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GENNY AND I SAT IN the stolen cab, watching her apartment building. I was surprised, angry, and disgusted when I saw her in that picture. As we sat in that car, I felt none of those emotions. Honestly, I felt nothing at all. My feelings were wrung out and splattered along the road from the Fairfield to her building. I just wanted this done with.
“We need to get inside,” Genny announced for the fourth time. “Waiting around hoping she comes out is idiotic.”
“Sunny once told me that you don’t follow an assassin to their house. They’re the only ones in the room who knows where all the weapons are hidden. What we know about this woman right now, is that we don’t know a damn thing about her. She got in bed with a rapist, sex-trafficker, and child abductor. Underestimating her is a mistake,” I said, also for the fourth time. “Let her come to us.”
“She’s got five minutes.”
Genny was in her war gear. I was calling it that because ripped jeans, fishnet stockings, fishnet top, and a red bra were what she changed into after peeling herself off the couch.
“Gen, you bribed the doorman to tell you she comes out every morning to walk her dog in the park. Dogs have to do their business every day—rain or shine. She’s coming.”
“Four minutes.”
I sat up straight. “Don’t need four minutes. There she is now.”
Genny was out the door before I finished.
Wild Springs Apartments was in one of the swankier parts of Leighbridge. The building stretched to the sky, carrying luxury apartments and penthouses to the top floor. Beside it was Wild Springs Park—a patch of green nestled among a concrete paradise. Walking trails, biking trails, a water fountain, a playground overrun with laughing kids—it had everything. We trailed her into the perfect spot with so many people going about their fun, they wouldn’t notice one random woman disappear off the trail.
She rounded a hedge, setting down one of the walking trails. A little toy fox terrier trotted beside her.
“Not too close,” Genny said. “You need to be close enough to see them, but not so close that they can turn around and clock your face.”
“Thanks for the tip. Now here’s yours: don’t shove your gun down her throat. Just knock her unconscious and we’ll take her to Astoria. Afterward, we’ll tell the guys the truth.”
“Surprised you agreed to keep this from them in the first place.”
My voice hardened. “This is between me and the bitch that would’ve sold my baby. The more I think about this, the scarily clear my past becomes. I don’t need anyone trying to protect me from this. And for better or worse, Genny, you’d never stand between a woman and her target.”
“I like you more and more every day, Blaine. Please, feel free to kick the bitch’s teeth in. I’ll hold her hair.”
The path lined with hedges and trees—gifting the parkgoers with a green and flowered maze. She and the dog disappeared around a hedge and we let her, keeping well back as she headed for a small tunnel bridge.
“As soon as she steps inside the bridge, we run,” Genny ordered. “I’ll go around and catch her in the front. You come in from the back. No one will see us take her.”
I glanced down at my hands. Perfectly still.
“Got it.”
She got closer... closer... closer. We sprang into action the moment she stepped into the tunnel.
Genny sprinted across the lawn and up the hill, disappearing around the other side of the bridge. I left my usual boots, skirts, and handmade labels at home, opting instead for jeans, a simple shirt that concealed the zip ties, and rubber soles absorbing the strikes carrying me down the path into the tunnel.
Genny and I burst inside at nearly the same time and came face to face—
—with each other.
The tunnel was empty.
“What the fuck!” Genny bellowed. “What the hell happened?”
“That’s my question.”
I whirled around, shock snapping a band around my throat as Madison James appeared behind me, her yappy little puppy tucked under her arm.
“Why are you following me, Mackenzie?” She flicked over her shoulder at Genny. “And you. Shouldn’t you be in the back of a prison van?”
“That’s my question,” Genevieve mocked.
“Excuse me?”
I slid back a few steps, putting some distance between us. I was standing in front of one of the most devious, sociopathic monsters ever spat out of a womb. I didn’t know what she would do, but I wouldn’t be in striking distance when she did it.
“We know, Madison,” I said. “We know everything.”
She cocked a brow. “Everything about what exactly?”
“Don’t you fucking stand there acting innocent!” Rapid footsteps echoed in the tunnel. “When I’m done with you—”
I shot in front of Genny, glaring into her eyes. “Don’t stand in the way,” I said simply.
A thousand emotions warred on her face. There was no question Madison did horrible things that hurt her family, but she started with mine first.
