I skid to a stop and bolt out of the car. Grant’s Harley is here, but the Lumina is gone, which means Rob is out. The house is quiet, but I hear the dogs bark over the sounds of the roiling ocean below the bluff. Sherm and Grant probably have them down on the beach.
I rush across the porch and throw open the front door. Ulie’s not in the kitchen or her room. I take the stairs two at a time, and when I crest the top and see my bedroom door open, my heart screeches to a stop.
I burst through the door and the breath is wrenched from my lungs.
Rob is standing two feet from Oliver, his Glock leveled at his forehead. Oliver’s features are twisted in pain, and there’s a red bloom rising on his bandages.
“Stop!” I yell.
Rob glances over his shoulder at me before focusing back on his target. That’s the second I know. I can’t keep denying it.
Oliver Savoca is the love of my life.
And my brother’s going to kill him.
“Back out of the room, Lee,” Rob says, his voice low. Deadly.
“No.”
When he looks at me again, there’s murder in his eyes. “I said, leave. Now.”
Instead, I move to the bed, putting myself between Oliver and Rob’s Glock. I’m shaking, but I can’t let either of them see it. “I said, no.”
The vein in the center of Rob’s forehead pulses with the fury that paints his face red as he pins me in his gaze. “This needs to happen. I should have finished it when I was in Chicago.”
“I’ve already called Deputy Buchanan.” I lift my hand and lower Rob’s gun. “I’m turning Oliver in tonight. Wes will take us back to Tampa and put us on a plane to Safesite. We’ll be gone from Florida by this time tomorrow.”
Rob’s brown eyes storm as he processes that. “You decided this without me?”
“What choice did I have?” I toss a hand at Oliver. “He found us. We can’t stay.”
Rob backs away from the bed, waving his Glock in Oliver’s direction. “You told Buchanan about Savoca and not me.” He’s angry, but the tinge of pain in his tone tells me he also feels betrayed.
“I haven’t told him about Oliver yet. I just told him to meet me here at six tonight.”
Rob’s wild eyes flash from me to Oliver and back. “Ulie went shopping. Text her and get her back here. I’ll go find Grant and Sherm.”
He spins and is gone, leaving me to sort out what I’m going to say to Oliver. I send the text to Ulie telling her to come home, then look up and find Oliver’s green gaze studying my face.
“You did what you had to do,” he says, saving me from having to.
“I have to protect my family.”
He nods. “You do. What I wish I’d been able to make you understand is that I’m not the threat.”
Maybe it’s because I’ve finally let myself accept that I love him, but for the first time, I hear his words and believe them.
But it’s too late. Wes is coming.
“I’m sorry. I just couldn’t be sure.”
“I take responsibility for that. I haven’t always been straight up with you about my motives.” He swallows and looks away. “I love you, Lee. I have for a long time. I knew it before you left, but … I’ve never been in love before. I didn’t get how fragile it was. I should have told you.” He rolls his head at the room. “All of this … everything I’ve done since you left was done with the single-minded goal of finding you.”
“Because I messed with your program.”
“I thought so, but …” He shakes his head and his gaze captures mine. “It’s really because I don’t want to live without you.”
My heart aches at his confession. It’s only now, as I reflect back on the months before we left Chicago, that I realize all the time I thought I was so deftly avoiding giving Oliver information on my family’s business dealing was only because he’d stopped digging. I don’t even know when, but at some point his stealthy inquisitions stopped. He opened himself up: Oliver unlocked, giving me glimpses into his life—taking calls, both personal and business, without leaving the room; conducting business on his laptop without making any serious attempts to conceal what he was doing from me; flat out showing me the program I ended up sabotaging. I was just too busy plotting to see it.
A tear breaks through the dam and courses a crooked path down my cheek. I wipe it away. “Our timing blows.”
A smile ticks the corners of his mouth and he opens it to say something. He’s interrupted by the sound of a stampede of people and dogs on the stairs.
“I need you to take the dogs and wait in your room, champ,” I hear Rob say.
I slip into the hall and Crash scrambles past Rob and jumps on me, barking his head off.
“Why?” Sherm asks as they all reach the top of the stairs.
“Because I want you close but …” Rob’s eyes catch on me. “There are some things I need to sort out with Lee and Grant.”
Sherm looks at Grant, then me, as if hoping one of us will veto Rob.
“You should do what he says, dude,” Grant says.
Sherm gives us all another glance then herds the dogs into his room. Rob closes the door behind him then turns to Grant.
“Savoca found us,” he says, his voice little more than a whisper.
“You’re fucking shitting me,” Grant says, his eyes wild as they flick between us.
Rob reaches for the handle of my door. “He’s in Lee’s room.”
I cut in front of Rob as he opens the door and move toward Oliver, putting myself between him and my brothers.
“Does someone want to explain this?” Rob asks, pinning me in his intense gaze.
“What do you want to know?” Oliver says, drawing Rob’s wrath away from me.
“How the hell you found us would be a good place to start.”
“I followed a trail no one else would think to look for.”
“What trail?” Rob asks, looming over Oliver.
“When you left me unconscious in your apartment in March, once I came to, I took the opportunity to look around for any clue as to where you went. There wasn’t much there, but I found a Tribune article in the trash. It was from that charity gala last fall at the governor’s mansion. The picture was of you and Sophie, and it got me thinking.”
My heart squeezes into a hard ball.
Oliver dated Sophie in the three weeks we were apart after his father was arrested. I saw the pictures. I knew what was happening. Rob had dated Sophie. She was a potential source of information on our family. Oliver and I had been sleeping together for eight months by that time, and he seemed to have given up the womanizing, but I guess Sophie was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.
When he came back to my bed, we never talked about it. We talked about classes, and movies, and music. We watched the White Sox bring up the rear in their division and argued about who they should trade in the off season. We laid naked in bed as he traced the lines of my body with his fingertips and had long discussions about what takeout to order. We also went back to using condoms, because even though I never asked and he never told, I knew exactly what he’d been doing with my brother’s ex.
Rob’s eyes narrow as understanding dawns.
“Don’t blame Sophie,” Oliver says. “I totally manipulated her, and even still, she had no idea she’d given me anything.”
“You son of a bitch,” Rob growls, and it’s clear from the murder in his eyes that he doesn’t blame Sophie.
“Fuck this, Rob,” Grant says from where he’s leaning his back against the door. “Just shoot the asshole.”
Rob glances over his shoulder at our younger brother, and I can see, for once, they’re in agreement. “What did she tell you?” he grinds out, turning his attention back to Oliver.
“Only that she’d seen you before she left for London and you were safe.”
The next second, Rob’s Glock is digging into Oliver’s forehead. Every muscle in my body coils, ready to pounce, but I have to trust that Oliver can tal
k his way out of this.
“Give me one good reason not to do what my brother says,” Rob says, his hand rock-steady on the gun.
Oliver keeps his cool, as usual, even though I’m about to lose it all over the place. “Because I know who holds your contract.”
There’s a second Rob’s breathing stalls, but then he pushes the muzzle of his gun tighter to Oliver’s forehead. “Who?”
“If I tell you, there’s nothing stopping you from killing me.” Oliver’s eyes flash to me. “I’m not quite ready to die.”
“You are so full of shit, Savoca,” Rob says, his finger tightening on the trigger. “You know who holds the contract because it’s you.”
The hint of a smile lights Oliver’s eyes. “You pull that trigger, you’ll never know, will you?”
I’m dying inside and he’s enjoying the game. It makes me want to kill him myself.
I let out the breath I was holding when Rob lowers his Glock. “You want to stay alive, you need to give me more.”
“I’m here alone. I’m unarmed. I will help you take down the person who holds the contract, but I need your word you’ll come back to Chicago and take back the organization when that happens. You’re smart and generally rational, unlike most anyone else who would take over your father’s business dealings. I need you in charge if we’re going to clean things up. We could own Chicago, Rob, and we wouldn’t need to spill a drop of blood.”
Oliver’s eyes flick to mine, and in them I see hope. He mentioned a truce, but I never believed it was real.
“If I was trying to kill you,” Oliver continues, still trying to persuade my brother, “you’d be dead. I’d have taken you and the rest of your family out the night I followed you back here from Spencer Security. You have to trust that I’m here to help.”
Rob raises his gun again, pointing it at Oliver’s head. “I will never trust you.”
“Rob, please,” I say, trying and failing to keep the desperation out of my voice. “Wes will be here in less than an hour. You can’t kill him.”
Rob’s gaze narrows to a suspicious squint as he regards me.
“My car is just up the main road,” Oliver says. “You can search it.”
“I moved it into the driveway of the rental next door,” I confess. When Rob shoots me an exasperated glance, I add, “The house was empty and I was afraid his car would get towed from the street. I wasn’t sure if that might trigger someone to look for him here.”
Rob’s glare softens as he realizes I’m right.
“I had a room at the Sand Dollar Inn just over the bridge in Loveland,” Oliver says after a long silence. “They’ve probably cleaned out my shit by now, since I was only paid through Friday, but if they have it in the office, you can look through my bag. There are no weapons. My ID and tickets are all in the name Patrick Barrone. My family doesn’t know about that identity. There’s nothing they can track here. But that doesn’t mean they’re not out there trying. Just let me call them to check in.”
Rob fixes him in a glare. “I have no way for you to do that. Any phone I could give you will show up as a Florida area code.”
“Let’s go get his things at the hotel before Wes gets here,” I plead. “Then we can decide what to do.” I need Rob out of this room. It’s the only way Oliver’s going to survive until Wes arrives.
Rob picks my Beretta up off the nightstand and shoves it at Grant. “Keep your eye on him.”
“Your sister knows her knots,” Oliver says. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Grant keeps my gun trained on Oliver as he steps closer and peels the sheet back to reveal the scarf binding his arms to his sides. “Fuck, Lee. Wouldn’t have pegged you for BDSM.”
“We’ll be back before Buchanan gets here,” Rob says, ignoring Grant and yanking open the door.
On the other side, Sherm stumbles back from where his ear was pressed to the door. His expression is a mix of shock and fear.
“Christ, Sherm!” Rob bellows.
Sherm shrinks back, plastering himself against the far wall.
I shut the door and get in between them. “Sherm, why don’t you take the dogs out to the run and wait for us on the front porch, okay?”
He doesn’t take his eyes off Rob, but nods.
We head downstairs in strained silence and Rob storms down the drive toward the house next door. Sherm grabs the dogs’ leashes and I see him fighting frightened tears.
I grasp his arms and bend down to his level. “Rob’s scared too, buddy. He didn’t mean to yell at you.”
He pushes away from me, and when he glares and says, “I don’t want to leave!” I know I misinterpreted his fear.
I take a deep breath. “We might have to, Sherm. This is the risk of living the way we do. We won’t be able to stay anywhere forever. We have to stay safe.”
He starts down the stairs with the dogs and they drag him toward the bluff. He wrestles them the other direction, toward the run.
“Stay close!” I yell after him, then jog after Rob. I catch up to him just as he’s starting up the driveway of the house next door.
“Do you want to explain this, Lee?” His voice is stone and he won’t look at me. “Why you’ve kept the man responsible for trying to kill us in your room for six days without telling anyone?”
“Because I think I believe him. He says someone else holds the contract.”
“He’s lying.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“Because that’s how he rolls. I know he’s not telling us everything.” When he finally turns to look at me, his glare scorches through me. “Why are you so willing to believe him? What’s really going on, Lee?”
“Nothing,” I say as we reach the car. I click it open and duck inside before he can see the truth on my face. I’m not ready for him to know Oliver’s ever been anything more than a classmate.
But part of what Rob’s saying is true. Oliver is cautious. He never plays all his cards. He always holds the best ones up his sleeve.
Like who is trying to kill us.
But I can’t blame him for not telling me. Oliver is nothing if not a student of human nature. He read the situation and decided his best chance at self-preservation was to withhold that information. And, chances are, he was right.
“He’s been in Florida for over a week. No one has broken down our door. There’s no army. If his men knew he was here, there’s no way they’d let him come alone. He’s unarmed, Rob.”
“We’ll see about that,” he says, popping the trunk.
We spend the next fifteen minutes tearing everything apart. The only thing of note we find is a roll of duct tape with some food in a shopping bag from Len’s Market.
“Yep. He’s here on a charity mission,” Rob says, holding up the tape.
“There’s no gun, Rob. He’s not going to kill us with duct tape.”
“There are no weapons here,” he says, chucking the tape into the car.
“If you don’t believe it, let’s check his hotel.”
Rob shakes his head slowly and I can see him working it out in his head. “That could be a trap. His thugs could be waiting there.”
“If anyone was there, they’d have come after Oliver by now.”
He props an elbow on the window. “You still haven’t answered my question. What’s going on with you and Savoca?”
“Jesus, Rob. I told you. Nothing. I shot him, for Christ’s sake.”
He looks at me a long minute, studying my face for the lie. I’m not sure if he sees it or not. His poker face is better than mine. Finally, he slams the car door and hoofs back down the driveway. “We should kill him and get it over with.”
My heart stalls as I chase him down the drive. “We can’t kill him. Wes will be here soon. He’ll relocate us. We’ll be safe.” Oliver won’t be able to find me again.
At the thought, my heart dies a little more.
It took months after we were relocated to come to terms with the fact I’d never see Oliver again. But
now that he’s here, now that I’ve admitted to myself what he means to me, I can’t let him go again. I’ve been hollow for so long, and now I remember what it is to feel full. I don’t want to lose that feeling. I can’t go back to being a shell of a person, just going through the motions.
I grab Rob’s arm. “I think we should just keep this to ourselves for now. Let’s see what he knows.”
His eyes pull wide in a disillusioned stare as he spins on me. “Every second he’s here, our entire family is in danger.”
I take a deep breath to steel my nerves when I realize by the semi-wild look in Rob’s eyes that his mind is made up. “Think about this, Rob. That won’t change if we kill him. If we do, we’d be hunted by both sides, the mob and the Feds. I’m not going to put Sherm in that kind of danger.”
He throws a hand at our house. “When they find out he’s been here for days before we turned him in, they’ll pull our protection.”
“So we do neither.” I know I’m grasping at straws, but I’d say anything right now to keep Oliver alive.
He tilts his head and narrows his eyes the way he does when he’d trying to see into my head. “So what’s your suggestion? Keep him tied to your bed for the foreseeable future? I don’t think that’s a viable alternative.”
“Just until he tells us who we’re running from.”
He starts toward the house again full bore, determination etched on his face like it was stone. “He’s going to tell us that right now.”
Ulie pulls up the drive just as we’re climbing the porch stairs.
“What’s the big emergency?” she asks, splitting a concerned glance between us.
“Talk to your sister,” Rob says without slowing down.
I grab his arm. “No way, Rob. You’re not going in there without me.”
“Going in where?” Ulie asks, alarm raising her voice a pitch.
Rob pulls out of my grasp and yanks his Glock from his waistband as he strides into the house. Ulie follows on his heels.
And that’s when I notice both Sherm and the dogs are gone.
I watch after Rob and Ulie, torn between protecting the man that I love and my little brother’s safety. Oliver’s life is hanging by a thread, but the pull of my little brother is stronger. I pray Ulie can keep Rob from doing anything crazy as I run toward the bluff.
Over the Line: On the Run Novel Page 13
