Evan Arden 03 Otherwise Unharmed (31 page)

I kept my rifle aimed at his face.

“I’m looking for a girl,” I told him.  “Davies might have brought her here.  You want to live?  Tell me where she is.”

“You’ve got a price on your head,” the idiot informed me.

I turned the rifle to the little clock radio that also served as a docking station for his iPhone and blew it to pieces.  With the music silenced, I turned the weapon back to his head.

“No shit.”  I took closer aim.  “
You seen her?”

He swallowed and nodded his head.

“You gonna kill me?”

“Maybe,” I responded.  “If you don’t answer my fucking question in the next three seconds, yes.”

“She’s in the corner room,” he told me.  “She’s tied up, but she ain’t hurt or anything, I don’t think.  I didn’t touch her.”

My hands trembled a little.  I didn’t know what to feel first
—relief that she was still alive or rage that he had obviously considered hurting her or he never would have mentioned it.

I backed out of the r
oom slowly.

“Don’t move a fucking muscle,” I said.  “You hear?”

He nodded quickly.

I didn’t see anyone else as I raced to the far end of the building.  I paused only briefly when I caught the exterior back door of the building in my vision.  I kept the rifle pointed at it as I moved past and found a locked room in the hallway nearby.

The door was metal and not one I could just kick in.  I took out my Beretta so I could easily aim downward at the lock without endangering anyone who might be close to the door—like Lia.  Once the lock was out of the way, I kicked the door open and pointed the gun around the room.

It was one of the larger single areas of the
warehouse—one that usually held a lot of crates and packages of heroin or guns.  At the moment, there were no crates or skids—just a single wooden chair in the middle of the room.  On the chair was Lia.

She was tied down, blindfolded, and gagged.
  Her arms were behind her, and her wrists were bound with plastic zip ties.  She sat, slumped forward with her head lolled to one side, and for a moment, my vision went red and I couldn’t move.

The air in my lungs seemed to freeze along with my legs.
  I widened my eyes to watch her body carefully for any signs of movement and tightened my grip on the Beretta.

If she was dead, I’d just go ahead and turn it on myself.

No, I couldn’t.  First I’d have to find the fucker who did it.

Her chest rose sharply with a deep breath, and I nearly lost my ability to stand.
  A moment later, I ran forward, and her head turned toward the sound of my footsteps.  As I dropped down and grabbed for her, she began to struggle and scream behind the gag.

“It’s me!” I said as I pulled the blindfold and gag from her.  “It’s just me, baby.  You’re all right.  Jesus Christ, you’re all right.”

I cut the plastic ties from her wrists with my knife, and her arms came up around my neck.  I wanted to do the same—just pull her close to me and promise her I’d never let anything happen to her again—but I knew I couldn’t.  I needed to get her out of here as quickly as possible.  Whoever had been shooting was more than likely still out there.

Hell, Davies could
have come back in the building, assuming he was the one who took her.

“Where is he?” I asked.  “Where is that fucker who took you?”

“He knew you were coming,” Lia said.  “He ran off.”

Lia grabbed my shoulders tightly and looked up at me as tears began to fall.

“Oh, Evan!  Odin…he tried to…he tried to save me.”

I gripped my left hand into a fist briefly, closed my eyes for a moment, and looked back at her. 
The actual circumstances of what happened to Odin hadn’t really entered my thoughts, but I couldn’t hear any of that now.

“Let me get you out of here and somewhere safe,” I said.  “Then you can tell me what happened.”

I got the rest of the ties off of her and then helped her to her feet.  She continued to cling to me, and I was perfectly fine with that.  We moved swiftly down the wall at the far side of the warehouse interior and to the back door.

“Stay close,” I said.

As soon as I opened the back door, a bullet ricocheted off of it, and I found myself thankful that at least this guy was a shitty shot.  I aimed my Beretta in the general direction of the trees and shot twice before I peeked around the edge.

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 constan
tly 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.  “L
ia, 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.