried to touch my face, making me wince. He froze immediately and frowned down at his hands. He had on a pair of black gloves, and I wondered where he got them from. Clay pulled off one glove, touching my cheek gingerly, where Jimmy hit me.
"I'm fine."
He snorted. "You're not. If you don’t feel it now, trust me, you will later." His eyes softened. "You're alive, though. Good job."
I made a garbled noise, something that could have turned into a laugh, or a sob. I didn’t want it to be either.
He grabbed me, careful of my bruised cheek, and kissed me. But I didn’t want careful. I wrapped my arms around his neck and bit at his lips until he opened his mouth for me. I was creating a bad habit, doing this sort of thing around dead bodies—or in Jimmy's case, bleeding ones. But it wasn’t my fault that they kept turning up around Clay.
We were cut off by the sound of sirens.
"What…"
"I called them. Anonymously, when I came here. Figured we were going to need them." He pulled away, fumbled in a pocket and handed me his phone with the gloved hand. When I didn’t take it immediately, he took my hand and folded it around the device. "Everything you need that exonerates you, that clears your name of everything, is right here."
I could feel tears threatening, my lower lip trembling, and it wasn’t even the pain that I was just starting to feel in my face.
He saw, and he grabbed the back of my neck, gave me a small peck on the forehead.
"I know this isn’t the time, but… Lara. I love you, and I'm going to miss you."
It was too soon, ridiculously so. We only met last night, no matter what had gone on in all that time, how much longer it had seemed. But I believed him when he said it, and I could feel the answering emotions in my chest.
I nodded along, even as the tears blurred my sight and ran down my face until I couldn’t even see him anymore.
He wiped the tears from my eyes carefully, then smiled. And then he was pulling away from me. I wanted to clutch at him, but I didn’t. That wasn’t part of the plan, even though he'd only given me the part of it that he wanted to.
He shifted the bag he had slung over his shoulder so it was under his arm, reached inside and pulled something out. It looked like a dark bottle, only it was half full and a rug was sticking out of it. He pulled something else from his pocket as he got closer to the mansion doors. They'd been left open as Eric came out.
He held the bottle out, lit a fire with the lighter in his hand, and held it under the rug until it caught fire. Then Clay pulled his arm back and threw the bottle right in.
The explosion wasn’t as big as it could have been, if he'd used, say, a grenade; but it was loud. Enough to make me jump back. Fire spread and rose quickly in the house.
Molotov cocktail. One more thing I'd only ever heard or read about. Clay was very good at throwing me surprises.
The police showed up soon, I only glanced back to see the first cars come in, the sirens loud and making my head hurt. When I looked back, it was to see Clay running inside the burning building.
I wanted to run after him, even knowing I shouldn’t. Before I could even think to take a step, though, I could feel my legs give out from under me, and I fell to my knees. I winced at the sting, even through my leathers.
And suddenly there was more shouting to accompany the sirens, I heard some cops shout "Don’t move!" but if it was directed at Clay, he didn’t stop.
All the cops would see was a guy dressed in black, with a black bag and a sniper rifle slung over his shoulder—obviously the hitman responsible for killing notorious crime boss Eric Randolph, run into a burning building.
They wouldn't send anyone inside, cops didn’t do firemen's jobs, though they would have people check over the perimeter. If they didn’t find him, he would be presumed dead.
I heard someone shout for a call to be made to the fire department. I wasn’t sure how much of the building they could salvage, anyway. The fire was spreading quickly. Even if a fire truck arrived in the next twenty minutes, depending on how long it took them to put it out, the place would be around ready to start collapsing in maybe an hour.
I couldn’t be sure. I'd never seen a building burn before.
I understood why he killed them, even if I didn’t technically agree with it. More than that, I was concerned about what it meant to do good and what it meant to make a difference. My views of the world versus Clay's views. I had a feeling neither of us was exactly right, but his actions saved people; all I did was get a few killed.
Yet the cops would see him as a murderer and hunt him down like a dog.
But above everything, Clay's freedom meant more than anything right then, whatever he wanted it to be; and I knew that I loved him.
Sad he'd run off before I could tell him that.
And suddenly everything—the stress, all the hurt, the sleepless night, got the better of me. I could feel my body list sideways, and I thought I heard someone call my name before I was falling, and then my mind went blank.
Faking Death And Beyond
Lara
I rushed up the stairs of the precinct, purse over one shoulder, hand holding a box of pastries, and a hot to-go cup of coffee in my other hand.
I stopped by the guards' post, handing over a couple of doughnuts. I didn’t need staff ID—no longer used the back door—because I always came into work dressed up in uniform. I was still a junior cop—of course. I'd need at least a few years before I could even dream of a promotion.
I didn’t mind, though. On the breast pocket of my blues, sat a shiny new medal, awarded to me for bravery. I'd wanted to refuse it when they gave it to me. I may have been brave, but people still died because of me, even if only one of them didn’t deserve it.
But I got it anyway, once my name was all clear. I even got to keep my job.
Proper funerals had been made for Gabe, and Luke, even though his illegal activities came to light. I didn’t get blamed for either death, though both had been matched to the ballistics of my gun. The video was all the proof I needed to have them listen to my word, and believe that I wasn’t the one behind the gun when either shot was fired, even though in Luke's case, it was self-defense.
Thanks to me, a lot of Eric's dirty businesses came to light. Besides busting some of his gun and drug rings, money-laundering, human trafficking, they managed to find Jacque's side jobs. The place where he kept 'his girls' was tracked down. The few still alive got saved, but from the snippets of the report I overheard made me think a lot of them didn’t want to be. Even his sister was caught, losing her post, moved to a different position after her mistreatment of some of the inmates was uncovered. Only, she was going to be an inmate herself in the prison they sent her to. The rest of the Randolph family was under heavy suspicion.
Life was just starting to calm down from all of that. I wasn’t okay with anything that had happened, besides the aftermath of it all getting cleaned out, but I focused on living day to day, a
nd I managed to keep myself sane after that crazy experience.
"Hey, Lara!" Brandon, a new recruit, at least I hadn't met him before all that shit went down, ran across the room to get to me. I held out the box in my hand, and he opened it and pulled out a pastry.
Brandon was my new partner and a total kid. He was even worse than I had been going in, and it made me feel ashamed of myself sometimes, that I had ever been so green.
"What is it, kid?"
"Don’t call me kid. I'm only a few months younger than you," he complained through the food in his mouth, and he didn’t even stop stuffing his face to speak.
I rolled my eyes. "Age. Yeah, that's probably why I call you that."
He frowned, but I just laughed.
"Seriously, though. What is it? Because my coffee is getting cold and I would like to actually eat some of the stuff that I bought."
"Yeah, well, you're gonna have to take it with you."
It was my turn to frown. "What? Why."
"You're out on patrol. The new captain says so."
After the whole Eric fiasco, and a lot of information they found on the phone I'd had on me, the police had could identify a lot of less-than-stellar cops. The 'boss' had been top of the list. Well, below Luke, but he'd already died by that point.
Consequently, a lot of the force had been cleaned out. We could handle it locally—across maybe five different precincts—and some cleaning out had been in order. Which was why I got a fresh partner instead of getting partnered with one of the other officers.
"Doesn’t someone else have that shift?"
"Well, someone did. He got called away for some family thing and you're the only one without any assignment."
"Excuse me?" I looked pointedly at my desk, which he was partially blocking. It held a bunch of files on it. "I have paperwork to do. Why can't you go?"
His Betrayal: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Omerta Series Book 5) Page 11
