Driven to the Edge: A Bad Boy Hitman Romance (11 page)

H
unting
through the top floors of Augustine’s is a nightmare. The place is a labyrinth. Nobody questions my presence since I’m dressed nice enough, but I feel like I’m making no headway at all. I don’t have a clue where to look.

So I make a rash decision. At least it’ll speed things up.

The next time I pass a security guard, I creep up behind him, grab him in a choke hold, and tell him to take me to Marton Császár, lest I blow his fucking head off.

It works.

We walk close together, the pistol pressed into his lower back. I tell him to act like I’m a drunk he’s escorting to his room, growling the instructions down toward him like a madman. I suppose I have to be at least half mad to be doing this. Yet here I am.

“Someone’s going to see this on the security cameras,” the man says. “Just let me go. You’re already as good as caught.”

“That’s great news,” I say, arming the handgun. “I want to be caught. Take me to your fucking boss.”

We take the elevator to the ninth floor. When the doors slide open, a whole bevy of guards are waiting right outside. The guy in my arms wasn’t wrong about that.

I shift my grip on the gun, press it against the side of his head instead.

“Nobody do anything stupid,” I say. “I killed a lot of people to get here. Just take me to Marton Császár’s room.”

“Do as he says,” the man says, stiff as a board against me.

I let him lead, the flock of guards following close, none of them cleared to make a move. If they’d been cleared to shoot me, they would have already. Hopefully that means the guy I grabbed isn’t disposable.

He leads me to one of the penthouse suites, one without a number above the door handles.

“I’m not sure if Mr. Császár is in,” my hostage whimpers, his eyes wide with fear.

“That’s all right,” I say. “Use your key.”

“I don’t have a key, sir.”

“That’s horseshit. You’re security. I’m sure you have a master key.”

His one last attempt to save his boss’s nuts vaporized, the guy swipes a keycard through the reader on the door. I haul the door open, but shove him through first.

Nobody fires at us. So I step inside.

The suite is sleekly modern, the same smoky glass and walnut motif as the lobby. Everything is polished, mirror like, obscenely expensive. I see there’s a fire lit in the fireplace, which says to me someone is either home or was just here.

The big wall-mounted TV in the corner is playing something animated. I look down on the sofa.

Eloise is sitting on the couch, peering up at the television, her eyes rapt.

My heart stops.

She looks over at me.

Her eyes go huge.

“Uncle Jakob?” she asks, a grin breaking out across her features.

I keep my grip on the security guard, then force the double-doors closed before anyone else can get inside. I lock the door with one hand. Eloise sits up on the sofa, starts to make her way over to me. But I hold up a finger to her.

“Easy, girl,” I say. “Just a second. Uncle Jakob is busy doing adult stuff.”

She looks at me with a quizzical head tilt, but she’s old enough to know better than to object. So she sits back down. But she focuses on me now, not the TV.

I have to get her out of here. I’m so close.

She looks unharmed. She looks healthy, even. Sure, she’s still in her PJs at four o’clock, but that happens to a lot of normal kids who aren’t even kidnapped. God, if anyone’s hurt a hair on her head, I’ll--

The doors behind me open.

This means someone who must have a key.

I whirl, jabbing my gun against the security guard’s temple.

And then I’m face to face with Marton Császár. He’s got Alicia in his arms, his own pistol shoved roughly beneath her chin. Her eyes are rimmed with tears, red at the edges. She’s still got the camera around her neck, but she’s shuddering, terrified.

“I’m so sorry,” Marton says, the smarmy fuck. “Am I interrupting something?”

I feel like I’m going to throw up. He can’t hurt Alicia. He can’t even fucking touch Alicia. I want to rip his hands off. First this fucker kidnaps my niece, now he’s got Alicia. And he may have even been the one who killed Alain.

It’s everything in my power, every restraint I have left in me, not to just leap across the room and tackle him.

Instead, I try reason:

“I’m only here for the girl,” I say. “Let me take her and you can go back to business as usual. I don’t give a shit.”

Marton snorts, then rolls his eyes.

“Of course you are,” he says. “But I can’t let that happen. You know what happens to your reputation if people find out someone can steal from you and just
live
? That’s not how this works, Jakob. I figured you’d know. You were an associate for so long.”

I dart my eyes to Alicia’s and shake my head just a bit.

“I worked for my brother. I’d never work for you. And now my brother’s dead.”

“And I’m sure you didn’t come here to put a bullet in my head for that.”

I grit my teeth.

“Why, did you do it?”

Marton smiles, angelic.

“Maybe.”

Bristling visibly, I jerk toward him a bit, the barrel of my Sig pressed against his employee’s head.

“Motherfucker.”

Marton glances sideways to the sofa where Eloise sits.

“Language, Ference. There’s a child here.”

Snarling, I look left to right, unsure of my options. He’s got me in a complete standoff. Eloise is vulnerable, unprotected. And Alicia, God... seeing that gun pressed to Alicia.

I did the same thing to her once. But now that it’s Marton Császár’s weapon to her throat, I see red.

Hiking in a deep breath, I look back to Marton, regarding him stonily.

“Let both the girls go and you can have me,” I say. “I don’t care. I just want them to be safe.”

Marton snorts.

“That’s very sweet of you, but this one is your accomplice. There’s no way in hell she’s walking out that door.”

As Marton speaks, Alicia catches my eye. She jerks her chin downward just a hint, toward her camera. I’m not sure what I mean, but then I understand. She’s going to go for it.

... Well, if we were both going down eventually.

I want to tell her how I feel. How she at least made me feel like I had a
chance
at a future.

But instead I warn Eloise.

“Eloise, honey. Look at the TV for a minute, okay?”

I don’t want her to see this.

F
irst he tried
to tell me that Jake was a thief targeting the casino. But I refused to believe it. Then he tried to tell me Jake was just using me to fulfill a personal vendetta, something about him thinking stubble-head guy killed his brother. But I didn’t believe that either.

I looked into Jake’s eyes--Jake Hawthorne, Jakob Ference, whoever he is--and I could see that he was telling the truth.

So bald jackass smashed my head into his desk and dragged me out of his office with a gun to my throat. I’m still reeling a little as he forces me into the suite, and then when I see Jake and the little girl I understand.

Now I’m going to do the dumbest, or maybe the bravest, thing I’ve ever done.

I move my thumb on the camera, toward the flash button. If this works, we’ll only have a second. But Jake understood my gesture. He’s already tensing up.

I wait for bald guy to look back toward Jake, then spin the camera up to face me. I wince my eyes closed, then fire the flash on full blast right into his face.

Bald guy cries out. I hit the deck. A gunshot rings out, then another. The little girl’s screaming, but I think it’s just scared screaming, not pained screaming. I roll away from bald guy’s feet toward Jake and my hand hits a body.

I’m afraid to look.

But it’s just the security guard Jake was holding hostage.

I roll sideways and get back to my feet, on the verge of throwing up with nerves.

Jake has bald guy now, his gun to his head. Bald guy’s gun is lying on the floor. It looks like bald guy may have been the one who shot the security guard. I rush over to the little girl.

“Eloise, right?” I ask her. She recoils away from me at first, but then I smile and crouch down.

“I’m here with him,” I say, pointing toward Jake. She relaxes visibly.

Which means Jake was telling the truth.

I offer the little girl my hand and head back toward the door.

Slowly, tensely, we begin our descent out of Augustine’s, now that Jake has the most valuable man in the building as his hostage.

We slowly inch down the hall until the bald man--Marton Császár, I remind myself--tells Jake the location of a private elevator. His goons follow us en masse, but every time Jake puts the gun up, they back away. The four of us crowd ridiculously into the elevator and take it toward the basement parking level.

“Radio your men and tell them we’re happy to let you go in exchange for safe passage out,” Jake says.

When the doors slide open, there are even more dark suits outside. Some of them are just punters. One of them cries out in surprise.

The Maybach is so close. I can see the sleek lines of it in the dark parking structure. If we can at least get to it, the armor will protect us.

Every step we take, Jake leading the way, I prepare for bullets to rain down and tear me to shreds. I’ve never been so terrified in my life.

But Eloise’s presence forces me to be brave. I can’t be scared in front of her. So I hold her hand and guard her with my body as we shuffle slowly toward the car.

Someone’s phone goes off. It’s that annoying, incessant jingly ringtone on the phone Jake was using last night. The phone call that got him all emotional.

I unlock the doors and all but leap into the driver’s seat. I beckon Eloise into the passenger’s.

Jake lowers slowly down into the passenger compartment, behind the partition, and drags Marton Császár in with him.

We slam the doors shut. All the while, the goddamn phone rings off the hook. Every time it beeps, I irrationally worry a bomb is going to explode the Maybach right out from under us.

“Jesus Christ,” I whisper. “We made it.”

Eloise looks up at me from the seat and frowns pensively.

“That’s a swear word,” she says.

I rev the engine and hit the intercom.

“Where are we even going?”

“I just got a phone call,” Jake says. “I think it’ll help us out. Take us onto the 160. Out toward the desert. I know they’re following us but that’s all right.”

It’s
all right
that they’re following?

Shaking all over, I put the car in gear and pull out. Nobody’s called the police, which astounds me, but I guess these guys are all criminals. Maybe they want to keep it hush hush. Three black Escalades with tinted windows pull out of the garage behind us. I do my best to ignore them.

“You want to pick the radio station?” I offer to Eloise. I’m eager to distract her, to keep her mind off the horror of what she just witnessed.

She leans in close to the dial and I show her how to operate the Maybach’s slick, retro-inspired controls.

I try not to think about what’s happening in the backseat.

In no time, I get us out of downtown Vegas and onto the highway system, eventually settling for the 160 West. We have enough gas to get as far as Pahrump before we run into trouble, and I don’t know what’s going to happen then.

The three black SUVs pace us the entire time as the suburbs and buildings start to dwindle, grow smaller, then fade from old single-story structures to nothing.

Eloise put on Radio Disney. Go figure.

“What’s your name?” Eloise finally asks me. I’m so frazzled I can’t even remember if I told her before.

“I’m Alicia.”

“And you’re with Uncle Jake?”

“That’s right.”

I’m not sure how much ‘with’ she meant, but I’m not sure how much I’m ‘with’ Jake either.

I stare straight ahead, driving with determination, glad that the goons in the black Escalades aren’t trying to test the armored shell of the Maybach just yet. It could take a licking, but in all my time driving armored cars, I’ve never actually been shot at.

The brown-orange Clark County barrens race out past our windows. I’m speeding, although not enough to draw attention to myself. I sure hope Jake knows where we’re going, because soon we’ll be in the part of the state where gas is hard to come by.

The idea of running out of gas with that fleet of SUVs chasing us gives me chills.

I smile sideways down toward Eloise, who seems less bothered than I am by everything that’s just happened. I don’t know if it’s childhood resilience or if she’s shell-shocked or if she’s just glad to see her uncle again.

Uncle Jake. I almost stifle a laugh. Then I wonder: is the man in the photograph I saw Jake’s brother? If so, what happened to him? Given the type of people Jake is mixed up with, I wonder if that explains why the girl’s parents are nowhere to be seen.

Something thumps against the partition behind us. I idly wonder if that glass is bulletproof too. Just in case. I try not to imagine what’s going on back there.

I drive. It’s what I do.

I squint down the highway, where I notice something: a plume of dust is rising up into the sky from a distant dirt road, still several miles ahead of us. A big plume.

I hope it’s not more of the bald guy’s men coming for us. Because armored or not, I’m not sure how much the Maybach can take.

M
arton is getting a little feisty
. I slam the side of his head into the glass partition that separates the passenger from the driver compartments. He yelps and shakes his head several times, then goes still. A small trickle of blood trails down from a welt on his brow, down into his eye.

I’ve got the man who ordered my brother killed right here in my hands.

Somehow, it doesn’t feel as satisfying as I thought it would.

Maybe it’s because I have Eloise back now. Maybe it’s because I am standing on the edge of a whole new life, horizons to look toward with maybe Alicia at my side. But suddenly, revenge isn’t the only thing that matters.

I still beat the shit out of him, though.

We ride in silence, Alicia taking the Maybach screaming down the state highway. I imagine Marton’s goons are following us, but I don’t really care about that either.

Because Vin finally called. And Vin, bless his heart, has come to our rescue.

I hear the rumble of the motorbikes before I see them, a roaring cacophony of engines in the distance that vibrates even through the Maybach’s armored walls.

I hit the button that lowers the partition between Alicia and us. And I keep the gun pressed very, very tightly to Marton’s throat.

Alicia’s eyes are wide. She’s looking straight ahead at something. I can’t quite see, but when I sit up, I catch sight of the first of the bikes.

I pull the burner phone from my pocket and call Vin back.

He’s out there somewhere, amongst the bikers.

“Vinny,” I say. “I believe we’re here.”

He was MIA during our recon phase because he was gathering forty Red Rock Riders to come to our aid if things went south.
Relax,
he’d said when we spoke earlier.
They’ll do anything to save a kid. Plus, they’re my guys. And you’re my guy. So by extension, we’re all on the same side.

My pulse stays cool and calm as the bikes surround the Maybach. Alicia looks back at me several times, quick little alarmed glances. But I hold a finger up to her.

“It’s all right,” I say while I listen to Vin yell at someone in the background. “They’re with us. Kind of.”

Beside me, Marton looks back and forth bafflingly, taking it all in.

A great fleet of low-slung, powerful motorcycles encircles us, riding on all sides. I peer out the window. There’s some black Cadillacs behind us, but they’re dropping back further and further ‘til they’re out of shotgun range.

“These idiots will follow us as long as we have Marton,” I say into the phone.

Vin quiets down long enough to holler a reply at me. I can hear engines revving in the background of the call.

“So drop him off by the side of the road. Fucking leave him. He’s shit to us.”

I’m not sure I can do that. I came all this way for my revenge. To hurt him. To make him suffer. For putting his hands on my niece. For harming my family.

Randomly, with no outward warning, I slap him across the face. Marton yelps, blinking his eyes back awake. The earlier smash against the window stunned him a bit. He doesn’t seem a hundred percent present.

“Hey, shithead.”

I stare into his eyes. They’re cold, like a reptile’s. Like he feels nothing for me.

“I’ve fantasized about putting a knife in you every night since you had my brother killed.” I purse my mouth, stare at him flatly. “I know you didn’t pull the trigger, but in this situation, I’m afraid shit rolls uphill.”

Marton licks his lips. One of them is split, blood smudged along it.

“I won’t lie to you. He fucked up. He had to go. The IRS was breathing down our necks.”

I dig the barrel of the gun deeper into his neck.

“You didn’t give Alain a chance to fix things. He could have. He would have. He fucking cared.”

Marton shrugs. Unbelievable. In the face of his own certain death. I suppose you don’t get that high up the food chain in organized crime without having a pulse that’s practically flatlined.

An idea springs to mind. A way I can simultaneously get my revenge and just get on with my life. I don’t have to kill him. But I can ditch him and leave him for his underlings to clean up.

I ask Alicia to pull over, safely within our halo of thundering motorbikes. I ask Vin to signal to the bikers to do the same. So the Maybach and its escort ease onto a service road, pulling away until we’re out of view of the main highway.

I step out onto the dusty ground, dragging Marton with me.

The ground all around us is dotted with juniper and sage. There isn’t a cloud in the sky.

It’s a goddamn gorgeous afternoon.

I bend down, pull my boot knife from its sheath, and stab Marton Császár in the gut. His eyes go wide. He chokes, first in surprise, then on his own blood. I lean in close to him and whisper Alain’s name. Then I give him a pat on the cheek, twist the knife once, and let him fall.

He lands down near my shiny black boots. I stare down at him, dispassionate.

“I know the human body real well,” I say. “I didn’t hit anything vital. If your men get you straight to a hospital, there’s a good chance you don’t bleed to death in the dirt.”

He presses a hand to his side, grimacing and whimpering. His face contorted with pain, he looks up at me.

“Why?”

I wipe my blade off on his shoulder, cleaning it, then fold it away into my boot.

“I thought I had nothing left in this world but making sure your ass got dead,” I say. “I learned that ain’t the case.”

He doesn’t say anything. He does gurgle a little.

“I figure if I got a second chance out of this, maybe I’ll give you one. Mostly I just don’t give enough of a shit about you to kill you anymore.”

I stoop down so I can whisper into his ear.

“But let me be clear on this one thing: if I ever see your face or hear your name again, we’re back for round two. And I won’t rest until every last Császár is six feet under. And you know me, Marty. I’m good.”

He squints up at me, tears rimming his eyes, and bobs several eager nods.

Mostly I think he just wants me to leave.

So I do. I trudge past the sea of Red Rock Riders and slouch into the Maybach, exhausted.

We leave Marton in the dirt, bikes speeding up and blowing dust in all directions. We meet the black SUVs on their way down the service road. They’ll find him. He’ll either live or he won’t. I find I don’t really care that much.

I beckon Eloise back into the passenger’s seat with me. She squirms out of the front seat and leaps into my lap, blessedly ignoring the blood on my hands.

“Uncle Jake!”

I wrap her up in a hug so tight I wonder if I might ever be able to let her go again.

Nestling Eloise in against my side, an arm slung around her, I hit the intercom button.

“Alicia,” I say, slowly. “You think you could drive us one more time?”

When she replies to me, she sounds like she’s smiling.

“Absolutely.”

The Red Rock Riders have a few hideouts all over southern Nevada. We end up at one, a bar-slash-hotel attached to a rickety truck stop in the middle of god knows where. It looks dilapidated as all hell, but comfortable. As someone who grew up in North Vegas and Long Beach, it reminds me of home.

It’s absolutely no place for a six year old child, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Alicia pulls the Maybach into the garage, where Vin’s waiting for us.

I can spot Vin’s frame from a mile away. For one, he’s almost a mile tall. He’s a big, broad-shouldered mountain of a man, with salt-and-pepper hair and a glare that means business. He’s not glaring now, though. In fact, he looks about as happy as I’ve ever seen him.

“Uncle Vin!” Eloise squeals as I open the door. She tears off my lap and straight at him, clambering up his big tattooed body like he’s a jungle gym. He grabs her by the waist, ruffles her hair, and calls her a bunch of names. She loves it.

For a moment, my heart wrenches.

Alain should be here. Ever since we were kids, it was the three of us.

Now it’s just two.

I climb out of the Maybach and shut the door. When it closes, it reveals Alicia, standing in front of me.

I don’t know what to do or say. Other than stare at her for a moment. Because she’s beautiful.

She’s beautiful to begin with, but there’s something about the loyalty of a woman who’d risk her life to help you that makes her even more gorgeous. I wet my lips and stare at her so long she probably wonders what’s wrong with me.

When I reach out to her, she steps into my arms. I wind her up in a tight embrace, clutching hold of her, inhaling the scent of her, running my fingers down the back of her smooth, silky dress. She fits so perfectly into my arms. I don’t remember what another woman would even feel like.

“You uh. You gonna stick around a while?”

I put on my biggest, brightest grin down at her. She eases up against my side, relief and exhaustion in the sag of her shoulders. But her eyes are playful when she peers up at me.

“I’m pretty sure you owe me a drink, Jakob.”

She says my name right, a hint of Hungarian left over in the pronunciation. I guess she picked it up from someone. Császár, Vin, somebody.

It sounds amazing on her tongue.