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We ran down the alley to the side street. He stopped, edging around the building, his gun at his side.
“They . . . were . . . with the Morellis,” I told him.
“There was another guy at the bus station,” Ronan said.
“What are we going to do?”
“Get in the car and drive.”
“Ronan,” I whispered. “They killed the girl in the shop. They shot her.”
“I know.”
“We have to do something—”
“We have to survive, Poppy. Let’s go.”
We ran down the sidewalk to our shitty little car. We both opened the door and threw ourselves into the front seats.
“Buckle up,” Ronan said, turning on the car.
“Yes,” purred a voice from the back seat. “We wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.”
Ronan spun, gun in hand, but I felt the cold press of a gun barrel against the skin of my nape.
“Hello, Poppy.”
Carefully, with my hands up, I turned. In the back seat of the car, in a fur coat and a fresh blowout, was Eden Morelli.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ronan
I had no idea who the woman was in the back seat was, but Poppy clearly did.
I cocked my gun, and she shook her head at me. “If you shoot me, I’m afraid my man over there will be forced to shoot you. And this whole thing will get so messy.”
She pointed out the front window, and a man in a dark coat and ball cap was leaning against the car in front of us, a Beretta M9 with a silencer in his hand held across his chest.
I didn’t know his name, but I recognized him.
Junkyard dog. Same as me.
Fuck. I’d pooched this but good. I’d gotten soft. Poppy had made me soft, and I’d walked right into a goddamned trap.
“Eden,” Poppy gasped, “what are you doing?”
Ah, this was the mysterious Morelli who’d told Poppy all about me. I could kill her just for that.
“Well, believe it or not, I’m trying to save your life.”
“Must be why you’re holding a gun on her,” I snarled.
Eden smiled at me, her eyes skating across my face to the gun I held on her. “This is the world we live in, Ronan Byrne. I’m just trying to get by.”
I very nearly laughed.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” she said. “You are going to drive us back to whatever hidey-hole you’ve been playing house in and my associate—” Again she pointed at the man in front of us. “Is going to clean up this mess and take care of any other people in town who are looking to cash in on the money my family has put on this girl’s head.”
“How much money?” Poppy asked.
“Enough that the Dubrassi Brothers are interested.”
I swore under my breath and Poppy next to me went on high alert. “What does that mean? Is that bad? That sounds bad.”
It was a “we needed more guns” kind of bad.
In the back seat, Eden turned to look at Poppy, specifically at her hair, and she could not contain her horror. “What happened to you?”
Self-consciously, Poppy touched her hair. “It’s not that bad.”
“No,” Eden said. “It’s worse, honey. It’s so much worse.”
“I’m not taking you anywhere,” I said. “Fuck you and your goon.”
Eden winced. “Goon? That’s not very nice. But let me be clear—I have the solution for your Morelli problem.”
“You do?” Poppy asked, sounding foolishly hopeful.
“Don’t,” I snapped.
“Don’t what?” Poppy asked.
“He doesn’t want you to hope,” Eden said. “He thinks I’m lying. And fair enough. But the Morelli family has your sister’s phone. She’d dumped it, but not very well. And that Good Samaritan Father Patrick inadvertently put a target on this area, so there are at least four teams of cold-blooded mercenaries who are coming to get Poppy. Dead or alive. Including, I repeat, the fucking Dubrassi Brothers. So, how about we go someplace quiet, and I’ll tell you what I know?”
She didn’t even finish her little speech before I gunned the engine and peeled away from the curb.
“You have a solution?” I asked her in the rearview mirror.
“Fixing problems is kind of my thing.”
Funny, I thought. It used to be mine.
“And your guy is going to clean up?” I asked.
“It’s what he does.”
She sat back and lowered her sunglasses down over her eyes, sitting there like a minor celebrity with a hangover.
“This car is a piece of shit,” she said.
Poppy turned in her seat and looked back at Eden. “Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?”
“Well, let’s just say I have my own problem and I think we can help each other.”
Loaded silence filled the car, the heavy kind, all of us thinking our own doomsday thoughts. The Dubrassi Brothers were a concern. This wild card in the back seat was a concern.
“Is my sister safe?” Poppy asked.
Zilla was a concern. So many goddamned concerns.
“No one knows where she is.”
My London safe house was still secure, at least.
