Is that why he hasn’t called?
I cursed myself for overthinking and got back to work. If the mountain won’t come to Mohammad, then Odie must go to the mountain, that was my moto.
Final cleanup, and I was out of there.
The evening security guard was busy tapping away on his cell phone, and I was too damn knackered to wait around any longer. Besides, Nipsy had this place lit up like an interrogation room at Rikers Island Prison. Screw his rules about leaving unattended. I wasn’t a damn child. My car was parked less than ten feet from the doorway. Surely, I could make it without incident. The weather was beautiful tonight. A light breeze blew across my face, the sky so clear I could make out the stars twinkling in the distance. My key was in the lock of the driver’s side door when I heard my name called from behind.
“Odie, what the fuck?” The security guard screamed as he stomped towards me. “You know better than to come out here alone. Are you trying to get me fucking fired?”
He rushed towards me with teeth bared, pissed as all hell. His angry voice startled me so much I dropped my keys on the ground and had to bend over to retrieve them. The second my head bowed, I heard a POP, then a hiss that traveled through the air above me. The large security guard screamed out, “FUCK!” just before hitting the ground at my feet in a hunch.
A gunshot!
Someone was shooting at us.
“Ohmygod!” I screamed.
“Stay the fuck down!” he shouted.
Blood spilled from his shoulder in rivets, wetting the front of his blue uniform. Tears of panic flooded my eyes as I reached for my purse, where I kept my cell phone. I needed to call for help, not just for me, but for the guy bleeding out on the pavement. A second shot whizzed overhead, hitting my car window and shattering it to pieces. I screamed hoping someone would hear me, and that’s when it happened.
Somewhere close, tires screeched to an abrupt stop before a shadowy figure stepped out of the driver’s seat and immediately returned fire, two guns blazing. Dressed in all black from head to toe, Darragh MacCabe was like something out of a comic book. The only thing missing was a goddamn cape and a pair of Spandex pants. His eyes were trained on an obscured target, hands steady, never wavering, and sexy as all get out. I’d never been so happy to see anyone in my life. My body’s reaction to his presence was automatic—I felt shielded, safe, protected. If it wasn’t for the bullets flying overhead, I would’ve crawled over the broken glass and kissed his handsome face to show my gratitude.
“Get in the fucking car, Otelia. Keep your head down,” he barked while reloading.
“We can’t leave him, Mac. He’s going to bleed to death.”
“Ferdi is right behind me, ETA three minutes. Now move that ass, woman.”
“Go!” the security guard yelled, moaning through the pain. “I’m covered.”
I crawled across the cement on my hands and knees, opened the passenger side door, then slid into the seat with my head hung low. Mac fired off three more rounds before climbing into the driver’s side in one fluid motion. He threw one of his guns on the seat near my head. I could still smell the heat coming from its barrel and what I assumed was gun powder. We took off out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell with me crouched down on the floorboards. I was amazed how Mac was able to shift gears while still holding on to one of his guns without blasting out the windshield. I made a mental note to ask him about that later.
“Are you hit?” he snapped. “Are you bleeding?”
“I…”
Words failed me.
My skin felt clammy as a bead of cold sweat traveled from my brow, down my temple, and ended below my cheek. Pressure like I’d never felt before started to build in my chest, the pain so unbearable, I could no longer suck in air. I clawed at my throat, willing it to open enough to allow a hint of much-needed oxygen to fill my lungs. Damn thing wouldn’t budge. The strangled noises coming from my side of the car must’ve alarmed Mac even though my awareness of him was obscured. I felt the grip of his hand on my arm as he tried to pull me from my huddled position. The growly timber of his voice as he cursed and spat obscenities. The jerking motion followed by the slam of breaks as we came to a full stop.
The door was yanked open, and I was airborne.
My feet never touched the ground.
“Otelia!” I heard shouted. “Look at me, baby. Breathe.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Pressed against his warm chest, boneless and unaware, I felt our heartbeats sync as one.
“Closer, Darragh. Hold me closer,” I wheezed.
His glorious masculine scent perfumed the air around us, snapping my consciousness back from the depths of the unknown. The metaphorical snake uncoiled from around my chest as quickly as it began, sweet release followed on an audible gasp. I blinked to clear my head, then blinked again.
“Darragh?” I whispered.
Tears spang to my eyes when the first tingles of life coursed through my limbs. Even so, I refused to detract them from the expressive orbs of the man staring down at me. Vulnerability, concern, possession. It was all there, or perhaps it’d always been and I’d never noticed.
“There she is,” he shared a relieved smile. “You’re safe now, I promise.”
“I want to go home, Mac.”
“I know you do, kitty cat. It won’t be long now.”
He repeated the promised words made not long ago. This time, I knew it wasn’t possible, not while there was someone out there who wanted me dead. Mac had shown he was willing to cover my back, but was it all just business as usual for him? Stepping back into the car, I found my answer in what I knew to be true and trustworthy. Cell phone in hand, I pressed the call button and waited. Gate’s message never failed me, and I counted on that tonight.
CHAPTER 33
MacCabe
MY FINGERS CLENCHED the steering wheel as I drove away from the deadly scene. If I’d arrived five minutes later, things could’ve ended much differently in that parking lot. I’d known darkness in this life, a blast of what could only be described as a complete shutdown of my emotional consciousness, and this was not one of those times. I felt everything. Blood whooshed around between my ears, and I hadn’t taken a full breath in several long minutes. It wasn’t the adrenalin surging inside my veins that had my molars grinding to a fine dust—it was the hunger for death. My dick twitched with the pent-up need to destroy, to obliterate each and every one of those motherfuckers who dared to come for what was mine.
They’d tried to take her from me.
I was almost too late.
Word came down from one of my Boston informants that O’Brien had bankrolled a two-man hit crew out of Fresno. He hired them off grid and without permission ahead of time from the organization. I was lucky to get wind of it. Bringing in outsiders for wet work wasn’t unusual, but anything that could potentially cause blowback was frowned upon. I had zero reason to believe it had anything to do with me. At this stage, I wasn’t even considered competition the way my business had faltered once he’d opened. O’Brien ran pussy and narcotics along the border states, a brutally dangerous and cutthroat racket that required a strong hand. Could’ve been a hostile takeover or a revenge hit for some supposed wrongdoing. In other words, he was into a lot of crooked shit, deadly shit, any of which could’ve warranted the contract.