Deliverance (The Maverick Defense #1) (33 page)

I
pulled into the driveway just as Mikey appeared at the side of the house, the familiar rumble of my Camaro alerting him to our arrival, no doubt. I killed the engine and Lex and I climbed out and helped Ari out. The journey home from the hospital had been tense, to say the least.

“Where’s Joy?” he asked, dipping his head to see if she was still in the truck and missed Lex’s warning shake of the head as he supported Ari. I slammed the driver’s door shut and launched into another tirade.

“They fucking took her.”

Mikey’s mouth dropped open. “At the hospital?”

“Yeah,” I grumbled and stormed past them into the house, not needing to see the looks that passed between them. By the time they followed me inside, I was pacing the small living room with my fists balled at my side, desperate to take my anger out on someone.

“How the fucking hell did this happen?” I raged as I paced back and forth, pushing both hands through my hair in frustration. All three of them watched me warily, keeping their distance. “Dammit, Joy.” I kicked the small side table with enough force to send it ricocheting off the wall.

Ari cowered behind Lex, her face ashen, drained of any color, and her blue eyes wide and fearful. Yeah, I was sure I looked like a deranged crazy person, but they had her. He fucking had her. Fuck, why did Joy have to go back for Ari’s belongings? Why couldn’t she have just stayed with us like we’d discussed?

“Dawson,” Lex barked, and he was in front of me in a shot, his hands gripping my shoulders, holding me back, and preventing me from doing any more damage.

“I won’t fucking tell you again.” He pushed against me, and this time, I admitted defeat. I held both hands up in surrender and he backed off, giving me space. This was the second time he’d had to restrain me after we had realized something had happened to Joy.

“Whoa, wait a minute. Start from the beginning. How the hell did they get to her?” Mikey asked.

I hadn’t thought to call him on the ride home. Mainly because I had been frantically trying to work out how to get her back. But I couldn’t get past the stage where I showed up at the club and beat the shit out of Donnie.

I leaned against the counter and hung my head, pinching the bridge of my nose unable to find my voice. Thankfully, Lex spoke. “We were leaving the hospital with Ari when the nurse stopped us to say she’d forgotten her belongings. Joy went back to get them and was taken.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she never fucking came back,” I roared, and Mikey paled.

“We checked the room and all we found were Ari’s belongings on the bed. And no Joy.”

“How did they get her out?” Mikey asked, obviously confused, but my anger only grew with all his questions.

“She followed the nurse back to the room to collect Ari’s things. They could have taken her out of another entrance.”

“Holy shit.” Mikey breathed out and sunk into the armchair.

Behind Lex, Ari mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

It was only the second time I’d heard her speak since we’d arrived at the hospital with Joy. She sounded exhausted and her voice trembled as if she was on the verge of tears. When she looked up, the guilt and regret, combined with unshed tears in her eyes, made me feel like a total dick. It wasn’t her fault this had happened. Joy went back for her belongings, and in that one instant, they took her. If anything, it was my fault. I was the one who fucked up; I should never have lowered my guard. If anything happened to her …

I shook my head and tried my best not to scowl at the girl. “It’s not your fault, Ari.” Joy wanted to go to her. Why I hadn’t stopped her, I don’t know, but there was no stopping Joy when she had an idea in her head. Her loyalty had been her downfall.

“They would have gotten her somehow.” Lex tried to make me feel better, and as much I hated to admit it, I knew he was right. The longer we stayed here, the more risk of something like this happening. The only way she was ever going to be safe was by getting the hell out of Chancing.

“What will you do?” she asked in a quiet voice, her bottom lip quivering. She looked ready to fall apart at any minute.

“Go to the club and deal with that motherfucker once and for all,” I stated. At the vehemence in my tone, Ari’s mouth popped open and her gaze cut to mine. Whatever she saw made her flinch, and I could only imagine the look in my eyes.

Lex cast me a sideways glance. “Or come up with a plan to rescue her.”

“Another fucking plan,” I muttered. Since we arrived in Chancing, none of our plans had been worth shit. To start with, the plan had been to come here for the funeral and leave, and look how well that turned out. Now, we had to rescue Joy and get the hell out of dodge before it all went to shit with Donnie.

Ignoring me, Lex turned to Ari. She had dropped her head and her long pinkish hair fell forward, shielding her face. The blood from earlier had dried and was stuck in clumps to her hair. The poor thing looked dead on her feet, still dressed in her hospital gown. The hospital staff had cleaned the cut at the side of her mouth, but it was still red and swollen, and when she lifted her head, red handprints were visible on her slender neck. My stomach clenched in anger and I had to look away because it only made me angrier. This young girl had taken a beating at the hands of Donnie. Just like Joy. Ari had taken Joy’s place when we swooped in and didn’t let her go back. I’d rescued one girl but thrown another one to the wolves. As heartless as it made me, I’d do it again, anything to protect Joy, but now, we were back at the beginning. I had to get to her before he did something I couldn’t fix.

Ari was now standing so close to Lex she was practically curled into his side, beyond scared. It was me; I frightened her, not that I could blame her. Lex leaned down to talk quietly to her. “Go upstairs and take a shower. I’ll get a change of clothes for you and something to eat. Okay?”

She nodded and hurried out the room and up the stairs.

“Jesus, Dawson, you’re scaring the life out of her.”

“Sorry but …” I shoved my hands through my hair again. “Come on, Lex, I can’t stand this. I need to do something. I need to get her back.”

“So much for it not being personal,” he muttered, and my eyes narrowed in his direction. But taking my anger and frustration out on Lex was not the way to go. It would make him even calmer and more calculated.

“Come on, man,” I groaned.

“Dawson’s right.” Mikey spoke up. His brows bunched together as he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. Real concern shone in his eyes along with fear.

Lex stared between the both of us. “So what? We go in there and grab her?”

“Yeah, exactly,” I snapped.

“Dawson,” he warned, “it’s just us. He’s got far more men and-”

“We can take them,” I said, fully confident of our abilities.

“It’s not keeping a low profile.”

“Fuck that,” I shouted and turned on him. He crossed the small distance between us and we stood toe-to-toe. Lex wasn’t backing down, but then, neither was I. “Listen, I know you need to keep Maverick Defense out of it, but if you won’t do it, I’ll do it myself.”

“Dawson …” he growled but was cut off by the sound of his cell blaring out his back pocket. He pulled it out and held up his finger to silence me as he answered the call. “Whatcha got?”

Aidan
, I concluded and sunk onto the couch, stretching my long legs out in front of me. I folded my arms across my chest and waited.

“You’ve got to be joking … seriously … Fuck.” The tone of Lex’s voice had me on high alert or maybe it was his choice of words. “Right. No. There’s been a complication … What? Shit! Fine … fine, we’re on it.”

Abruptly, he hung up and turned to us, a grim look on his face. It was enough to make Mikey and me jump to our feet. I opened my mouth to demand what in the hell was going on, but Lex beat me to it. “It was Aidan.” He paused and patted his pockets, looking for something. “Shit’s going down for real.”

“What?” I demanded.

“There’s another shit storm on the horizon, and it’s heading our way.” He looked around the room, and I was ready to wrap my hands around his neck and strangle the life out of him. Why couldn’t he finish a fucking sentence and stop being so cryptic?

“Lex …” I warned, fists balling at my side, and his blue eyes snapped to mine.

“The Mexicans are on their way. We need to get Joy the hell out of there, like now.” And then he walked out the room, leaving Mikey and me staring at each other.

“Wait. What the fuck did you say?” We scrambled after him into the kitchen where he had finally found what he was looking for. The keys to his Jeep.

“According to Aidan, they’re sending a Lieutenant and some men out to scope out the town and Donnie. They’re on their way.”

“Holy fuck.” This came from Mikey, not me for once. I was stunned into silence. This could not be happening. The Mexicans were coming to see Donnie, and he had Joy. She could not be caught up in this. No way.

“We need to move now,” Lex shouted before he threw open the back door and headed outside.
What in the hell was he doing
, I wondered. I wished he’d stand still and explain. After another confused look in Mikey’s direction, we both followed Lex outside.

By the time we found him in the garage, he had his head stuck in the back of his Jeep and was hauling out two aluminum cases. He set them on the concrete ground before he pulled up the bottom panel behind the backseat. But instead of revealing a spare tire, it was a cache of guns.

“Shit.” I whistled, my eyes growing wide. “You’ve had them all along?” I craned my neck for a better look.

“Yeah, I was taking them to Aidan when we left here. Guess we’ll need them now. Why do you think I insisted on keeping the Jeep in here all the time?” He grinned. Lex was in his element. For all his reluctance for an all-out war, a showdown, or a gunfight with Donnie, it had been forced on us, and now, he was willing to finish it.

He tossed me a Kevlar jacket and nodded to a case on the ground. “Take it inside. Suit up, all black but no Maverick Defense branding. Vest, guns, ammo, as much as you can fit on you,” he instructed, a grave look on his face. There was no messing around now; shit just got serious and we were ready to bring it.

“Mikey.” He turned to my brother, who looked shell-shocked and completely out of his depth. “I need you to swap the cars around so the Jeep is in the driveway. We’ll use this to go to the club.” Mikey nodded, relief flickered in his eyes that Lex didn’t expect him to suit up too. He had our backs, but he didn’t have the training for this.

Lex and I carried two stacked aluminum cases between us into the house while Mikey opened up the garage doors and jogged out to his truck. Once we’d dumped the cases in the kitchen, I took the steps two at a time and was in the middle of changing when Lex appeared at my door.

“Does Joy have any spare clothes for Ari?” Lex asked. He hadn’t changed yet, and he hovered at the door while I dug out a pair of jeans and a baggy sweatshirt.

“Here.” I tossed them to him and then he disappeared, leaving me to finish dressing.

I pulled on a black t-shirt and strapped the bulletproof vest over the top. The guns were all downstairs, but I pulled out a knife from my nightstand and strapped it to my thigh.

Back in the kitchen, Mikey was waiting for us at the table with his head in his hands. The Jeep now sat in the driveway and one of the cases lay open to reveal more guns and more than enough ammo. I set about holstering guns on my torso and hiding a couple of smaller pistols in my vest. Mikey watched with his mouth agape. He started to speak a couple of times, but shock got the better of him and he remained silent.

Five minutes later, Lex came into the kitchen wearing his professional, no-nonsense expression. He started checking guns for ammo before concealing them around his body. There was a knife strapped to his thigh, camouflaged against his black combats. As he clicked the magazine into his gun and slid it into his shoulder holster, Ari appeared behind him. She hovered in the kitchen doorway, uncertain of where she should be. Long hair hung in damp strands around a freshly clean face. I wondered how long she had stood under the hot spray scrubbing the dried blood off her body and washing it out of her hair.

The oversized sweater she wore slipped off one shoulder as she pulled on the sleeves, curling her hands inside and gripping the ends. It made her look young, younger than her … shit, how old had Joy said she was? Seventeen? Looking at her now, she could be my sister. Far too young to be working for Donnie. This was too fucked up. He needed to be taken down, not just for what he’d done to Joy, but for Ari as well.

What would happen to Ari once all this was over? There was no way she could go back to working for Donnie. The beating he’d give her had been a warning, a taste of what was to come. But now, I was beginning to wonder if it had all been an elaborate setup to draw Joy out into the open.

Lex turned and saw her standing there. A slight smile spread across his lips before he shut it off and was back to business.

“So how’s it going to go down?” I asked, growing antsy. Now that I was getting what I wanted, storming the club to rescue Joy, I was desperate to get going. Fuck knows what we would find when we got there, especially now that we knew the Mexicans were on their way. I wanted this over and done with.