Jake: The Sinner Saints #3 (18 page)

It was just her luck that the only car she’d been able to find with the keys left inside turned out to be a clunker.

In her defense, it wasn’t as though she had all that many to choose from. The streets were all but empty when she’d fled the alleyway. Everyone must have run for cover the second the shots started. Verity knew that Jake wanted her to run too, but there was no way she was going to leave him and Bowie behind to die.

And for a second, she’d actually believed that she’d saved them, but the giant black SUV on their tail told a different story.

She’d only delayed their fate for a couple of minutes. There was no way this rusted bag of bolts was going to outrun that beast.

The only thing she couldn’t figure out was why they were being given the chance to try. Surely, there was enough firepower stockpiled in that other car to blow them clear off the road.

But they weren’t.

There wasn’t so much as a single shot.

Verity could only think of one reason why—someone inside was telling them not to fire.

And, other than the two guys in the car with her now, there was only one other person in this whole area who cared if she lived or died.

“Damn it, Verity. Get down,” Jake called out as she swiveled around fully on the back seat to get a better look through the back window.

Her heart plummeted instantly. The other car was practically on top of them now. She could see straight through their windshield…and directly into her brother’s eyes.

There was no doubt that Roman saw her too. His brows pulled together. The line of his mouth hardened.

“I said, get down,” Jake shouted. He grasped her by the shoulders and forced her away from the window. “Don’t you know they’ll shoot you if you give them the chance?”

But they wouldn’t. That was the thing. Deep down, she knew Roman wouldn’t kill her.

Jake and Bowie—now, that was another story. Verity didn’t doubt for a second that Roman would let them die. Hell, he might even pull the trigger himself if it meant saving his own neck.

A moment later, her suspicions were confirmed when a loud crunching sound filled the air. The car rocked hard to the side. Bowie had to use all his strength to keep them on the blacktop.

“They’re trying to run us off the road,” he said through gritted teeth.

Verity couldn’t let that happen.

If Roman wanted her, fine, but she wasn’t about to give him a shot at Jake and Bowie.

She glanced out the front window. There was a sharp curve in the road ahead.

A plan quickly came together in her mind. It wasn’t ideal, and Jake wasn’t going to like it, but it would have to do. There was no other choice.

“Hey, Bowie,” she said, leaning forward. “Do you think you can shake them off our tail long enough to get to that turn up ahead.”

“Yeah, I think so,” he said, cocking his head slightly to the side. “Why?”

“Because I think I’ve come up with a way to buy you guys a little more time.”

Bowie looked up at her in the rearview mirror. The look in his eyes bordered on caring.

“You sure about this?” he asked.

Verity nodded. “Yeah.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Jake demanded. Verity could see the storm clouds forming on his brow out of the corner of her eye. “Sure about what?”

She didn’t get a chance to answer. Her hands flew out to brace herself as Bowie hit the brakes hard, forcing Roman’s SUV to swerve onto the gravel shoulder to avoid crashing straight into them.

It was all the window Bowie needed. He punched the accelerator hard, wresting everything he could out of the little engine before Roman’s driver could recover.

It worked. They made it around the turn in the road before the SUV. Bowie started to slam on the brakes but Verity stopped him.

“Just slow down,” she said.

Their crappy car was going to need all the forward momentum it could get if the guys had any chance of getting out of here.

“No,” Jake screamed as she threw open the door.

She wished she had more time to explain, to apologize, to make him understand, but as it was, she didn’t have another second.

Verity threw herself out of the car just as Jake lunged across the back seat toward her.

For a brief moment, she floated in the air, but in the next breath she slammed hard into the pavement. Her elbows and knees were scraped raw as she tumbled against the asphalt.

Verity opened her eyes as soon as she came to a rest. A cacophony of sounds mixed in her ears—squealing brakes as Roman’s SUV came to a stop just inches away from her head, the roar of Bowie gunning the car down the road, and Jake’s shouts as he disappeared around the corner.

***

“What the hell are you doing?” Jake demanded as Bowie tore down the two-lane road out of town. “Turn the car around. Go back for her.”

He couldn’t see Verity any longer out the back window, not since they’d rounded the bend, but for some reason Jake still couldn’t turn around in his seat.

That wasn’t true. He knew the reason.

The second he did he would rip his friend to pieces for letting her go.

“You know I can’t do that,” Bowie said. His voice was low, almost apologetic.

Burning rage, hotter than Jake had ever felt before, began to boil in his blood. His hand slid down to the butt of his gun.

“Turn around, before I stop this car myself.”

Jake had never threatened one of his brothers in his life, but right now fear and fury had taken over. He didn’t want to believe that he would hurt his friend, but right now he wasn’t entirely sure what he was capable of.

Bowie, on the other hand, seemed to have more faith in him. He slid a glance his way, but didn’t take his foot off the pedal.

“I mean it.” Jake tightened his grip on his weapon. “I’m not willing to let her die.”

“Neither am I,” Bowie said, turning his head. The look in his eye was firm but honest.

“Then why the hell did you let her jump out of the damned car?”

“Calm down and think, Jake,” Bowie said. “Roman was in that SUV. He’s not going to kill his sister, but he would have killed us.”

“I don’t give a damn what happens to me,” Jake shouted.

“But Verity does,” Bowie shot back. “And not just because she’s in love with your sorry ass. She’s smart enough to know that either way Roman would be dragging her back to Silas. If we didn’t escape there wouldn’t be anyone there to save her.”

Jake narrowed his eyes. He drew in a shaky breath, and then another one.

Damn it, Bowie was right.

Roman had already shown that he wasn’t willing to kill Verity. If that had been his plan he would have just driven over her body instead of stopping for her. But Silas…he wouldn’t be so sentimental.

He’d execute her the first chance he got.

“We have to get to the farmhouse before Roman then,” Jake said, slowly turning around in his seat.

“We’re already on our way,” Bowie replied.

***

Verity didn’t say a word as she stared at her brother from the back seat of his massive SUV. She hadn’t needed his whispered threat to keep her mouth shut when he’d picked her up from the middle of the road and hauled her back into the car. Being trapped in a SUV with a couple of heavily armed thugs didn’t naturally put her in the most talkative mood.

Instead, she sat and stewed in stony silence.

Every now and again, Roman would turn around and shoot her a quick glance, but mostly he kept his back to her. If Verity didn’t know better, she would almost believe that he was ashamed to face her.

Of course, that shame didn’t run deep enough to stop the car and let her out. There was no doubt that he was taking her back to his boss at the farmhouse.

The man that had just sent men out to kill her.

Verity could only pray that Jake and Bowie could get help before Silas got to finish the job himself.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There was something else she could do.

Verity reached into her pocket and pressed the power button on her phone. She didn’t dare pull it out into the open where anyone could see it, but Jake had said that just having it on when she passed a cell tower would be enough to alert the feds to her location. Well, with any luck, someone from the FBI was paying attention.

At least that’s what she hoped as they drove past the spot where she and Jake had parked and been shot at just the other day. A little farther down the road, the SUV pulled into the steep, dirt drive that led down to the house.

Roman stayed in his seat as the driver and the two men next to her got out. He waited until the car doors had closed before he turned toward her.

She’d been preparing herself for this moment the whole way over, steeling herself to face her brother’s frustration and anger, readying herself to throw them right back in his face. What she hadn’t expected was the sadness and regret that swirled in his eyes.

“God damn it, Verity. It wasn’t supposed to end up this way,” he said. “What the hell were you thinking coming out here with Jake Thorne?”

“What were you thinking selling stolen art and heroin?” she shot back.

Roman’s jaw started to twitch. He wasn’t used to his little sister talking back to him. Not at all.

“The same thing I’ve always thought about—making enough money to take care of both of us,” he said.

“By getting involved in a major criminal enterprise?”

“You were never supposed to know about the drugs,” Roman explained. “This was supposed to be the last big haul. We were going to sell off the last of the crap we’ve been smuggling back home—all the opium, all the artifacts. All you had to do was come out when you were told, tell a few buyers that the artifacts were legit, and we all would have had our big payday.”

“No amount of money is worth what you’ve been doing,” Verity said, leaning forward. She reached out to wrap her hand around his shoulder, to show him that she still cared, but Roman pulled back before she could.

“You didn’t seem to mind when you were cashing the checks that sent you through school.”

“That’s because I had no idea where the money was coming from.”

“Didn’t you, Verity?” Roman asked, his brows pulling together. “You were always the smart one in the family. There’s no way you could have really believed that I could send you to a Big Ten University on a soldier’s salary.”

Verity’s stiffened. How dare he try to put this on her.

“I never asked you for that, Roman,” she said. “I would have found a way to put myself through school. Just like I found a way to get through everything else after mom and dad died.”

“How? By rolling over and begging for the charity of relatives that could barely stand us?” Roman’s lip curled up in disgust. “Don’t you see we were better than that, Verity? That we deserved more? If this had just gone off like it was supposed to we would’ve never had to work another day in our lives.”

Verity leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

“If you think that’s what I dream about then you don’t know a damned thing about me, brother.”

Her gutsy attitude was put to the test a second later when the front door of the farmhouse swung open, and a broad-shouldered man stepped out. He was flanked on either side by two men that were just as big and scary looking as he was.

Verity didn’t need to ask his name. She knew instantly.

This was John Silas. And he was headed straight for her.

“Yeah, well if you want either one of us to live to see tomorrow, I’d rethink those dreams of yours, and follow my lead,” Roman said in a hush.

A second later the door at her side was thrown open and Verity found herself staring into a pair of ruthlessly calculating grey eyes.

“Hello, Miss Green,” he said, his voice every bit as cold as his stare. “I have to say, you look surprisingly good for a dead woman.”

Chapter Thirteen

Verity instinctually moved away from the man standing outside her open door. It was one thing acting tough while standing up to her brother, but one look from this guy had her stomach flopping around like a landed fish. She scooted back in her seat until her spine was flat against the opposite door.

The move didn’t do her any good. A second later, one of Silas’ men opened the door, and Verity tumbled out onto the dirt below. He reached down and gripped her shoulders, roughly hauling her up to her feet.

Roman didn’t waste any time getting out of the passenger seat.

“See, Silas,” he said, staying by her side as she was muscled around the back of the car. “I said you didn’t have to do anything rash. She came with me on her own.”

Silas flashed him a hard look, and Verity’s heart froze. This guy didn’t seem any happier with her brother than he was with her. It seemed Roman wasn’t kidding when he said that both of their lives were in danger.

“That’s not exactly the story I heard,” Silas said.

“Did you hear the part where everything went to hell in Augustville?” Roman asked. “The Norteños you sent after Jake Thorne shot up half the city. I was lucky to get my sister out of there alive.”

“Yes. Wasn’t that
lucky
?” Silas slid his menacing gaze her way. “Of course, none of us would have had to worry about Miss Green getting caught in the crossfire if she hadn’t been shacking up with Jake Thorne in the first place.”

“I can explain th—” Roman started.

“I’m not interested in any more of your explanations, Roman,” Silas said, taking a long stride toward Verity. “I want to hear what your sister has to say.”

Verity’s heart started to pound against her breastbone. Crap. This wasn’t good.

Bowie and Jake should have been here by now, but she hadn’t seen any sign of their car on the drive. There were no sounds of sirens wailing in the distance or FBI vans pulling up to raid the place.

It looked like if she was going to survive this, she was going to have to figure out a way to save herself.

Verity swallowed down hard and forced herself to lift her chin to meet Silas’ icy gaze. She might be terrified, but she’d be damned before she gave this power-hungry madman the satisfaction of knowing it.

“Jake and I are old friends,” she said with not so much as a tremble in her voice. “I always visit him when I’m in California.”

“Must be
very
good friends,” Silas said, a lascivious smile spreading across his face. “At least that’s what I heard from one of my guys who saw you two leave the bar last night in a hell of a hurry.”

“And you’re a saint?” she shot back.

“No. I’m not,” Silas said. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“I know why you brought me out here,” she said.

“And why’s that?”

“You need my help to unload all your smuggled Afghani art.”

He narrowed his eyes. “
Need
might be too strong of a word.”

“But you stand to make a hell of a lot more money with me than without me, don’t you?” she asked, squaring her shoulders.

“Funny you should mention it,” Silas said, his gaze turning to ice before her eyes. “Because just today someone was all over the Internet, spreading rumors and poisoning my buyers about the authenticity of my goods.”

“In that case,” she said. “It seems you need me even more.”

Verity forced herself not to flinch as Silas stared unblinkingly down into her eyes. After a moment, he let out a loud laugh that echoed off the farmhouse behind him.

“I’m impressed, Miss Green,” he said, his smile turning genuine, though no less frightening. “You are nothing like I’d thought you’d be. The way Roman talks about you I was expecting a timid little mouse.”

“Well, turns out my brother doesn’t know me quite as well as he thinks.”

“No, I guess he doesn’t.” Silas’ eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch as he looked her up and down, obviously trying to figure out her game.

Well, good luck with that one
, Verity thought silently. She was still trying to work that out herself.

Right now, all she cared about was staying alive for the next five minutes. After that she’d worry about the next five.

“You’re right. You might still be useful to me,” Silas said, wrapping his fingers around her arm. With a sharp tug, he wrenched her up against his side before lowering his head to whisper against her ear. “But let’s get one thing clear. If you pull any other tricks, I will personally put a bullet right between your eyes. After that, I’ll do the same to your brother. Got it?”

Despite her best intentions, Verity started to shake under his hold.

“G-got it.”

“Good,” he said, grasping her arm even tighter as he started leading her around the side of the house toward a barn at the end of the pasture. “Because no matter how much money you might make me, it would be nothing compared to the satisfaction I’d get by taking Jake Thorne’s
very
good friend away from him.”

***

Jake crouched down behind the bush in front of him as soon as Verity and Silas started to move, wedging himself between the dense cover of leaves and the tall tree at his back. He couldn’t risk being seen.

Not yet anyway.

“What’s going on?” Jake whispered to Bowie, who still had a line of sight from his position flat against the ground.

“They’re taking Verity into the barn,” Bowie said.

At least their trip out here earlier in the day hadn’t been a total waste. They both knew the lay of the land, the best vantage points, as well as the best hiding spots.

Not that they’d needed them. The farm was much quieter than it had been this morning, almost abandoned. There was no one walking the grounds, no one guarding the perimeter.

It seemed that Silas had sent everyone that wasn’t a part of his inner circle into Augustville for the attack.

“How does she look?” Jake asked, pressing his back harder into the tree trunk behind him.

"Okay," Bowie said, slowly sitting up and pulling the binoculars away from his face. “A little banged up from the fall, but all her scrapes seem superficial. Right now, she’s fine.”

That was all Jake needed to hear. He wasn't going to wait around for that to change. He started to push himself up from where he was sitting, but Bowie’s arm shot out, stopping him.

Jake glared down at the massive hand pressing against his chest. He fought back the urge to give it a hard strike. He didn’t want to break his friend’s arm.

“We can’t go in yet,” Bowie said. “Our backup’s not here.”

“How far out are they?”

“Depends,” Bowie said with a shrug. “Diane said her DEA team’s leaving San Francisco now. She contacted the FBI, but they were already on their way. Seems they pinged Verity’s cell phone a little after she left us.”

Jake let out a low growl.

“Not good enough,” Jake said. “It’s going to be at least an hour before anyone makes it out here.”

There’s no way Silas was going to let Verity live that long.

“That’s why Diane rerouted a couple of SWAT teams from surrounding cities that were called into Augustville,” Bowie explained. “They’ll be here soon.”

Jake turned his head and looked down the long country road that led up to Silas’ farm. There wasn’t so much as a single car for miles.

“Not soon enough,” Jake said, swiping Bowie’s arm away. He rose to his feet.

Bowie hung his head, and cursed under his breath. A second later, he rose up on his haunches. “You sure about this?” he asked.

“What would you do if it was Charlie in there?” Jake asked.

Bowie turned his head and shot him a dark glare. “I told you—never bring her up again.”

“Yeah,” Jake said, starting to move along the tree line that ran parallel to Silas’ open field. “Well, you’re going to have to keep up with me if you want your chance to knock my teeth in.”

***

“Please, have a seat, Miss Green,” Silas said, walking her toward a computer desk at the far end of the barn. When he was close enough, he shoved her toward the empty chair. Verity landed on it with a hard thud.

She drew in a steadying breath before raising her face to look over at Roman. His expression was tight, trying to give nothing away, but Verity could see the anger and fear in his eyes.

It was obvious that he didn’t like seeing her pushed around and threatened. But what could he do about it? Silas’ men stood on both sides of him, just inches away. It wasn’t hard to guess what they’d do to her brother if he made any move to help her.

She shuddered at the thought. Roman might not be winning any humanitarian of the year awards, but he was still her brother. She couldn’t just stand by and watch him die.

Except she wouldn’t.

Silas had made it very clear that if she tried anything, he would kill her first.

Who was she kidding?

Verity knew he was never going to let either one of them walk off this property. It was clear that Silas no longer trusted her brother, that he’d figured out that he’d been the one to point her in Jake’s direction. Unless help came soon, they were both as good as dead.

“Well, go ahead, Miss Green.”

Silas’ words broke her out of her fearful daze. She pulled her gaze away from her brother and shook her head, trying to clear it.

“Excuse me?” she said, cursing the quiver that still lingered in her voice.

“Work your magic,” he said, propping one hand on the desktop next to her and leaning in menacingly close. “Undo all the lies.”

Verity’s heart clinched in her chest as she looked down at the blank computer screen. Charlie had been the one to get her to all the sites that she’d visited. Not that she was going to tell Silas that. There was no way she’d hand him another target to go after.

“I know what to say, but you’re going to have to show me where you want me to write it,” she managed to get out. Silas narrowed his eyes as he stared down at her. “I don’t know where these lies were told, remember.”

Silas’ glower darkened and for a moment Verity worried that she’d finally pushed him too far. But after the longest second of her life, he yanked the keyboard closer to where he stood and started typing.

Verity slid her gaze down to one of the guns at his side as his fingers flew across the keys. It was so close. Sure, he had a matching one on the other side, but maybe if she moved fast enough she could snatch it out of his holster before—

His fingers stilled on the keys, and Verity looked up to see Silas glaring down at her. She obviously hadn’t done a very good job hiding her thoughts.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, Miss Green, but I can assure you that I’m not the kind of person that you want to mess with.”

Verity gave a shaky nod. “I can see that.”

“Can you?” Silas asked. He stood up to his full height, and slid his hand down to the holster she’d been staring at. “Because it seems to me that you need a little reminder.”

Her breathing hitched as he pulled out the gun and pointed it at her.

“N-no,” she said, throwing her hands up. “We’re good.”

“Good,” Silas said, using the muzzle of the gun to knock the keyboard back in front of her. “Then do what you came here to do.”

“Okay. Okay,” she said, grabbing the keyboard and pulling it close, but her hands were shaking so badly that she couldn’t get her fingers to type a single word. “Just put the gun down. I can’t concentrate with it in my face.”

“Fine,” Silas said, taking a step back, giving her space. He laid the gun down on the far edge of the desk, just out of her reach. “But no more games. I want this done now.”

“All right.”

Verity focused her eyes on the computer screen. In front of her were the words that she’d written earlier that day, the ones that had been so effective in chasing away the buyers that were lining up to gobble up treasures they had no right to. At the time, she’d felt so brave writing them, so strong.

Now, all she felt was fragile and afraid. Her life was hanging by a thread that a tyrant could choose to cut at any time.

And he would cut it…whether she took those words back or not.

She was fooling herself hoping there was another way out. No one was coming to save her. Not even Jake.

Maybe he hadn’t been able to get to help in time. Or maybe the police had caught up with him first. Or, God forbid, the Norteños. All she could do now was pray that he’d made it someplace safe…and that someday he’d forgive her for doing what she had to do.

Verity straightened her back as she started to type. Her heart pounded harder with every word. Her back teeth ground together with each keystroke, but it took her less than half a minute to finish her message. There was no hesitation in her as she hit submit. She was resigned to her fate.