The hallway was as dark as it had been this morning, soundless but for footsteps above. The three of them, weapons drawn, pressed against the wall, stayed in the shadows, and moved toward the stairs, communicating silently with gestures and looks.
Voices floated down from the kitchen, muffled by the door at the top of the stairs and distance, but strong and deep enough for Zach to pick up the cadence of a conversation among at least three or four men.
JP and Marc took either side of the bottom of the steps, and Zach, still shoeless, silently climbed the stairs.
“Gentlemen, we have a lot to celebrate,” a man said. Was that Keegan Kennedy? He wasn’t sure, inching closer to the door to listen. “First of all, Joshua Sterling is dead, so we have succeeded in our first and most important mission.”
“Hear, hear!” Glasses clinked, along with the rumble of male laughter and some unintelligible conversation.
“More important, our leader is presumed dead, and that works perfectly into our plans, leaving us with all of the profits and none of the pain.” That voice was Detective Larkin, without a doubt.
Behind Zach, JP took a few steps closer and nudged him. “Their leader is presumed dead?” JP asked in a soft, soundless whisper, his eyes lit like a hunter on the kill. “You know who that is?”
Finn MacCauley. No wonder JP looked excited. If a criminal as notorious as Finn MacCauley were brought in, it would make JP’s career. He’d be a local hero. Not to mention he could bust one of the lead detectives on Sterling’s murder as an accomplice.
Zach returned his focus to the voices behind the door. Let JP get glory and fame; it didn’t matter at all. The only thing that mattered was finding Sam, and if he didn’t hear something that resembled an answer soon, he was out of there.
“She’ll be here any minute,” one of the men said, giving Zach a little zing at the pronoun. Who’d be there any minute?
“And this has to be done right, gentlemen,” Keegan Kennedy said. “Exactly as planned. She has to die, quickly and neatly. And then all evidence needs to be disposed of, except that which points to our friend Levon Czarnecki.”
The three men shared a look. Who the hell was Levon Czarnecki?
“That guy’s a nutcase,” Larkin said. “You know that, don’t you?”
Another man laughed. “A nutcase who’s a fucking chameleon. Anyway, the work was done by Hanrahan, so Czarnecki can take us to court.”
That got a big laugh, but Zach frowned at the name. Hanrahan. Hanrahan Produce… the truck that drove them off the bridge.
“The whole thing was messy,” another man, a new voice, much older. “Not the way it was done in the old days.”
“Fuck the old days,” another said. “Things are different now, old man.”
Zach could read JP’s thoughts as clearly as if he were saying them out loud. If that was Finn MacCauley, he was getting a piece of him.
Downstairs, the alley door slammed.
“She’s here,” one of the men said. “Get ready. She walks in, and Keegan fires from right there.”
On the steps, the three men shared another look as footsteps tapped down the hall. One person’s footsteps. At the bottom, Marc stepped forward, seeing who it was.
“I wouldn’t go up there if I were you, Ms. Sly.”
Ms. Sly?
Our leader is presumed dead.
A woman stepped into view, stopped at the sight of Marc’s gun, but lifted her chin, undaunted. “You know they’ll kill you,” she said. “All I have to do is make one noise.”
“Then you’re their leader?”
She tilted her head and gave a long sigh. “Why are you doing this?”
“Why am I?” Marc snorted softly. “You’re the one about to get gunned down by… whoever those men are.”
“Those men work for me,” she said. “And you’re sorely mistaken if you think they’d hurt me. I’m the brains behind an operation they’ve been trying, and failing, to start for years. Who else would be smart enough to pin Joshua Sterling’s murder on Finn MacCauley? And you could have run with that, and you and your cousin could be big heroes.”
“Move it,” Marc said, waving his gun back down the hall.
“Don’t be as stupid as Sterling. Look what I had happen to him.” She glanced up the steps, seeing JP and Zach but not reacting to their presence. “Come on, you’re Italian. We’re just an Irish version of your mafia. One hand washes the other. I’ve given you the lead of a lifetime; now, you take it and I’ll forget we ever saw each other.”
Zach came down a few stairs, stepping close enough for her to get a good look at him. Her eyes widened. “You were supposed to be killed today.”
“So were you.” He got right in her face, using his monstrous scar to its full potential.
She smiled. “One of my ladies had to be sacrificed. And, of course, I have connections everywhere, so my death will be confirmed. But yours?”
Zach shut her up by lifting his gun, so close to pulling the trigger it wasn’t funny. “Where is she?”
“I thought she was at the bottom of some lake in western Massachusetts.” She inched back, the first scent of fear on her. “If not, I have no idea. I suppose he got her somehow.”
Who was he? And how did he get Sam in a car?
“Zach.” Behind him, JP held out his phone for Zach to read.
V. Angelino’s phone location: Roxbury.
Sam wouldn’t get into a car with a stranger, but she’d get in with Vivi. They were both in Roxbury… with a professional killer.
“I’m out.” Zach got past them all, but JP came after him.
“Don’t,” JP said. “We’re going to need you.”
“Sam needs me.”
“Hey!” The door at the top slammed open. All three men reacted by backing out of view, leaving the woman standing at the bottom of the steps.
“We have a problem, Keegan,” she said calmly.
“Yes, we do.” A shot punctuated that, hitting her right in the heart.
The pounding of feet on the way down the stairs was all they had to hear. The three of them bolted down the hall, in a full run, throwing the door open and getting out just before shots hit the metal behind them. They ran left, Marc leading them into the door of a small complex of offices, shooting up a narrow wooden stairway to the second floor.
All three flattened against a wall, hearing footsteps running on the sidewalk below, and a shout, but no one entered the building. Still, it was only a matter of time.
JP was already on the phone for backup.
“This building goes through to the alley,” Marc said. “Back downstairs, the opposite door.”
“Let’s go,” Zach said.
“No way.” JP grabbed his arm. “Do you know who that is? Do you—”
“Yes, I know. He’s yours. And Larkin. And Kennedy. Take the whole damn mob and eat them for lunch and your next promotion. But I’m going to get Sam and Vivi.”
“You don’t know for sure that they’re out there,” JP damn near growled. “We need you. We need firepower. We need three good men until backup gets here. Don’t you dare leave, Zach. You have no idea where she is.”
But he did. In his gut, he did.
It was like god damn déjà vu all over again. He was ready to leave his men on a hunch, ready to abandon his position on gut, ready to take a risk that had a huge downside.
But if he didn’t, and he lost the only two women he ever loved, one he was born with and one he intended to die with… what kind of man was he?
“You can’t go,” JP insisted, fury on his face. “You don’t know where she is, where you’re going, what you’ll find. We need you here until backup comes. You’d just get shot trying to be a hero anyway.”
Someone ran back up the street.
“They’re circling us,” Marc said.
The window was closing, and Zach had to get out or live with the consequences.
CHAPTER 23
Sam and Vivi, both one trigger
pull from death, shared a silent look, but didn’t dare speak as their captor led them into Billy’s house. Inside, Sam braced for the worst, Vivi’s words still burning in her brain.
He’s breathing carbon monoxide and sitting next to a bucket of gasoline on top of a furnace with a pilot light.
What would she find? Billy, hurt. Billy, bound and gagged. Billy, near death. How many times was she going to be the cause of this man’s misery?
Larry pushed her down the hall of the house, to the basement door, ordering Vivi to open it. When she did, the air that floated out smelled like gasoline, roiling her stomach and terrorizing her heart.
“Billy?” Sam called, not caring what the man who held a gun to her back would say.
No answer.
“I swear to God, if you hurt him—” The gun poked her rib.
“I would hope you’d have so much sympathy for me, Samantha. But then you wouldn’t recognize me as the man you saw in the wine cellar that night, would you?”
She shook her head.
“Of course not. But how ironic that we talked at the bar, then you were the one they sent.” He pushed her down the steps, behind Vivi.
“Nobody sent me,” Sam said.
“I have to say, you were an inspired choice. The cops wouldn’t protect, you and no one would believe you anyway.”
A soft moan came from somewhere in a darkened corner to the far left. Billy was alive! Instinctively, Sam moved toward him, only to get an arm wrapped around her neck, cracking it backward.
“Move,” he said, pushing her closer to Vivi. “You, get over there. Sit on that crate.”
Vivi did as she was told, moving slowly, no doubt buying time and thinking of how to get them out of this, thinking exactly what Sam was. As long as they were alive, they had a chance. There were two of them against one of him. All he had was a gun.
If one of them could get that weapon… they’d be saved.
But he held his gun tight, obviously an expert with it.
Sam peered into the darkness, at the two metal appliances in the corner. “Billy?”
He moaned again. He was in there, wedged in a tiny space but alive. She squinted, barely able to make out a hunched-over form in the shadows.
“Please,” she said, looking at her captor. “Please let me say good-bye to him.”
“Oh, for Chrissake, shut up. You think he’s your friend? He hates you for what you did to him.”
Billy grunted, but something kicked Sam’s gut.
Hate kicked her. Vengeance. The need for blood. This son of a bitch Larry’s blood. The sensation rocked her, so fresh and real and… deadly.
Wait till she told Zach how that felt.
With that thought, another sensation rocked her. Just as potent, just as bone-deep, just as real as the hate she felt for the man about to kill her.
She had too much to live for. Way too much. She would live to love Zach Angelino. She would. Nothing and no one would stop her.
Her gaze collided with Vivi’s, whose midnight-black eyes burned with the same passion. They were connected, like sparks arcing between them, like an invisible rope tying them together.
“In front of her.” He pushed Sam down hard, slamming her knees on the concrete floor, pain almost doubling her.
He knelt next to her and, with the hand not holding the gun, reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone. Vivi’s BlackBerry, Sam knew, recognizing an Airwalk sticker across the back.
“One last call?” Vivi said sarcastically.
He just smiled and held it to her, pressing a button. “One last video. Say your name.”
She clamped her mouth shut.
“Say your fucking name.”
She just lifted one brow and stared him down.
He shoved the gun into Sam’s gut so hard she gasped, closing her eyes and waiting for the shot.
“Vivi Angelino!”
“Thank you. Where do you live?” At her hesitation, he leaned closer to Sam. “You really want her to die, don’t you?”
“Brookline.”
“Where do your parents live?”
Vivi’s eyes grew wide with dismay. “They’re dead.”
“Brothers? Sisters?”
She stole a glance at Sam, who nodded, the wordless communication clear: This guy was going to die. “A brother.”
“The people who get this video,” he said, “will make sure everyone in your family dies a slow and ugly death if you don’t do this right. Now hold the camera.” He handed it to her.
Could she use the phone as a weapon somehow? She gave Vivi a hard look, trying to communicate that thought, but Vivi took the device gingerly, one eye on the gun in Sam’s side.
“Turn it around,” he said slowly, as if he was talking to a child. “Be sure you have Sam and me in the picture together. Got it? Okay. Now, watch me, Sam.”
He reached up and slowly pulled off his blond wig, short black hair in a net underneath. He slid off his glasses, then took his hand and dug his fingernails into his face, scraping off something that looked like a gelatinous mask.
As it slid down, the pockmarks she remembered so well appeared.
“Now tell me, Sam, am I the man you saw kill Joshua Sterling?” He was looking right into her eyes.
She looked away, refusing to meet his gaze, catching Vivi surreptitiously pressing buttons on her phone in her peripheral vision.
“No,” Sam said, looking at him to be sure to keep his attention off Vivi, who was probably dialing 911. But would the cops come to her rescue?
“No?”
“His eyes were not brown.”
One of those brown eyes narrowed at her in anger, and she shot a quick glance to Vivi.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Vivi hit one more button; then she kicked, fast and hard, knocking the gun away from Sam’s body. He jerked it back, but Sam pulled back and slammed her fist right under his nose as Vivi landed one in the groin.
He fell backward as they both rose to pounce, the gun unsteady in his hands, his face distorted with pain. The crack of a shot was so loud it sounded like an explosion, the noise ripping through Sam’s head as Vivi grunted and froze midkick.
Sam spun to her, catching her expression of horror as she clutched her stomach and blood started spurting through her fingers.
“Vivi!”
“Stop!” He had his balance now, on his feet, the gun still in his hand.
Sam folded next to Vivi, seeing the blood drain from her face as fast as it poured through her hands. “She’s dying!”
“And so are you.”
They were trapped. Marc hid at the top of the front steps as someone climbed up. JP and Zach silently moved down the opposite hall to the back stairs.
As they lost sight of Marc, a gunshot echoed.
One of the office doors flew open, and a woman screamed in terror, but Marc yelled, “Get back, get down! Police!”
Zach went ahead of JP down the back stairs, staying flat against the wall, his gun drawn. He heard movement outside the door in the alley, hiding in case it opened toward him, bracing for his shot.
He looked up the stairs to JP, who hid on the landing, and nodded, ready to take down whoever was about to come in.
But no one did.
Zach and JP looked at each other, waiting. Everything was silent until the soft vibration from JP’s phone.
“Get it,” Zach whispered. It could be information. It could be…
“Vivi,” JP said, looking at the phone. “It’s from Vivi. It’s a picture. He’s got them both—”
“Gimme your keys!” Zach demanded.
“Don’t, Zach.”
“JP, come on,” he pleaded. “She’s all that ever mattered to me. Come on.”
JP opened his mouth to argue, then stopped, reaching into his pocket and tossing them to Zach, who grabbed the handle of the door and yanked it open, whipping left and right, ready to kill. The alley was empty, so he ran toward the truck, jogging by a Dumpster.
> A shot whizzed by his head, and he ducked and rolled, taking cover behind the Dumpster, waiting for the next shot.
It didn’t come.
But the familiar snap and slide of a pistol racked behind him. “Drop it.”
Fuck. He didn’t drop the gun, but stood slowly, holding his weapon tight, but easing his hands out to either side.
“Drop the gun and put your hands on the Dumpster, Mr. Angelino.” Detective Larkin’s perfected police procedure voice. As if he hadn’t just been running a meeting with a bunch of thugs and mobsters. “You’re under arrest.” He heard the man come one step closer, right behind him.
Zach looked over the Dumpster down the alley, just as JP stepped out of the door. Directly across from JP, something moved. Keegan stepped out, gun pointed at JP, who was watching Zach.
Zach twisted his wrist, aimed the gun at Keegan, and fired, knocking him down. Just as he did, he caught the message in JP’s eye, then ducked behind the Dumpster, so JP’s shot whizzed over his head and hit Larkin in the shoulder, downing him.
As if they’d been working together their whole life.
Without even looking at his cousin, Zach leaped over the body toward JP’s truck as sirens screamed everywhere, cruisers flying toward the restaurant.
In seconds, he tore out of St. Botolph Street, screaming toward Roxbury, running every light, ignoring the cops, ignoring everything but the one thing that mattered. Saving Sam and Vivi.
CHAPTER 24
Sam wrapped Vivi in her arms, the metallic smell of blood mixed with the gunshot making her dizzy. Vivi’s eyes fluttered and she closed them, unable to speak.
“Put her down and finish this!” Larry’s wig and glasses were gone to reveal crazed eyes, his makeup gel hanging off half his face. The man who called himself the Czar looked like a monster.
She refused to let go of Vivi, refused to lay her on the hard cement. If she did, then she’d just lunge after the man and get her own bullet in the stomach. But she wouldn’t make his video. At least he wouldn’t get the proof he wanted.
Seizing Vivi’s phone from the floor, he stabbed at buttons, then held it up to his face. What had she done before she kicked? Made a call?