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FORTY-EIGHT
JULIAN
“Run, Rebecca! Hide,” Giancarlo yelled to her.
She paused, looking out the bank of windows facing the front of the house. A clearing of gravel lay beyond the porch right up to those overgrown bushes that reached at least twenty-feet high. I’d come to this place from the back, via the lake and on the sides of the house, the same thick brush surrounded the place like a fortress.
The pump action of a shotgun, that sexy-as-fuck lock and load sound rang out behind me. Sebastien stood there with a Mossberg in his hands wearing the face of a warrior.
Fierce yes, but I guessed the tank barreling toward the house crushing all those bushes was loaded with Uzi’s.
These guys with me were used to small players, idiots who didn’t know how to use guns. Their guards and hired mercenaries were the true killers, the ones who really spilled blood.
“You should have had this place guarded,” I murmured, loading bullets into my Glock’s magazine.
“It’s a safehouse,” Giancarlo said, coming out of his command center with an AR-15.
“Someone changed his mind about carrying heat.” Messina held a bayonet in his hand.
“When I’ve pumped my full complement into the guy’s chest, give him a close shave, Messina,” Gian wryly spat back.
I stifled a laugh.
“Are we just gonna start shooting?” Giancarlo asked, holding his weapon and looking out the window.
“We’re not fucking negotiating. They want her. They’re not getting her.” Sebastien glanced at the stairs and turned white. “I said hide Becca, what’s wrong with you?”
Slinging the AR-15 across his back, Giancarlo checked a mini-iPad. “Shit.”
“What?”
“Six cars.” His breath got ragged.
“Six cars?” Messina said. “This... This isn’t happening. What the fuck has she done to deserve an army coming after her?” He turned to the stairs. “We won’t tell you again, Rebecca. Get your ass out of here, before I drag you by your hair.”
She gripped the banister and tore upstairs.
“Inside or out, G-man?” Messina asked me.
“What?” I felt all eyes on me like they suddenly put me in charge.
“Do we stand in front of the house or wait for them to come in?” Messina clarified.
“Our vantage point is safer if we’re inside,” Bastien said, holding the gun on his shoulder.
“Not exactly,” I said, walking toward the door. “Something can come crashing through the windows. You want to be outside so long as we can take cover. Those wide stone pillars should work. We have an hour or so of daylight left. Let’s take advantage of it.”
“Said the man trained in Quantico.” Giancarlo set the safety off his gun. “Good enough for me. Outside. We face these fuckers head on. We don’t hide.”
“It’s six cars, Gian,” Messina said. “There are four of us.”
“We should try to talk to them,” I said, feeling much more like a Fed than a gangster at the moment.
“You ever talk a hitman out of doing his job?” Bastien asked.
That was the problem with hitmen, they were hammers looking for nails. They could care less why a client wanted a mark killed.
“Except a hitman is a man,” Messina remarked, looking out the window.
“A man? Are you fucking suggesting we let them have their way with Rebecca?” I cried out.
“No,” Bastien answered for him. “Right, Messina? You don’t want my first shell in your chest.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Messina snapped. “Hitmen don’t kill people because they like it.”
“That’s exactly why hitmen kill,” Giancarlo barked.
“I meant, he’s human. He’s doing this for money. We got money. Plenty of money.”
“Okay, we pay him off and his friends in the five cars, then what?” Bastien clipped, the tension in his voice alarming me. “The person who wants Rebecca dead hires someone else. We’ll run out of cash.”
“Come on. Outside.” Giancarlo took charge, stealing my thunder. “Maybe this asshole thinks she’s here by herself. There’ve been no signals...” He stopped.
“What?” I asked him, as he looked ready to throw up.
“How... How did they find us?” Gian breathed, looking around. “I never dropped the hint.”
“My phone’s off. I swear,” Messina said.
“Oh God...” I couldn’t breathe.
“What?”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I paced in tight circles.
Becca’s tracker.
That’s how I’d found her. This was my fault. We were all going to die.
“What Russo?” Bastien hollered.
“Becca’s fitness tracker. It’s here. Buried in my bag upstairs. It’s how I found her. I... I meant to turn it off back in Swanville.”
“Shit,” Bastien said and clapped my shoulder. “Doesn’t really matter. We have to deal with this. Gian’s right. Outside. All of us.”
“Fine.” I felt ashamed to have brought this trouble to Giancarlo’s doorstep.
“Wait,” Messina said and looked at me. “You’re a fucking Fed. Get your damn badge and start waving it around.”
Admittedly I hadn’t thought of that. Especially since Fowler had either suspended if not fired me outright. My phone had been off for a week.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Bastien said, putting his shotgun down. “We’re outnumbered. And outgunned. We’re not handing Becca over. I guess talking is all we have.”
A wash of adrenaline fired through me. The power of authority I technically had. Exhaling, I said to Giancarlo, “You have a bullhorn?”
“This is a secret safehouse.” He gave me a wry look. “That would be a no.”
Nodding, I said to him, “Then get on your computers. Find these guys’ cell signals. They’re close enough that you can cut them off from each other. From any potential backup.”
He shoved the AR-15 into Messina’s chest. “Fuck, man, you’re good, Russo.” He disappeared behind the stairs and his footfalls echoed down the hallway toward his command center.
“With Gian doing that, we can’t risk the house getting torched with a Molotov cocktail.” Bastien picked up his gun. “Outside now. Weapons in our hands, but not aiming to shoot. Get ready to talk your ass off, Russo.”
Messina put his knife away and pulled the AR-15 strap over his head. “Bastien’s right.”
“That’s the part that sucks.” Bastien opened the door. “I’m almost always right.”
That Fed Alpha-lust fired through me again. “No, Bastien. Me. I’m in charge of this one.”
“Are you ID’ing yourself?” Bastien asked me.
“Yes.”
“That might earn you the first bullet,” Messina said, standing behind me.
“Killing a Fed holds a stiff penalty,” I said.
“That’s if this ever ends up in a courtroom.” Bastien took up the rear. As the tallest, he could see everything. “Those assholes don’t plan to get caught.”
The door creaked open and outside, all I heard was the wind. No snapping branches or tires digging up dirt. No engines grinding gears to make it through the rough terrain. They must have stopped partway down the overgrown driveway.
We stood there, the three of us. Heads held high.
A headlight flickered through the green brush and my heart hammered against my chest. I’d been in jams before, but not like this. An additional light shined though. And then another and another. Through the green leaves and overgrown brush, six sets of headlights, all in a line moved slowly toward us.
Holding my breath, I removed my badge from my pocket. I wasn’t sure what intel these guys had on us. Perhaps they thought they were just taking out some corrupt queen and her filthy mafia cohorts. Not a G-Man.
Here goes nothing...
“Federal Agent!” I yelled. “Federal Agent. Federal Agent. Federal Agent. Federal Agent.”
The six SUVs stopped and idled with only a few layers of brush between us and them. Their tinted windows hurt my ability to ID the drivers.
Them stopping, however gave me power. Stopping suggested they were recalibrating their moves. No, they hadn’t counted on me. Just like Rebecca never counted on me.
Like these princes behind me never counted on a Russo upending their love menage, quad-whatever they had with Rebecca.
Feeling confident, I kept my badge in the air, but aimed my gun toward the army waiting behind the bushes. “Federal Agent. Get out of those fucking cars. Now!”
A door opened to the SUV on the farthest right. But the leader would be in the center. Or behind, if they rolled up in a pyramid formation.
Why was that door opening up?
No. No. No.
One gunshot blast had birds in the trees flocking away. Slapping leaves echoed against the silence all around us.
“Take cover. Now,” I yelled, and glanced back at the guys as Bastien dove behind the stone pillar holding up the front porch overhang.
Anthony took cover behind one as well.
Then came the raging hail of bullets...
