Save Me If You Can (22 page)

Despite the situation, Quentin chuckled. “Yeah, that sounds about like the Mimi I know. Do you see anybody else?”

Renata quickly cycled through the camera feeds, stopping when movement on one caught her eye. “Yeah. I see King tied up. Damien and Noelle are in the room with him.”

“Okay. How many guards in total?”

“I see… six. Including the two Naomi took down, so I’m guessing he’s not fully staffed tonight. Good for us, right?”

“Yeah. Probably hasn’t had time. Alright, keep us updated on what’s happening in there. We’re about ten minutes out.”

“Okay. And Quentin… come back to me, okay?”

There was a short moment of silence, then a deep breath on the other end of the line. “Gonna do my best, cher.”

Renata closed her eyes for a long moment, fighting back nervous tears before she opened them again to see Noelle and Damien leaving Terry King alone in a room. Whatever they’d said had him mad as hell, because he was fighting hard against his bindings, even with that stab wound to the chest.

“Lucky bastard
,” Renata mumbled under her breath, wondering if an inch or so to the right or left would have actually killed him. What a celebration
that
would have been.

Wow
.

Was
that
how she really felt? Did she really hate him so much that she wanted to see him dead? She thought about how he’d abandoned her with a mother who hated her, never even bothered to check in. How he’d send people to snatch Naomi and the girls. How
twice
now, he’d shot Harrison.

So… yeah.

Death didn’t seem so bad.

Behind her, Harrison broke into a fit of jagged coughs, and she turned to see a panicked-looking Taylor
and
Kennedy frozen where they stood. Renata immediately jumped up, passing the girls to get to him. She helped him sit up, patting and rubbing his back as she held up a glass of water for him to take a sip.

“Thought you’d be asleep by now. Those painkillers still haven’t kicked in?”

He closed his eyes and shook his head, sucking in a breath as she positioned another pillow behind him. “Not quite. I can feel myself fading though… sis.”

Renata’s hands faltered over the fabric of his shirt as she lifted it to check his wound, and make sure his coughing hadn’t torn his sticthes. “Yeah… I guess at some point we’ll have to talk about that… right?”

“I guess.” He laid back, giving her a wry smile as his eyelids drooped. “You had to know I wasn’t being nice all these years “just because.”

She grinned. “You called that being nice?”

“Ah, come on,” he chuckled. “I was trying, you know. For a long time, I had no idea I had a sister.”

“And I didn’t know until a few hours ago that I had a brother. Well… unless you count TJ, and then we have to count King’s
other
kids too, and it’s…”

“A mess?”

Renata smiled. “Yeah. A mess. You wanna know something though?”

With his eyes barely open, Harrison nodded. “Yeah.”

“I always thought there was
something
between me and you. Not romantic at all, you know, just… a vibe. Ever since you came and saved me from Wolfe that time. That wasn’t the type of thing you do for just some random girl.”

Harrison shook his head. “No. No, it wasn’t. He’d done enough to you. I was… supposed to… kill him. I fucked it up though, biding my time… waiting to see King fall. Wanted to see both of them rot.”

Renata lifted an eyebrow. “You wanted Wolfe dead too?”

His eyes came open for a second, and focused on hers. “
Hell
yes. Make him pay for what he did to you. You and Taylor… Naomi… Kennedy… Savannah. Y’all are the… only family I’ve got.”

Renata blinked back a fresh round of tears as his words sank in, and Harrison drifted off. She adjusted his pillows a little more, then wiped her face before pulling up his covers.

She’d always been grateful to Harrison for that time he protected her against Wolfe, and she realized now that there were probably
so
many more times that she’d never know. Because he believed in the value of family, more than the only other blood relative besides her daughter – her mother – that she’d even known.

She checked on Inez, who was already sleeping, then sat back down. In less than three minutes, the team would be at Wolf’s house, and she needed to be ready to proceed with the thrown-together plan they’d formed, and were praying would work.

Renata pulled her braids behind her back, away from her face, then leaned into her screen as she cycled through the camera feeds on the video monitor.
Empty room. Empty room. Empty room. Empty room. Empty room. Empty ro—wait a minute,
she thought, cycling back a few rooms until she came upon one that made her eyes go wide.

“Oh, shit!”
she mumbled under her breath, clenching her hands so tight that her nails dug into her palms. “
Please… hurry up, guys.”

Eighteen.

“You don’t really need that.”

Naomi scoffed, and tightened her grip on the gun she’d taken off one of the armed guards, then used to direct Damien and Noelle into the dining room. “The hell I don’t,” she snapped back, in response to Damien Wolfe’s words.

He was
right
there. Just a few feet away.
So damned close.

For so many years, she’d been waiting on a moment like this, the chance to aim a gun at Damien Wolfe and end his life the way he’d ended her father’s and yet… somehow she couldn’t make herself pull the trigger.

“Naomi, listen to me—”

“
Why
? Because you’re my “father”? I don’t believe that, not for a second. If he knew I wasn’t his, why would Nelson take care of me, hmm? He never mistreated me, not a day in my life.”

“Because he loved you.” Noelle stepped forward, standing beside Damien. “He treated
me
like scum beneath his shoe when we were in private, but
you
, Mimi. You were his only child. Precious to him. And when he found out that you weren’t biologically his, it made him hate
me
more. Not you. He knew that it would hurt me. Hurt
us
,” she motioned between herself and Damien, “to see you dote on, love him, while neither of us had access to you.”

Naomi shook her head. “Bullshit.”

“It’s
not
.”

“
I heard the things he said about me
!” Naomi yelled, taking a step closer, with the gun still aimed in Wolfe’s face. “I was there when he killed Nelson. Did you two know that?”

Damien nodded, his expression somber. “Barnes told me.”

Naomi narrowed her eyes, then her face curled into a scowl. “Barnes told you? So… Marcus was right about him. All this time, he worked for you. Feeding you every move I made, keeping you one step ahead, when I honestly thought he…
wow.
”

“I put him in place to protect you.” Naomi rolled her eyes, shaking her head in disgust, but Damien moved forward, hanging stiffly from his crutches. “It’s the truth. You were out there being reckless, as
Arabesque.
Working through Barnes gave you structure. Gave you purpose, gave you—”

“A false sense of hope that I would ever get to see your ass burn,” Naomi growled, taking a step away. “You can’t possibly think you were doing me a favor, or… hell, maybe you’re
both
just fucking crazy. Right now, that’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Damien shrugged. “Call it what you want, but that’s the truth. I’ve always kept you protected.”

“Not that night in that house.” Naomi’s nostrils flared, and anger boiled in her chest as she stared back at him. “The things you said about me… what you told Nelson you would do to me—”

“I say a lot of things. And sometimes, in the moment, I will say whatever needs to be said to inflict the most damage. That’s the nature of this business, Naomi. It’s a life Nelson
chose
to live.”

“But
I
didn’t!”

Damien chuckled. “Oh, but you
did
. When you decided to become a professional thief, entered this field, you absolutely did. Which is
why
I had Barnes interject, before you got yourself killed.”

“You were working with Barnes before that, though.”

“Damned right. That’s part of how I knew what Julian and Nelson were up to. The Calloway guy… he was just collateral damage.”

Naomi rolled her eyes. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“I’m not really concerned about how it makes you feel. It’s the truth.”

“Whatever,” Naomi spat, tightening her grip on the gun again. “None of this matters anymore, not really. I’m done. I’m
done
, alright?! I have wasted my whole life waiting to get back at you, only to discover it was all for… nothing. Why wouldn’t you have Barnes… I don’t know. Tell me to leave it alone. Or tell me the
truth
!”

Damien scoffed. “Would you have believed it? Would you have
actually
left it alone? You never would have stopped, Naomi. Not until it came down to this inevitable truth, and now here we are. This is the moment of reckoning. You’ve been playing your little game of catch me if you can all this time, my dear, and now… here I am. What are you going to do?”

For a moment, her aim wavered. Her eyes burned as she blinked back tears, because she
didn’t
know what to do. She was prepared for this, already. Back when she first heard those messages, insinuating what Damien and Noelle insisted was the truth, she’d come to terms with the fact that she’d been misguided and misled. When she finally saw Noelle, at King’s house, she’d come to terms that the mother she knew was gone, she would
never
accept Damien Wolfe as her father, and the only family she had was the one she’d cultivated from her friends, plus the additions of Wolfe’s innocent kids.

So what was she doing here? Why had she come? For closure? For answers? For what?

“Mimi,” Noelle said, smiling. “Think about that gorgeous man of yours, and the friends you’ve made. You wouldn’t even know them if we hadn’t all been through this!”

Oh.

Maybe
that’s
why she came.

Confirmation that these people were fucking
crazy.

Shaking her head, Naomi lowered the gun. “I want you take me back to—”

A loud crack interrupted Naomi’s statement, and she froze in place. In front of her, Damien dropped to the floor, and after a second crack sounded – gunshots, her mind finally filled in – Noelle went down too. Naomi’s lips parted in a sob at the sight of Damien and Noelle – her
parents
– on the ground. Her eyes moved up, to the open door, to see Terry King standing there, ropes still drooping from his body as aimed the gun in her direction. He was notably wobbly, the whole front of his shirt soaked in blood, but… there he was.

His eyes were deranged, and his mouth spread wide in a menacing smile. “Funny how the tables turn.”

Naomi lifted her weapon and aimed, but gunfire cracked the air before she could get her finger to the trigger. Terry King dropped into a lifeless slump in front of her, and a moment later, she recognized Kendall as he came through the door. And then Marcus was there, approaching her from behind, through the doors on the other side of the room. Then Quentin, and Savi, all four holding automatic weapons and dressed in tactical gear as they converged on the room.

The gun in her own hand was quickly forgotten as she dropped to the floor beside Noelle, her mouth hanging open as she pressed her hand to the fast-spreading red stain in her white sweater. “
No
,” she whispered, pressing against the wound harder. “No.
No. No!”
she screamed, fighting against Marcus as he pulled her away from her mother to make room for Savi.

“Marcus she can’t
die
,” she begged, still fighting as he turned her to face him.

With his hands gripping her wrists, Marcus pulled her close, meeting her eyes. “Calm down, baby. Savi is checking her out. Ambulances are coming. We’re going to do what we can.”

“I haven’t even had a chance to know her yet!”

“I thought you didn’t care?”

“I know! I don’t! I…”

No matter what she said, how disgusted she was, how much she despised them now… what if she didn’t always feel that way? What if something changed? It was easy to feel blasé about it when they were alive and well, when she had
time
to come around, but now… now it was different.

It wasn’t fair, not at all, to get the answers she’d wanted for so long, and then have the people snatched away. She wanted room to hate them, room to blame them for everything that was wrong, room to… grow. And learn. And as
awful
as they were… maybe even love.

“Marcus, she’s my
mother
. I… wanted … I at least wanted the
chance
.”

Feeling suddenly weak, she collapsed against his chest and he wrapped her in his arms. She buried her face in the harsh, scratchy fabric of his vest, not caring how it felt, just wanting to be close. She was
so
tired of hurting,
so
tired of feeling emotionally drained, that she was just…

“No matter what happens,” she said, turning her face up toward Marcus and meeting his eyes. “We’re done. We’re through with this part of our lives. No more guns for me. No more fighting. No more diligence. No more focus. No more agility. Just my ballet class, and my baby ballerinas, and
you
. I’m done.”

A smile tipped the corners of his mouth. “No more tracking you… no more running off… no more
Jolie Voluese
?”

She shook her head. “No. No more. I’m done.”

“Naomi?”

She didn’t turn around at the sound of Savi’s voice, just held still, listening intently as she spoke, telling her about Damien and Noelle’s chances of staying alive. And then… she buried her face in Marcus’s chest again and cried.

&

One year later.

“Harrison, will you
stop it
, please?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m trying to choose a dress. I need you to be serious.”

“Nope.”

“Harrison…”

Despite her protests, Savi was secretly pleased that Harrison couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her in the tiny space of the
Bitty Buns
dressing room. She giggled as he pulled her down onto his lap, then moved his hands underneath her dress to caress her stomach.

“Why are you being mean to me?”

Savi rolled her eyes, then looked over her shoulder to meet his gaze. “I’m not being
mean
. I’m trying not to go into labor before the wedding, so I need you to keep your little friend to yourself.”

Harrison scowled. “
Little
? That ain’t what you were saying when I was tearing that ass and putting this baby in you. Stop playing.”

She laughed again as he buried his face in her neck, nibbling and kissing her skin. Turning her head back to the front, her mouth spread into a smile as she caught their reflection in the mirror. This was…
perfect
. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d been happier than she was now, in Harrison’s lap, with a wedding band from their tiny ceremony on her finger, and their child growing inside her, due in exactly two days.

“You know that’s not what I meant, Agent Cole.” She pushed herself up from his lap, then turned as she pulled the dress over her head, exposing her nearly-nude body to his gaze. “See,” she said, pointing to his crotch, where his reaction to her was
very
obvious. “Not little at all.”

“You keep it up and we won’t get out of here,” he said, coming to stand behind her, and zipping her into the next dress.

Savi lifted an eyebrow. “She would
kill
us if we missed her day.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s what I’m saying, baby. I don’t know why you waited until a few hours before you’re supposed to meet to do this anyway. You’re supposed to be helping her get ready, not buying a dress.”

Harrison shrank back as Savi turned on him with a fierce scowl. “How was I supposed to know my belly would grow two times overnight?”

“It’s
not
two times bigger. Maybe… 1.15.”

Savi’s scowl deepened. “Are you done?”

“Yes.”

“The
point
is,” she said, rolling her eyes as she turned to look in the mirror again, smoothing the flowy fabric over her body. “The dress I had didn’t fit, so I needed another. And… this one works. So lets buy it, and get out of here.”

Savi changed back into the clothes she’d worn into the store, and then took her aching body to the car to sit down while Harrison completed their purchase. As she reclined back into the seat, she smiled, thinking about how much their lives had changed over the last year.

For one, there were no more secrets.

Not that she’d had many from Harrison anyway, but the process of opening up helped them, a lot. They bonded over the loss of loved ones – Savi’s husband, Harrison’s mother – to cancer. She comforted him through the retelling of the times he felt alone in the world, blushed as he talked about how their relationship had kept them going through those times.

“You saved me, when I think about it,
” he’d said, and Savi blushed right there in the car as she thought about the way she’d pounced on him after those words. Harrison had never been
cold
, not at all, but he’d mostly kept his emotions to himself. So hearing him express what she’d meant to him then, and later, what she still meant to him now… well… she was surprised they weren’t already working on a
second
child.