Deadly Christmas (21 page)

“What a rat hole,” James muttered as he climbed out of his Explorer and studied the strip motel disgustedly. “This is just depressing.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Grady countered. “I think that wreath made out of beer cans on the front door of the lobby adds a lot of festive charm to the place.”

“You’re an idiot sometimes.”

“Feliz Navidad!”

James rolled his eyes and moved to the front of the Explorer where Finn, Jake, and Peter stood. “Are we ready?”

“How do you want to do this?” Finn asked.

“I’m going to kick the door in and shake Ryan until he cries,” James replied. “If he manages to use his taser on me, make sure you don’t shoot him until I recover. I’m going to shock the crap out of him left and right.”

Jake handed over Ally’s taser. “It’s ready to go. It’s set for a full charge.”

James took the weapon. “Is it wrong that I’m looking forward to this?”

“Hey, I’m looking forward to watching you do it,” Grady said. “Come on. Let’s get this over with. Once we drop his ass off at the sheriff’s department, Christmas is officially on.”

The men descended on the hotel room quickly. While they were all used to covert operations, none of them approached this takedown with any kind of stealth. Ryan wasn’t trained. Odds were he would give himself up before the first punch was thrown. James was still going to throw the punch, but he found he wasn’t relishing it quite as much as he imagined.

James lifted his leg, glancing at Grady once and nodding before slamming his foot into the door. The rickety wooden rectangle exploded inward, taking the room’s sole occupant by surprise.

Ryan, dressed in nothing but boxer shorts, widened his eyes as he realized what was about to happen. “Oh, no.”

“Yeah,” James said, lifting the taser. “Oh, no is right.” He slammed the device into Ryan’s chest and hit the trigger, clenching his jaw as Ryan jolted and then slid to the floor.

“You can probably stop doing that now,” Peter said after a few moments.

James reluctantly pulled the device away from Ryan’s prone form and handed it to Jake. “Thanks. That was fun.”

“Do you feel better?” Grady asked.

A wide grin split James’ handsome face. “You have no idea.”

“SO, HOW
do you fit into all this?” Mandy asked, keeping a wide berth between Ava and herself as she moved across the saloon. The entertainment area was large. She had plenty of room to run should it become necessary. For some reason, the idea of fighting Ava didn’t fill her with dread.

“That’s what you want to know?” Ava rolled her eyes. “I thought for sure you were going to scream and run. I wanted to chase you into the woods. I wouldn’t leave you there like Ryan did, though. I’m better at this than he is.”

“Obviously,” Mandy said, her tone dry. “Where is Sven?”

“Oh, your bodyguard? I hit him over the head with that big pot that was beside your back door,” Ava said. “Don’t worry. I didn’t kill him. That’s not my style. I just needed time to collect you and get out of here.”

“You know he’s going to kill you when he wakes up, right?”

“He’s cute,” Ava said. “Do you and he have something going on?”

Mandy scowled. “I’m married.”

“You and James keep saying that like it means something,” Ava said. “I’m married, too. That didn’t stop me from having an affair – several in fact – although I will admit my choice of mates was completely idiotic.”

Mandy mulled Ava’s words over, things finally slipping into place. “You had an affair with Ryan, didn’t you?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Ava answered. “I know it was a dumb move. There’s no need to comment on it.”

“Why would you cheat on Art with his son?”

“Money.”

Mandy’s eyebrows flew up her forehead. “Ryan paid you to have sex with him?”

“Oh, don’t be so high and mighty,” Ava said, lifting her fingers so she could study her freshly painted nails. “I totally ruined my manicure taking that security guard out. Who is he, by the way?”

“He’s the right-hand man of Peter Marconi.”

“Is that name supposed to mean something to me?”

“He’s a local mobster who also happens to be Sophie’s foster father,” Mandy replied, hoping the news would worry Ava. She wanted her nervous and edgy when she made her move. “He shares his resources with us from time to time.”

Ava wrinkled her nose. “Mobster? Like
The Godfather
?”

“Pretty much.”

“That’s kind of exciting,” Ava enthused. “I always thought I would make an excellent mob wife. Is this Peter single?”

“I don’t think you’re his type.”

Ava snorted. “I’m everyone’s type.”

Mandy decided to draw Ava back to the original conversation topic. “I don’t understand how having an affair with Ryan benefitted you. You strike me as a woman who only does things when there’s a financial reason to do them.”

“That’s true,” Ava said. “My problem is that I signed an ironclad pre-nup when I married Art. I thought the money he spent on me would be enough that I could hide a lot of it away, but he watches my accounts a lot more than I realized and he expects me to hand receipts over for everything I buy.”

“He sounds like a real tightass.”

“You have no idea,” Ava said, widening her eyes to comical proportions. “It’s so frustrating. Anyway, when I realized my plan to squirrel money away wasn’t going to work, I decided the next way to go was to get pregnant.”

“Was that before or after you realized Art didn’t like giving money to his offspring?”

“Way before,” Ava replied. “I knew he had bad relationships with both of his exes, but I thought I would be different because … well … I’m prettier. I do everything he wants in bed, too. Let me tell you something, he likes the kinky stuff.”

Mandy involuntarily shuddered.

“Yeah, imagine that pasty white dude naked,” Ava said. “You’re lucky. Your husband is ridiculously hot – and for some reason he seems devoted to you. I don’t get that.”

“We married for love, not money.”

“Oh, please,” Ava scoffed. “He has a lot of money. You know you like that about him.”

“I like him, not his money.”

“Whatever,” Ava said. “So, where was I?”

“You were going to get pregnant.”

“Oh, right. Well, we had sex every day for three months and I didn’t get knocked up. I thought it was me and went to the doctor. Come to find out, that tightass Art had a vasectomy and didn’t tell me. There was no way for me to get pregnant.”

“How does sleeping with Ryan help you?”

“He’s still Art’s heir,” Ava said. “Ryan kept slipping into town as often as he could so we could meet in hotels. He was so excited about putting one over on his old man. He’s bitter about Art never giving him money when he was growing up. I thought he would be a close enough DNA match to fool the doctors. I was planning on telling Art his vasectomy failed and then I found out that Ryan wouldn’t be a perfect match and all of my plans went to crap.”

“Bummer.” Mandy wanted to throw up. She’d never met anyone as vapid – or apparently stupid – as Ava.

“The problem is, it was already too late,” Ava said. “I’m pregnant with Ryan’s disgusting offspring. I don’t want to get rid of it because I’m still trying to figure out a way to get Art’s money. This is his grandchild, after all.”

“Does Art know you’re sleeping with his son?”

“Of course not.”

“So Ryan wanted to rob the store to get money for the two of you and stick it to his father at the same time, right?”

Ava nodded. “Those stores are full of millions of dollars worth of merchandise before the holidays,” she explained. “We were going to take the money and move to an island or something. Of course, that was before your friend went taser happy and ruined everything.”

“Perhaps Ryan shouldn’t have been trying to shake people down for their wedding rings.”

Ava rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

“Do you even love Ryan?”

“Of course not,” Ava said. “I was going to go to an island with him and convince him we were going to be happy forever. Then, when he wasn’t expecting it, I was going to take all of the money and run.”

“You’re a real princess.”

“I know, right?” Ava was also deluded. “Now we’re stuck with no merchandise and a desperate need for money. That’s where you come in.”

“James isn’t going to give you a million dollars as ransom,” Mandy said.

“I think he’s willing to do just about anything to save you,” Ava said. “I didn’t believe men actually married women for love until I saw you two together. He’ll pay.”

“He’ll kill you both is what he’ll do.”

“I guess we’ll have to wait and see,” Ava said. “Now, come on. We need to get going. I’m already behind because of the mafia stud outside.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Unfortunately, I thought you would say that,” Ava said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a taser. “You’re either going to come with me willingly or I’m going to shock you and then drag you out. I’d rather not do that because you look heavy, but I don’t have a lot of time. What’s it going to be?”

Mandy made up her mind quickly. “I’d rather die than help you.”

“So be it.”

“I KNEW
this was going to happen,” Ryan whined, rolling across the filthy motel room floor and clutching his chest. “I told her this was going to go south and we should just run. Did she listen to me? Of course not.”

“Who are you talking about?” Grady asked, nudging Ryan with his foot. Ryan ignored him.

“This is going to be the worst Christmas ever!”

James and Grady exchanged a look.

“Ryan, who are you working with?” James asked, tugging on his limited patience so he wouldn’t kick Ryan harder to get answers. “You need to answer me.”

“The love of my life,” Ryan wailed. “We’ll never get our happily ever after now.”

“I have a hard time believing anyone would get a happily ever after with someone as pathetic as you,” Peter said. “Tell us who you’re working with.”

“The most beautiful woman in the world.”

“We don’t have time for this,” James grumbled, reaching over and grabbing Ryan’s shoulder, digging his fingers in until the man cried out. “Who are you working with?”

“Ava!”

James released Ryan, drawing back so he could think about the man’s admission. “Ava?”

“She’s pregnant with my baby,” Ryan said. “She wanted to force my father into paying child support, but then she realized that wasn’t going to work so we decided to rob the store. Your sister ended that dream.”

“She’s good like that,” Jake said.

“Then we found out you did a background check on me,” Ryan said. “I figured it was only a matter of time before you ran one on Ava. It wouldn’t be long before you discovered we were in contact with one another. We checked out your financials and realized you could finance our escape.”

“And you went after my wife,” James hissed.

“We’re not going to hurt her,” Ryan said. “I promise. Ava just wants to hold onto her until you pay us.”

“Wait … why are you talking about this in the present tense?” James asked. “You already failed to get Mandy.”

“Ava said if she wanted it done right she was going to have to do it herself,” Ryan said. “She won’t hurt her. She’s probably already got her.”

“Sonovabitch,” James cursed, striding toward the door. “I have to get home.”

“I’ll take care of Ryan,” Peter said. “I’m calling Sven now.”

“If that bitch lays one hand on my wife … .”

“She’s pregnant,” Ryan yelled to James’ retreating back. “Don’t hurt my baby!”

“You’d better hope no one has laid a finger on my baby,” James snarled. “I will burn this town down if that witch touches her!”

“I’M NOT
afraid of you,” Mandy said, moving around the corner of the pool table. “On the list of people who have threatened my life, you’re not even in the top ten scariest.”

“Maybe that says something about you,” Ava said, holding the taser out as she moved around the far end of the table. “What are you doing?”

“Walking around the table.”

“Why?”

“I don’t think I’ve gotten enough exercise lately,” Mandy replied, forcing a bright smile on her face. “As you said, I weigh too much. I need to work some of my breakfast calories off.”

“I don’t understand why you have to make this so difficult,” Ava whined. “I am on a timetable here. Don’t you care about that?”

“Not at all.”

“I’m really starting to hate you,” Ava muttered.

“That’s funny, because I hated you on sight,” Mandy spat.

Ava lurched forward, the taser aimed for Mandy’s heart. Mandy telegraphed the move and dodged to the side, grabbing the cue ball off the tabletop and whipping it at Ava’s head. The ball hit its mark, causing Ava to drop the taser and grab her eye – howling as she weaved back and forth.