Gypsy Brothers: The Complete Series (63 page)

FOURTEEN

Jase and Luis cover Grandma’s body up with blankets before piling dirt over her. I’m on the porch, sheltered from the hot sun, a gun in one hand in case Donny or Agent Dunn decide to move and my other arm curled around Elliot’s waist. He won’t speak. He just stares off into space, his eyes red, his stance rigid, his expression dream-like. He looks a little mad.

At this stage, I think we all do.

Once she’s buried, there’s nothing else to do but leave. I still can’t reconcile the fact that the faceless body in the dirt is Grandma, but it is. Dornan killed her. And then he dug three graves. The message is pretty fucking clear. Behave or the other two graves will be filled with the bodies of Elliot’s daughter and her mother. When I think about it like that, I want to be sick all over again.

Before they started hefting dirt over Grandma’s still corpse, Luis plugged the string of GPS coordinates into his phone and came up with a hit.

Dornan’s directed Elliot, and us by default, into a section of Death Valley called Furnace Creek.

Death Valley. Because that’s not foreboding or anything.

Fuck.

We reconvene in the living room briefly. Gather ourselves, get our bearings — oh, yeah, and grab plenty of weapons. Elliot’s got a small artillery in the garage, and we’re each bestowed with a loaded pistol and plenty of ammo. I’ve managed to score a more appropriate outfit from one of my storage boxes in the garage – a white tee and jeans with black boots. I’ve kept the CIA jacket as part of my outfit. I don’t know why, but for some reason, it makes me feel like a badass to wear it. The purple dress I throw in Elliot’s rag box. If we make it out of this alive, he can polish his fucking mustang with it.

It’s while we’re checking our clips and dispersing extra ammo into our pockets that I hear the cars. They’re driving
fast
. And, before I can even finish turning towards the large bay window that overlooks the front yard, there are three unmarked police cruisers on the front lawn.

“We got company!” Jase yells, pulling Agent Dunn down to the ground beside him. I hit the deck as well, looking up to see Elliot and Luis have done the same. Donny is still largely unconscious, making a few grunted noises now and then, but nothing I care to waste effort on trying to decipher.

“We have to get out of here,” Elliot says, his eyes ablaze. We’re all lying on our stomachs on the floor, heads up just enough to see each other, when there’s a knock on the door.

“Police, open up!” a low voice booms.

CIA?
I mouth. Jase shrugs, but Elliot shakes his head.

“I don’t know,” he mutters. “Whoever it is, I can’t let them hold me up. I have to get to the girls.”

“Go out the back way,” Jase urges Elliot. He glances at me. “You too, Julz. We’ll hold them off as long as we can. You gotta get to the airstrip. We’ll meet you there.”

I can tell it kills him to say it, but he’s being smart. If we all get held up by the heat at the door, we’re screwed and Elliot’s girls are as good as dead.

“Go,” I say to Elliot, who nods and starts army-crawling through the living room to the kitchen. I follow him on my hands and knees, ducking low in case the cops out front decide to start peppering the house with bullets. We both reach the back door, and Elliot leans against it briefly.

“If there’s someone out there,” he says quietly, “you fucking shoot them. Do not shoot me. You understand?”

I want to tell him this isn’t my first rodeo, but I bite my tongue. In the end, I just nod.

He glances around one last time before reaching up and yanking the door open. There’s nobody there, and we both crawl onto the deck out back, guns ready.

Things are moving so fast, I don’t even have time to acknowledge how terrified I am. There’s a good chance these people want us dead.

And then, we’re made.

Three cops sprint around the side of the house, guns pointed at us. We’re not just outnumbered, we’re also at a distinct disadvantage, having no cover, unlike the cops who are sheltering behind the base of the deck, their guns pointed up at us.

Two of them are dressed in dark blue fatigues and carrying heavy artillery. The third, however, is dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, a plain black baseball cap on his head, a standard police issue revolver in his grip.

I recognize this guy. I fucking
know
him.

“Drop your guns,” he says. “Both of you.”

My face falls as I lower my gun. Beside me, I see Elliot battle with himself before lowering his gun to his side.

“Drop them and kick them over to me,” the guy says.

“Tommy?” I ask incredulously. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Tommy, son of one of the most notorious Gypsy Brothers in the history of the club, lowers his gun slightly. “It’s not what you think,” he says.

“You’re here for Donny,” I say, my heart sinking. I refuse to let go of my gun. I glance over to Elliot to see he’s doing the same, gripping his pistol tightly at his side as I see him mentally calculate how many rounds he can get off before he’s shot dead.

Tommy, son of Viper, was Donny’s best friend growing up. He shakes his head emphatically. “I’m not here for Donny,” he says. “I’m here for you.”

Jase appears on the deck, hands on his head. He’s being pushed from behind by an agent wearing a clearly marked DEA jacket.

“I didn’t know you were with the CIA,” Tommy says to me.

I roll my eyes. “I didn’t know you were with the DEA.”

Tommy, five-eleven and wiry, smiles tightly at me, his boyish dimples still there despite the fact that he’s almost thirty years old. “You’re not supposed to,” he responds. His brown eyes appear troubled, especially when they look to Jase.

“Tommy?” Jase exclaims, taking his hands off his head and going to rush down the stairs. The unmistakable sound of guns being leveled at him makes him stop mid-stride, and he slowly puts his hands back on his head.

“Tommy, what the hell’s going on, man?”

“I thought you got busted for attempted murder,” I say, confused.

He tilts his head. “And I thought you were dead, Julie.”

Elliot clears his throat. “What the fuck’s going on right now?”

Jase and I look from Tommy to Elliot. “Wait …” I say slowly. “Do you two know each other?”

Tommy grins, holstering his gun and motioning for the two cops beside him to lower theirs. “Who do you think called the cops and got your ass out of that hospital six years ago?”

Something breaks loose inside of me, a small memory, six years dormant, of worried brown eyes that watched as I was wheeled past Gypsy Brothers and into emergency. Worried eyes that peered through a window as I was shocked back to life, paddles sending electricity into my body that made me think I was on fire.

“Wasn’t right, what they did to you,” Tommy says to me, the smile gone now.

Tommy
. After Elliot had taken me away to Nebraska, I’d never given him a second thought. He was — is — Viper’s son. Viper was Dornan’s right-hand man, especially when he and my father stopped seeing eye to eye. And Viper’s a bad man.

But, it seems his son must be made from something different.

“That was you?” Elliot asks. “You’re DEA?”

Tommy shrugs. “Wasn’t back then. Things change.”

“You’re the rat,” Elliot surmises.

Tommy raises his eyebrows, amused. “I prefer undercover agent. But sure. Whatever takes your fancy.”

“Jesus Christ,” I whisper.

“You can pick up your jaw now,” Tommy says to me.

“Oh, well, now that everyone’s
best fucking friends
,” I manage to say, feeling slightly annoyed that I’m the odd one out, yet relieved at the same time. Then I remember Luis.

“So, how does Luis fit?” I ask. “You all been friends with him your whole lives, too?”

Luis looks amused.

Jase raises his eyebrows. “Luis is a fucking wildcard,” he replies. “If we make it out of this I’ll tell you all about
motherfucking Luis
.”

Elliot shifts impatiently from foot to foot. “On that note,” he says. “It’s really fucking great that you’re all having a reunion and everything, but we gotta go.”

Tommy smiles. “Why do you think we’re here?”

Elliot eyes him warily. “Why
are
you here?”

Tommy shrugs his shoulders. “We’re here for the same reason you are. To take down Dornan Ross.”

Well.

I frown. “And by take down, you mean …”

“I mean, put him in prison for the rest of his life,” Tommy says.

Elliot goes all angry dude again. “That fucker’s got my kid!” he yells, storming Tommy.

“Hey!” I yell, getting in front of Elliot and pushing my palms against his chest. “Don’t do it, El,” I implore him. “Calm down.”

“He’ll never see the inside of a jail cell,” Elliot fumes, “because I’m going in there, and I’m fucking EXECUTING him!”

I turn, putting Elliot behind me as I address Tommy. “First thing,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest, “is how do we know we can trust you?”

Tommy grins, looking at the ground as he licks his lips. “Well, you can trust me because you’d be dead if it weren’t for me.”

“Hmph,” I reply. “And why do we need you to help us, again?”

Tommy nods, taking a deep breath. “How many of you are there? Four? I mean, she’s the hostage, right?”

I look over at Dunn, silent as always. “Maybe,” I concede.

He chuckles. “Sugar, you got any idea how many people are in that bunker? Because I do.”

I look at Elliot and Jase, puzzled. “Wait, it’s a bunker?”

“You know the floorplan of this bunker? Because I do.”

“You could be bluffing,” I say. “You could be trapping us. You’re Viper’s son, Tommy. What kind of man goes against his own father?”

Tommy tilts his head, his smile vanishing slightly. “I don’t know,” he says. “What kind of man goes against his own father?” And looks at Jase pointedly.

“Are you kidding me?” I respond. “Dornan
murdered
his mother. Kept him in a fucking dungeon for three years.” I don’t even want to mention what he did to me. I’m tired of talking about it.

I just want him to be dead.

I just want this to be over.

I just want some fucking sleep.

Tommy doesn’t answer. I remember his dad beating him up from time to time, but as far as I know his mom’s still alive, and he hasn’t done any dungeon time.

“What kind of man goes against his own father?” Tommy repeats woodenly. “Well, the type of man who sees his father try and kill a teenage girl in her hospital bed, that’s who. Loyalty only takes you so far.”

“Oh,” I reply.

Tommy raises his eyebrows at me. “Yeah.”

Donny stirs as Jase and Luis are hauling his ass to Elliot’s Mustang to drive back to the airstrip. He starts muttering something unintelligible as he’s being dragged by his arms, but he doesn’t get very far. Luis hefts him onto the ground beside the car and takes a large syringe out of his pocket, ripping the lid off with his teeth and planting that bad boy into Donny’s neck faster than he can draw breath. Almost immediately, he stops struggling again, going limp in the dirt.

“What’d you give him?” I ask.

“Something that’ll knock him out for a long while,” Luis replies. I frown. “Not too long, I hope,” I reply. “What’s the flight time out to Furnace Creek? Two, three hours?”

Luis caps the syringe and grips it between his teeth, fishing a second impressive-looking needle from his pocket. Unlike the first one, which has a red cap, this one has a green cap. “Red for stop, green for go,” he says, smiling wide around the capped syringe between his teeth.

“Is that like —” I’m thinking of the crap Dornan injected into me when I was his prisoner, the cold and heat, the uppers and downers that he injected into my body again and again, until I didn’t know if I was asleep or awake.

Luis nods, still grinning, and I can’t help but shake my head in amusement.

FIFTEEN

The flight takes us two hours and thirty-seven minutes.

I know, because I can’t stop looking at Agent Dunn’s phone the entire time. Counting down every minute, every second, until we’re there and I’ve got those girls in my grasp and I can stop wondering whether this is going to work or not.

Two hours and thirty-seven minutes, and they might be some of the last minutes I’ll spend on this earth. I should be telling Jase how much I love him, or something, but I can’t form words. I just sit, gun in my lap, staring at the phone.

“You don’t have to give yourself up to him,” a voice pipes up from next to me.

Agent Dunn. Great.

Six pairs of eyes, including mine, turn to the source of the noise. Six. Yeah, Tommy and one of his DEA dudes hitched a ride with us. I’m still not sure how I feel about that, but they didn’t exactly give us a choice. And, true to their word, they’ve been showing us detailed floorplans of this place. It’s huge.

“Oh,” Jase says to Agent Dunn in disgust, “I guess you’re awake, huh?”

Agent Dunn — looking worse for wear, her hair all mussed up and her mascara clumping — coughs into her hand, her cuffs clinking as she does so.

“What a surprise,” I say slowly. “You’ve got a resistance to sleeping pills. Find it hard to sleep at night, Agent?”

We dosed her with some sleeping pills before we boarded the flight in case she tried anything. Figured it would make her more compliant once we got to Furnace Creek, but now I’m starting to wonder. She looks pretty awake.

She gives me a petulant stare. “I’m just trying to help you,” she mutters.

I snort. “Oh, really? And why would you help me?”

“Because you said you’re going to kill him. And now the DEA are telling you that you can’t kill him.” She glares at Tommy. “And I
really
need you to kill him.”

I glance back at Jase and Elliot, who are looking just as alarmed as me at her sudden change of tone.

“My badge,” she says. “It’s inside my jacket.”

Instinctively, I reach into her jacket — I’m still wearing it — and fish out a leather wallet from the left pocket. I open it, finding nothing other than a badge and her identification. Jase, Elliot and Luis get out of their seats across the plane and gather around us.

“Behind the ID,” Agent Dunn says.

I lift up the plastic sleeve that protects her ID card. There’s a folded piece of card behind it, pressed flat against the back of her ID. You’d never find it unless you were looking. I slide two fingers into the wallet and pinch the piece of card, prising it out of the tight space.

It’s folded. I open it, realizing as I do that it’s not a piece of card but a photograph. Before I can tear my eyes away, they’re taking in details. A young girl, maybe five, sitting on her mother’s lap. I know it’s her mother because they both have the same, identical smile. Their lips are the same, the way their cheeks crease up in the same spots. Even their teeth look the same.

I toss the photo on the table that folds down in the space that separates Jase and I from Elliot and Luis. “This is your kid, huh?” Jase asks, studying the photo.

“Yeah,” she says.

“And?” I ask. There’s always an
and
with things like this.

“And, I don’t get her back until you’re secured. I thought I was walking out today to pick her up when I found my colleague drowning in his own blood.” She looks pointedly at me.

“And you waited this long to tell us?” I ask. “Sounds like you’ve been using the time since then to think of a good sob story, lady.”

Her face crumples. “Please,” she whispers, holding her palms together in a begging gesture. “He was always listening.” She glances worriedly at Donny, who’s lucky to still be breathing with the amount of dope currently in his system. He’s not hearing anything right now except maybe the sound of his own heart beating slower and slower.

“So you got a kid,” Luis says with a shrug. “Big deal.”

“They’re going to kill her if I don’t do what they say!” she cries, lunging forward until the chain looped around her cuffs tightens and pulls her back violently.

I raise my eyebrows at her sudden outburst. “So, what do you propose we do?” I ask out of interest.

She licks her lips; they look like dry sandpaper, and I remember we haven’t given her any water today.

Oh well.

“You don’t need to give yourself up to him,” she says. “You just need to make it seem like you are. Make him think he’s won. Make him think you’re weak. Then fucking execute him!”

It’s the first time I’ve heard the agent swear. She’s impressive. Still, I don’t like being told what to do.

“What if it’s a trap?” I ask.

She shrugs. “You want Amy and Kayla back, don’t you? Isn’t it worth the risk?”

I turn back to Elliot, whose face is making that weird expression again. He looks like he’s about to trip out and strangle a bitch.

“How the fuck does she know their names?” he mutters, bewildered. I put a hand up to him as if to say,
calm down
. 

“She has a point,” I say, running my hands through my loose hair and scratching at my scalp. I’m so tired, it’s going to take digging my fingernails into my own flesh to keep me awake until we find some coffee. Or cocaine. I’d almost take either at this point.

“You’re not going in there,” Jase says pointedly, pinning me with his stare. “It’s not up for discussion.”

Elliot leaps to his feet. “Elliot,” I say quietly, as I jump up out of my seat and follow him. He shakes his head, charging to the back end of the plane. I follow a few steps behind, coming to an abrupt stop when he does at the small kitchen that’s tucked behind the bathroom stall in the back.

He turns, leaning against the counter as we study each other.

“I haven’t even asked you if you’re okay,” he says, rubbing his hand back and forth across his stubbled jaw anxiously. His eyes drop to my stomach, and I know he’s thinking about the baby.

I shake my head. “Don’t worry about me, Elliot. Don’t even think about me. Think about the girls. If we make it out of this mess? You can ask me if I’m okay.”

I don’t add, if he makes it out, I’ll probably be dead, because he’s got enough to worry about right now.

He nods, giving my arm a squeeze.

“Elliot,” I say, stopping him. I just want him to know — to know that I get it, that I understand.

“I know I don’t have a child like you do,” I say hesitantly. “But I was somebody’s mother, just for a moment.” My throat starts to close up painfully. “All I’m trying to say is, I know what it feels like. To want to protect your child more than anything. From anything. Everything else is
nothing
when it comes to your daughter.”

His eyes widen, and he brings one fist up, pressing it against his lips. We don’t say anything else. He just looks at me, and I know it’s taking every ounce of strength he possesses not to break down and cry for his girls.

Before we land, Tommy and his DEA partner spread a large set of floorplans on the back wall of the plane, each holding a side to stop it from rolling back up at the edges. Luis, Elliot, Jase and I stand before them, as they explain the different entry points.

“This place used to be a bunker and artillery store during the war,” Tommy says. “Some of it’s been mined, as well. Emilio’s Cartel’s been using it since the eighties to coordinate drug drops and store heavy arms.”

I nod, something troubling me. “This place is huge,” I say. “How the hell are we supposed to find the girls in all that?”

“We go in teams of two,” Tommy replies. “There is one main entry point, and that’s where Juliette, Elliot and Donny will enter. We’ll take the south fire escape,” he says, referring to himself and his partner. “Luis, Jase, you can take north or east.”

Jase shakes his head tightly. “I’m going with her,” he says, pointing at me.

Tommy shrugs. “Fine. Luis, you happy to go in solo?”

Luis nods. “Sure thing.”

“What about me?” Agent Dunn pipes up. “Who do I go with?”

Everyone turns and looks at Agent Dunn, still cuffed and in her seat.

“You come with me,” Luis says.

“Well, that’s settled. And let’s make one thing clear, people. You do not shoot Dornan Ross. We need him alive, or we’re all screwed.”

“You mean, you’ll be screwed,” Elliot says pointedly. “I think the rest of us’ll be just fine.”

Tommy drops his grip on the floorplan, and it springs back to the other agent in a neat roll.

“Everything has a price, Mr. McRae,” Tommy says. “This doesn’t end when you get your girls back. There’ll be a court case. You’ll all have to testify. Protective custody. This is only the beginning. You really think we’re going to be able to dismantle the largest drug cartel in Central America in one afternoon?”

Elliot snorts. “You think I give a fuck about dismantling a drug cartel?”

Tommy steps closer, shorter than Elliot but just as imposing.

“You really think you’re going to be able to stay one step ahead of hundreds of Dornan’s associates, the rest of the Gypsy Brothers, and Emilio’s entire extended family?”

Elliot doesn’t respond. Inside my stomach, panic is building, and it doesn’t feel good. Shit. What were we thinking? That once we finished Donny and Dornan, that things would be done? That we’d be able to set up house and spend the money Dornan is still looking for, to this very day?

We’re going to be hiding for a very long time, and that makes me sadder than I could’ve imagined.

“Be smart,” Tommy finishes, looking at all of us. “Six years ago, I got in with the DEA and betrayed every person in my family and my club. It was always going to come down to this eventually. Juliette’s managed to speed things up considerably,” he gives me an amused glance, which I return with a wry smile, “but essentially, we are looking at years and years of trying to smash this syndicate. It’s international. It’s powerful. And trust me when I say — you want somebody like the DEA on your side after today, when you need new identities and somewhere safe to run to.”

Nobody responds.

“Okay?” Tommy urges.

A collection of grunts and yeses are muttered as the pilot starts speaking over the intercom, telling us we’re about to start descending and that we should take our seats and buckle up.

I can’t stop thinking about Tommy’s words as we’re descending.
You want somebody like the DEA on your side
. I wish I didn’t need anyone on my side, but deep down, sickening as it is, I know he’s probably right.