Defy (Brothers of Ink and Steel Book 3)

by Allie Juliette Mousseau

  I’m dizzy and disoriented, but physically I think I’m okay. Officer Bloom, who hadn’t been wearing her seatbelt, looks like she hit her head and is knocked out.

  “BLOOM! OFFICER BLOOM!” I shake her. She doesn’t move.

  Oh my God. I unfasten my seat belt and carefully climb over her and check her throat for a pulse.

  I sigh in relief—it’s there. She’s alive.

  I look up and realize I can’t say the same about the driver—he’s bleeding profusely from his head, and his eyes are wide and empty. The officer in the passenger seat—Guthrie—immediately reaches up, opens his side door like a hatch and lifts himself out. And then he starts shooting.

  This isn’t a random accident, I’ve been compromised.

  I try to think. I’ll be captured if I just sit here waiting for them to take me. And I’m sure Miguel won’t hold onto me to sell me this time. This time, he’ll murder me for certain.

  Stretching up my arms I try to force my door open, but it seems jammed closed. I look around me and decide to try the sunroof—I could fit through it. I extend my right arm over the dead driver and hit the roof lever. It slides open.

  I pull myself through it and carefully slide off and away from the SUV, when someone grabs me from behind.

  Immediately my mouth is covered by a calloused, tattooed hand.

  “RYDER!?!” I mumble from behind his flesh.

  “You’re not safe.” He drags me back behind a small beige car and shoots over its hood at my escort team.

  “Are you out of your mind!?” He’s shooting at the police! My mind scrambles to understand this new development.

  “Get in the car!” he demands.

  All at once, I think I figure this out. “Did you do this?” I shout. “Did you ambush them?”

  “They’re driving you straight to Miguel!”

  “You’re crazy!?” I cannot even fathom what he is thinking. None of the officers has done anything to make me fear or doubt them. They were taking me straight to Shreveport, just like they said they would. Has Ryder’s paranoia gotten the best of him? “They took me from a police station, Ryder!”

  I jerk away from him and he lunges, quickly catching me. “I thought we already worked out this trust thing.”

  “You left me there!” I want to trust Ryder. I do. But this is crazy, and I suddenly feel like I can’t even trust myself anymore. None of this makes sense.

  “I didn’t leave you, they forced me out.”

  “What? I don’t—”

  “Farrington, they’re going to kill you.”

  “No they’re not! They were protecting me!” They were protecting me, right? God, why can’t I trust any of my own instincts all of the sudden? I thought I knew Ryder, thought I understood him, but once he left I started to question everything . . . and sane people don’t just start shooting at the police on a hunch. Is this more than a hunch?

  “Let the woman go,” a man’s voice shouts.

  My heart is pounding with fear and anger. I have to make a decision. “I’m going with them, Ryder.” Even as I say it, I doubt myself, but I struggle from his grasp anyway.

  “No, you’re not.” He clasps a handcuff over my right wrist.

  “What the . . .?”

  “Get into the car, Farrington.”

  Immediately, the helplessness I felt when Miguel’s men took me surges up within me once again. The cold bite of the handcuff against my skin makes me sick to my stomach. “HELP! HELP ME!” I scream.

  “Jesus Christ!” Ryder growls, crushing and shoving me into the front seat.

  I immediately try opening the passenger side door, but he yanks me back towards him, leans over me and snaps the other cuff closed around the bar of the door handle.

  “WHY?” I cry, snapping my wrist against the locked cuffs. I can’t think straight—can’t feel anything but that cuff around my wrist.

  Instead of answering, he tears away from the mess of overturned and smashed cars.

  “FUCK!” I shout.

  “I told you Miguel has men everywhere.”

  “All of those cops are on Miguel’s payroll? How do you know? Why wouldn’t they have just killed me?”

  “Listen, I—” But he suddenly swears and then swerves. The car lurches to the right as he flies against the flow of traffic then detours through a back street. “Put on your seatbelt, Farrington.”

  “No!” I don’t know who to believe or what to think. I need a minute to think this all through—a moment to process everything without the feel of the damn handcuff against my wrist, reminding me . . .

  We go soaring over a frost heave and land with skidding tires.

  “GET THAT SEATBELT ON BEFORE YOU FLY OUT THE FUCKING WINDSHIELD!”

  I do it, but my face is burning with rage and confusion.

  He makes a sharp right hand turn and fishtails the car down an alley. The action jostles us violently. With my left hand, I reach to the dashboard for stability.

  I whip my head around to look out the back. Two cars are most definitely chasing us. One is an SUV that had been one of the three in my escort, the other is a blue four-door sedan.

  Where did that car come from? Is it an unmarked police car? I wonder.

  Turned around like I am, vertigo washes over me. Quickly I face forward again and see, on my right, two bicycles we’re coming up on fast.

  “RYDER!”

  Slamming his fist on the center of the steering wheel, he blares the horn, and the two cyclists pull out of the way. Darting between cars, he accelerates around the outskirts of the city.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Someplace safe.”

  “What about the FBI agents?”

  “Exactly,” he says gruffly, weaving in and out of the traffic.

  “Exactly what!?” I suck in a frightened breath as we streak through the middle of the Louisiana State University campus. “They’re going to come after you until they catch you,” I try warning, but he doesn’t answer me.

  For a moment, I study Ryder. His eyes are full of danger and intensity as he scans the road methodically. His right hand works the stick shift of the Dodge Avenger while his left grips the steering wheel. He’s not nervous or uncomfortable—just focused and determined. The way he handles and controls the car is at a professional level—he’s done this kind of driving before.

  A car turns out onto the narrow road in front of us. I’m sure he’ll be forced to stop.

  Ryder swerves just in time to miss a collision and rolls up onto the sidewalk, straight between two groups of students who stand gaping at the chase in shock. Even though Ryder has expertly maneuvered the car to avoid them, they leap out of the way in terror. Books and papers scatter into the air.

  He careens back into the flow of traffic before the blue sedan comes out of nowhere to block the road about twenty feet ahead of us. And the distance is closing fast.

  My heart is slamming in my chest, out of control.

  “Ryder, I want you to stop the car and let me out,” I try to say calmly, but it comes out in a tremoring voice. This has to stop. We’re not going to come out of this alive, and Ryder still hasn’t given me any reason to truly doubt the police. If he was so worried about them, he should have just stuck around and come with us.

  “Can’t do that, Farrington,” he answers plainly.

  He wraps his fist around the lever of the emergency brake and yanks it up as he cranks the wheel to the right. The vehicle stops its forward motion but now slides in an arc to the left until it’s lined up side-by-side with the sedan.

  Ryder drops the brake lever and slams on the gas as we pitch forward down a cross street.

  The emotion, the stress, the fear—it all comes to the surface and I blow. In a frenzy, I curl around to face him, bring my legs up between us and kick and punch him over and over as hard as I can.

  “I WANT TO GO WITH THE POLICE, RYDER!” I scream as I assault him with every bit of strength I have. “LET ME GO!”

&
nbsp; The car screeches around a sharp corner, and as it does, my body is thrown against the passenger side door. From my weight, it swings open and I freefall towards the concrete.

  Chapter Nine

  Ryder

  I watch the door come ajar from my peripheral. I grip hold of her calf and haul her back up towards me—grateful for the seatbelt still holding her snug around the waist.

  “Pull it closed tight,” I say.

  Farrington’s visibly shaking as she straightens her body under the belt and slams the door shut. She sits still, gulping deep breaths of air.

  “Are you hurt?”

  She shakes her head no and stares forward, obviously traumatized. Maybe she’ll stay put under the entire seatbelt now and not try jumping from the car.

  One of the black SUVs has gained ground and tries ramming us.

  “Get your head down, Farrington.” I don’t wait for her to comply. I reach my hand over, grab the back of her head and pull her down.

  As I do, the perp in the SUV sends three bullets into the side of the car, making me careen into oncoming traffic on the opposite side of the road.

  “What are they doing?” she cries in confusion. “Oh my God, they’re shooting at us!”

  “I told you, you just need to trust me,” I answer.

  Three cars collide in the chase’s wake, one of them rolling over into the midway. I was trying to avoid that, but it does block off the SUV.

  The Red River meanders to our right. I’m only about two hundred feet away from the bridge when the actual Lousiana State Police come racing onto the scene to block my path.

  I turn a sharp left, knowing they’ll follow—I have to lose them, or at least throw them off my course long enough to get Farrington safe—into a crowded shopping center.

  “I’m going to be sick,” she cries, her head resting between us on the seat.

  “You can sit up now.”

  “Where are we?” She looks out the window. “Oh look, a Famous Footwear, I could use a new pair of heels.”

  “Really?”

  “Not really!” she yells at me. “What the hell are you doing?”

  I grin at her snark, then swing right and cut through the space between the buildings. We shoot back out quick, and I pivot to the right again, taking a back road that will bring me up and around so I can spin up onto the bridge.

  “There’s a US Marshall behind you. Are you going to stop now? Let them help us!”

  “Hmm . . . let me think.” I peer into the visor mirror.

  “Ryder!?”

  “Don’t know him, so nope.”

  “Oh my God.” She shakes her head and curls her hands into frustrated fists.

  I hook through a liquor store lot. The black SUV comes barreling in from the other side and races head-on towards us.

  Farrington starts screaming. I don’t blame her—we’re hemmed in on the right by parked cars and on the left by the building itself.

  Braking hard, I spin to face the other way but see a black and white waiting for me.

  I’m going to have to create a hole and push around him. Or . . .

  “Hold onto something.” I shift into first, power rev the engine, drop the clutch like a brick and spiral hard. White smoke comes billowing up from the tires.

  The Hemi growls and the rubber squeals and burns. Our car spinning in a circle creates a massive distraction of noise and smoke. Farrington’s still screaming her head off, and I think to myself this would be a lot more fucking fun if she’d just embrace the ride.

  “You’re going to kill us!” she cries, holding the dashboard.

  “Highly unlikely.”

  My book-ends take a minute to wait and watch suspiciously. That also means people will stop from a safe distance and watch too. Going past the cop car will be the easiest—he’s the lightest of the two vehicles and easier to push out of the way.

  Just before I do, a car on the other side of an empty space pulls out, leaving a hole right in the middle—nice!

  Wrenching up the e-brake, I glide into position and slide like the lucky devil I am through the opening and take off like a shot back to the bridge.

  Farrington turns in her seat and watches as the cop and SUV square off in the midst of the burning cloud, before bringing her eyes back to shoot me an incredulous stare.

  “They told me you were just in this for the bounty. Is it true?”

  “Does it look true, Farrington?” I shake my head. “I don’t give a fuck about any bounty.”

  “I’m so confused! I don’t really even know who you are.”

  “Yeah, and now you’ll never forget me.” I smile.

  That’s when I see the barrier on the onramp to the bridge. That must’ve been tricky—the bridge is divided into two separate sections going over the Red River—each section of bridge is three lanes and one way.

  Time to adapt, improvise and overcome. I drive up and onto the median.

  She cries, “What are you going to do?”

  “You have an issue with trust. We should work on that,” I say as we drop off the curve and accelerate onto the bridge going against the oncoming flow of traffic.

  Zero to sixty; sixty to eighty-five. “Hold on, baby.”

  “RYDER!” Farrington yells as I shift into sixth gear.

  “Right? I love the sound of the Hemi V8—gets me all hard and tingly.”

  “IT’S ONE WAY!”

  “Oh, you noticed.” I snake through the cars as they blare their horns and rush to the side. “No choice, Farrington.”

  To my right on the other portion of bridge are a few cop cars following parallel to us.

  “We have to step it up a notch.”

  “A notch.” She groans, holding her head.

  I punch the gas. Can’t have them erecting a barricade on the other side.

  Speaking of erections—one hundred and ten MPH.

  As soon as we’re over the river—which is fucking fast and I’m grateful for the midday traffic, since this could have gone a lot worse—we cross over to where the roads merge over dry land, and I slide back into traffic.

  “Barksdale Air Force Base?” she scans the road ahead. “Why are you going there?”

  I’m ahead of her and have already activated the Bluetooth call. “Rodriguez, we’re coming in like triple ghost pepper salsa.”

  “Yeah, Ax-man, it’s all over the talk box.”

  “Talk box is a scanner,” I tell Farrington, who smiles exaggeratedly.

  “I got that.”

  “We have your back.”

  “I can see the welcoming committee.” There’s a line of military police Humvees across the gate with an open space for us to get through.

  “Agents are waiting for you inside the chow hall. Our men will handle the local authorities,” Rodriguez says, and you can hear the grin in his voice. “It’ll be a pleasure questioning Warner, Guthrie and Oliver.”

  I laugh.

  “They aren’t—” Farrington starts.

  “Real cops?” I finish for her. “Sure they are. Real dirty.”

  We slip between the security vehicles and through the gate.

  "How did you—?" Farrington asks, still surprised.

  "'Cause I’m the best.”

  "Ryder." She tilts her head in a playful way. “Full of yourself much?”

  “It comes easy when you’re as good as me.”

  “How’s she doing?” I ask Rodriguez, who is my friend and a security force specialist on the Barksdale Base.

  “She’s shaken up.” He develops a shit-eating-grin before he looks away from me to sip at his coffee.

  “What?”

  “She asks about you an awful lot.”

  “I did save her life.”

  “So she told us.”

  I stretch back and fold my arms behind my head arrogantly, looking up at the ceiling. Rodriguez, who is a short, stocky Mexican-American with dark eyes and hair and a great sense of humor, takes a seat opposite me at the small table. Farrington
and I, along with her FBI entourage, are being housed in an east military barracks wing that was cleared out for our use. It’s like a basic hotel room with a bed, couch, kitchenette and dining table for two. It’s the first time I haven’t felt on high alert since yesterday.

  “All right, big shot, your hunch was correct.” He leans back in his chair. “What tipped you off?”

  “First off, I planted a bug on the phone line outside of Miguel’s house. Briggs was monitoring it. Second, I didn’t trust local authorities, especially when they wanted me nowhere near her, so I followed them. Briggs heard when the call came in from Weston, the chief of police, to Miguel and they decided on a drop point for the girl. That’s when I broke her out,” I explain. “Briggs recently informed me that Weston is in FBI custody, but they had no evidence to hold the rest of his team.”

  “So the Bureau believes they were acting unaware?” Rodriguez asks. “What do you think?”

  “I’m not convinced,” I tell him. “But they were assholes, and I don’t like assholes.”

  Rodriguez laughs.

  “When Miguel, aka Mason, learned that his cover was blown, he hauled ass while the feds froze all of Mason Enterprises’ assets.”

  “I’m sure he has enough offshore and overseas accounts to keep his ass set up for a while.” I get to thinking. “You know what I don’t understand?”

  “What’s that?” he asks while he removes a red and white pack of Marlboro’s from his jacket pocket.

  I almost drool as he flips the boxed lid—I can smell the tobacco waft from the box.

  “You going to light that up right here?” My feeling of earlier triumph is a bit squelched. “You’re already flaunting your coffee.”

  “Like you were just flaunting your heroics?” He rolls his eyes. “Still trying to quit?”

  “Not trying, I have.”

  “It shouldn’t bother a tough guy like you.” He rolls the flint wheel of the lighter.

  “Dude, you’re a dick.”

  “Fine, pussy lips, I’ll wait and do it outside.” He laughs. “Now, what was it you didn’t understand?”

  “Why didn’t he simply have Farrington killed? Think about it—she said she overheard his men talking about how they were keeping her pristine for a sex-slave buyer in Mexico that would help pay off Miguel’s botched drug deal debt to Cruz—the one Drew Jameson created with his theft—while at the same time getting rid of the key witness.”