The restaurant was packed and noisy when she entered. Ursa supposed it was extra busy, due to it being the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. It must have been Erica’s day off, because a man she didn’t recognize was tending bar. She made her way down the dim hallway to Z’s office. She saw that the door was ajar and gave a quick knock before entering.
“Z?” she called, pleased that he’d arrived early, as well. Her feet froze.
What the hell?
It looked as if a strong wind had swept through the large room. Storage crates had been tipped over. Papers were strewn across Z’s desk and had fallen on the floor around it. Before she could look around any more, someone grabbed her from behind, pressing his forearm against her throat. She felt something hard and cool press against the side of her face. In a flash of disbelieving horror, she realized it was the barrel of a gun.
“Where does Beckett keep his safe?” a man growled next to her ear.
Z paused at the bar on his way back to his office and asked Tim if he had enough change in the register for the remainder of the lunch rush. When Tim assured him that he did, Z headed toward his office. He planned to take Ursa to a little restaurant in town that he liked. Part of him thought he was acting ridiculous, for obsessing over seeing her again. He’d just seen her a couple hours ago. But despite his disgust at himself, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her all morning. Some guys got sappy over women, but Z Beckett had never been one of them.
Until now anyway.
It was a mark of how far gone he was that the thought made him grin like a damn fool as he walked down the hallway to his office.
The grin faded to nothing when he noticed that his office door was partially open. He came to an abrupt halt, his skin tightening in instant warming. He always kept his office locked.
Had he forgotten to lock it? Had Ursa already arrived?
The door abruptly slammed shut.
Shit.
That wasn’t the way Ursa would shut a door, so aggressively. Besides, he vividly recalled locking his office when he left yesterday evening. How could she have gotten into a locked room?
All the thoughts came to him in a cascade. Only a second or two had passed since the door had slammed. Then he heard something that made his blood run cold: a man’s muffled, rough voice and then a woman’s faint response.
Ursa.
She sounded scared.
He charged at the door before whomever was in there had the chance to block it. He pushed the door back forcefully, shoving even harder when he encountered something solid and heard a man curse. Z had struck him with the door.
“Stay back, Beckett. Do you hear me? Stay back.”
Z came to an abrupt halt just a few feet inside the door, instantly recognizing the panic and sheer malice in the man’s voice.
The man who held Ursa around the neck and pointed a gun at her face steadied his feet after being shoved by the door.
“Shut the fucking door, or you know what I’m going to do,” Emory Martin hissed, pressing the barrel of a Glock semiautomatic so deep into Ursa’s cheek, she winced in pain. She stared at Z, her green eyes wide and blank with shock.
The chill that overcame him in that moment froze him to the bone. Everything went blank in his mind but the vision of Ursa’s face, and the singular, focused need to make her safe. He calmly shut the door behind him and turned toward Emory.
“It’s okay, Ursa,” he told her quietly. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
She tried to nod, but Martin’s hold on her was too tight. The barrel of the gun slid slightly on her cheek, revealing a circular red welt on her smooth skin.
“Let up on her, you asshole. What the hell do you want?”
“What do you think, Beckett?” Martin sneered.
“Payback for me messing you up last year? Wasn’t sending me to jail enough for you? If you came here looking for more revenge, I’m right here. She’s got nothing to do with it. Let her go,” Z said, taking a step forward. Martin stepped back, dragging Ursa with him. She gagged from the pressure of his forearm on her throat. The sound went through Z like a knife.
“I didn’t come here for payback, although I volunteered first for the job when Frankie mentioned it. Knowing it was you I’d be dealing with only sweetened the deal.”
“Frankie Saccardi.”
“That’s right. You don’t seem surprised. You know he always collects on his debts. You must have known this was coming.”
“I don’t sound surprised because Frankie is an asshole. I’d expect nothing less than some stupid stunt like this.”
“Then why’d you do business with him?”
Martin’s sneering question burned in Z’s chest.
“I don’t owe Frankie anything. I sold the bike I was building him last month—the one he welched on for the final payment. I sent him the money owed to him weeks ago.”
“What you sent him wasn’t what he’d given you, and you know it, Beckett.”
“I sent him what was left after I’d covered all the parts I’d paid for, plus my labor. I gave an invoice with the check. I keep detailed records.”
“Then you must know exactly how much you owe. Frankie told me to bring back the cash or the finished bike. And you know Frankie won’t be satisfied with anything less.” He pressed the gun harder into Ursa’s cheek. She grunted in pain. Z saw a trickle of crimson blood dribble down her cheek.
For a few seconds, a red veil dropped over his vision. Rage swelled in him. It made his eyes and his teeth pulse in his head. In a vivid flash, he perfectly saw himself ripping Emory Martin from limb to limb.
Pull it together. If you don’t control it, Ursa will be the one who pays.
“Let her go, and I’ll give you what you want.”
“She’ll just run out of here and call the police,” Martin scoffed nervously.
“Take her phone, then. Send her into the bathroom and let her shut the door,” he said, waving at the bathroom inside his office. “Then I’ll give you the cash. I have it here in the office. Hidden. I swear. You can walk with exactly what Frankie asked for. More importantly, I’m gonna let you walk out of here in one piece. But if you cause her anymore harm, I swear to God, Martin. You’re going to wish for the beating I gave you last year instead of what I have in mind. I’ll end you, and I don’t care what they do to me. I’ll thank them before they flip the switch.”
“I’m the one holding the gun here, asshole!” Martin said, spittle flying.
“Go ahead. Feel confident about that, then. Let her go,” Z said softly, holding up his hands in a hushing gesture.
He listened to the sound of his heart throbbing in his ears for an uncomfortable moment while Martin showed him the whites of his eyes and shifted on his feet. Z avoided looking at Ursa. It helped him keep the beast at bay.
“All right, but you sure as fuck better not be lying about the cash.” Martin loosened his hold on Ursa’s throat. She coughed and stumbled forward slightly.
“Give him your phone, Ursa. Then go in the bathroom and lock the door.”
She cast him a wild glance.
“Just do it. It’ll be okay,” Z told her quietly, mentally begging her to do what he’d asked of her. Emory Martin was a dangerous man, and worse, he was nervous. Z supposed he was partially responsible for Martin’s jumpiness at the moment. Z had gotten sick of the cheap gangster’s bullshit last year and kicked his ass in the parking lot of a Reno dive. Martin had been bragging about his supposed sexual conquest of a waitress at the bar and behaving aggressively toward her while the woman did her best to earn a living. Z personally knew that the waitress was a single mother of three, and struggling like mad to make a life for herself and her family.
He’d already been angry at the world that night, not to mention pissed out of his mind. He’d taken out all his frustration on Emory Marti
n.
It’d been Z’s rock bottom.
He’d paid for it, spending time in jail and rehab afterward. Given the wild look in Martin’s eyes at the moment, he recalled that encounter with Z all too well. Emory Martin looked twitchy enough to do something very stupid.
All sins come back to grab your balls in the end, don’t they? Z reminded himself bitterly.
Still pointing the gun at Ursa, and staring beadily at Z, Martin waved his hand irritably at Ursa.
“Your phone,” he rasped.
She reached in the back pocket of her jeans and handed Martin her cell phone.
“Bathroom, Ursa. Lock the door behind you,” Z directed. That door was meager enough protection against a semiautomatic weapon, but maybe he could buy her enough time to squeeze through the window in the bathroom. He prayed Martin didn’t notice the little window…or how small Ursa was.
She glanced over her shoulder at Z.
Get out the window and run. Don’t look back.
I’m sorry for dragging you into this shit, baby girl. So fucking sorry.
He watched, his heart in his throat, as she made her way to the bathroom door. A few seconds later, he heard the snick of the lock.
“It’s just you and me now,” Martin said, raising his weapon.
“Me, you, and your gun.”
“You got that straight. The cash. Now, or I swear I’ll blow your face off.”
Z walked behind his desk unhurriedly, trying to buy Ursa time. “Is Frankie so hard up these days, that he’s resorting to petty theft?” he asked conversationally. “Have the Reno Psychles sunk so low in the crime world?”
“Shut up, Beckett. You owe Frankie. I’m just here to collect. Where is it? In the desk? I already searched there.”
“I noticed,” Z said, rolling his eyes at the paper-strewn desk.
Martin raised the pistol menacingly. Behind the bathroom door in the distance, Z thought he heard the tiny squeak of a hinge, and then a muted rustling. He thought—or he desperately wished, anyway—there were the sounds of the window opening and Ursa scrambling to squeeze through the opening.
“Now or never, Beckett. You’ve got five seconds.”
Z sighed and turned away from the desk. He knelt.
“Hey—”
“Chill, Martin. I keep the money under a floor board.”
He ground his teeth together when he felt the barrel of the gun against his head. He held up his hands.
“You grab the cash then, dickweed.”
“Get back,” Martin barked. Z complied, scooting over on the wood floor. A vein started to pound in his temple as he watched Emory Martin pull a paper bag out of the hole beneath the floorboard. A few seconds later, the oily bastard was fingering over six thousand dollars of Z’s hard earned cash. Martin’s mouth twisted in grim satisfaction.
“It’s enough to cover you.”
“It’s more than that. A shitload more. ” Z stood from his kneeling position. Martin rose as well, his gun still trained on Z. “Along with the check I sent him, Frankie’s robbing me blind. You got what you came for. Get out while you can, and consider yourself lucky.”
“You always were a smug son-of-a-bitch, Beckett.”
A shiver passed through Z when he read the hatred in Martin’s gaze.
“You considering killing me, Martin? Frankie’s not going to thank you for dragging him into a murder. He doesn’t like a mess. He sent you to collect cash. Not exact revenge. What he’s going to appreciate is a clean job, and you returning with the money.”
The gun wavered in the air. For a few seconds, Z clearly saw the absolute fragility of his own life. Of his entire world. It all could shatter to dust with the twitch of a finger. Martin was right.
He had been acting like a smug son-of-a-bitch, thinking he could escape his past.
“Face the wall and get down on your knees,” Martin ordered. Z followed the instructions. His mind had gone strangely blank, except for three thoughts that repeated over and over again in his brain.
Ursa had gotten away. She’d escaped Martin.
She’s escaped me.
“Eventually you’re going to pay for thinking you’re better than everyone else, Beckett,” Martin said.
I already am paying for it, Z thought.
For several seconds, Z half expected blackness to blast through his consciousness. Nothingness. He vividly saw peoples’ faces parade across his mind’s eye. His mom and dad. Stephen’s. Grandpa Joe’s. Jude’s.
Ursa’s.
A snap of the fingers, and like magic, Z Beckett is here one second, gone the next.
He started at the sound of a click behind him. Then he heard another soft snick.
He was still here. No darkness. No oblivion. The desk obscured his view when he looked over his shoulder. But somehow, he knew he was alone. The clicking noise had been the sound of his office door opening and closing as Martin snuck out of the room.
He’d been given a second chance.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ursa pushed the swinging door exit of the Sonora Community Hospital’s Emergency Room, wincing slightly. In her haste, she’d forgotten to use her left hand. Her right one had just been bandaged by a female resident after she’d removed some gravel particles from the deep scrape and then cleaned it. Ursa had received the injury when she’d lost balance after landing hard, jumping from the ten-foot high bathroom window.
Erica Taz glanced up and saw her approaching. She set down the magazine she’d been reading and stood.
“Everything okay?” she asked Ursa.
Ursa waved her bandaged hand. “It’s fine. It was a waste of time coming here. It was nothing I couldn’t have cleaned up myself.”
“Better safe then sorry.” Erica picked up her backpack and slung it over one shoulder. “Z was worried it might be something worse.”
“He’s not here yet?” Ursa asked, glancing anxiously around the sparsely populated E.R. waiting room. “He said he’d come as soon as the police left.”
“No. He texted me and asked me to drop you off at his place.”
“He did?” Ursa couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. Emory Martin had left her phone on Z’s desk. She’d asked Z to text her as soon as he was done talking to the police. Instead, he’d texted Erica.
“Yeah. He said the police left a few minutes ago.”
“Okay.” A sinking sensation went through her at Erica’s news. Maybe it had something to do with the wild expression in Z’s eyes when he’d found her standing at the bar at the Moto Café this afternoon, holding some napkins against her bleeding hand.
She’d contacted the police almost immediately, running up to a couple in the parking lot leaving after their lunch, and begging them to use a cell phone. Then she’d gone inside and informed the bartender, Tim, about what was occurring back in Z’s office. Before Tim or any of the other employees could do anything, however, Z himself had stalked into the restaurant from the back hallway. He’d immediately spotted Ursa and approached, his gaze sharp and alarmed on her.
Ursa had thrown her arms around him, weak with relief at seeming him alive and well. He’d crushed her against him so tight, she couldn’t breathe for a few seconds.
“Are you all right? Where’s that man?” she’d asked when he released her.
“He left by the loading dock entrance, I think. The door was standing open. Are you okay?” he demanded, pushing her back so that he could examine her.
“I’m fine. I’m fine, honest,” she insisted when she realized how stiff and desperate he appeared as his gaze ran over every inch of her. “The police are on their way.”
At least he’d been looking at her then. By the time the police had finished taking their stories back in Z’s office, Ursa had the uncomfortable feeling he was starting to avoid talking to her…or even m
eeting her stare.
At first, before the police had arrived, Z hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her, as though he’d needed to keep in constant contact with her to make sure she was all right.
Ursa hadn’t minded at all. She’d needed to touch him as well, to assure herself that he was alive and unharmed. It helped to banish the nightmarish images that had popped into her head the second she’d shut that bathroom door behind her, and left him in that office alone with that gun-wielding madman.
But slowly, as their interview with the police continued, Ursa began to sense Z’s withdrawal from her. It was like an invisible barrier began slowly descending between them. By the time Erica had tapped on the office door and entered, saying Z had asked her to come and take Ursa to the emergency room, that unseen wall had seemingly slammed shut.
Or so Ursa had imagined at the time. She hoped she was mistaken, and just reacting to the stress of the afternoon.
“Thank you so much for coming on your day off, and taking me to the doctor,” Ursa told Erica later when Erica braked in Z’s driveway. Ursa’s car was parked in front of them. Z must have brought it back from the café.
Erica smiled. “It was no problem. I’m just so sorry about it all. It must have been so scary, to walk in on a robbery like that. What are the chances it would happen…that someone would guess Z was keeping so much money in his office?”
Ursa clamped her eyes shut and shook her head. Her throat swelled up. She didn’t tell Erica that Z had known the burglar…that Emory Martin was the reason he’d spent time in jail last year. She figured that was Z’s business. By his stiff expression and terse, but honest responses to the police’s questions about Emory Martin, she knew how uncomfortable he was about the topic of his past rising up to haunt him.
“It was a lot of money for him to lose, especially when he’s just starting the business,” Ursa said sadly. “He’d planned to deposit it this weekend. But it was just money. The important thing is that Z’s okay.” The important thing is that he didn’t try anything impulsive with Martin, something that got him wounded…or worse, Ursa thought after she thanked Erica again and got out of the car.
Wild, Wounded Hearts Page 20
