Stolen from the Hitman: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (51 page)

I
hold
my breath and watch in wide-eyed horror as Agent Doyle wrangles Leon’s arms behind his back and clinks the handcuffs around his wrists. Part of me wants to kick the vent back open and launch myself at him, tackle that smarmy asshole to the ground and bloody his nose for daring to put his hands on Leon. But I know that anything I do now will only exacerbate the issue. I can’t fight back that way. I’m not powerful enough to take anybody down with my strength (or lack thereof) and besides, we are outnumbered and outarmed. The feds have legally-recognized and sanctioned weapons to use against us, and I’m just a skinny, trembling girl curled up in a dust-caked air vent.

So I have to bite my tongue and try not to breathe deeply while Doyle and his black-suited lackeys drag Leon away in cuffs, placing him under arrest. My heart is hammering loudly and I’m terrified that they might actually hear it. I cautiously wrap my arms around my chest as though to muffle the sound, my lungs growing tight and painful from holding in my breath for this long.

I wish Leon had actually escaped through the window. Maybe then he would have had a fighting chance. And he would have been able to evade arrest if not for the fact that he wasted time trying to conceal me and keep me safe. As the men leave the back office with Leon, I’m struck with mingled gratitude and overwhelming guilt, realizing just how much Leon might have just sacrificed for me. He didn’t have to do that. He didn’t
have
to take up precious seconds helping me into this air vent. God knows he’s a fast enough runner — if only he had leaped out the window and took off into the sunset. But instead he put me first, willingly throwing himself under the bus just to give me a small chance at escape. And he did it without hesitation, without question, like it was an instinct rather than a conscious choice.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so protected and simultaneously so upset.

When I hear the last of the voices and scuffle fade away as everybody is either arrested and herded out the door or able to break free and run off, I take a deep breath at last. I want to punch myself in the face for letting Leon get in so much trouble over me.

Maybe if I had just minded my own business and stuck to my usual, stupid, pointless article content none of this would have happened. If I had just accepted my father’s death as accidental rather than trying to build some big, overblown conspiracy around it, Leon would be okay. But no, I just couldn’t keep myself out of trouble.

And now Leon is paying the price.

I sit here in the air vent beating myself up for what feels like at least an hour, too upset and afraid to move. I have no idea what to do, where to go from here. I’ve been following Leon’s directions, tailing after him like a dopey, lovesick puppy, too enraptured to admit that I’m in way over my head. God, how could I have been so stupid?

My father would be so disappointed in me. We failed. And it’s all my fault.

Without Leon to lead them, the Club will probably fall apart. And who knows if any of them even escaped from the party? Maybe they’re all in handcuffs right now, being lugged off to jail, never to investigate anything else or save anyone else ever again.

Tears burn in my eyes and I angrily rub them away before finally stretching out my legs and carefully pushing the air vent open. Once the grate clatters to the ground, I extend one foot to cautiously get my balance on the filing cabinet beneath me. Then I slowly, carefully lower myself down through the square hole and clamber down the cabinet. I stand there in the empty room, looking around.

Then I tense up at the sound of footsteps.

Coming toward the door.

Oh, I’m an idiot! Of course the cops would still have someone stationed here just in case! And here I am, just standing here like a deer in the headlights, waiting to be cuffed and dragged away. But it hits me now that I don’t really care. It’s all over. There’s no hope, anyway. Besides, I deserve to be arrested for the trouble I’ve caused.

So I just cross my arms over my chest and wait.

The door pushes slowly open, the rusting hinges whining. A tall, impossibly burly frame peeks around the door and walks into the room: Genn. I heave a sigh of relief.

“Oh, it’s you,” I murmur, exhaling deeply. Quickly, I add, “You escaped?”

Genn nods, scratching at the back of his head. “Yeah. I bolted when I heard the cops coming, hid in the musicians’ van. None of them thought to check there, I guess. They just see motorcycles and think ‘bad guy.’ They didn’t suspect any of us would be hiding in a van with an airbrush mural of a mermaid drinking vodka painted on the side of it.”

“Hide in plain sight,” comments a voice from behind him. I jump at the sound, but then Lukas shoves into the room, looking nearly apoplectic with rage. With his fists clenched at his sides and his teeth bared like a growling wolf, he swears, “Fucking rats. Just fucking stormed in here like they owned the place, but they’re still too stupid to even get all of us.”

“Who are you talking to? Someone in there?” pipes up another familiar voice. Vasily walks into the room, too, his eyebrows shooting up at the sight of me. “Cherry!” he gasps.

“How’d you manage not to get arrested? I saw that motherfucker Doyle and his stooges come into this room and grab Leon,” Lukas asks, putting his hands on his hips.

I turn and point to the air vent. “Leon stashed me up in there. He — he took the time to hide me instead of just running away through the window like he should have,” I explain, hanging my head guiltily. I expect Lukas to fly at me angrily and start cursing me. And I almost want him to.

Instead, Genn just says, “That sounds about right.”

“Don’t feel bad,” Vasily says, shrugging. “He would never have let them take you. Just be glad he managed to find a way to save you without having to kill a cop or something.”

“Yeah, you never had a choice in the matter,” Lukas adds. “He would have literally shanked Agent Dickhead in the chest with a shard of glass or some shit, just to keep his old lady safe.”

“So at least he’s not going down for murdering a cop,” Vasily says, genuinely relieved.

“What do we do now?” I ask, biting my lip, afraid of the answer. I want them to tell me there’s a backup plan, that they’re prepared for this kind of armageddon. I want them to give me the details to some over-the-top rescue mission they’ve been holding onto just for this kind of catastrophic turn of events.

But instead, they all just exchange world-weary looks.

“Good fucking question,” Lukas comments bluntly.

“Well, the cops took him away, but surely we’ve got some guy on the inside who can help us out? A cop on the take who can break him out or at least relay us information?” I suggest, almost pleadingly. But Vasily shakes his head, giving me a pained expression.

“They’re not taking him to the local precinct, Cherry,” he tells me sadly. “Those weren’t our usual everyday schmuck cops. Those were the feds and county sheriffs. They’re taking him to the county jail.”

“And we… we don’t have anybody there?” I press weakly.

Lukas scoffs. “Hell no. Those guys are a little above our pay grade. It’s hard enough to infiltrate the force here in Bayonne. But out there, things are tighter.”

“The county guys aren’t on our side,” Vasily agrees. “They’re in the pockets of the feds, and they’re like the FBI’s trained pitbulls when it comes to this stuff.”

“And as you know, the feds are already more than okay with straight-up human trafficking and murder, so there’s not really any chance of appealing to their moral conscience, either,” Lukas snaps, gritting his teeth.

“This could be the end of the line,” Genn concludes sorrowfully.

“But they don’t know Leon is connected to the threat on Chandler’s life,” I remark, still trying desperately to hold this shitstorm together. “Doyle arrested him for obstruction — not murder or conspiracy or anything. Obstruction is, what, a misdemeanor?”

“They’ll run it as a felony,” Vasily says.

“And anyway that’s just their excuse for dragging him in. Once they’ve got him in a cell, that’ll give them plenty of time to find all kinds of other shit to pin on him,” Lukas says.

“We — we can’t give up this easily,” I beg, shaking my head and taking a step forward. “It can’t be over yet! Leon needs our help!”

“Cherry, we can’t touch him now,” Genn says gently.

I can’t blame them for wanting to throw in the towel. After all, when I was sitting in that air vent just five minutes ago, I was thinking along the same lines. When things are this grim, it’s definitely hard to see past it. But every time I think about how quickly Leon jumped to save me, throwing himself in the crosshairs just to give me a fighting chance — I realize that I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t at least try to return the favor.

Besides, a life without Leon is not one I’m particularly interested in living anymore.

Not when his words are still ringing in my head:
I love you, too
.

“No,” I protest, folding my arms across my chest defiantly. “I refuse to just lay down and let these feds ruin everything you all have worked so hard for. We’ve all come too far to just give up now.”

“We’d probably only make it worse,” Vasily comments, but I can tell he’s starting to cave a little bit. There’s a spark in his blue eyes indicating to me that he isn’t ready to give up yet. I decide to stoke that tiny flame. If I’m really going to do this and take on the feds, I damn sure don’t want to do it alone.

“Besides, we don’t have anything on the feds,” Genn says.

“They’re dirty as fuck, but they’re pros at looking squeaky clean,” comments Lukas.

Suddenly I gasp, remembering something so small and seemingly insignificant that I did on a whim much earlier. Something I totally forgot in the rain of gunfire as we ran away from the docks the other night.

I took a picture with my phone at the scene of the crime.

“Hold on,” I mumble, reaching into my jeans pocket to extract my cell phone. I scroll through the gallery of photos to find the blurry, grainy shot I took of Agent Doyle standing next to Chandler on the docks, overseeing the immigrants’ grueling procession. I zoom in on Doyle’s face. It’s not the best quality photo, to be sure, but it definitely looks like him. Bingo.

“What are you doing?” Vasily asks, confused.

I hold up the phone for them to see the picture. “Look!”

All three of them lean in and squint at the phone screen. I wait expectantly for them to all realize just how valuable this evidence is. But instead they all just look defeated.

“Cherry, this is never gonna be enough,” Genn tells me sympathetically.

“If a damning photograph was ever enough to put away a guy with this much immunity, God knows every one of those bastards would be behind bars by now,” says Lukas.

“It’s a good instinct,” Vasily comments. “I’m glad you thought ahead to snap that picture in the moment, but I doubt it would ever be enough to do any real damage.”

“You don’t understand,” I insist. “You can’t underestimate the power of bad PR.”

“Cherry, the FBI has enough PR points to commit mass murder and still come out spotless in the end,” Vasily explains, but I can tell he wants so badly to believe.

“I
know
people. I’m a journalist, guys. Okay, I was never exactly Joseph Pulitzer, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have connections. I have the names and email addresses of so many editors — at least one of them will be interested in a story like this! Human trafficking! Murder conspiracies! Dirty feds! Everybody loves a good underdog story,” I ramble, feeling my face grow flushed with enthusiasm.

Vasily looks like he might actually join my crusade. He turns to Genn and Lukas, who look much more dubious, regarding both of us with suspicious expressions.

“It might be worth a shot,” he begins hesitantly.

“It might do more harm than good,” Genn says. “And if they find out the leak came from you, Cherry, you’ll be putting yourself directly in danger.”

“I made my decision the second I met Leon, whether I knew it then or not,” I assure him confidently. And deep down, I know it to be true. “If loving him means that I have to spend the rest of my life on the edge, that’s what I’ll do. He put his life on the line for me, and it’s only right I do the same for him.”

Lukas grins, to my complete surprise. “Damn, Cherry. You’re a tougher kid than I thought. I’m really starting to dig having you around.”

“Okay, we can all do a group hug later,” Vasily cuts in, his face serious.

“Who are you gonna send the photo to?” Genn asks.

I’m already scrolling through my contacts, looking for one name in particular. When I first moved to New York City, I had a brief internship at what I call “a real newspaper.” It paid a pittance barely enough to get me a 300-square-foot hole in the wall on Staten Island, but it gave me insight into what it’s like publishing articles that really change the world. I only filed papers and fetched coffees and snacks for the editorial staff, but my cutesy name and upbeat personality helped me stand out among the other tight-lipped, buttoned-up interns. The head editor-in-chief always had a soft spot for me, giving me the kind of glowing recommendation letters that helped me land my cushy, albeit inconsequential, jobs writing puff pieces.

I find her name in my contact list and my thumb hovers over it, hesitating. I have not spoken to her in months. She may not even remember me anymore — she’s a high-powered editor who talks to a hundred people a day. It’s easy to get lost in a crowd that big.

But I have to try, for Leon’s sake. Because I love him.

So I send her a long email with the photo of Doyle and Chandler, detailing the situation and their respective roles. The three club guys watch silently as I type out the email and click send. Then I look up at them and say, “It’s done.”

“Who’d you send it to?” Vasily asks, concerned.

“An old editor friend,” I explain simply. I don’t tell them that she was only my boss for six months and I haven’t spoken to her in a long time. They don’t need to know that right now.

“And you think she’ll side with us?” Genn pipes up.