The door to my hideaway yanked open and splintered against the exterior wall. I didn’t hesitate. As the flashlight beam swept over me, I gripped the wand and squeezed the trigger.
A gunshot rang out.
FIFTY-ONE
WHEN DID YOU STAB HIM WITH A PITCHFORK?
Nash
Afamiliar pickup truck squealed into the station’s parking lot, sending water everywhere as its headlights slashed across us. Knox got out and slammed the door. He strode up to me, his jaw tight.
“What are you doing here? You need to stay with Naomi and Way,” I said.
He shook his head. “I’m with you.”
“I appreciate that, but you need to keep them safe. Hugo could decide to move on them tonight.”
Knox crossed his arms. “Lou’s got two shotguns. Liza J dusted off Pop’s rifle. Stef is mixing drinks and handing out pepper spray. Jeremiah and Waylay are marching around with our old Little League bats.”
“You’re getting married tomorrow.”
“Not without you and not without Lina. Call Naomi if you don’t believe me. This wedding only happens with us all.”
“Chief?” Grave appeared in the door. “Ford Fusion belongs to Mark Nikos. Guy leases commercial properties between here and DC. He’s got a local address. Had it since this summer. Got two patrol cars swinging by his place now.”
I nodded. “Thanks, Grave.”
He wouldn’t be there and neither would Lina, so I wasn’t wasting my time dotting those i’s.
I turned back to my brother. “This is your shot at something good. You’re not fucking it up to play big brother. Not tonight.”
He gripped my good shoulder. “You had my back last time. You’re not going out there without me.”
“Looks like the three of us are goin’ to jail together,” Nolan said.
“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered. I pulled out my phone and dialed.
“What?” Lucian demanded.
“I need you to go to Knox’s and keep everyone there alive.”
“I have a security team en route.”
“Great. And now I need you to be there since my idiot brother is standing here in the parking lot with me.”
Lucian swore colorfully and I heard the telltale snick of his lighter. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”
I heard a beep and looked at my screen. Naomi.
“I gotta go. I have another call,” I told Lucian and disconnected. “Naomi, I don’t have any updates but we’re doing everything—”
“Uncle Nash? I know where Lina is.”
“I see a redneck pickup with smokestacks and a gold Ford Fusion parked next to the barn,” Nolan reported. He was on his belly at the edge of the tree line, peering through binoculars.
Thanks to Waylay’s heads-up, we’d accessed the property through the woods, coming up behind the house and barn. The rain had brought with it a thick fog that lay like a blanket, making the property look ghostly.
“Dilton and the car that took Lina,” I said, trying to put a lid on the emotions that were boiling up inside me.
Knox and I exchanged a look. For better or worse, the men we were looking for were here. And none of them were getting another chance to hurt someone we loved.
“I got movement,” Nolan said quietly.
We stilled and peered through the rain and gloom.
“Big guy. Just burst out of the open side door. Gun drawn. He’s looking around.”
“For us?” Knox asked.
We were two hundred yards away, but my ears still picked up a faint sound. It sounded like someone shouting. We watched as the man ran back inside.
“Lina,” I said.
Nolan grinned. Even Knox’s mouth managed to curve. “Bet she’s givin’ them hell,” he predicted.
“Tell Lucian Dilton’s still here,” I told my brother. “I’ll call for backup.”
I was just dialing Grave when the gunshot rang out.
My heart stopped. My brain emptied. The only thing left was instinct. I was on the move, racing through waist high overgrowth.
I heard Knox and Nolan behind me, but I wasn’t going to wait. Not with Lina inside.
I covered the distance to the barn easily, vaulted over the fence, and remembered to lead with my good shoulder when I smashed through the door.
It gave way easily and I paused long enough to clear the foyer before moving on. Two doors were open. One led downstairs, the other to a long hallway.
Lina wouldn’t let herself be trapped in a basement with no easy escape, so I took the hallway at a dead run. Something tickled at my gut. I ducked just as a door on my right opened and a huge fist swung at me.
I rammed Mark Nikos, the man who’d dragged my woman out of a grocery store and thrown her in the trunk of a car, with my not-so-good shoulder, catching him in the ribs and knocking him back into the doorframe.
“Got him. Go,” my brother said behind me. I didn’t even bother looking back. If Knox said he had him, he did.
I continued down the hall until I reached an open doorway. The door itself was cracked and dented, its hardware useless on the floor.
I felt for light switches and found a row of them. I flipped them all and raced into the illuminated stable. The gates to each stall on the left-hand side were open on their hinges.
I did a fast sweep of each stall, hurrying down the line. She was here. She was close. She had to be. I could feel it.
“What’s that?” Nolan demanded, catching up to me. We both looked down at the liquid pooling on the brick outside the next to last stall. In the middle of it was a single shell casing.
For a split second, my heart stopped. Then I heard a faint hiss and spotted the wand and hose, still spraying a fine mist of water.
“Water,” I rasped.
“Two sets of footprints,” Nolan observed.
We followed them to where they seemed to jumble and combine against the stone wall. Discarded in the middle of the wet prints was a pitchfork. The tines were stained red. There were rusty, red droplets dotting the floor.
“Bet you a hundred bucks Lina stabbed him with the pitchfork,” Nolan predicted.
“I’m not takin’ that bet.” Something like pride pushed at the bubble of fear in my chest. Lina could and would handle her own until I found her.
We followed the trail of blood and water to the end of the room. A tall wooden fence with a gate opened into another darkened space.
Light from the stables spilled into the pitch-black, and I could see the floor was covered in a thick layer of sawdust.
“I think it’s an indoor riding ring,” Nolan said. “There’s gotta be a switch around here some—”
There was a noise in the dark. A strangled kind of yelp, followed by a thump and a grunt. I didn’t care that I couldn’t see. I knew she was in there and I would find her.
“You fucking stabbed me with a pitchfork!” howled a disembodied man’s voice.
“You were asking for it, you stupid fucking moron,” Lina shot back scathingly.
She was okay. At least okay enough to talk shit.
“Angelina!” My voice cut through the blackness like a dart.
“Nash! Get out of here! Ouch! You son of a bitch—”
I was getting closer. I could tell by the sounds of the scuffle growing louder. I dodged my way around a large, shadowy object. A vehicle or farm implement under a tarp, I realized. There were more of them lined up between me and her, creating an obstacle course.