Honored: An Alpha Mob Romance (City Series Book 4) (23 page)

“Fuck you, Liam. And fuck your smug, controlling bullshit. I’m coming with you and that’s final.”

I sighed and stood up, tucking the gun into my belt. I slung the duffel over my shoulder and shook my head at her. “I have to go. I don’t have time for this.”

I brushed past her, but she grabbed my arm. I shrugged her off, maybe a little too hard, and kept moving. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt her, or push her away, but she was giving me no other choices.

“You’re not going without me,” she said, her voice completely calm.

I felt her following me closely. I got to the bottom of the step and whirled on her, anger rising up through my chest.

“What the fuck is the matter with you, Ellie? Why do you need to make this harder for me?”

She didn’t response, just pressed herself against me, standing eye to eye with me on the bottom step, and kissed me. I was pissed and almost wanted to pull away, but I didn’t know when I’d get another chance to taste her again, or if I ever would. I relaxed into her kiss and wrapped my arms around her waist.

Slowly, she pulled away. “No more keeping me at arm’s distance, you asshole. Leave me at a safe distance, whatever, but I’m coming with you. I have to be there.”

I stared at her, pain and desire and sadness fighting for dominance in my mind.

“If I let you come,” I said slowly, “you have to do exactly what I say.”

“I can do that.”

“If I tell you to run and don’t look back, you will haul ass in the direction I’m pointing and never for a second consider turning your head. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

I stared at her as the wheels in my mind began to spin. If she was coming, I could at least give her a task.

“There are some binoculars in the bottom drawer upstairs.”

She nodded and turned, moving out of my grasp. I felt empty for half a second as she moved upstairs. My eyes locked on her firm ass and I frowned, annoyed that I could feel my cock stirring in my pants. It wasn’t the time.

The plan slowly began to form in my mind. I knew the layout of the area like the back of my hand sine it was at the edge of my territory. And if she was coming, I could at least put her in a spot out of harm’s way. But we’d need to move fast.

She came back down the stairs.

“Okay, follow me. We need to most as fast as we can.”

She nodded. I pushed open the door, heart hammering in my chest, and she followed.

We hustled together, side by side, toward whatever was happening next.

I
was positive I was going to fall. The old rusty metal fire escape was practically bending underneath me, and it swayed with every small breeze. And I hated heights.

I pressed the binoculars against my face and could clearly make out the field where the deal was supposed to go down. The black duffle bag full of papers was pressed up against my side, both terrifying and reassuring in its weight.

There was nothing to do but wait. Liam’s plan was pretty simple. I was to stay put and do absolutely nothing unless he gave me the sign to come down. If something bad happened, I had Leary’s number. I was supposed to call him, explain what happened, and get out of the city as fast as I could.

A thousand different scenarios kept running through my mind as I laid there on the fire escape, swaying gently in the wind. If Liam got killed, what was I going to do? Could I go to the police? Was I capable of running away from the people who had murdered him? I had no clue what I was capable of anymore. In the beginning, when it all first happened, I was a broken mess. But days passed, and eventually I found a deep reservoir of strength that I had never realized was there. It was the same strength that I used every day to remain clean. I repurposed it toward survival.

And I was stronger. Liam was still orders of magnitude beyond me, still a human wrecking ball of pure and unbridled animal intensity, but I was beginning to siphon some of that off of him. I was absorbing his power and his ferocity. I was closer to death than I had ever been, but because of Liam I felt more alive than ever.

Minutes passed by agonizingly slowly. Nobody appeared in the field. The whole neighborhood was silent except for the sound of the occasional car driving through. There were no children playing, nobody outside on their stoops. I shuddered, the lack of action completely creepy, but kept my eyes on the binoculars. The hood was pulled over my head, keeping my hair tucked back and hopefully blocking anybody from getting a good view of my face.

I began to wonder if Liam had lied to me. What if he had put me up in some random fire escape and told me to stay put just to keep me out of danger? The thought immediately pissed me off. But then again, he had left the papers with me, so that made no sense. He would need them no matter what happened. I had to be nearby if the whole thing was going to work. What if they were out of my sightline, in some corner of the field blocked by a building? Liam wouldn’t make that mistake; he knew what he was doing.

I hated waiting. True, it was good that I was finally out of that horrible safe house, but at least there the waiting could be tempered with some horrible TV shows. Up on the fire escape, I was exposed to the world, naked to whatever was going to happen. I had no control. That’s probably what bothered me most. I was a passive observer to one of the most important moments in my life, something that would change the course of everything that followed and would define me.

I gripped the binoculars and felt like I was moments from climbing down the fire escape and finding Liam down on the ground, but then something moved. I focused on it and saw them: two guys walking out into the center of the open space. The one guy was smaller than the other and looked pretty young. The other guy, though, I would have recognized anywhere. It was the man called Max, the man who had held his gun against my skull and threatened to murder me. His arm was in a sling from where Liam had shot him.

I wanted to scream as memories came rushing back into my chest, the terror sending me nearly reeling off the platform. I recoiled back from the binoculars. Instantly, the two forms turned into tiny specks in the distance as I struggled to get my breathing under control. My heart was racing and I could feel sweat pooling all over my skin, and I knew that I was having a minor panic attack.
Get your shit together,
I kept thinking, forcing myself to calm down with deep breaths and willpower.

Slowly, too slowly, I got myself under control. My heart dropped to a more manageable pace and the fear dulled down into something that I could ignore. The man couldn’t do anything to me, didn’t even know where I was. There was an irrational moment there where I was sure they could see me, sure that they knew where I was. That couldn’t be true, though. They were way too far away, and Liam was careful, taking us in circles before finally telling me to climb up. No, those two men had no clue where I was hiding. And Liam would take care of Max. I was safe.

I took another breath and forced myself to press the cold binoculars up against my face.

They were standing together, still alone. Neither of them were talking, and I couldn’t see Liam anywhere. I had no clue what he was doing, but I had to trust that he knew what was happening. I watched the two man stand there, looking around them, and I could tell they were getting progressively more impatient. Maybe ten minutes passed, and finally the taller guy said something to the smaller one, his face a mask of anger. The smaller man made some conciliatory gestures, trying to calm him down. I couldn’t read their lips, but it was clear that the big guy wanted to leave and the shorter one was convincing him to stay.

They argued like that for another minute when suddenly they stopped and faced the opposite side of the field. I panned my binoculars and spotted Liam crossing the space, his face grim. My muscles tensed for what was about to happen.

The smaller man called out and Liam nodded to him, stopping a few feet away. I adjusted the binoculars to get them all in view. Liam nodded to something and gestured in my direction, and the taller man said something, his face still pretty angry. Liam shrugged and grinned at them.

There was a tense moment where nobody moved. Then the smaller man took a step forward and said something. The taller man stepped up beside him, closing the distance between them and Liam by a few feet. Liam didn’t seem to react. He said something, and the smaller man nodded.

It looked like things were going well. Nobody was yelling and everyone was pretty calm, except for the big guy, though I guessed he was probably always pretty pissed off. I couldn’t blame him, since Liam had shot him the last time they came across each other. I hadn’t seen the gesture from Liam yet which meant I should come down, but I was waiting for it, watching with an intensity I didn’t know I had.

The big guy said something, and I could see the surprise on Liam’s face. He took a step backward, grin turning into a confused smile, his hands up in the air.
What the fuck is going on?

Suddenly, the two men pulled guns out. They appeared faster than I thought possible. My heart practically stopped as they stood there, their barrels pointed directly at Liam. His face dropped into a neutral expression, and he said something. The bigger man answered, a vicious grin on his face.

No. No. This couldn’t be happening.

They couldn’t just kill him.

Not when I was holding all of the proof, the stuff that could fuck over their boss.

They wouldn’t just kill him.

The big guy took a step closer, his face twisted into a sick smile.

I wanted to scream.

I
hated having guns pointed at me. There really was nothing worse, especially when one of those guns was controlled by a psycho like Max. I regretted not finishing him off for the hundredth time.

“If you kill me, the girl is going to release all of that info to the press,” I said.

“Good. We’ll kill that bitch next,” Max sneered.

Think Liam, how can you get out of this?
I wracked my brain for an out, but I couldn’t come up with one. I looked at Colin and his expression gave me nothing.

“You too, Colin?” I asked.

“Orders are orders.” He shrugged.

I had a hard time imagining what it would feel like to get shot, really shot, but at least Ellie was safe. She knew what to do in the worst-case scenario, and I knew Leary would at least give her some money and maybe some documents to help her get away. He’d probably have to run, too, that poor asshole.

There was a tense moment. “Don’t let them hurt Richie,” I said to Colin.

He nodded, his face tight. “We’re not monsters.”

I nodded back.

“Okay, enough bullshit. Let’s kill the fucker and get back,” Max snapped.

I closed my eyes. Ellie was safe. I knew Ellie would be safe. This wasn’t all for nothing, in the end. She would get away, and they might even leave her alone. With me gone, she wasn’t much of a threat anymore. Colm had his revenge, and his grip on the city would continue to solidify. Everything would be okay. Colin would protect Richie.

All I had to do was stay still.

It would be over soon. It would all be over.

And then I heard a thud, a loud, sickening crack, and a grunt. Slowly, I opened my eyes, and for a second I thought that I had been shot.

But there was no pain, and Max was stumbling forward. Colin reached back and slammed the butt of his gun down on Max’s head. Max looked shocked and confused as he fell forward face-first into the dirt. I gaped at Colin, not sure what to do. Colin stepped forward and kicked Max again, knocking him unconscious.

He sighed and looked at me. “Sorry about that, Liam.”

“What the fuck?”

He grinned and shrugged. “I told you, back in your office, that I was on your side.”

My mind was reeling. I took a step backward. “Why did you do that?”

“Weird way to thank me, but okay.”

I blinked. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

I stared at Max. He wasn’t moving. He probably wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t getting up anytime soon. I looked back at Colin as he switched on the safety on his gun and slipped it back into its holster under his light brown jacket.

“But why?”

“There’s a lot you don’t know, Liam. Before we get into it, are those papers real?”

I nodded. “It’s all real. And there’s a lot of it.”

“Take me to it.”

“No fucking chance. Tell me what’s happening.”

He appraised me for a second. “I work for Boss O’Brian. Always have, ever since I first started. He’s like a father to me, actually. He made sure that I ended up with you to learn the ropes, and he had me spy on Colm as much as possible when Colm started to take over. But I’ve always been his guy.”

“But O’Brian turned me down.” I could barely think, I realized. My head was spinning in circles, trying to connect the dots.

“Yeah, because you didn’t have shit and he knew it. But when we heard about the break-in at Colm’s place, well, we figured that maybe you found something worth backing. And I really, really hope you did.”

Holy fuck. Boss O’Brian from the very start. That crafty son of a bitch. That beautiful crafty son of a bitch. I wanted to laugh and to cry, but my body was too busy shaking from the adrenaline to do either. I was ready to die, ready to roll over and let them fill me with holes, all to save Richie and Ellie. But we were both going to be okay.

“Yeah, I did. I really fucking did.”

He laughed. “Good. Take me to it.”

I looked over in Ellie’s direction and gave her the signal. “It’ll be here soon.”

He blinked. “What do you mean?”

“The girl. Ellie. I had her hiding out over there, watching all this.”

“You really weren’t bluffing?”

“I really wasn’t.”

He laughed loudly. “God damn, Liam Sullivan. You have some serious balls.”

I shrugged and fidgeted, looking away. He had no clue how hard it was for me to let her come, but it wasn’t worth trying to explain.

“By the way,” Colin said, “why Boss de Barra? What the fuck were you thinking?”