Chapter One
Ellen pulled into the casino parking lot well past midnight. Despite the late hour, bright lights lit up the entire gaudy faux-gold front. Well-dressed men and women streamed in and out. It was like some sort of wacked-out Oscar party she never wanted to attend.
She grumbled as she pulled away from the bright lights to the darker back of the building. There were far fewer lights there, and despite her feelings on the lighting situation upfront, she’d rather deal with a little gaudiness than be where she now was.
The car eased into a parking spot, and she looked around the area. No one was in sight, and Ellen wasn’t so sure that made her feel any better. At best, tonight would be unpleasant, and she didn’t even dare imagine what might happen in a worst-case scenario.
It had been a long night at the hospital. Several people had ODed on some new drug that had hit the market in recent weeks. Two patients had been admitted in bad condition, but the ER staff were able to resuscitate them.
The last patient had shaken her a bit. He wasn’t more than twenty-one and had suffered cardiac arrest. They had been able to stabilize him before she left, but it was going to be a rocky night for the next shift.
He would be lucky to make it, and even then, without serious drug counseling, he would likely be right back at it again. She hated to think that she might see him again, and they might not be able to save him.
It was exhausting. Ellen had worked so hard to get through nursing school, and she knew death was something they all had to deal with at some point. What they never talked about was the emotional toll it took seeing the same things over and over. That saving someone didn’t mean they really got better.
In the end, they were just treating the symptoms, not the problem. The city seemed like it was slowly sliding into hell.
Ellen let out a long sigh and tried to clear her head. She couldn’t solve the city’s drug or crime problems. She had to focus on the thing she could fix: her sister, Zoe.
Just thinking about her sister made her want to bang her head against the window.
Zoe had always been a handful, sneaking out at night and going to parties with friends when she thought their mom wasn’t looking. As she got older, the people she hung out with only got sketchier. Not just sketchy, dangerous.
When their mother died, something seemed to click in Zoe, and things hadn’t been the same since. Now the city wasn’t the only thing sliding into ruin.
It wasn’t all that long after the funeral that Ellen started to see the signs of addiction in Zoe. The weight loss, along with the vacant look and deep circles under her eyes. It killed Ellen seeing her little sister slip away and knowing there was nothing she could do.
Her only hope was that their brother Dean might be able to do something when he got out of the Marines, but that was still a month away. At the rate things were going, she wasn’t sure Zoe would last that long. Especially now that her new boyfriend, Billy, was involved with new dangerous people. Men that even Zoe had called thugs.
With a word like thug being tossed around, Ellen knew it was serious.
Ellen glanced over at the box of Zoe’s things her sister had asked her to bring, and she sighed. It might be late and she might be exhausted, but it was a chance to help. Maybe this time she’d be able to get through to Zoe.
She stepped out of her car and pulled the box over to her side. It really wasn’t much of anything. A few trophies from when Zoe was a kid, some photos and random things she’d collected through the years. But it was what Zoe asked her to bring.
Ellen glanced around the empty lot again and held the pepper spray on her keychain in her palm. Several years of working at the hospital at night had taught her to be better safe than sorry. It only made sense that muggers might linger around a casino where they could surprise some drunk gamblers.
She closed the door. A quick press of a button on her key fob had the doors locked with a beep.
Quickly Ellen made her way to the sidewalk and was glad when Zoe opened a side door to step outside.
“Thanks for coming,” Zoe said, beaming.
Ellen couldn’t help but smile at her. Zoe had gotten their mother’s good looks. Her shiny blond hair fell past her shoulders with a bounce that Ellen couldn’t get on her very best day. She’d always been slightly embarrassed of her own dirty blond hair that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be brown or blond.
Zoe wore a large red sweater. Her collar bone stuck out more than it should.
As if knowing what her sister was thinking, Zoe covered the exposed skin. She took the box with ease.
“Just get off work?” Zoe asked.
Ellen nodded. “I’m on second shift mostly, but they still rotate in a few overnights.”
Zoe nodded, but Ellen could tell she really didn’t care. It was just a simple, cold fact. That was what their relationship had been reduced to.
Ellen watched as her sister searched through her things. Zoe stilled as she pulled out a framed picture.
The picture was familiar. It was one of Ellen’s favorites. It was a picture of them in high school, standing next to their mother, all beaming at the camera.
“We were so happy then,” Zoe said softly.
A lump formed in Ellen’s throat. She hadn’t expected to have such an emotional response to such a small thing. It had already been a few years since their mother passed away. People always claimed it got better, but she’d found that it was really that she got better at dealing with the pain.
“You know,” Ellen said, “there’s always room for you at the house.”
Zoe’s eyes snapped up to her, and Ellen knew instantly it was not the right thing to say. Without a word, Zoe shoved the picture back in the box.
“Don’t start,” she said.
Ellen sighed. “I just want to help.”
Zoe narrowed her eyes. “Then butt out,” she said. “You don’t understand my life.”
Ellen opened her mouth to say something when a sickening crunch came from around the building, and a pitiful cry echoed in the air.
Their eyes locked, and Zoe dropped the box to the ground as she grabbed Ellen’s arm. Her bony fingers bit into the flesh there, and her hand shook.
“You should go.”
Ellen frowned. Another loud crunch echoed around them.
She needed to go. She really did. Every alarm in her body was going off and screaming she should run, but the nurse in her said to walk toward the trouble. It was what she’d been trained for: to swallow the fear and keep going.
Ellen pulled her arm out of her sister’s grip and made her way over to the corner of the building. Her ugly nurse sneakers made no noise, and for once, she was glad to be wearing them.
Two men stood over another man bleeding on the ground. The larger of the two was holding a sledgehammer, and she could see blood on the head.
Her stomach clenched as she surveyed the man on the ground and spotted the mangled mess his hands were in. They had crushed them. Her heart beat loudly in her ears as she continued to process just what she was seeing.
“Don’t think he’s going to talk,” the large man said, his voice thick with a Russian accent. “Maybe I take care of him?”
The other man shook his head. Unlike his colleague, he was very well dressed, though not exactly business like. He wore an eggplant purple shirt. The open collar revealed way more of his chest than necessary, along with gold chains. Over that, he wore a nice gray suit jacket and slacks.
“No,” the man said and stepped over to the wounded man.
Ellen let out the breath she was holding. Maybe he owed them money or something. Beating him up wasn’t ideal, but it was better than ‘taking care of him,’ which she could only assume meant killing him. Although maybe she’d seen too many crime shows.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Before she’d even had time to process the gun being pulled out, the three shots rang out.
Ellen tried to suck in breaths, but it seemed like all the air had left her body.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
A firm hand grasped her arm from behind, but it was the man with the gun that terrified her. She could see his cold eyes in the distance as they landed on her, and he knew she had seen it all.
Ellen turned and flipped the switch on her spray. She unleashed the contents directly into the face of the man holding her.
He flailed backward for a second, pawing at his eyes. Ellen glanced around for her sister, but she was already long gone. Zoe always did seem to know when to bail.
Ellen coughed as the pepper cloud still filled the air but knew she didn’t have time. The other two men were just down the alley. Seeing what they did to the other man, she knew they would have no problem taking her out the same way.
She turned and ran.
Someone shouted in Russian behind her. Several shots echoed in the night, and she ducked, somehow hoping that might help. One bullet hit the ground near her foot, and she was once again thankful for her ugly nurse shoes.
When she reached the car, her hands shook. She fumbled with the button on the key and ducked again as bullets struck her car door.
The lights clicked on, and she swung the door open. She slammed the door closed and put the key in the ignition. The large man slammed into the side of her car, screaming Russian at her. Ellen put the car in drive and slammed her foot on the gas.
More bullets pelted the car, and she screamed when the back windshield shattered.
Ellen ducked down and turned toward the front of the building. When no more bullets struck the car, she dared a glance into the rearview mirror. In the lot she spotted the large man and another scrambling to get into a car while the man in purple stood staring at her as she sped away.
She didn’t even have to guess what he was thinking. Ellen saw something she should have never seen, and there was no way that man was going to just let it go. Now she was going to have to do the last thing she ever wanted to do.
Call for help.