Reckless (23 page)

“I have,” Toni said.

Nick looked at her fast. He hadn't liked the
slight waver in her voice, and he saw now the unnatural paleness in
her cheeks. She was scared. “Tell me. I can see you don't think I'm
going to like it.”

“Doesn't matter if you like it. Carl needs
help, Nick, or he won't make it. So we’re gonna give Taranto
exactly the show he’s expecting. I'll wrap myself up in a blanket.
You can carry me down to the car, and we'll leave. Taranto will
think I'm Carl and come after us. You just said he wouldn't let
Carl make it to a hospital alive. He'll come after
us.
When
he does, it will be safe for my sister to get Carl to an emergency
room.”

Nick rose from Carl's side, took Toni's
shoulders in his hands and gazed into her bottomless eyes. “Listen
close, Toni Rio, 'cause I'm only saying this once. No. It isn't
going to happen.”

She stood straighter. “Then I assume you have
a better idea?” Her chin jutted, and her eyes flashed with
determination that overrode her fear. “We'll be all right, Nick.
You know your boss Harry and all his men are out there somewhere.
They'll be right behind Taranto when he comes after us. We'll be
fine.”

His hands tightened. “You're offering to act
as a decoy, Toni. A target. What am I supposed to do if Taranto
manages to catch us? Stand there and watch him give the order to
put a bullet in your head?”

“Are our chances any better by staying here?
They aren't and you know it. The longer we argue about this, the
closer Carl gets to having no chance at all.”

Carl moaned low as if to punctuate her words.
His body shuddered once, then went still. Joey tensed beside him,
pressing the pads of her fingers to his throat. She sighed and took
them away. “Toni’s right. He can't stay here. Every minute is
pushing him closer to death.”

“We'll leave the evidence here,” Toni said
quickly. “Joey can give it to Harry when he gets to the
hospital.”

Nick shook his head.
“You
give it to
Harry. I'll try and lead Taranto away myself.”

“If you do, Nick, I'll get in Joey's car and
come after you.”

He closed his eyes slowly, opened them again.
He felt like a projectile had lodged in his chest. She was offering
him a way to save Carl, his best friend since he'd been no more
than a smart-mouth kid. Carl—whom he loved. But Toni’s offer put
her at risk. Toni, the woman who'd handed him the ammunition to put
Taranto away. Toni—whom he...what?

He damn well didn't love her. It would be
stupid to love a woman he knew he'd lose in the end. Stupid!

“You wanna tell me why you're being so
stubborn about this?”

Her gaze held his as a magnet holds steel.
“You'll have twice the chance of getting away if I'm with you,
Nick. Look, this might be your case—your vendetta, but it's my
evidence. Whether you like it or not, we're in this together. I'm
not going to walk away and let you take the heat alone just because
things are starting to get dangerous. Taranto might not follow you
if you leave alone.”

Carl began to shake again, violently this
time, his legs stiffening as his heels jostled off the pillows and
tapped a beat on the floor. Toni pulled from Nick's restraining
hands, disappeared into the bedroom and returned a second later
with a blanket draped over her shoulders. She bent to pick up the
gun her sister had dropped.

Joey got to her feet, wrapped Toni in her
arms and squeezed. “Be careful.”

To his shock, Joey stepped away from her
sister and turned to fold him in a powerful embrace. “I'll take
care of Carl. Don't worry about him. And don't keep questioning
yourself the way you’ve been doing. You’re right, this is risky.
But it’s also the only way.”

Nick frowned, sending Toni a questioning
look.

“Trust her, Nick. My sister knows
things.”

Toni had to remain limp in Nick’s arms as he
carried her through the corridors and into the chill of the
stairwell. She'd much rather have wound her arms around his neck
and hidden her face against him. Shivers of pure fear rushed
through her when she thought about what they were doing, so she
tried not to think about it. There was no alternative, no way she
could’ve stayed behind. Her feelings for Nick had grown very
powerful, very quickly. The thought of staying behind and allowing
him to face this alone had been unacceptable. She hadn't been able
to consider it.

She told herself that it was because he'd
done something so precious to her by making her see what had driven
her all this time. Recognizing that the emotion behind her
recklessness had been a form of survivor’s guilt over her father's
suicide was a major step toward overcoming it. He'd opened the
shutters, spilling brilliant light in the shadowy corners of her
mind, and forcing her to see what was there. Now she could begin to
sweep away the cobwebs and dust that had built up for so long. She
owed him for that.

Still, there was more than gratitude in her
heart. She recognized that he had some musty, sealed-off rooms in
his mind, too. Rooms he rarely allowed himself to enter. She knew
the wound in his soul he'd allowed to fester since his brother's
death. She knew that being abandoned by his parents had injured him
deeply, and she knew he refused to admit that. She wanted to help
him clean out those cluttered rooms and then fill them with warmth
and happiness.

It was amazing how well she'd come to know
Nick in such a short time. It hit her hardest whenever he looked
into her eyes. It was palpable, whatever passed between them
then—as if they were touching souls. She wondered if he felt it,
too. He kept himself so closed off, it was hard to tell.

She felt his body tense and shook herself.
They were at the entrance to the parking garage. As he carried her
through the doorway, she tensed, but he moved fast, lowering her
onto the passenger seat faster than she would have believed
possible. She kept the blanket over her face, let her body sag
limply to one side, and clutched the textured walnut grips of the
huge handgun he’d given her. He was behind the wheel in an instant,
gunning the motor and speeding away. She knew when they left the
underground garage and turned onto the street

“Is anyone following—” She began to sit up a
little as she spoke and flipped the blanket away from her face.
Nick pushed her down again. Her backside was on the seat, but her
head was pressed to his rib cage. He held her for a moment, his arm
around her like a steel band.

When it came away, she saw him adjust the
rearview. “Oh, yeah. They're coming, all right. Where the hell is
Harry with our backup?”

Toni felt the car jerk and heard the squeal
of the tires when he took a sharp corner, then another. She wished
she could see his face. She heard the grim tone in his voice,
though. “No cops. No sign of Harry. I can't believe this!” He took
another corner, drew a breath. “Something must've happened to him
before he could get back to HQ. I think we're on our own.”

Toni tried to make her voice level.
“What—what could've happened to him?”

“Don't worry about it now. Listen, I'm going
to take a few quick turns, see if I can lose them for a second.
Just long enough for you to get out. Slide over by the door and get
ready—”

“I told you we're in this together,
Nick.”

“That was when we thought we had backup.”

“And now I'm the only backup you have,” she
countered. “I'm not going anywhere.”

He drove in stony silence then, never slowing
down, his muscles tense. Suddenly he hit the brakes, and she heard
him swear viciously. His thigh went rigid under her hand, and she
lifted her head very slightly to see what had caused him to skid to
a halt.

A car had pulled across the street in front
of them. Nick shifted into reverse and slammed the pedal to the
floor, turning the wheel sharply. He was crossways in the street
when a van skidded to a stop behind them. They were trapped. The
only way out was a narrow channel between the vehicles. It would
take them over the sidewalk and smack into a mailbox, but—

Before Toni could complete the thought,
Taranto’s men were out of their vehicles and Nick was pressing down
onto the seat and tugging the blanket over her head. She glimpsed
two rifles pointing toward them from behind the car. A frantic
glance to her right showed two more from the van.

Lou Taranto's voice came clearly. “Out of the
car, Nicky. I don't have time to play with you. I count three and
put a bullet in the gas tank. You don’t wanna go out like that. Get
out and take it like a man.”

Nick looked down at her, into her eyes, and
again she felt that powerful surge of some unknown force linking
them together. “Stay down low,” he instructed. His voice was deep
and soft. “They still think it’s Carl in here, half dead, maybe all
the way. They won’t be expecting it. You count to ten, then shift
into gear and put the pedal to the floor.” His eyes shifted,
indicating the same escape route she'd recognized.

She frowned. “I don't under—” She stopped,
eyes widening when she saw his hand close around the door handle.
“No. Nick, you can't go out there!”

“He means it, Toni. He'll blow us both to
hell if I don't.” He reached down, threading his fingers in her
hair. “Their attention will be on me. When I get far enough from
the car, floor it. It's your only chance.”

“No. I won't do it, you can't—”

“Manelli! I'm taking aim! Get out now or
burn!”

Nick blinked. He leaned over and touched her
face with his lips. “Do it. Don't look back.” He forced a lopsided
grin. “For what it's worth, Toni, it meant something with you. It
never did before. Not once.”

He wrenched the door open and got out fast.
Toni barely restrained herself from shrieking at him, lunging after
him, grabbing him by the shirt and pulling him back into the car.
She slid herself into his spot behind the wheel, still keeping her
head low enough so they couldn’t see from outside.

“Move away from the car,” Taranto yelled.

Toni watched through the side mirrors as Nick
walked slowly toward the rear of the car, then past it. He stood
several yards behind the vehicle, and as he'd predicted, every gun
was trained on him. She swallowed hard. This couldn't be happening.
She blinked and when she opened her eyes, she saw a man coming
toward the passenger side, his gun drawn and ready.

“If Salducci isn't dead yet, finish him.”
Taranto's voice echoed in her mind. She turned herself in the seat
so she faced that door. She pulled the blanket around her, leaving
a crack she could see through and poking the six-inch nickel barrel
through another. She thumbed the safety off.

The car door opened, and the tall, dark
outline of a man filled it. She watched in horror as his gun barrel
lowered toward her. And then she tightened her finger on the
trigger, and the big gun bucked violently in her hands. The roar of
it was deafening in the car's interior. The man reacted as if he'd
been slammed in the chest with a hammer, jerking backward. His face
went lax and his body sank limply to the ground.

She had to act fast while the confusion
lasted. At the moment, they must think the thug’s gun was the one
they'd heard. She jammed her finger on the trunk-release button and
shifted the car into reverse, backing up so fast she left rubber
and hitting the brakes only when she was about to run Nick over.
Gunfire erupted, and the car sank with Nick’s body weight as he
threw himself into the open trunk. The window to her left exploded,
showering her with glass, but she stomped the gas and sped away,
hitting the mailbox hard enough to rattle her teeth, jumping the
curb and squealing over a stretch of sidewalk. The car dropped back
to the street again on the other side of the parked van, and Toni
pushed the pedal to the floor. She couldn’t believe how close the
gunshots were! It felt as if those thugs were in the damn car with
her!

The lights around her blended into a single
blurred haze. The traffic sounds became a buzzing drone as
adrenaline surged. They must be chasing her. She couldn't see them
now, but they must be. Was Nick hit? Was he even now bleeding to
death in the trunk? She'd killed a man. The weight of it dropped on
her suddenly and powerfully. She'd taken a life. She hadn't even
known him and she'd killed him. Her stomach heaved, and she bit her
lip until she drew blood to fight off the nausea. Tears pooled in
her eyes, and no amount of blinking prevented them spilling over.
She'd never been so frightened in her life! Her hands shook, partly
from the force with which she gripped the wheel and partly from the
remnants of her terror. She could barely see where she drove now,
but she kept the pressure on the accelerator all the same...

...until she careened into an intersection
and heard the blast of an air horn. The impact snapped her head
back. She heard grinding, bending metal and shattering glass. She
smelled diesel smoke and hot rubber. She felt a warm trickle at her
temple and then she felt nothing at all.