Hot-Blooded (26 page)

The operator confirmed her information. “I’m sending an ambulance right now. Apply pressure to the wound and stay on the line until they get there. Are you all right? Did you see anyone?”

She sniffled loudly and played up her role as the shocked, scared sister. “I’m fine. I—I came to visit my brother, Bane. When I noticed the broken doorknob, I ran back to my car to get my gun.”
Pant, pant. Choke.
“Then I found Bane lying in a puddle of blood with a—a
man
standing over him.”
Sob.
“So I—I shot him.”
Cry, cry.
“He ran away while I was checking on my brother. It was a tall white guy wearing a hoodie and a mask. That’s all I know.” She wrapped up the lie with a long stream of fake tears and mumbles about how scared she was, blah, blah, blah.

The operator chattered on about the importance of never taking the law into one’s own hands and to stay right where she was. She asked a few other questions, which Keahilani answered. After a moment, she said, “I gotta put the phone down and help Bane.”

She muted the receiver and knelt next to his still form, holding the bloody sheet against the open pit in his chest. “You’re not leaving me, brother,” she whispered in his ear. “Not yet.”

With little time before the cops showed up, she turned to Blake for answers. “Who sent you? Why were you going to kill him? And if you didn’t shoot him, who did?”

“I don’t know who did it, but Bane murdered Scott’s wife a year ago.” His brows tightened. “I have proof.”

“What?” She seethed at the lie. Bane didn’t do hits. Manō did. And Manō didn’t knock off women. At least not that Keahilani knew of.

“It’s true. Bane killed her. Look at the picture on my phone.” More hissing. The pain must’ve been dreadful.

Blake wriggled the cell free of his pocket and managed it one-handed while clutching the bloody wound with the other. “Here.” He weakly tossed the device at her feet and squeezed his eyes shut again.

If she planned on letting Blake live, he’d need medical attention too, but she wasn’t sure he deserved it. “I don’t have time for this bullshit.”

“Kea, look at it.” The words were a reluctant plea.

She picked up the phone and studied the picture. It was a little blurry and very dark, but the figure running away from the bleeding body on the street
did
look a lot like Bane. “Where did Scott get this?”

“One of his contacts. He’s been searching for his wife’s murderer for a year. Finally got a witness to come forward with this picture. The guy’s willing to testify.”

Shit. If Bane really had killed someone—which, she absolutely did not believe he did—this picture would be damning. And if a reliable witness backed up the story—

“Kea, you gotta get me to a hospital, babe. Please.”

“Shut up.” She turned to Bane. A small orange and black shape rested in the valleys of the sheets. Keahilani flattened the fabric. A dead butterfly. Its legs had curled, and a light dusting of scales fell on her skin when she nudged it.

A gasp parted Keahilani’s lips. Madness danced along the fringes of her thoughts, playing tag with fate and ghosts and oracles and premonitions.
Do-si-do. Swing your partner round and round …

What the hell did this mean? Her mind tumbled over possible explanations, but none of them made any sense. Was it an omen? A clue left behind by the killer? A coincidence? What. The. Hell? She scooped up the butterfly and stared at it.

I get you’re trying to tell me something, Mahina, but this scares the shit out of me.

Blake moaned somewhere near her feet and bucked his good leg a couple of times. Heavy stomps of feet charged through the house. Keahilani recognized the cadence. Still stifling the flow of Bane’s blood, she grabbed a tissue from the box near the bed and carefully wrapped the butterfly as Manō burst into the room. He catalogued the scene with his dark, dull eyes. No trace of emotion touched his face as he walked past Blake and stood beside Keahilani over Bane. His shadow dwarfed everything in a five-foot radius. “What happened?”

Pull your shit together, Keahilani.

“Ambulance is on its way.” She glanced to Blake and nudged him with a toe. “He says Bane was already shot when he got here, but I don’t believe him.” She didn’t know what to believe.

“What’s the cover story?” So typical of Manō to be more worried about cleanup than his brother bleeding out before them. Yet, that’s exactly what she needed right now. Detachment.

“White guy came in, shot Bane. I arrived as he was leaving. I shot him, but he got away.”

“So, we need a bloody trail.”

Nodding, she looked down at Blake’s tortured face, and a twinge of empathy flared like a glowing ember in her stomach. “Gotta move fast. Police are on the way.”

Manō planted his boots shoulder-length apart before Blake’s prone form and stared at him. The pool of his shadow fell over Blake and drowned him. Harsh lines and brown skin made Manō look like the giant, carved tiki he played as one of Pele’s Enforcers. “Get up.”

Blake gritted his teeth and huffed as Manō yanked him to his feet. The dimple strained under the anguish in his cheek, and Keahilani caught herself feeling too much for the man who’d betrayed her ‘ohana. Hunched over, he wobble-hopped gingerly toward the door, leaving just the trail Manō intended.

Splat … Splat … Splat …

“Car’s in the drive. Get in it.” Manō turned to Keahilani and indicated Bane with his chin. “You got him?”

“Ambulance should be here any minute. And Kai too.”

“I’ll be at the safe house.”

“Okay. Be careful. Catch up with you as soon as the cops cut me loose.” She squeezed Bane’s cold hand. “And Blake?”

He paused his stumbling and grunted. He didn’t turn around.

“If Bane dies,
you
die.”

His shoulders lifted with a reluctant breath. He lowered his head and barely nodded.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Did the bullet go through?” Manō drove the car away from Bane’s at top speed with the control of a veteran fighter pilot. Blake had known a few military guys in his day, and Keahilani’s brother fit the special operations profile perfectly. No remorse. No questions. Just a walking tool made of muscle, stealth, and deadly intent.

“No. Still in there.” He didn’t bother mentioning the intense pain. It seemed pretty obvious, and Manō didn’t strike him as the type to give a donkey’s ass about such trivialities as bullet holes or bleed-outs.
Slap a Band-Aid on it, shake it off, and you’ll be fine.

“What were you doing at my brother’s house?” Manō kept his focus on the road as he talked, which actually worked great for Blake. It meant he didn’t have to hide his winces and scowls and watering eyes as he powered through the blood loss and consciousness threatening to kick him to the curb at any second. Maybe he’d pass out before they got … wherever they were going.

Manō faced him and rolled his accusing gaze down Blake’s face like a blanket of radiation settling in after a bomb detonation.

“What was the question?” Blake asked.

Manō’s upper lip twitched just enough for Blake to notice. Maybe he didn’t like repeating himself.

“Why were you at Bane’s house?”

“Look, man, I was there to do a job.”
Throb. Ouch. Fuck.
“Your brother killed my boss’s wife on Oahu a year ago. I’ve got pictures and a witness to prove it.”
Scream. Cry. Oh-my-God-this-hurts-so-fucking-bad.
He didn’t dare look at the wound again, but he tightened his weakening grip, applying what little pressure he could. On top of the bleeding, there was, well, the blood loss. Wooziness settled into his brain, dimming the lights inside with spontaneous flickers and slow recoveries.

This would not end well.

Manō cracked him with a silent scowl. He took the gesture to mean he should finish the story. Where was he? With Keahilani. In bed. Or maybe it was a surfboard. “Your sister’s beautiful.”

“My sister has nothing to do with you trying to murder Bane.” The sharpness in his words sliced deep.

Blake sat up in his seat, and immediately slouched back down. His vision fuzzed out, this time not just the edges of the tunnel but the entire tube. Like riding a wave. He lifted his free hand to gauge how close he was to the water. Or the door handle. He could try to bolt. Fall in the ocean. Manō would probably kill him if he didn’t escape on his own. The dude’s brother took a bullet in the chest. His chances of survival were nil, which meant Blake would soon be dead too if Kea had anything to say about it.

“I didn’t do it, man.” Blake’s head lolled back and forth. “I was supposed to, but I didn’t. She doesn’t believe me.”

“You see anyone?”

Another tsunami of pain rammed his leg, clamped down with shark teeth, and tore. He tensed, prepared to wait it out, but it never let up. Just wave after wave crashing his shores. “No,” he bit out. “No idea who did it.”

Manō said nothing else. Blake was grateful for the silence, though he might not be conscious by the time they got to their destination. Little fish swam across his field of vision. Mouths opened, blowing fishy kisses. Fins waved. Tails fanned.

Go to sleep, Murphy.

Kea? Where are you?

Sleep.

* * * *

A jolt of sheer, frenetic agony wrenched Blake from his unscheduled trip to dreamland and catapulted him face first into a hard-learned lesson on how not to anesthetize a patient before ripping … “a fucking bullet from my leg!” He sat up. His chest met Manō’s palm, and he went right back down.

“Don’t move.”

Easy for him to say. Blake’s entire body was a mass of electrified nerves, dancing without a common rhythm, tearing up the skinscape with unwanted tics and twitches. “Christ, man!” Up he went again, and down he went again. “What the fuck are you using, your fingers? I can feel shit wiggling around in there.”

“Shut up.” Manō’s intense concentration warned Blake to suck it up, lest the consequences warrant the addition of an extra finger in the hole. Just to fuck with him, no doubt.

Stuffing his filthy shirt collar in his mouth, he formed vague, muffled words through the knot of fabric. “God. DAMN. It.” Many other curses flew during the course of Manō’s “operation.”

Manō eased back, probed the hole one more time—GODDAMN IT—then wiped his hands off with a bloody towel. The fucker didn’t even use latex gloves? Great. MRSA infection, here we come.

Or worse.

Fuck his life. Whatever was left of it.

The open-mouthed shark lunging up Manō’s neck seemed to grin at him. “The bullet’s out. I don’t have any antibiotics, so you’re on your own.”

Stupid talking shark. “What do you know? You’re just a shark.” Why was it so dark in here?

Manō grunted. “So I’ve heard.” He wound a tape bandage around Blake’s thigh, pulling it tight.

It still hurt like a bitch, but the pain was a little more manageable. It’d be a hell of a lot better if he had some … “Weed. You got any? I’m in need of a pick-me-up.” Really, he just wanted to be free of screaming nerve shreds for five minutes.

Manō kept rolling tape. He’d cut off what little remained of Blake’s circulation if he didn’t ease up. When he finished, the fucker slapped the bandage, and Blake full-body flinched.

“I’ll see what I can do. But probably not.”

“What are you gonna do with me, man? You got some place to bury my corpse?” Corpse. Ah, hell. He had one of those to dispose of himself. Didn’t look like he’d be hauling the trash away from Haleakalā anytime soon. That car would stink to high hell whenever Manō or Kea found it. He chuckled. Served ’em right.

“Might just take you out to sea and ditch you there. Keahilani would find it poetic.” The corner of Manō’s mouth tipped up in what must’ve been his version of a smile. It matched the shark grin at his throat.

Blake shivered. “How so?”

Manō shook his head.

“So, you’re just gonna drop the lure, dangle it in front of my face, and do nothing when I bite?”

The smile spread to the other side of his mouth.

Fuck this shit. If he survived this fiasco, he was done with Kea and her fucked-up family. Between the drug dealing and murdering, fucking and then shooting people in the leg, he’d had his fill of crazy on Maui.

“Okay … Have you heard anything about your brother?”

Manō leaned over him, a black cloud barring the light above from falling on Blake. That lack of light, the severed connection to it, felt like someone walking over his grave.

Manō held up a roll of duct tape and peeled back the edge. The loud, unmistakable rip lit Blake’s fears on fire. The thick, dull silver stripe landed on his wrist, and he struggled with what little energy he had left. “No, dude. Don’t do that …”

It wasn’t even close to a fair fight. Probably wouldn’t have been if he hadn’t been shot in the leg, though Blake usually played dirty when he was outgunned. And Manō
far
outgunned him on every level.

Shark Boy thwarted Blake’s wimpy attempts at smacking his thick hands away, and within a few seconds, he was drawn and waiting for quartering on the four-post bed he just realized he was lying on. Might as well have been hog-tied.