Gideon snorted.“Well, it’s not like we’re all lovesick and missing each other.”He held his hands to his chest and batted his eyes.“Crosby, oh Crosby, why won’t you call me.”
There were hoots and hollers, and Garcia laughed and accepted the razzing with good humor.Crosby’s absence from the team had been hard for everybody, but watching Garcia so obviously tryingnotto miss him had been the hardest part.
The night progressed, and the club got more crowded until around midnight, when it was definitely time to leave.They’d had fun, but Toby’s shift as a DJ was over, and Crosby and Garcia had plans to escort him home.Natalia and Emily had children to return to, and Harding and Blodgett had a long drive ahead.And even those without “grown-up” responsibilities still led grown-up lives.Partying until 3:00 a.m.was great until it interfered with a run or a nap or a diet or even doing laundry, because when they hit work on Monday, they had to have their feet underneath them to run.
And Joey, who may have been their only party animal, absolutely needed to come home and finish the night in Gideon’s arms.
But they were all seasoned at watching their backs by now.The people who’d driven had parked in the same place, and the people who were flagging down cabs or rideshares would wait together and even crash at each other’s places.No single person would be left behind.
Which was why it was such a surprise.
They all hugged Chartreuse goodbye and left her tables empty—and hefty tips on board for the whole staff that had treated them right—and then exited out the back entrance, through an alleyway to an alcove where hailing a cab was as natural as breathing.Gid went first, knowing Harding and the other drivers were bringing up the rear with Toby in their midst, Manny Swan at his elbow since he was still recovering from his ordeal.Gideon stepped out to hail a cab and was unprepared for the black SUV, tinted windows and reinforced grill, to swerve to the side of the road.
The side door popped open, and a beefy set of hands hauled him back into the darkened interior, and then the vehicle pulled away.
The last thing he saw before the door slammed was Joey Carlyle’s anguished face.
“Well done,” came a voice with a lot of south Boston in it.“I couldn’t count on my last bodyguard to do well in such circumstances.”
Stevie Carlyle.Well, the least Gideon could do was make it quick.
“Yeah, that’s because Joey shoved a knife through his hand,” he said before planting his elbow in the bodyguard’s throat.
The man gave a strangled grunt and released his arms, and Gideon had his hand on the car door’s handle when he felt the muzzle of averylarge gun against the back of his neck.
“Listen,” said Joey’s father.“I don’t really give a crap who you are or what you are to my son, but I know you’re a worse bargaining chip with your brains splattered all over the inside of the car.You calm down and I can at least spare your ugly mug for him.He’d probably prefer it that way.”
Gideon was tempted—sotempted—to keep fighting, but he’d done his homework.Absolutely unprovable, but still, everybody knew Stevie Carlyle had splattered a lot of brains.
He stilled and allowed himself to slide between Stevie and his bodyguard, who was still struggling for air.
He shouldn’t have been shocked when Stevie moved the barrel of the gun from the back of his neck to the side of the guard’s head and pulled the trigger.
The noise and the smell and the awfulness that followed blurred, one big gray-and-red-spattered fuzz spot in Gideon’s brain, and he tried to breathe through his nausea.
The only reason he didn’t throw up on Joey’s father was because he knew for certain if he did, he’d be part of the mess too.
“Good,” Stevie Carlyle said, taking out a kerchief and wiping the gun and then throwing the kerchief and the gun out the window in front of a school as their SUV whizzed by.He rolled up the window and said, “As long as we understand each other, it was worth losing another bodyguard to make my point.”
Gideon felt a black-hearted smile twisting his lips.
“What?”Stevie demanded.“What is that look?”
“You, sir,” Gideon said distinctly, “are lucky your son didn’t put you down in your sleep like a rabid dog.”
Stevie didn’t kill him, didn’t even go for the other gun Gideon was sure he had in the holster he could spot at the man’s side.
“That’s funny.I always thought it was the other way around.”
Gideon didn’t answer him—he didn’t want to play the bad-guy banter game.He ignored the mess to his right because he had to, and focused on not being sick.
And remembered that moment in the warehouse office when the needle had slid into his arm, after hearing Joey actually use his father’s name to keep them both safe.
He hadn’t said anything, but what he’d wanted to say, had beenyearningto say, was “Don’t worry, kid.They’re coming for us.They won’t leave us in the wind.”
Now, in his head, he heard his own voice saying those words, and then Joey’s voice, loopy, garbled, saying, “If you hurt him I will burn your families to the ground.”
Oh yeah.
