“I’m not like you.” A small lighted sign on the side of the road indicated the small airport up ahead.
“You are. You’re just lying to yourself,” Russo said. “You should loosen up. Let out all that anger. All the retribution. It feels fantastic.” He turned into the small commuter airport and drove toward the big metal hangar and little prop plane ready to go.
“Should I start with you?”
“We both know you can’t handle me, kid. I went easy on you back there in the kitchen.” His overconfidence, his patronizing. I’d just… I’d just had enough.
I grabbed the gun and shoved it down, but it went off, a bullet grazing the top of my thigh. Damn, that stung. That really freakin’ stung.
I whipped the gun out of his hands. It fell to the floorboards near his feet. I scrambled for it as Russo hit the gas. Blood bubbled up through my leggings, and I pressed a hand on it while I reached down with the other, but Russo was fishing for it. He elbowed me in the nose, and sent me reeling. He came screeching to a stop near the prop plane and hopped out of the driver’s seat, gun in hand. He whipped a small leather bag out of the back seat and walked away from the car.
He didn’t bother to see if I was okay.
He didn’t ask if he’d hit an artery (I was hoping he hadn’t).
No matter what he said, the man cared more about his freedom than he did about my life. That was a fact. So much for the patriarchal protector.
I slung open the car door and slipped out, limping and holding my thigh.
“Russo!” I cried. “Russo! Stop!”
He didn’t stop. He headed right to the small plane. I recognized the pilot—Bill! I’d know his flannel shirt and orange-and-blue Bears ski cap anywhere.
“What the Sam hell…” Bill asked, blinking at me as I hobbled toward him. “Are you hurt, Thin Ice? You’re bleeding!”
“Bill! He’s dangerous. He’s got a gun. Don’t—” I was limping hard, trying to reach Russo.
Bill, however, took one look at my bloody leg, and fainted dead away. He fell like an oak tree, straight to the ground. I guess Gary was right about him not liking the sight of blood.
“What the hell…” Russo growled, looking at his incapacitated pilot, lying on the tarmac.
That’s when a set of spotlights clicked on, and the whoop of a siren and flash of red and blue lights emerged from the open door of the hangar. Hector Martinez, wearing his gold badge, emerged from the cockpit of the plane, gun drawn.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Hector said, aiming his pistol at Russo, who froze. “Down on the ground!” Several other sheriff’s deputies and three men and a woman wearing blue jackets emblazoned withFBIacross the back closed in on the plane.
“On the ground! FBI!” one shouted. Suddenly, we were completely surrounded.
Russo, eyes flicking around him, slowly lowered his pistol to the ground as he kneeled and put his hands behind his head. The FBI agents rushed forward and grabbed him, shoving him to the ground and cuffing him.
Jude pulled up in his white Volvo then, and one agent trained his gun on it.
“He’s with me!” I shouted. “He’s fine!”
Jude dutifully put the car in park, pulled up his hand brake, and clicked on his hazard lights before he undid his seat belt and slowly rose from the car, hands up, before he rushed to me.
“Ella! Are you okay? Ella!” He embraced me in a fierce hug. “You’re bleeding!” Jude eyed my leggings and the growing wet stain of blood.
“I think it’s probably just a flesh wound,” said Gary, emerging from the hangar behind us. He was carrying a first aid kit. “But let me see.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked Gary as he tended to the wound.
“Bill called me,” Gary said as if that explained everything. “Hey, clean in and out!” Gary said, eyeing the entry and exit holes in my leggings.
“Is he okay?” I asked, glancing at his unmoving body.
“Sleeping Beauty will be fine,” Gary said. “His big old head cushioned his fall.”
“Whoa! What happened?” Bill asked, sitting up and blinking. He rubbed his head and, realizing he’d lost his hat, patted around the ground for it.
