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

  He reached up and touched my cheek with the back of his hand. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  I caught his hand with my own, placing my palm over the back of his, and then turned my face into his hold and kissed his palm. “Neither do I, but I don’t have any choice. I can’t leave Nickie to Tony, and I can’t let my father handle this either. I’m the only chance she’s got.”

  “And what happens to us all afterward?”

  Was he asking what kind of future we had together? I had no idea, and I couldn’t make decisions about things like that now. Would we have to try to go back into Witness Protection? I was still determined to send my father down, if I could. He had to pay for what he had done. But as for a future with X, I had no idea how he would fit into it all. It was too much to think about.

  “Let’s get Nickie back first, then we can talk.”

  He stepped away, dropping his hold on my hand, and I hated that he might feel I’d rebuked him. But I needed to focus on Nickie, and whatever this was between us, these growing emotions that scared the hell out of me, only distracted me from my purpose.

  We gave the two men enough time to make sure they’d be well away from the entrance, and then cautiously pushed open the door. There was a chance they’d have the door watched, but these people were more cocky than paranoid. They weren’t concerned about unwanted people being on the premises—they probably didn’t think anyone would have the balls to walk right into their territory.

  I shivered, and not just because of the chill in the air. The place reminded me so much of the warehouse where my father had forced me to kill my mom, and the thought of stepping inside made me nauseated.

  My eyes took a moment to adjust, but then I could make out stacks of large wooden crates, most likely containing whatever kind of contraband Tony the Hound was moving at the moment.

  “Plenty of places to stay hidden,” X said in a whisper right behind my ear, and I knew he was talking about himself.

  At the back of the warehouse, there was a set of stairs and a platform which led up to offices, and then further offices housed below. I assumed that was where the men had gone, and so would also be where Nickie was being held.

  X leaned in and kissed the spot on my neck between my ear and shoulder, sending shivers through me for a whole new reason. I knew why he’d kissed me. He was leaving me now, but I hoped that was his way of saying ‘later’ rather than ‘goodbye.’

  Like a ghost, he suddenly vanished, disappearing somewhere between the stacks of crates, I assumed. It was just me now, so I took a deep breath and stepped forward.

  “Hey!” came a male voice from the direction of the offices. “Who’s there?”

  I put my hands in the air to show I wasn’t armed. I hoped no one would shoot me in the meantime. “I’m here to see Tony.”

  “Tony’s busy,” he called back. “He ain’t having no visitors.”

  “Tell him Verity is here to see him. Verity Guerra.”

  “Mickey Five Fingers’ daughter?”

  I nodded, though he couldn’t see me. “That’s right. He’ll want to speak with me.”

  The man squinted at me in the gloom, but nodded. “Stay right there, and don’t touch anything.”

  I wondered what he thought I was going to touch. It wasn’t like I was a five-year-old in a pottery shop. I held myself still, my ears straining, trying to get a sense of where X might be. I felt like I should be able to pick up on something, some kind of vibes from him, as though we were psychically connected, but there was nothing.

  I did, however, hear voices coming from the offices.

  Tony appeared from up top, to look down on me, while the door opened and Nickie stepped out, flanked by two of Tony’s men, including the one who had first questioned me. I saw they were all armed, and I felt weak and defenseless for not having a gun of my own.

  I caught Nickie’s eye and smiled, but she didn’t return the expression. I shouldn’t be surprised. I guessed this new experience hadn’t warmed her to me at all.

  “I’m here to talk, Tony,” I called, keeping my hands in the air. “I’ve come alone and unarmed. Please don’t shoot, and I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “I warned you what would happen if you came near me again,” he said.

  “I’m here, at your mercy. Do whatever you want with me, but I couldn’t just give up on my sister. She’s the only family I have.”

  “Does that mean you want to take me up on my deal?” he called back.

  I nodded. “Yes. I want my sister safe, and my father behind bars. This seems like the only way to make those things happen.”

  To my surprise, Nickie appeared to wilt in relief. “Oh, thank God,” she said. “I thought you’d never stop fighting.”

  I blinked in surprise. “What?”

  “It’s always the same with you, Verity, railing against the world, thinking everyone is your enemy. I thought you’d keep fighting this, and then where would we be?”

  Her words left me baffled. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I was the one to contact Tony and tell him where we were.”

  My mouth dropped. “You did what?”

  “I wanted to come home. I was sick of living in that goddamned backward town, where no one even knew who I was. I figured doing it this way would mean Pops would still be sent down and kept in his place at the same time, and I could go back to my old life.”

  I stared at her in amazement. “And what about me? Tony was going to have me killed!”

  “No, he wasn’t. You just assumed the men were there to kill you.”

  “I got a message on the phone from Tony that said, ‘is it done?’ What the hell else was that supposed to mean?”

  “It was referring to picking us up, not killing us. You were the one who went all maverick on everyone and killed Tony’s men.”

  I could barely believe what I was hearing. “Tony threatened you, Nickie, and he shot at us on the road.”

  “What else was he supposed to do? You killed two of his men back at the house, and there are four men dead now.”

  “I didn’t kill them,” I muttered, but I knew I was an accomplice, at least. We’d planned to shoot Tony’s men on the road, and that was exactly what we’d done, though we’d only done it to get Nickie back.

  Turned out, she hadn’t wanted rescuing anyway.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me what was going on? You had enough opportunities!”

  “I tried to,” she said. “I tried to tell you I was sorry for not explaining everything, but you kept shooting everyone! You didn’t exactly make things easy.”

  I turned to Tony. “If this is all true, why all the sneaking around? Why not just offer us protection from the start?”

  He walked down from the platform, taking the stairs to the ground floor and stopping beside Nickie. “It was rumored that your father knew where you were—someone snitched, possibly someone in law enforcement. We wanted to get you away from the house in secret, and there’s no way we could trust the cops.”

  He was right. Our father had known where we were. In fact, he’d sent someone to kill me that very same night.

  I knew all of this, but didn’t say it.

  This revelation of the truth made my mind blur, my heart skipping. My whole view of the situation had been skewed. If Tony the Hound and his guys were only there to help us, and X had killed his men, and then we’d killed more of them on the road when Tony had only offered his hand of protection, they weren’t the bad guys.

  We were.

  I took a step back, staggering slightly. I swallowed hard, trying to make the world feel steady beneath my feet again.

  It occurred to me that I should be furious with Nickie. After everything I’d done and sacrificed to keep her safe, she’d betrayed me by going behind my back and speaking to Tony. But if she hadn’t, would I even be alive right now, or would X have continued his job unhindered by the unexpected encounter with Tony’s men and comp
leted the job he’d been paid for?

  The thought of X having killed me in an alternate universe made me dizzy.

  A sudden crash, and a yell came from the front of the warehouse, and a moment later two of Tony’s gang appeared from between the crates, holding X as he struggled between them.

  “Hey, boss,” one of the men called out. “We just found this guy lurking around.” He threw the guns to the floor between us. “He was armed, too, so I’m guessing he planned on causing trouble.”

  “Get your fucking hands off me,” X snarled, wrenching himself one way and then the other to get out of the grip of the other men. But the two of them were stronger than he was. Plus, they were both armed, where he was now defenseless.

  “It’s okay,” I chimed in, looking wildly at X. What was I supposed to think now? My mind was spinning. “He’s with me. He’s not going to try anything if he knows you’re going to help us, not hurt us.”

  X’s expression was dark with anger, and my heart wrenched. I knew who he was from the start. He was a killer, and I couldn’t let this new information change how I felt about him.

  But Tony shook his head. “This is the guy who killed Billy and Sam, and then Matthew and Gino on the road. He’s not going to get away with just walking out of here.”

  My heart lurched. Tony was going to kill him.

  “No! Stop,” I cried. “I won’t testify if you hurt him.”

  “You don’t have any choice,” said Tony. “Your cover with Witness Protection has been blown, and if you don’t do what I want, you won’t have our protection either. That’ll leave you wide open to your father’s men, and you know you’ll be dead within days.”

  “Please, Vee,” Nickie begged me. “Just stop fighting everything for once in your life.”

  “You think I’m just going to stand by while they execute him? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  X locked eyes with me, and my chest contracted, so I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “It’s okay, Vee,” he said. “You need to go on and live your life now. Forget about me.”

  I shook my head. “Not going to happen.”

  “You don’t have any choice.”

  “I’ll do it, boss,” said the guy holding onto X, lifting his weapon to point it at X’s temple.

  But Tony shook his head and pulled his own weapon. “After the number of my men this guy has killed, I think I should get the pleasure.”

  He pointed his gun in X’s direction, and I opened my mouth and screamed.

  Chapter Thirty

  X

  I DIDN’T WANT to run, but I had no choice. If I was dead, I’d never be able to get Vee out of Tony’s clutches. But did she even want to be rescued now? I’d overheard what her sister had said. The two men I’d killed back at their home had never been out to hurt them. They’d been sent to get the two girls out of the house, to bring them back to New York. To protect them from their father.

  To protect them from me.

  If I hadn’t shown up that night, Verity wouldn’t have had to go through everything she had with me. She’d never have believed she’d lost her sister, because they’d have been together the whole time. She wouldn’t have had to go and face her father, because I wouldn’t have killed the two men on the road and she wouldn’t have lost Tony’s trust.

  I’d been trying to help her, but I’d been fucking things up for her all along.

  Tony pointed his weapon in my direction, and I felt the two men either side of me withdraw slightly, moving away, not wanting to be so close to a flying bullet. Taking the moment, I lunged to one side, the guy on my left losing his grip on my arm, as I smashed my forehead into the temple of the man on my right. A gunshot sounded, a bullet grazing past my shoulder with a sting of pain. The man I’d head-butted slumped to the floor, and I went to snatch up his weapon, but another bullet flew past me. Shouts of alarm and anger followed. I wanted the gun, but I also needed cover or Tony was going to get his wish and I would end up dead.

  I darted behind the nearest crate and saw what I hadn’t before—a second small door in the back of the building, which led onto the riverfront. I couldn’t stay here—it wasn’t as though I could hide from them. More shouts came, and a bullet pinged off the crate beside me, sending splinters of wood flying.

  Fuck.

  My heart wrenched at leaving Vee, but I didn’t have any choice. I burst out from behind the crate and ran for the small door. I heard heavy feet smacking on the floor behind me. I couldn’t even turn and check how many were after me.

  I smashed my whole body weight against the door, and, for a moment, I didn’t think it would give, but then it swung open and I fell into the night. It sounded as though everyone in the warehouse was after me, and when I heard Vee cry my name, I almost stopped and took what was coming to me, but I couldn’t. The river stretched out before me, rushing, moonlight creating silverfish flashing across its surface. Would there be somewhere along its banks I could hide until they gave up? Then I would come back again and try to find Vee.

  I had no choice.

  More gunshots cracked through the night, and I jumped up onto the wall separating the walkway and the river, hoping to jump down onto the bank. But the water was higher than I’d expected, a harvest moon rising the levels, and there was nowhere I could go.

  Frantic, I glanced back to see everyone come flying from the door I’d exited from. Vee was with them, and I caught a glimpse of the desperation in her dark eyes. I was about to jump down from the wall, to keep running, when something hit me in the shoulder.

  I’d been shot before. I knew what it felt like—the cross between a punch and the snap of a whip. I opened my mouth, unsure of what I was going to say, but the impact had already sent me flying backward. The wall vanished from beneath my feet and I experienced a moment of suspension in the air, before I hit the ice cold water below.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  V

  “X!”

  I shrieked the only name I knew him by as a bullet from Tony’s gun struck him in the shoulder.

  As I watched in horror, he flew backward and vanished off the wall he’d been standing on. I heard the muffled splash as he hit the water below, and another scream burst from between my lips.

  My whole body was rigid with heartbroken fury. I felt like I was distant from myself, disconnected, and I fought to drag myself back in, worried I would do something that would get me killed.

  I wanted to kill Tony myself, to tackle him or one of his men for their gun, and put a bullet in the fucker’s head. I was blind with rage, but I needed to hold it together.

  Nickie, Nickie, Nickie.

  I had done all of this for her. I couldn’t risk getting myself shot and abandoning her to Tony. Part of me hated her for what she’d done, but the other part of me was just relieved she was okay.

  Tony didn’t try to have me restrained. He knew I had nowhere to go, and no one else to ask for help. My sister was here with him willingly, and I couldn’t leave her alone. She was still a minor, even if she was a minor who made shitty choices.

  “Head down the river,” Tony told his men. “Make sure he doesn’t get out anywhere.”

  “You shot him, boss,” said one of the suited men. “He’s not going anywhere.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want there to be any chance he survived.”

  I spoke up. “He was injured, too. I’d already stabbed him twice.” I’d told Tony because I didn’t want him to make too much of an effort trying to find X. I thought if X stood any chance of surviving a gunshot wound and a dunk in a freezing cold river, then I’d prefer for Tony’s men not to find him if he managed to get to shore.

  “Good,” said Tony, turning his attention back to me. “Who the hell was he, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. He never told me his name.” I realized, with a jolt of pain, that I might never get to know now. Why hadn’t I asked him such an obvious question? Had I not wanted to know? Had that been my way of keeping my distance from him because I’d
been so convinced something bad would happen? For some reason, I’d never pictured that he would be the one who’d end up dead. I’d thought I might be the one shot, but not him, never him.

  “You didn’t even know his name?” Tony asked, skeptical.

  “He didn’t tell me,” I said again.

  “So why was he helping you if you didn’t even know his name?”

  “He was a hit man, sent by my father to have me killed.”

  Tony’s eyebrows lifted. “He was a hit man? How come you’re still alive, then?”

  I did the only thing I could in the situation; I fell back onto my cold sarcasm. “He clearly wasn’t a very good one.”

  TWO WEEKS HAD PASSED and there had been no sign of X. If he’d survived, I was sure he’d have come back for me, so the only thing I could think was that he was lying somewhere at the bottom of the Hudson River.

  Despite grieving for him, I remained dry-eyed. I took all the pain I felt at his loss and buried it into a hard, cold stone at the pit of my gut. I would be able to use that pain at some point in the future. I didn’t plan to let his life go unavenged.

  I was barely speaking to Nickie now. I held her to blame for what had happened, but if she hadn’t told Tony the Hound where we were, I’d most likely be dead now, killed at X’s hand. I tried to convince myself that he might have changed his mind anyway, even if things hadn’t gone down the way they had, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe that. He’d stalked my house that night in order to break in and kill me. Only the events that had preceded it prevented that happening.

  I’d had no choice but to contact the U.S. Marshals and tell them I was voluntarily leaving the Witness Protection Program and was taking my sister with me. They weren’t happy about it, to say the least, but I had no choice. We were under Tony the Hound’s protection now.

  Unsurprisingly, Nicole still wasn’t happy. I guessed she’d expected to come back to New York and just carry on with her life, but of course that didn’t happen. Our father knew I was still alive, and that Tony had Nickie, so we were living constantly under the watch of armed gangsters. She hadn’t been allowed to go back to school or see her friends. The boredom was driving her crazy, but I had little sympathy for her. In my own cloud of sorrow, I struggled to find any pity for anyone else. She’d brought this upon herself.