I could see whoever it was—or the shape of him at least—hiding in the brush near the edge of the river. He was down low behind the same pile of concrete where I’d dumped Lenny’s body. It gave him lots of cover but also a bad angle to hit anything.
“We’re gonna run, baby,” I told Lia. “Keep to my left side, keep low, and keep up.”
“Okay.”
We ran.
I fired repeatedly, but knew my bullets were only glancing off the concrete and the dirt around him. The action still worked well as a diversion because he ducked down farther as he continued to shoot, making every bullet go way over us as we made our way to the car.
Despite the lousy shooting, my entire body was alert, focused, and tense, but what I was feeling was much more than the adrenaline in my system as I opened the driver’s side door and pushed Lia over my seat and into the passenger side.
“Stay down!” I commanded as I climbed in behind her. “Keep your head under the dash!”
Lia complied and the tires screeched as I pulled out of the warehouse parking lot. I heard another shot off the back of the car right as I was turning the first corner and slammed my foot to the gas. I zigzagged through side streets and onto the expressway ramp, topped a hundred miles an hour as I swerved to avoid traffic, and then immediately took the first exit.
Navigating additional side streets at top speed, I constantly watched the rearview and side mirrors for anyone following us. I went back to Interstate 94 and headed south briefly before racing to another group of side streets and back north again.
I tightened my grip on the handle of the Beretta and clenched my teeth. I couldn’t stop my rapid breathing and the feeling of panic in my gut and chest. I glanced at Lia, who still had her body angled low and her head wrapped up in her arms.
My chest clenched, and I checked the rearview mirror again. We were in some neighborhood far to the west of downtown. I hadn’t traveled in this area before, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around at all. I screeched through a couple more stop signs before I yanked the wheel to the side and slammed on the brakes.
Reaching over the center console, I grabbed Lia and pulled her up against me. Her arms went around my neck as I held her tight enough to feel her heartbeat.
She’s alive…she’s alive…she’s alive…
I could barely convince myself.
Shoving the seat back a bit, I slid an arm under her legs to bring her to my lap and tighten my grip on her. I kept wondering if she was going to disappear, and I’d realize this was nothing more than another hallucination. If it was, I didn’t know what I would do. If I lost my shit completely over a dead hooker, how would I survive losing Lia?
I wouldn’t—plain and simple.
My arms gripped her again, and Lia gasped slightly.
“Evan—I can hardly breathe.”
I loosened my grip a bit but only enough for her to be comfortable again. She sighed heavily as she relaxed against my chest.
“Never again,” I mumbled.
“What?” Lia asked.
I wrapped my fingers around her hand and held our hands up together.
“I don’t want to let go of you—not ever. Once we are out of this city and out of this life, I’m never leaving your side again.”
Her grip tightened as I lowered our hands again.
“Where are we going?”
“Rinaldo’s house.”
“Rinaldo? I thought you were…well, staying away from him.”
“Things have changed a bit.”
“He knows?” she asked.
“He knows everything,” I replied. “Gavino also knows I wasn’t really working for him.”
“Did the feds catch him?”
“No,” I said. I glanced at her sideways. “They never showed up. They either fucked something up royally or never intended to go through with it. I’ll deal with Agent Asshole later, I guess.”
“Shit, Evan, what are you going to do?”
“Get you somewhere safe—somewhere with protection for you. After that…well, I’m still thinking about it. I’ve got to find out what happened with Trent, and I need to find out exactly who the guy is who took you.”
Lia’s eyes found mine. Her expression was strange, but I wasn’t sure what it meant. It occurred to me that I had no idea what she had been through over the past few hours.
“Are you hurt?” I asked as I pulled back and reached up to her face. There were bruises forming there, and she had a nasty red mark on her chin. “Did he fucking hit you?”
“I’m okay,” she said quietly.
He’d kept her alive, and anyone just looking for the bounty on her head would have killed her back in the apartment. I looked over the beautiful woman in my arms and knew there were other ways of hurting her.
“Did he…did he touch you?” I asked. My eyes bore into hers, looking for the answer outside of her words.
Her eyes tightened; she swallowed hard, and her breath caught in her throat.
I had to fight with my hands to keep my fingers from crushing her arms.
“Who?” I demanded as my chest tried to collapse into itself. I struggled not to scream. “Who…who was it?”
“He didn’t…” Lia struggled for breath before continuing. “He didn’t…not that—not really.”
I couldn’t hold it back any longer.
“What did he fucking do?” I roared.
“He kept saying…saying he was going to,” she told me. “He pawed at me a bit and said he was going to take everything from you, just like you did to him.”
What the fuck did that mean?
“Who was it?” I demanded. “What did he look like?”
Her eyes focused on mine.
“I thought you knew,” she said. “You were talking to him that one day…”
Her voice trailed off.
“Who?” I yelled again.
“That guy,” she whispered, “the one who came to your apartment before.”
I blinked, considered, and shook my head.
“Jonathan?” I yelled through clenched teeth, not even able to comprehend him doing something like that to any chick and certainly not one he knew was mine. He was always going on about how Nick and I didn’t respect women enough. The only thing I had done to him was spare his life, but all that would change if he touched her.
“Not him.” Lia shook her head. “The really big guy with no hair. The one who showed up when…well, when we were arguing that one day about the neighbor and…and her dog.”
I froze.
She couldn’t mean him. There was no way.
“The one who told you to check into me?” I asked.
She nodded, but I kept shaking my head. None of this made any sense.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Lia, he doesn’t work for Rinaldo. He’s a fucking fed.”
“The one making you do all of this?”
I nodded.
“Why would he…?”
Part of my initial conversation with Trent came back to me. He had taunted me with the suggestion that I had been working for the insurgents and had given them information—the same thing Kevin Davies, the private who had given up our position, had been accused of doing. At the time, I assumed it was just a tactic to get to me, but now I wondered if there was more to it.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m going to find out though.”
I wrapped her hair in my hands and pulled our heads together. I inhaled her scent through my mouth and nose, wanting to capture it forever in my memories. Everything in my head made so little sense, I was half afraid it was still nothing but a dream. I felt wetness in my eyes drop down the sides of my face and into her hair.
Something was happening inside of me, and it was strong and powerful. I didn’t have a name for it, only that I equated it to more of an unexpected, physics-defying sunrise rather than a left hook to the jaw. It was like it had always been there, lurking around my body, but was blocked by everything else. Before I
nearly lost her, I couldn’t see it for what it was.
Now it was blinding.
“I love you,” I heard myself say right before I started babbling. “God…I just…I…I love you, and if you had…if he had…fuck…I can’t be without you. I love you, Lia.”
Her hands were on the sides of my face a moment later, and her lips pressed to mine. I returned the kiss with hunger.
“Did I hear you right?” Lia whispered as her eyes looked to mine. “Did you just say what I think you said?”
I ran my tongue over my lips and nodded.
“I love you,” I said again. “I love you, Lia Antonio.”
Her eyes brightened with her smile.
“I love you, too, Evan Arden.”
I took a shuddering breath and listened to the words play over and over again in my mind. The sound was the most beautiful music I had ever heard.
“No one’s ever said that to me before,” I said as the realization bounced around inside my head.
Lia’s eyes widened.
“No one?”
I shook my head.
“I remember a lot of shit about how God loved me,” I told her, “but no one ever saying it…not like that. The God shit, well…let’s just say that considering what He’s put me through, God can pretty much fuck off.”
Lia’s fingers ran down my cheek with a sad smile.
“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I think maybe He brought me to you, so I can’t be too mad at Him for the other stuff.”
For a long moment, we stared at each other without speaking.
“No more of this shit,” I finally said. My hands cupped her face, and I stared into her eyes. “I’m done with it—all of it. We’re getting the fuck out of Chicago as soon as possible.”
Lia nodded her agreement, and I kissed her again. That action led to another kiss, and before long, I had to force myself to part with her to make good on my promise.
“I have to get you somewhere safe—somewhere you can be protected.”
I instructed Lia to get her seatbelt back on as I picked up the phone and tapped a couple of numbers on the screen.
“I have her,” I said when Rinaldo answered.
“She’s alive?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“I need a safe place for her,” I told him.
There was a long pause.
“You going after Davies?” he asked.
I was going to have to tell him everything about Trent…or Davies—whatever his name was—but I didn’t want to do that yet. I needed to know something first.
“Do you have a problem with that, sir?”
“He was just doing a job,” Rinaldo said. “A job I requested. Are you coming after me, too?”
“No, sir,” I said. “And yeah, it was a job. Consider retribution an occupational hazard.”
I heard a sigh come through the phone.
“All right, son,” Rinaldo said, and I felt my heart start to beat faster. “Bring her to my house. Luisa can stay with her.”
Much of the tension inside of me subsided, knowing he would be behind me on this even when he didn’t know everything yet. I would tell him when I could do it face-to-face, but knowing he was going to back me up on killing someone he thought was on his side was all I really needed to know.
“Thank you, sir.”
I drove to his house with Lia’s hand grasped in mine. I didn’t want to lose contact with her if I didn’t have to—not for a second.
Nothing would make me leave her unprotected again.
Chapter 20—Startling Revelation
Rinaldo opened the door himself before we had even exited the car. His driver came around from the garage and took the keys from me, and I grabbed my duffel bag in one hand and Lia’s arm in the other. I led her up the marble stairs of the mansion, between two huge, white columns, and through the front door.
“This must be the one,” Rinaldo said quietly as he looked over Lia.
Other men might have been angered by his scrutiny of her, but I saw it immediately for what it was. He wanted to see her—know her—and evaluate her worthiness. Would she be loyal and keep his secrets? Would she be good enough for his valued hit man?
I looked to Lia, clenched her arm lightly, and nodded.
“Lia, this is Rinaldo Moretti. Rinaldo, Lia Antonio.”
“A pleasure,” Rinaldo said as he shook her hand gently. “Apologies for the contract I put out on you. Mister Arden and I may have had a bit of a misunderstanding.”
He looked at me with coldness in his eyes, and I dropped my gaze.
“Sorry, sir. I didn’t have much of a choice.”
“We’ll discuss later exactly what your choices were,” he said with the same coldness in his voice. “Now isn’t the time. We’ve got quite a mess here at the moment. With Mario dead—a fact I’m half inclined to hold you responsible for—I’m going to need a little assistance.”
The den in Rinaldo’s house was full of people. He had two of his trusted men with him—Victor and Matthew. They stood on either side of him as he sat down in the leather office chair behind his desk. Luisa was also there, and she took Lia’s hand and sat her on the couch near the bookshelves. Nick Wolfe was oddly present. He wasn’t one to deal with a lot of the business stuff, but with Mario and a handful of others gone, Rinaldo obviously thought he was needed.
Even Nick’s Russian piece of ass was there.
Milena Severinov watched me carefully from where she stood next to Nick. I hadn’t seen her since that night of drinking at Sweetwater and an almost confrontation with her brother, Micah. I walked past them both as I sat on the other side of Lia on the couch.
She was looking around at the grandeur of the room and was clearly impressed and intimidated by the display of extravagance. Luisa whispered something to her, which made Lia smile and her cheeks turn slightly pink. I reached over and ran my hand down her arm before taking her hand and looking at Rinaldo.
“We’ve got all-out war here, boys,” Rinaldo said. The obvious addition for three women in the room didn’t stop him from using the term. “Greco’s gunning for us, the Russians are now gunning for him, and they’re all after my enforcer.”
He looked at me pointedly.
“In other words, we’ve got a big fucking mess. Business is going to suffer, and I’m low on killers and protection. At the same time, there are fewer and fewer people I can trust. On top of that, Mister Arden here seems to think I need one less guy around.”
“He was doin’ a job,” Victor pointed out. “If you’d been around and the same contract came out, you’d kill a chick.”
“Not for fifteen G’s,” I replied. “What you got is a cheap, piece-of-shit killer.”
“You still gonna take out my guy, huh?” Rinaldo was never one to beat around the bush.
I wasn’t either.
“You mean the fed I’ve been working with,” I said simply.
Rinaldo raised an eyebrow.
“Agent Trent and Kyle Davies are the same person,” I informed him. “He’s the one who wanted to set you up initially but agreed to let me give him Greco instead. That must not have been good enough for him if he moved to infiltrate your crew as well. I don’t know exactly what his game is yet, but he’s not on your side.”
I looked over to Lia and added, “Or mine.”
“How do you know this?” Rinaldo asked.
I lifted my chin toward Lia.
“She’s seen him,” I said.
Rinaldo looked over to her, and Lia looked down to where our hands were clasped together and bit at her lip. I gave her hand a bit of a squeeze, and she looked over to me.
“Tell him,” I said.
“He’s the same one,” she answered quietly. “He was at our apartment, arguing with Evan a while ago. He’s the one who…who kidnapped me. He shot Odin, too.”
“Holy shit,” a voice said from the door of the den.
We all looked up as J
onathan Ferris entered.
“What is it?” Rinaldo asked.
“You guys are talking about Kyle Davies—the big bald dude?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Why?”
“Because he’s the one who helped me get your shit out of lockup,” Jonathan said. “Your rifle and phone—he’s the one who had someone on the inside sign it all out for us.”
My skin went cold and broke out in goose bumps. I didn’t think about my actions; I just reached down to the duffel bag at my feet and brought my Barrett out in pieces. I examined each piece in detail, paying special attention to those parts that didn’t require cleaning on a regular basis.
Inside the scope, I found it—a tiny piece of plastic with a bit of metal at the end was stuck on the inside of the sight, away from where it would be seen looking through the scope.
“GPS,” Jonathan confirmed when I handed it to him. “Damn small little bugger, too. What-cha-ma-nuts has his resources, no doubt about it.”
“What-cha…who?” Victor shook his head and glared at Jonathan.
“Whatever his name really is.” Jonathan placed the device on the tile floor by the fireplace and smashed it under his heel.
“That’s how he kept finding me,” I realized. I looked to Lia. “That’s how he knew where we were when we changed apartments and how he knew I was coming for him at the warehouse. The Barrett was always with me.”
“How would Kyle know what weapon you always have on you?” Nick wondered aloud.
“How, indeed?” Rinaldo echoed.
Jonathan had his laptop out a second later, and his fingers flew over the keyboard. Everyone else sat in silent contemplation while he worked. After only a few minutes, he looked over to me.
“Hey, Evan—does the name Keith Davies mean anything to you?”
“Yeah,” I responded. In my head, everything began to focus, and all the parts of the last few weeks began to merge together. I thought the names had to be a coincidence, but they weren’t—they were the key to everything. “Marine. Infantry.”
“Captured about the same time you were.”
“Right before,” I said. “Trent…Kyle—whatever the fuck his name is—he’s his brother, isn’t he?”
“You got it.”
“He blames me,” I said.