Savage Collision: A Hawke Family Novel (The Hawke Family Book 1) (35 page)

Rustling noises and footsteps echo in the phone, but she isn’t responding.

“Ms. Eriksson, so nice of you to join us.” The male voice is somewhat muffled, but it’s familiar.

Who the fuck is that?

“What’s going on?” That voice I would know anywhere—Danika. She sounds muffled, too. Her phone must be in her purse or something.

I wonder if she knows it’s still connected?

“Don’t play dumb, Ms. Eriksson. It doesn’t suit you. You know precisely why we’re here.”

The voice, I know I recognize it. I’ve heard it before, and it’s dancing around in the back of my mind, just out of reach.

I listen, straining to hear anything else, but all I get is more rustling and garbled words.

“Get your fucking hands off me!”

My hand clenches around the phone. Dani. She’s in trouble. I press “Mute” and turn on speaker phone.

I head for the front door and race across the hall to Gabe’s.

“There’s no need to be so rude, Ms. Eriksson. We’re just here to have a little chat.”

Without knocking, I open the door and find him sitting at the kitchen counter, a spoon halfway up to his mouth. “What the fuck, dude?” He raises an eyebrow and drops the spoon into his bowl.

“Danika’s in trouble.” I set my phone on the counter next to him.

“Bullshit,” she says, her rage evident even through the muffled connection, “the people you have ‘friendly chats’ with are usually never seen again.”

Her words turn my blood to ice in my veins as I finally make the connection to the voice. Matteo Cortesi—Abello’s right-hand goon.

What the fuck is she doing with him?

“Shit, Gabe, she’s with Matteo Cortesi.”

Gabe shoves his stool back and drops his bowl into the sink. “Where is she?”

“I don’t fucking know. She said she had to meet someone before she came over here, and then I called her back and I heard she was in trouble.”

“Shit, do you think Caroline would know?”

“Maybe.” I’ve been listening to Danika’s conversation with Matteo while I explain what’s happening to Gabe. So far, a reference to someone named Paul and an article are all I’ve been able to make out, nothing useful to us.

Gabe disappears down the hallway toward his bedroom and I continue to listen, my entire body screaming to get the fuck out of here and to find her.

“…he didn’t tell me anything. I don’t know anything that could hurt Mr. Abello.”

Fuck, why didn’t she tell me she was doing a story on Abello?

I would’ve warned her off, made it very clear he wasn’t someone to be fucked with.

“You really expect me to believe you don’t have anything damaging on him? Nice try, sweetheart, but Paul already confessed everything he told you. The only question now is who else you’ve told.”

“I haven’t told anyone anything…”

Gabe reemerges in black cargo pants and a tight, long-sleeve black t-shirt, his rifle case over one arm and two handguns strapped into the holster around his shoulders. His phone is pressed to his ear and he nods. “Okay, got it. Thanks, Caroline.”

“Did you find her?”

He sets the rifle case on the coffee table and unzips it, pulling out his .300 Win Mag and quickly checking it over. Gabe rarely discusses his time as Army Ranger sniper, but I know he was good enough to receive two silver stars for his service. Knowing he’s backing me up on this should ease my tension and fear, but it doesn’t, not when Danika’s life is in danger.

“Yeah, Caroline said she was going to meet a source, but she didn’t know where. I asked her if Danika had the ‘find my phone’ app. Turns out she does and Caroline was able to guess her password. The phone is down on Riverside Drive at the Olde Market building.”

“Shit, it will take us at least ten minutes to get down there.”

“Let’s go,” he says, repacking the rifle and grabbing his keys, “I’ll call the police. You keep listening so I can give them an update on what’s happening.”

Gabe drives like a Formula 1 driver, weaving around other cars, blowing past them like they’re barely moving. Danika and Matteo continue to argue about how much Paul told her and what her editor at the paper knows. She stands her ground, and despite my fear and anger at her for getting into this situation, I’m actually proud of her.

“I told you,” she replies for the tenth time. “I never told anyone about the story, and Paul never told me anything.”

“Well, we already know you’re lying about Paul, so why should I believe you about anything?” Matteo asks, his voice growing louder. The thought of that man getting closer to Danika makes my skin crawl.

I vaguely hear Gabe telling the police we are three blocks from the Olde Market.

Three blocks.

It might as well be three miles. He tears around corners at warp speed, slamming me into the door as we pull onto Riverside Drive. He stops the car several yards behind Danika’s.

“Why does it matter what you believe?” she asks, her voice strong and steady, even though she’s no doubt terrified. “You’re going to kill me anyway.”

Gabe’s head whips around when he hears that and he jumps out of the car, grabs his rifle, and tosses me his cell phone. “Keep the police updated. They should be right behind us.” I nod and watch him disappear into the darkness.

I don’t know what he’s going to do, but I know it’s something I can’t even fathom. As long as it gets Dani out of there safely, I don’t care.

“What makes you so sure we’re going to kill you?” Matteo asks.

I can picture the sneer on his face as he taunts her.

“You didn’t lure me to an abandoned building, show up with two of your goons, and interrogate me about my story just to let me walk away.”

Two goons? She’s telling us how many men there are.

I get on Gabe’s phone and relay the information to the dispatcher just as two squad cars and a SWAT vehicle pull up behind me.

Matteo’s maniacal laugh pours from the phone. “You’re smarter than you look, Ms. Eriksson. I shouldn’t be wasting all our time.”

Boom.

A single gunshot rings out, the blast echoing through the phone and going straight to my heart.

My heart stops.

The piercing ring of the gunshot reverberates in my ears and through my chest.

Matteo only fired a shot in the air—a warning shot or maybe to try to scare the shit out of me—but it could just as easily have been in my head.

I have no clue why he didn’t just kill me, but the smile on his face tells me he enjoyed scaring me almost as much as he would have enjoyed leaving my dead body here.

Sadistic fuck!

Somehow, I manage to school my features—letting this man know he terrifies me would be a colossal mistake.

“Now, Ms. Eriksson, let’s stop dancing around the issue and get down to business. You and I both know that I need to know what sort of documentation you kept regarding your meetings with Paul, where those notes are located, and who has access to them. You may be telling me the truth about not telling anyone about your story, but we both know you wouldn’t start investigating a story like this without meticulously documenting every single thing your source revealed.”

Shit. Matteo is smarter than I gave him credit for.

I figured he was just another goon, another meathead Abello used for muscle and intimidation. Apparently, he has some intelligence. It must be why Abello trusts him so much.

My eyes flicker between the two other men standing behind Paul, just to the left of me. Now, these two, who haven’t spoken a word, are clearly just muscle, but not Matteo.

Maybe I can appeal to his intelligence to buy more time. I know if that call stayed connected, Savage will come for me. He has to.

Stall.

“All right, if I tell you everything Paul told me, and where you can find my notes, will you let me go?”

Of course they won’t.

I know that. But, I need to keep him talking and I’m not above playing the blonde bimbo if I need to.

He smirks at me, and the evil glint in his eyes reminds me of a cat toying with a mouse caught under its paw. He knows he has the upper hand, but he enjoys his job too much to end this quickly. He’s also too smart to kill me before he’s sure he has every single piece of evidence relating to his boss.

“If I did let you go, what sort of guarantee would I have that you won’t immediately run to the police, or the media, and reveal everything anyway?”

“You would have my word.”

Matteo drops his head back and his dark laughter echoes throughout the empty warehouse. The two goons join him, though I doubt they have any idea what he’s laughing at.

“Oh, Ms. Eriksson, it really is too bad we had to meet under these circumstances, because, frankly, I think I really like you.”

Use it.

“I agree. Another day, another time, things might have been different.” I take a step closer to him. Maybe he’s dumb enough to fall for it, and maybe, just maybe, I can get my hand on his gun before I end up dead.

He eyes me suspiciously and steps to the side, closer to Paul and his goons.

Why the hell does he have to be the only smart evil henchman in history?

“Unfortunately, Ms. Eriksson, I have my orders, so let’s not make this any harder than it has to be. Give me what I need, and I will end this quickly. If you don’t, I’ll have to make this very unpleasant for you.”

“I can handle pain,” I say with fake boldness, but my body is screaming for me to run. I’m sure Matteo knows ways to inflict pain I can’t even imagine and there’s no way I want to find out. But revealing information from a source is also not an option.

I never thought I’d actually be in this position. My stories aren’t the kind someone receives death threats for, let alone ends up with a maniacal asshole pointing a gun at them. Paul should have stayed away. He should have trusted his gut and put as many miles between himself and the Abello crew as he could. But he came back, because of me, because I pushed and pushed and pushed and made promises I couldn’t fucking keep.

Why did I have to push so hard to break this damn story?

If I had never started my probe into Mayor Dunne, and discovered the apparent Abello connection, none of this would be happening. So what if Dunne took some bribes and gave away some contracts? So what if he may have had some help from Abello in disposing of unwanted rivals and inconvenient speed bumps to his political climb?

None of it directly affected me. None of it interfered with my ability to live my life and do my job. Damn me and my ambition. Damn the journalistic integrity that prevented me from turning a blind eye to the apparent corruption. I thought I could make a difference; I thought I could actually change things.

All I’ve managed to do is put my life, as well as Paul’s, in danger, and I still don’t even have any actionable evidence.

Complete. Utter. Miserable. Failure.

Matteo barks out another laugh at my false bravado and steps closer to Paul, who has remained silently shaking near to me. “Well, maybe you need a little reminder of what I’m capable of.”

In a split second, his gun goes from down at his side to the back of Paul’s head and he fires.