The Choice She Made (The Mercenary Series Book 1) Read online

  “If you have the choice between Nickie or me—which of us you’re going to save, I mean—choose her. Okay?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t do that.”

  “Yes, you can. It’s simple. Just pick her. Take her away somewhere to start a new life—hell, take her to the cops, if you think that’s the best thing. Just make sure she’s safe. She’s got more chance of living a normal, happy life than I have. My life ended three months ago. I’m just going through the motions.”

  I didn’t know what to say, but I wasn’t going to promise her anything.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  V

  I LOCATED WHERE we were on the map, and then found the road Tony the Hound told us to take.

  I wondered if he was getting suspicious yet. Had the car with the tracker gone past the turnoff, or had the young men already come off the main road somewhere along the route and gone in completely the wrong direction? Even worse was the possibility the other car had taken exactly the same route Tony had told us to, in which case there was the chance a car of young men were about to get their heads blown off by a bunch of gangsters.

  I was tense, waiting for the phone to ring to find out what we were playing at, but, for the moment, it remained silent.

  X leaned across to take a look at the map. Having him so close sent shivers through my body. I could still feel the dull ache of him between my thighs, the wetness in my underwear. I didn’t know what had come over me—that proximity to death making me cling harder to life, I guessed. I wanted to lean into him, to lay my head on his shoulder and close my eyes. I was tired of fighting with everyone and everything, and I just wanted to let someone else take the strain for a short while. But I couldn’t. I needed to prepare myself for the biggest fight of my life, and I couldn’t let my guard down again.

  “There,” he said, stabbing his finger down on the map. “There’s a little back road—possibly not much more than a farm track—which leads further south, adjacent to the route Tony wants us to take.”

  “But we don’t know how far down the road they’re going to be.”

  “We’re just going to have to take our chances. I don’t think we have any other choice.”

  He was right.

  “You need to take the next turn,” I said. “Then a couple of miles along, we’ll come across the farm track on the right hand side.”

  Why there? Why had they chosen this place, in the middle of nowhere, as a meet-up spot? I guessed we were in the middle of nowhere, so less chance of passersby reporting the gunshots that were bound to come. It also wasn’t too far from the town where I’d been relocated by Witness Protection, so that must have come into play. It was a far cry from New York City, though, and I experienced a sudden and unexpected pang of homesickness.

  X took the turn and we found ourselves on an unpaved road. The old vehicle bumped and jolted its way down the track, creaking and moaning its protest. We should have stuck with the truck.

  The cell phone buzzed.

  “He’s figured out we’re no longer with the tracker.”

  “What should I do?” I asked staring at the ringing phone.

  “Don’t answer it.”

  “Then he might kill my sister.”

  “If he does that, he’ll have lost all leverage, both with you and with your father. He’s not a stupid man.”

  “Fuck.” I was torn with indecision. If I answered the cell phone, he’d want to know exactly where I was, and if I told him that, we’d lose any element of surprise.

  “He doesn’t know we found the tracker,” said X, trying to reassure me. “You could have been carjacked, for all he knows. Anything might have happened.”

  He was right, but the thought of him doing something awful to Nickie terrified me.

  Even so, I stared at the phone with my heart lodged in my throat, my palms tingling to pick it up and answer it.

  X’s hand suddenly covered my thigh, dragging my attention away from the phone and to him.

  “It will be all right,” he said, and I found myself tumbling into the blue of his eyes. “I kill for a living, and taking down Tony the Hound and his men won’t prove to be a problem.”

  A small smile touched my lips. “You were supposed to kill me, too, remember? You didn’t do so well on that job.”

  “Maybe that was because I couldn’t bring myself to see you dead.”

  “Not because I stabbed you in the arm and leg?”

  His eyebrows lifted, his lips pursing slightly in a way that made my heart flip. “Maybe that helped, too.”

  The phone stopped vibrating, the light of the screen going dark again, and ahead of us the dirt track hit a road in a T-junction. My heartrate continued to thunder, and I took a couple of deep breaths. I needed to distance myself, emotionally, from all of this. It was something I’d been good at in the past, and I had to find that cold, dark place inside myself again. That Verity was the one who needed to face Tony the Hound and his men, not the Vee who had been awakened by the touch of the hit man sitting beside her, or the terrified sister frightened for her sibling’s life.

  “We’ll stop the car here,” I said, straightening in my seat and taking a breath. “We should walk the rest.”

  X cast a curious glance over to me. “You’re happy to go alone?”

  “I don’t have any choice.”

  He nodded his agreement. “Okay. I’ll stay on this side of the road, and run along parallel to you.”

  “There are three guns. Which of us gets two of them?”

  “I’ll have to take them,” he said. “Chances are, the first thing they’ll do is search you.”

  “If I let them get close enough.”

  “Just try to play it cool,” he warned.

  I nodded. “I will.”

  It was almost dark now, right at that moment where day becomes night, but there was still enough light to see.

  We climbed from the car and stepped out onto the road, turning right, so we effectively headed back on ourselves. I hoped we were going in the right direction. I kept the phone in my back pocket with it switched to silent, and slung my bag over my shoulder. It held all my belongings in the world, and I wasn’t about to abandon it. The gun I held in my hand.

  “I’ll slip between the trees,” said X as we walked, him checking the magazine cartridges in both guns to make sure he was fully armed. “I won’t lose sight of you if I can help it.”

  “Okay.”

  His touch on my arm made me draw to a halt. “Don’t do anything rash,” he said. “Be careful.”

  I nodded, and then, to my surprise, he leaned in and planted a soft but firm kiss to the corner of my mouth. Not giving me a chance to respond, he turned and ran in a slow lope off the road, disappearing between the tree trunks.

  I pushed my weapon down the back of my jeans, pulling my t-shirt over the butt to hide it. The rucksack on my shoulder also helped to disguise the bulge. I took a deep breath and started walking, alone.

  No, I had to have faith I wasn’t alone. X was right beside me, just out of view, shrouded in tree trunks and the pockets of darkness between them. From somewhere to my left, an owl screeched.

  As I continued to walk, I rounded a corner and spotted something in the road up ahead. My heart lurched, my stomach cramping with a twist of fear. A familiar sign was positioned to block the way, warning of police and an accident. I didn’t think for a moment there had been an accident. The sign had been positioned there to stop people from driving down the road and interrupting whatever Tony the Hound and his crew had planned. I highly suspected there would be an identical sign coming from the other direction as well. At least I knew I was heading in the right direction. I tried not to feel nauseated with terror, my chest tight, my breathing shallow. I needed to focus on Nickie and how scared she must be right now. I would see her soon, and X would kill Tony and his men, and we would walk free.

  I had to believe that. It was the only thing that would keep my legs moving.

  I ro
unded the bend and my heartrate exploded.

  Two vehicles were parked in the middle of the road—both big, black, and expensive. The headlights of the cars lit the road ahead. Four men stood around the vehicles, each of them in expensive suits. They were facing the opposite way, the way they’d expected us to come. X’s plan had worked.

  The interiors of the cars were also lit. In the seat of one of the vehicles, through the rear windshield, I could see the back of a head, shiny black hair, just like my own, too small to be a man. Nickie.

  I suddenly wondered why I was walking down the middle of the road in plain view. Wouldn’t it have been better for us both to ambush Tony the Hound from the side of the road?

  The reason dawned on me.

  I was a decoy, a distraction.

  If the mobsters were focused on me, they wouldn’t notice X coming to put a bullet in the back of their heads. I just hoped he did so before I ended up with a bullet in mine.

  Though I was only about thirty feet away, they still hadn’t noticed me approaching.

  Briefly, I wondered if I could sneak over and just grab Nickie out of the car. But then a guy cleared his throat and threw a cigarette butt onto the road, where it bounced and sparked, and he turned and spotted me.

  A smile spread across his rotund face. “Well, well, well. What do we have here? Looks like Mickey Five Fingers’ daughter finally made an appearance.”

  The other men turned at his words, and my eyes flicked over each of them, quickly ascertaining which was Tony the Hound. He was easy enough to spot. He was the one with the air of smug superiority hanging around him. He was in his mid-forties with overly black hair which was receding at the temples. Fury that this middle-aged man thought he could go around snatching teenage girls suddenly rose inside me, and my fingers itched to snatch the weapon from the back of my jeans and open fire on the son-of-a-bitch. I had to hold back. If I pulled the gun now, they’d shoot me and it would be game over. I had to remember what X had said about how important restraint and control were.

  “Give me my sister back,” I demanded, raising my voice to be heard, my gaze focused on Tony.

  He took something out of his pocket and checked it. “So you figured out the tracker? According to this, you’re still on the move.”

  I shrugged. “Wasn’t so hard. You kept knowing when—” I caught myself. I’d almost said ‘we.” “When I stopped, and I knew I wasn’t being followed. The tracker was the only plausible explanation.”

  “Smart. Shame you had to screw everything up and kill my men. I’m going to struggle to let that one go.”

  I scowled at him. “I don’t care what you do with me. Release my sister, and I’ll come with you.”

  “Not going to happen. Tell me what you did with my men.”

  I lifted my eyebrows. “You think I’m going to tell you anything when you have my sister?”

  “How about you tell me, and I won’t cut her pretty little tits off.”

  “Touch her and I’ll ... I’ll ...”

  He laughed, and the sound made me want to slice him open and disembowel him. “You’ll what? You’re barely more than a kid yourself.”

  “And yet you sent two of your men after me, and here I am.”

  “And why have you come, just out of curiosity? You could have run.”

  “I love my sister. I didn’t want her to go through this alone.”

  He gave a snide smile. “Yeah, family first, right? Well, you’ll get to spend a little time together before we tell daddy-dearest that we have you both. Word is that your father actually wants you dead, and though I want to punish you for whatever you did to my men, I want to get to him first. You’re going to testify against him, your own father. Jeesh, what’s this world coming to?”

  “He made me kill my mother,” I said, trying to sound tough.

  “Yeah, I heard that, too. You sure are some fucked up kid.” He shook his head at me. “The problem is, Verity, that you kind of screwed everything up. I didn’t plan for things to go like this, and now I can’t quite decide what to do with you. Normally, I’d just have you killed for taking down my guys, but I think that would only give your father what he wanted. Surely better to keep you alive and have the threat of your testifying hanging over his head.”

  “Why wouldn’t I testify against you at the same time?” I snapped.

  “Because you know I’d kill your sister.”

  “The police are going to know something is wrong if she isn’t with me.”

  “Witness protection is completely voluntary. You come out of WITSEC but still promise to testify, and we’ll be the ones who offer you protection.”

  I knew what this meant. I would be owned by the mob, as would my sister. But we would both still be alive, though we would live every day in fear, terrified my father would send someone after us—or at least me. How could I live like that, and what would happen after the trial? Would my testimony still be taken if I was seen to be under the protection of my father’s rival?

  But if I turned down his offer now, would he just shoot me?

  “Let me talk to my sister,” I said, avoiding answering the question, trying to buy some time.

  He paused and then jerked his chin at the guy who’d been smoking. The other man opened the back door and reached in and yanked Nickie out. She staggered, but he held her upright.

  “Nickie!” I cried.

  “Vee?” She blinked at me as though she couldn’t believe I was there.

  “It’s going to be all right, Nickie. I’ll fix this.”

  Tony laughed again, and I balled my fists. My gaze flicked to where my sister was held in the grasp of one of the men, his fingers digging into her upper arm. Her head was bent, and I wanted to tell her to be strong, but I didn’t know what they had already done to her, what they’d put her through after everything she’d already suffered.

  Come on, X. Where are you?

  I hoped he was just waiting for the right moment. I fought off the fear that he’d taken the opportunity and fled, leaving me to it.

  “I’m sorry, Vee,” Nickie sobbed. “I didn’t mean for it to turn out like this.”

  “I know, Nickie,” I said. “Neither did I.”

  “No, I don’t—”

  “Enough talking!” said the man holding her, and he lifted his free hand and slapped her in the face.

  That was enough for me. I couldn’t wait for X any longer. I reached to the back of my jeans to pull my gun.

  The other men saw what I was doing and pulled their own weapons, but before they had the time to shoot, bullets smacked them like punches from behind. The guy holding Nicole released his grip and fell forward, and one of the other men spun in a pirouette before landing, slumped across the hood of the car. Tony the Hound and his remaining sidekick swung around wildly, unsure of what direction the gunshots had come from.

  I ran forward, fully intending to grab Nickie, who crouched to try to shelter from the gunfire, but Tony got there before me, the muzzle of his gun pressed against my sister’s temple.

  “One more step and I’ll blow a hole in her head.” He stared at me. “Why do you have to make everything so fucking difficult?” he said, as though I was the one who’d started all of this. “I only wanted to make you an offer, but now you’re going to have to suffer the repercussions.”

  “No, wait!”

  I watched in helpless terror as he shoved her into one of the cars, the other mobster covering them both. X couldn’t take a shot—they were too close together now. Even he couldn’t guarantee his aim to be that good and he wouldn’t hit Nickie instead, especially in the dim light.

  They climbed into the car and started it, and I stood helplessly as they drove away. I wanted to shoot at them, but I couldn’t, knowing they still had my sister and anything bad I might do to them would also affect her.

  I started forward, willing to chase the car and take whatever was coming to me, but X appeared beside me, his hand around my wrist, and yanked me back. “Y
ou can’t help her like this.”

  “I should have taken his offer. I should have gone with them, and then Nickie wouldn’t be all alone again.” All I wanted to do was protect her, yet I always seemed to fuck up at every step. “We failed!” I cried. “You promised me it would be all right.”

  He shook his head. “We lost this part, but you’re still alive, and so is she. Tony the Hound is starting a war, not just with your father, but with you, too. I have people I can ask for help. We can make a damn good guess at where he’s going, where he’s taking her.”

  There was only one place I could think of. Back to New York.

  “What’s he going to do to her in the meantime?” I dropped to a crouch and punched the ground, not caring if my hands bled or I broke bones. “Fuck!” I took a breath and then looked back up at him. “If she dies, that’s it for me. If I can’t testify against my father, and I no longer have Nickie to watch over, there’s no point in me even being on this planet. If we don’t get her back, you might as well kill me anyway, because I have nothing to live for. If all I have are my memories of what I did, I won’t be able to live with that.”

  “Stop it, stop it.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me back up toward him, holding me tight against his chest.

  I trembled, my body rigid with anger and fear. The future—however small amount I might have—suddenly stretched out before me.

  I was going back to New York.

  The place my father would learn I was still alive.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  X

  THAT I HAD failed her sat like a lead weight in the pit of my gut.

  The car containing her sister had vanished down the road, the headlights disappearing into the burgeoning darkness. Bodies lay like broken dolls, slumped across the hood of the other car. There was no point trying to chase after them. We knew where they were going.

  Back to New York.

  “I can’t believe it. I was so stupid,” Vee cried against me. “I actually believed we might get Nickie back.”

  I held her closer, my hands on her back, my nose against her hair. “We still can. This isn’t over. He wants something from you, which gives you leverage, and he’s not going to harm Nickie while he still thinks he might get what he wants.”