Driven to the Edge: A Bad Boy Hitman Romance Page 11

  I realize that I trust him. Somehow, I trust him. Maybe it’s because he saved me when he could have let me die, the way he opened up to me... but I do.

  Keeping up appearances, I adjust the strap on my camera and pick it up, flicking through the photos I took of Jake. He’s a natural. His posing is a little stiff, but with his heavy, thoughtful eyebrows and his brooding stare, he’d be a natural on a magazine cover or something.

  I’m scrolling through the photos, my head tilted down, when I hear someone come up behind me.

  Assuming it’s a waiter or someone, I don’t look up.

  At least not until someone’s pressing a gun against my back.

  Or at least I assume it’s a gun. It’s hard and metallic and it juts painfully through the thin fabric of my dress. I cry out in surprise, but someone slaps a hand over my mouth.

  “Easy there sweetheart,” says a voice I don’t recognize. “Why don’t you come with me. We’re going to take a walk.”

  I let the camera fall back around my neck. My unknown assailant grabs me roughly, hauling me down the lush, plant-lined corridor. I pass creeping vines and blooming orchids, wondering if they’re the last beautiful things I ever see.

  Then I think: oh no. Jake. Because if someone’s putting a gun to me, that means they know who he is.

  He hasn’t been gone long. He couldn’t possibly have had time to rescue the kid.

  My heart pounding frantically with fear, I try to calm my shaking as the man leads me away from the gardens, down a slate-walled service corridor. We pass fewer of the white-clad personnel here, but the ones we do pass avert their eyes.

  No one here is going to help me.

  What was I thinking, breaking into a place like this? I should try to at least talk my way out of it...

  “Look, I don’t know who you are, but you can’t just mug someone in here.”

  I try to play innocent.

  “Someone’s gonna call the cops.”

  But the man dragging me down the hall doesn’t listen. Or say a word, even.

  Without a word, the man yanks my arm and hurries me through a maze of hallways until we arrive at a wood-panel door. He knocks twice, then opens it, then literally throws me inside.

  I stumble, my heels catching on the edge of an expansive, sprawling carpet that pads the office’s foyer. I manage not to fall. The doors slam shut behind me and I whirl to face the man who threatened me.

  He’s old, bald, and completely unremarkable. He could be an extra in a Jackie Chan movie. Except the big black sawed-off shotgun he’s holding is very real. So I don’t make any sudden movements.

  “I don’t know who you are, but that’s about the dumbest way someone has ever broken into my building,” says a voice from behind me.

  I turn slowly until I’m facing the desk. The office is all gleaming red-brown wood, polished to a high gloss. There’s a window behind the desk, latticed in a stained-glass style, though the glass is clear and simply looks down onto one of the floors of the casino below. The massive desk takes up half the room, easily, and a single man sits behind it.

  He is not some unremarkable action movie extra. I can tell just by the tailored cut of his deep navy suit.

  He’s a scrawny guy, so skinny that he looks borderline unhealthy. Clean shaven. A single silver earring in his left ear. He’s bald save for a thin coating of stubble atop his head, like he doesn’t quite shave every day.

  I have no idea who he is, but he radiates menace. I take an involuntary step back.

  Is it smarter to lie or just say nothing at all?

  I’ve only ever been kidnapped once before and it didn’t go as expected.

  But before I can make up my mind, the man at the desk gestures to one of the leather chairs before it. He waves me forward, indicates that I take a seat.

  “Please, sit. I’ll have Kelly pour you a drink.”

  Stunned, I settle into the chair. The hefty guard behind me goes off toward a minibar in the corner.

  “I don’t--” I start, but the man waves a hand and cuts me off.

  “I don’t really know or care who you are,” he says. “You’re here with Ference and that’s all that matters.”

  I blink, genuinely confused. Ference? That’s a name I’ve never heard before.

  “Ference?” I ask at length. The man at the table cocks his head sideways, doubtful.

  “You can drop the innocent act,” he says.

  At that point, the man presumably named Kelly drops a glass of liquor with ice onto the desk in front of me. I take it reflexively but have no plans to drink. At least my hands are occupied now. The camera sits on my lap, heavy.

  “I swear to you, I have no idea what Ference is,” I say. I dare to look the man in the eye while I say it.

  His own eyes widen, then he throws back his head and lets out an uproarious laugh. His laughter rings off the vaulted ceiling of the office and curdles my blood in my veins.

  “Oh dear,” he says, “You mean he hasn’t even told you his real name.”

  It hits me: he’s talking about Jake. I clutch my drink a little tighter.

  “Jakob Ference. The man you broke in here with. This is rich. He’s got you all wrapped up in his little scheme but you don’t even know his real name.”

  On some level, I knew I didn’t know Jake’s real name, but it still stings. Because the guy at the desk is right. I know next to nothing about him.

  Leaning forward in his chair, the man twitches his mouth down in a sympathetic grimace.

  “I can’t wait to hear what story he spun to get you involved. You seem like such a normal person. Did he tell you it was a dramatic rescue? Did he tell you we’d stolen something from him?”

  It feels like someone’s squeezing my throat. I can’t breathe.

  I don’t believe what he’s saying. Surely not. But it’s so strange that he’d jump to that conclusion immediately.

  “Who are you?” I ask, my voice a dry-throated whisper.

  Reaching a hand over the desk as if at a perfectly natural introduction, neither of us here by force, the man offers me his palm.

  “My name,” he says, in a voice like velvet, “is Marton Császár. The man you’re here with is trying to steal something from me.”

  I don’t take his hand. It feels like all the oxygen has drained out of the room.

  He’s lying. He has to be.

  23

  ~ Jake ~

  Hunting through the top floors of Augustine’s is a nightmare. The place is a labyrinth. Nobody questions my presence since I’m dressed nice enough, but I feel like I’m making no headway at all. I don’t have a clue where to look.

  So I make a rash decision. At least it’ll speed things up.

  The next time I pass a security guard, I creep up behind him, grab him in a choke hold, and tell him to take me to Marton Császár, lest I blow his fucking head off.

  It works.

  We walk close together, the pistol pressed into his lower back. I tell him to act like I’m a drunk he’s escorting to his room, growling the instructions down toward him like a madman. I suppose I have to be at least half mad to be doing this. Yet here I am.

  “Someone’s going to see this on the security cameras,” the man says. “Just let me go. You’re already as good as caught.”

  “That’s great news,” I say, arming the handgun. “I want to be caught. Take me to your fucking boss.”

  We take the elevator to the ninth floor. When the doors slide open, a whole bevy of guards are waiting right outside. The guy in my arms wasn’t wrong about that.

  I shift my grip on the gun, press it against the side of his head instead.

  “Nobody do anything stupid,” I say. “I killed a lot of people to get here. Just take me to Marton Császár’s room.”

  “Do as he says,” the man says, stiff as a board against me.

  I let him lead, the flock of guards following close, none of them cleared to make a move. If they’d been cleared to shoot me,
they would have already. Hopefully that means the guy I grabbed isn’t disposable.

  He leads me to one of the penthouse suites, one without a number above the door handles.

  “I’m not sure if Mr. Császár is in,” my hostage whimpers, his eyes wide with fear.

  “That’s all right,” I say. “Use your key.”

  “I don’t have a key, sir.”

  “That’s horseshit. You’re security. I’m sure you have a master key.”

  His one last attempt to save his boss’s nuts vaporized, the guy swipes a keycard through the reader on the door. I haul the door open, but shove him through first.

  Nobody fires at us. So I step inside.

  The suite is sleekly modern, the same smoky glass and walnut motif as the lobby. Everything is polished, mirror like, obscenely expensive. I see there’s a fire lit in the fireplace, which says to me someone is either home or was just here.

  The big wall-mounted TV in the corner is playing something animated. I look down on the sofa.

  Eloise is sitting on the couch, peering up at the television, her eyes rapt.

  My heart stops.

  She looks over at me.

  Her eyes go huge.

  “Uncle Jakob?” she asks, a grin breaking out across her features.

  I keep my grip on the security guard, then force the double-doors closed before anyone else can get inside. I lock the door with one hand. Eloise sits up on the sofa, starts to make her way over to me. But I hold up a finger to her.

  “Easy, girl,” I say. “Just a second. Uncle Jakob is busy doing adult stuff.”

  She looks at me with a quizzical head tilt, but she’s old enough to know better than to object. So she sits back down. But she focuses on me now, not the TV.

  I have to get her out of here. I’m so close.

  She looks unharmed. She looks healthy, even. Sure, she’s still in her PJs at four o’clock, but that happens to a lot of normal kids who aren’t even kidnapped. God, if anyone’s hurt a hair on her head, I’ll--

  The doors behind me open.

  This means someone who must have a key.

  I whirl, jabbing my gun against the security guard’s temple.

  And then I’m face to face with Marton Császár. He’s got Alicia in his arms, his own pistol shoved roughly beneath her chin. Her eyes are rimmed with tears, red at the edges. She’s still got the camera around her neck, but she’s shuddering, terrified.

  “I’m so sorry,” Marton says, the smarmy fuck. “Am I interrupting something?”

  I feel like I’m going to throw up. He can’t hurt Alicia. He can’t even fucking touch Alicia. I want to rip his hands off. First this fucker kidnaps my niece, now he’s got Alicia. And he may have even been the one who killed Alain.

  It’s everything in my power, every restraint I have left in me, not to just leap across the room and tackle him.

  Instead, I try reason:

  “I’m only here for the girl,” I say. “Let me take her and you can go back to business as usual. I don’t give a shit.”

  Marton snorts, then rolls his eyes.

  “Of course you are,” he says. “But I can’t let that happen. You know what happens to your reputation if people find out someone can steal from you and just live? That’s not how this works, Jakob. I figured you’d know. You were an associate for so long.”

  I dart my eyes to Alicia’s and shake my head just a bit.

  “I worked for my brother. I’d never work for you. And now my brother’s dead.”

  “And I’m sure you didn’t come here to put a bullet in my head for that.”

  I grit my teeth.

  “Why, did you do it?”

  Marton smiles, angelic.

  “Maybe.”

  Bristling visibly, I jerk toward him a bit, the barrel of my Sig pressed against his employee’s head.

  “Motherfucker.”

  Marton glances sideways to the sofa where Eloise sits.

  “Language, Ference. There’s a child here.”

  Snarling, I look left to right, unsure of my options. He’s got me in a complete standoff. Eloise is vulnerable, unprotected. And Alicia, God... seeing that gun pressed to Alicia.

  I did the same thing to her once. But now that it’s Marton Császár’s weapon to her throat, I see red.

  Hiking in a deep breath, I look back to Marton, regarding him stonily.

  “Let both the girls go and you can have me,” I say. “I don’t care. I just want them to be safe.”

  Marton snorts.

  “That’s very sweet of you, but this one is your accomplice. There’s no way in hell she’s walking out that door.”

  As Marton speaks, Alicia catches my eye. She jerks her chin downward just a hint, toward her camera. I’m not sure what I mean, but then I understand. She’s going to go for it.

  ... Well, if we were both going down eventually.

  I want to tell her how I feel. How she at least made me feel like I had a chance at a future.

  But instead I warn Eloise.

  “Eloise, honey. Look at the TV for a minute, okay?”

  I don’t want her to see this.

  24

  ~ Alicia ~

  First he tried to tell me that Jake was a thief targeting the casino. But I refused to believe it. Then he tried to tell me Jake was just using me to fulfill a personal vendetta, something about him thinking stubble-head guy killed his brother. But I didn’t believe that either.

  I looked into Jake’s eyes--Jake Hawthorne, Jakob Ference, whoever he is--and I could see that he was telling the truth.

  So bald jackass smashed my head into his desk and dragged me out of his office with a gun to my throat. I’m still reeling a little as he forces me into the suite, and then when I see Jake and the little girl I understand.

  Now I’m going to do the dumbest, or maybe the bravest, thing I’ve ever done.

  I move my thumb on the camera, toward the flash button. If this works, we’ll only have a second. But Jake understood my gesture. He’s already tensing up.

  I wait for bald guy to look back toward Jake, then spin the camera up to face me. I wince my eyes closed, then fire the flash on full blast right into his face.

  Bald guy cries out. I hit the deck. A gunshot rings out, then another. The little girl’s screaming, but I think it’s just scared screaming, not pained screaming. I roll away from bald guy’s feet toward Jake and my hand hits a body.

  I’m afraid to look.

  But it’s just the security guard Jake was holding hostage.

  I roll sideways and get back to my feet, on the verge of throwing up with nerves.

  Jake has bald guy now, his gun to his head. Bald guy’s gun is lying on the floor. It looks like bald guy may have been the one who shot the security guard. I rush over to the little girl.

  “Eloise, right?” I ask her. She recoils away from me at first, but then I smile and crouch down.

  “I’m here with him,” I say, pointing toward Jake. She relaxes visibly.

  Which means Jake was telling the truth.

  I offer the little girl my hand and head back toward the door.

  Slowly, tensely, we begin our descent out of Augustine’s, now that Jake has the most valuable man in the building as his hostage.

  We slowly inch down the hall until the bald man--Marton Császár, I remind myself--tells Jake the location of a private elevator. His goons follow us en masse, but every time Jake puts the gun up, they back away. The four of us crowd ridiculously into the elevator and take it toward the basement parking level.

  “Radio your men and tell them we’re happy to let you go in exchange for safe passage out,” Jake says.

  When the doors slide open, there are even more dark suits outside. Some of them are just punters. One of them cries out in surprise.

  The Maybach is so close. I can see the sleek lines of it in the dark parking structure. If we can at least get to it, the armor will protect us.

  Every step we take, Jake leadi
ng the way, I prepare for bullets to rain down and tear me to shreds. I’ve never been so terrified in my life.

  But Eloise’s presence forces me to be brave. I can’t be scared in front of her. So I hold her hand and guard her with my body as we shuffle slowly toward the car.

  Someone’s phone goes off. It’s that annoying, incessant jingly ringtone on the phone Jake was using last night. The phone call that got him all emotional.

  I unlock the doors and all but leap into the driver’s seat. I beckon Eloise into the passenger’s.

  Jake lowers slowly down into the passenger compartment, behind the partition, and drags Marton Császár in with him.

  We slam the doors shut. All the while, the goddamn phone rings off the hook. Every time it beeps, I irrationally worry a bomb is going to explode the Maybach right out from under us.

  “Jesus Christ,” I whisper. “We made it.”

  Eloise looks up at me from the seat and frowns pensively.

  “That’s a swear word,” she says.

  I rev the engine and hit the intercom.

  “Where are we even going?”

  “I just got a phone call,” Jake says. “I think it’ll help us out. Take us onto the 160. Out toward the desert. I know they’re following us but that’s all right.”

  It’s all right that they’re following?

  Shaking all over, I put the car in gear and pull out. Nobody’s called the police, which astounds me, but I guess these guys are all criminals. Maybe they want to keep it hush hush. Three black Escalades with tinted windows pull out of the garage behind us. I do my best to ignore them.

  “You want to pick the radio station?” I offer to Eloise. I’m eager to distract her, to keep her mind off the horror of what she just witnessed.

  She leans in close to the dial and I show her how to operate the Maybach’s slick, retro-inspired controls.

  I try not to think about what’s happening in the backseat.

  In no time, I get us out of downtown Vegas and onto the highway system, eventually settling for the 160 West. We have enough gas to get as far as Pahrump before we run into trouble, and I don’t know what’s going to happen then.