Boyfriend from Hell (Saturn's Daughters) (36 page)

“Maybe Max didn’t have the boxes,” Headset suggested. “Or he gave them to his biker friends for one of their bonfires. We can just get rid of Clancy and be done.”

A familiar growling from a distance caused the hair on my nape to rise. Milo! Had they brought Milo here to kill him, too? That fed the fires of rage nicely, but
my head wasn’t quite on straight yet. I knew I didn’t have evidence for a court of law, but I was going to have to act to protect my friends and the Zone.

“We can’t take that risk,” Vanderventer said dismissively. “The media would have a field day if they got their hands on my father’s lab reports. Wake her up.”

Someone kicked the couch and shoved my shoulder. I rocked my head groggily but kept it down. These goons had killed Max and shot Sarah. Vanderventer was paying them. They’d kidnapped me and threatened murder. I was fully justified in sending them all to hell—which would certainly be the easiest thing to do.

But I wasn’t a fan of the death penalty even when it had the full force of the court behind it. I was pretty certain condemning people to death similarly came under the heading of one wrong not correcting another, and probably worked in the devil’s favor. I didn’t want to end up like Max. Max hadn’t deserved to end up in limbo like that.

So I needed to find an alternative. If I sent them to some war-torn country in Africa, would that be enough?
Could
I do it? I wished I’d had more training before being dumped with this much responsibility.

Someone smacked my face, and I almost sent him up in flames right then and there. Smoke should have been pouring out my ears, except I bit back my fury, lifted my chin, and glared. I wasn’t certain I could sit up yet. Given how quickly the rage was building, I figured they’d keep smacking me until I killed someone.

Insanity Is Me.

“Where are Max’s papers?” Dane asked, not even bothering to pretend he was a nice guy, which told me he didn’t intend me to leave here alive.

Nastily, I noticed he was wearing a special boot on one burned foot and wasn’t walking so well on the other. He’d ripped the bandage off his hand, and it looked red and painful.
I’d done that.
I could do it again. I just needed to concentrate.

“Storage unit on Westside,” I lied from my prone position. I was getting damned good at lying. “But we’ve made copies of the important stuff.” We hadn’t had time to read it to know there was important stuff. Oh well.

“What unit, and where are the keys?” Headset demanded, looking as if he’d like to smack me again.

Lying there trying to look limp and brain-dead, I took my time answering, I studied their weapons while straightening out my buzzed brain. “You won’t find the keys unless I show them to you,” I stalled. “Let me go, and I’ll take you there.”

“Dump out her bag,” Vanderventer said in disgust, waving his good hand to indicate the bag on the floor. So much for hiding the netbook if it was in there.

Max had said,
Use me.
Could I call on him for help? I needed my compact.

One of them emptied my messenger bag. No computer. Nice. Headset began to sneeze as cat hairs sprayed the room. The compact landed in the middle of the room, out of my reach unless I wanted to stagger up in front of all those guns. “This is a stupid
place to kill me,” I said conversationally, looking for a way to take out three automatics and a senator.

“True. That’s why we’ll just blow out your brains, leave the gun in your hand, and the police will call it love-struck suicide,” Goon Number Two said cruelly.

I snorted. “Yeah, right. You just keep on believing that. And you won’t find my keys.”

I struggled to sit up, desperately wanting my compact. It was really hard to focus with so much happening at once. I was plenty mad enough to kill, but practicing restraint required more thought than I currently possessed.

Goon Number Three used his big foot to scatter the contents of my bag around the floor. The compact landed near my feet, begging to be picked up. It was the only weapon I had. Even if Max couldn’t help, I’d practiced throwing ninja stars. I wasn’t good, but my choices were limited.

“Why won’t we find the keys?” Goon Number Two asked, picking up my beloved messenger bag and trying to tear it apart. The steel reinforcement caused some consternation.

“Hidden pocket,” I said nonchalantly, trying not to accidentally activate a wish to blow off his head, and not sure I could, given my hazy state.

Headset Guy stood over me with his ugly weapon. “Tell us, or I can make you suffer before you die.”

I was running out of delaying tactics—and restraint. Pain was not my friend, and the inside of my skull was pounding like a timpani now that I was sitting up. My
head might not have been working, but hundreds of hours of training had honed my kicking reflexes just fine. I’d kicked his popgun from his hand before either of us knew what I was doing.

Goon Number Two dropped my bag and fired, but I was already on the floor, grabbing my precious compact to my chest. Showed my brain wasn’t functioning. I needed to go after the gun.

Headset Guy tried to stomp me, but I got his kneecap with my next kick, and he went down hard, screaming in agony.
Old knee injury,
I thought smugly, rolling across the nasty carpet.

Shots rang out over my head, but this wasn’t a large room and I was a moving target. They were as likely to hit each other as me. The good senator was screaming curses. I tried using them inside my fuzzy head, cursing the thugs, but apparently trying to dodge bullets limited my rage. I needed an instruction manual for my useless talents.

I hooked my heel behind Goon Number Three’s knee and tugged him off-balance. His shot rang wildly, and I heard a scream from Number Two. Score two for the babe.

A bullet scorched my ear before digging into the floor, and I shouted
“Dammit!”
to the Universe. Apparently I wasn’t clear enough. The Universe didn’t provide. Headset Guy returned to stomp my wrist, and my compact skittered away.

Goon Number Three yanked me upright, giving me time to look around.

Shithead, otherwise known as Number Two, was
nursing a bloody shoulder. Headset could barely stand. The senator was so red with fury, I thought the top of his head might blow off. Three held a gun to my already wounded head. Not good.

The compact was surrounded by big, heavy shoes. It called to me. Maybe Max wanted me to join him in hell.

“All this firepower for little ol’ me?” I taunted. If I was going to die, it was going to be with my head up and my mouth flapping.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, let her loose, and maybe she’ll pull the keys out of her magic bag of tricks.” Limping awkwardly, Dane paced the small floor while he waited for his henchmen to produce the magic key.

“You’d better find those keys or we’ll whack off your hands at the elbows,” Headset growled, nursing his damaged knee as he retrieved the bag.

I was too focused on the compact to be intimidated. The mirror was right there, at my feet. I could practically feel Max’s energy bursting at the seams.
Ninja star, here I come.

I hadn’t given up on blasting them to hell yet. I had a plan now.

I dived for the compact the instant they let my hands loose.

That’s when all hell really broke loose—and I didn’t even conjure it up.

T
he front door slammed open. Dane’s goons reacted by spraying the entrance with bullets.

I dropped and hit the floor on my shoulder, clinging to my compact and Max while thinking as fast as my dead brain allowed. Maybe the floor position got my neurons jumping, because the wheels were back to spinning.

Apparently smart enough to stay out of bullet spray, Andre waited before appearing in the doorway, wielding his AK-47 and looking invincible. After he
saw I was down, he unloaded his lethal weapon on the bullies diving for cover.

Once the bullets stopped, hulking Bill the bartender climbed in the window and began swinging a bludgeon at Goon Number Two, who was plunging in his direction. Schwartz kicked in another window, police automatic drawn. My heart beat a little faster knowing I had friends willing to risk their lives for me, but this wasn’t over yet.

Just like at the OK Corral, there would be no winners if I didn’t do something soon. I’d never had many friends, and I kind of wanted to keep these.

“Hold your guns, or I’ll shoot her!” Dane shouted, pulling a pistol from his pocket and aiming it at my head. I froze. So did everyone else.

I had no idea if a little thing like a derringer could kill, but my rage had reached its limits.

Besides, Andre had turned his wicked weapon at the senator. I’d owe him into eternity for killing for my sake. Not happening.

Deciding that if I was going out, I might as well go with malice aforethought, I brushed a kiss across my compact. “Assholes like you, Senator, belong in hell, not good men like Max!” I cried, then flung the compact straight at Dane’s pretty head just as Andre pulled the trigger.

To my utter startlement, the compact flamed on like a meteor. Or maybe that was just what it looked like to me.

The plastic case hit Dane square between the eyes, causing him to stumble sideways. Andre’s bullet merely
grazed his shoulder, but the derringer went off at an awkward angle. The senator grabbed his forehead as if my little missile had blinded him, then stared incredulously at blood blooming on his immaculate white shirt. Off-balance, he slipped and fell on his protective bootie and went down.

What, exactly, had I done, if anything? The riot erupting around me didn’t give me time to think. Headset had regained his popgun and was fighting his way toward the door.

Andre wore the expressionless visage of an automaton bent on murder, like the Terminator. He’d shot at a U.S. senator—and instead of being horrified, he retained his Special Ops face. That he wasn’t spraying the room with cover fire, but instead stood over me, willing to shoot again without a thought for himself, was inhuman.

I still wouldn’t let him go to prison for me.

Not knowing if we’d killed the senator, I pulled together my fried brain cells and visualized the remaining goons in a distant African prison. They needed to be taught a lesson. Did I have to say it aloud? How? “Let the big bad bullies be bullied by real animals,” I shouted. If coherence counted, I’d lost the battle.

A siren followed my insane declaration. The goons looked at each other, then dived through the window. Bill was so startled, he barely had time to smash his bludgeon against their muscled rears as they fled.

Well, that had been anticlimactic after imagining African prisons. Had I expected them to vanish like genies into bottles? Got that wrong, if so.

Only the bad senator remained, sprawled across the floor with blood pumping from his chest and a stunned, vacant look on his handsome face.

I looked at Andre and his gun, ready to take down a squadron of goons, and not a target in sight.

“Not dramatic, are we?” I asked, but I sounded awestruck instead of sarcastic as I pressed a hand to my bleeding ear. I’d come
that
close to dying.

Still looking grim, Andre lowered his weapon. Schwartz was on his phone and racing out the door after the fleeing baddies. Bill kind of looked blankly at the crumpled senator on the floor before taking out a handkerchief and attempting to apply it to Vanderventer’s chest wound.

Milo appeared from nowhere to lick my face. I was crying. And shaking. Rather than fight my fear, I curled him in my arms and wept into his fur. I think I might always associate the stench of kimchi with gore and death. I was trying hard not to hurl up my guts. I couldn’t look at Vanderventer.

We had killed a
senator.
I needed to visualize us somewhere safe but I was too stunned to think of consequences. Maybe I could take full responsibility. After all, I’d thrown a fireball. Like the police would believe that. Even I didn’t know what I’d done. Story of my life.

Finally shifting out of Terminator stance, Andre kneeled down to help me up. He didn’t complain when I collapsed into his arms and wept incoherently instead, blabbering about Sarah and Milo and Max and African prisons until he probably thought me insane—not at all my lawyerly self.

“It’s okay, Clancy,” he kept saying, rocking me back and forth as Milo escaped to prowl the room. “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay. I may wring your neck, but thanks to your cat, everyone is fine.”

His threats calmed me more than any other reassurance could. I could feel the hard muscle beneath his silk shirt, trusted his strength, but didn’t trust myself. I had no business being attracted to a man who made his own laws. But he’d been here when I needed him, and that was so precious that I couldn’t let him go just yet. He sounded strangely distant, as if trying to separate himself from the scene, but he didn’t shove me away. For that, I was grateful.

“Milo?” I questioned through my sobs, trying not to wipe my nose on his pretty shirt, but I’d already smeared it with blood.

“Yeah, when I found your weird cat wandering around the storage unit without you, I knew there was trouble.”