CHAPTER 37
Rothgar was furious. Thank fuck for the find-my-phone feature Dex had installed on his sister’s new phone, but that didn’t make him any less furious. Nobody fucked with his people. The Russians knew this, and they understood this because they felt the same way about their people. Therefore, it was tough to understand why they’d be this stupid.
Dex’s fingertips flew across his keyboard as he tracked the device moving south through Manhattan traffic. “My guess is he’s heading for a bridge or tunnel,” he said.
“Bridge,” Rothgar said firmly. He scanned the various videos on Dex’s monitor. Twilight was descending over the Brooklyn Bridge. Lights twinkled, mixing with the one or two stars bright enough to puncture the city sky. The span itself was deserted, given over to the construction cones set up for a middle-of-the-night construction project and a couple of massive lights from the cranes shining like movie spotlights.
Now and then one of the videos would show the East River’s inky water crest: first, a line of silver and then a bit of muddled foam, and gone again.
Shane’s car came into view and stopped. He waited, patient as ever, his car the only car on the bridge to ignore the construction closure signage, until a single set of headlights blinked into view.
“I want in Shane’s ear and in Shane’s car,” Rothgar ordered. The sort of personal-space invasion Shane would normally balk at big-time, but this was a special occasion, to say the least.
Dex hacked into the comms system in Shane’s car and gave himself administrative privileges. Two lights on Dex’s screen went green. Video and audio.
Shane looked down at the hijacked screen, saw HQ in multiple video mode, and swore loud and blue.
“Nice to know the audio’s coming in clear,” Roth muttered, punching the microphone button. “Shane, it’s Roth. Turn your earpiece . . .” His voice trailed off. “Where the hell is Missy?”
“Backup works best when you’re not in the same vehicle,” Shane said tightly, putting in an earpiece.
Rothgar discovered a new level of furious. “We’ll have plenty of words about that once Cecily’s safe. Now call James on videophone. Use the speaker. Dex will keep your earpiece pointing to HQ. We’re here, but he doesn’t know that.”
“Understood.” Shane plugged his personal phone into the dashboard comms and dialed. After a ring, James’s face appeared on the screen, a thin sheen of sweat plastering his cowlick to his forehead. Cecily sat next to him in the passenger seat, a small smear of blood at the corner of her mouth.
At Rothgar’s side, Dex sucked in a quick breath.
Shane didn’t make a sound, didn’t change his expression. He had to be losing his mind. Because Cecily looked unbelievably lovely and lost in a strappy little white sundress. And she was in the wrong car with the wrong guy.
“Use it, don’t lose it,” Nick muttered from behind Rothgar.
“Hi, James. Nice to see you, Cecily,” Shane said.
The video in James’s car must have opened with a delay, because Cecily looked blank for a moment before her eyes widened and her mouth crooked in a tentative smile.
“It’s you. Fantastic. What do you want?” James asked.
Rothgar studied the screen with dispassionate expertise: Bravado. Lots of it. Really fucking sweaty. Desperation? Or just nervous? Desperation. Blood on Cecily, in spite of the warning James’d gotten from Shane. That didn’t bode well. Desperate and violent.
“I’d like you to stop your car, open the door, and let Cecily out,” Shane said.
“Can’t hear you very well,” James said. “Audio’s tricky.” He reached forward with a brown leather glove and pretended to fiddle with the volume.
“Those Armani?”
James’s eyebrow went up. “Yeah. The best.”
“Not quite the best,” Shane remarked.
James’s jaw tightened.
“Needs to be the alpha dog, doesn’t he?” Rothgar said quietly. Dex nodded.
“Think he’s going for the Brooklyn Bridge,” Ally called out. Rothgar’s eyes shot to her. Ally, in the zone. Monitoring the GPS like it was old times. Christ.
“How you doing, Cecily?” Shane asked.
There was a pause. “Answer him,” James said.
“I—I . . .” She glanced at James and then looked into the monitor, her eyes and tone trying to say a thousand different things when all she actually said was “I miss you . . . guys.”
Shane’s expression remained unchanged, but his Adam’s apple convulsed as he swallowed. He’s going cold, thought Rothgar.
“I’d tell you guys to get a room,” James said, glancing in his rearview mirror. “But I’m taking her to mine.”
Again, just a tiny fraction, Shane went colder.
“That’s good,” murmured Rothgar. “He’s in the zone. Not letting the emotion get in the way. He was right to ask for the field.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Dex said through gritted teeth. “Shane’s in his car, and Cece’s in James’s car. He’s got to get her out of there.”
“So, James,” Shane said. “You already fess up to your superiors that you’ve been made? That must create a shitstorm of a problem for all those sleeper agents you’re supposed to be handling. You’ve got a helluva problem now, I should think.”
James’s gloved hand squeezed the steering wheel. “Not anymore,” he said, tipping his chin toward Cecily. “It’d be better if she were taller, but my bosses like the waifish type. Especially since her looks come with a lot of information about the Hudson Kings. Pretty to look at, and with thin, little bones. I have the feeling she’ll break pretty easy.”
That didn’t sit well with Rothgar, and it had to be a thousand times worse for Shane. But Shane stayed in control. “Hmm . . . you didn’t think this through. The girl doesn’t know the dirt on us, so the real question is, once your Russian bosses realize they can’t use you anymore and find out she’s no good, what’s your backup plan?” Shane asked. “’Cause I can help you with that.”
“Nice,” Rothgar murmured.
James didn’t say anything for a moment, then: “Don’t worry about me. I’m extremely good at pretending to be someone else. I can go solo anytime I want. Just like you. I can literally disappear.”
“Well, I am worried about you. Cecily’s got blood on her face,” Shane said, his tone like steel. He let that sink in, and both cars drove in silence until he repeated, “She’s bleeding. You have to know you take her in like this, you’re not going to get a pat on the back and a promotion. You’re going to get a smackdown for revealing your identity to the Hudson Kings and for jeopardizing the entire sleeper cell. So pull over, leave Cecily by the side of the road, and go disappear.” It sounded like less of a request and more of an order.
“It would take a lot more than your kind suggestion to get me to do that,” scoffed James.
“I’ve got more than a kind suggestion. I’ve got two hundred fifty K in my trunk that says you can disappear in first class instead of coach.”
“You’ve got two hundred fifty K in your trunk,” James repeated.
Getting through, thought Rothgar.
“You wouldn’t believe what I have in my trunk,” Shane said.
Cecily smiled.
Dex let out a shaky breath.
“So, show me,” James said. His voice was breezy, but the look in his eyes said that he liked what he was hearing.
“Reel him in. You’ve got him,” Rothgar whispered. He unmuted the earpiece in his other ear. “Chase, you close?”
Chase confirmed.
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” Shane was saying.
James pulled his car to the side of the bridge and came to a stop. Perfect. Gives both Dex and Chase time to catch up.
Except then James got even more stupid by pulling out a gun and pressing the muzzle to Cecily’s head.
Dex slammed a fist down on the desk.
Rothgar slowly folded his arms across his chest. Furious. Furious. “The bridge has surveillance video,” he said gently to Dex.
Dex ran a hand through his hair and then went back to the keyboard, tapping into the video stream guarding the Brooklyn Bridge.
In James’s car, Cecily sat with the gun to her head, her eyes clenched shut, her entire body shaking. She bit her lip so hard she started bleeding again.
“Okay, show me the money,” James said.
“We’ve got eyes,” Rothgar said into Shane’s ear. “Go ahead, and I’ll let you know if you need to turn back.”
Dex was breathing hard now, his eyes glued to the array of videos splayed across his monitor.
Shane hesitated, staring into the video.
“Focus, Shane,” Rothgar murmured. “You’ll get the girl. Trust me to be your eyes.”
Shane went off video for about five minutes, returning with an armful of cash he shoved at the video camera.
“That can’t be two hundred fifty K,” James said.
“I’m not digging it out of my trunk unless it’s a go,” Shane said.
“It’s a go,” James said.
“Let Cecily out.”
“You want me to let her go? On the side of the bridge?”
“Yeah. She’s got legs. She can walk home.”
James looked over at her. “I’ll run you off the bridge, you try anything.”
Cecily’s expression shifted slightly, her cheeks turning redder, but she didn’t make a sound.
“I’ll run you off the bridge?” Shane repeated very slowly, his voice this side of incredulous.
“Shi-i-it. I know that voice. All in,” Flynn said from the back.
Dex glanced over, then at Rothgar. “What about his voice?” he asked nervously.
Rothgar just shook his head, his body tense. “Shane, steady,” he murmured into the microphone, trying to gentle a wild animal.
“Let me make something clear. If you harm her, the Hudson Kings hunt you down and kill you. If you harm her, the Russians hunt you down and kill you. Which is all beside the point, because if you harm her, you’re never making it past me.”
James’s bravado held, but it looked to Rothgar like he was beginning to realize he was running out of options. “Let’s get this over with,” James muttered. “You drop the money, back up to your end of the bridge. I get out of the car with Cecily. If it’s all there, she goes free, you pick her up.”
“You let her out, she stays left-hand lane. You stay right-hand lane. You stay there, and you don’t get close to the side of the bridge, and you don’t cross over to the left-hand side, or I will accelerate and fucking grind you into the pavement. Understood?” Shane ground out. “I’m getting the rest of the money now.” He opened the car door but then sat back in the driver’s seat very suddenly. He looked square in the video monitor.
“There something else?” James asked, eyes narrowed.
Shane paused, then looked out the window, over the water to the twinkling lights of Brooklyn, and came back to square. “I really love my car. I just thought you should know that.”
Cecily blinked. James snorted with laughter. “Yeah. That’s sweet. I love my car too, man.”
“What the fuck?” Dex blurted. “What’s he saying?”
“Shane?” Rothgar prompted. Shane ignored him and got out of the car and went offscreen. Dex stared at the video of the inside of James’s car. Cecily was holding up. He shook his head. “When did my little sister get so strong?”
Ally touched his shoulder.
They watched Cecily sitting in silence next to James. Shane needed to get the money and fast, because bleakness was settling in on James’s features; he was beginning to realize he’d blown all the good options, and the last one put him on the run from the Russian mercs and, for all he knew, the Hudson Kings alongside them.
On the bridge surveillance, Rothgar watched Shane lug a duffel bag brimming with cash to the outside lane. He made a show of brushing off his hands. “Now you get her out of the car.”
“You get in, start backing up. Then she gets out.”
Shane got back in his car, and James pulled Cecily out of his, gun back at her head. He knelt down, counting money, his attention moving between the cash and Cecily as he went through the stacks.
Cecily looked down at James and then up at the receding image of Shane driving away in his car. All of a sudden, she started to run after Shane’s car.
“Shit,” Rothgar hissed.
With his car in reverse, Shane took a deep breath and said very clearly, “Missy, you’re on.”
Missy’s voice came out of nowhere. “On it.”
Rothgar lost a beat before he snapped back into focus, but he couldn’t help but smile. “Make sure we’ve got an ear direct to Missy’s piece, Dex.”
Robotically, Dex typed. Rothgar could hear him chanting under his breath, “Come on, baby sister. Come on. Come on . . .”
Bridge surveillance captured headlights from a bright orange sedan coming to life in the dim parking area in the middle of the bridge reserved for repair workers.
“What, did Missy jack that ride?” Flynn murmured, admiration in his voice.
Rothgar watched James on the screen. “He’s pissed. Gonna be sloppy.”
James leaped to his feet, slowed by the bag of money. He opened the back door, dumped it all in, and jumped back in the driver’s seat, his car door slamming shut as he accelerated.
The orange sedan sidled up to Cecily, the passenger-side door swinging open. Cecily jumped in. “You know what?” Missy said urgently, her voice a little muffled. “I think we should put our seat belts on.”
The video showed James angle his car, pointing straight at the orange sedan; lights of the Manhattan skyline blurred through the glass behind him as he accelerated. “I didn’t say you could go!” he yelled.
Rothgar gripped the back of Dex’s chair. One of the girls screamed.
Shane gunned his BMW.
The catastrophic collision that blared through the speakers of the Hudson Kings war room was Shane nailing James.
Missy’s orange sedan bounced from the shockwave, then landed safely in the middle of the bridge.
James spun out and slammed full throttle through the side of the Brooklyn Bridge, jagged strips of metal railing eviscerating the chassis of his car.
Through the comms, it sounded like fingernails on chalkboard. And then a flare of orange lit up the sky, and part of the car exploded.
Shane’s BMW skidded behind, tires screaming and brakes smoking.
Smoke and money shrouded the air. And then, as an eerie silence descended and a flurry of twenties fell like ticker tape, James’s flaming Mercedes flipped end over end and plunged into the East River.
Shane’s car was right behind, upright but balancing on the edge of the bridge above the water. The front of the car was smashed beyond recognition. The shattered windshield rained fat drops of glass into the river. A front wheel was gone, the wheel well hooked on a piece of broken barricade.
The room swelled with tension—Dex, Ally, Flynn, Nick, everybody was talking—but Rothgar heard nothing over the sound of his own calm instructions to Chase.
The video showed the doors of the orange car open; Missy and Cecily ran toward the BMW, which looked like it was hanging by a metal thread.
“She’s okay,” Dex choked out.
Shane’s car slipped and jerked, lurching toward the tipping point. Rothgar couldn’t tell if Shane was conscious.
That’s my brother. And I’m stuck in this fucking room. He was nearly slain by the rare, unwelcome feeling of powerlessness, the strange, bitter taste of being safe in the war room while one of his men walked into the heart of danger.
Cecily approached the edge of the snarled barricade, two steps from thin air, her white skirt swirling around her legs.
Shane’s car slipped, toppling over as it followed James into the dark. Until it hit the water, it never made a sound.
Dex’s breath came out in a whoosh. Nick just nodded, arms folded across his chest. Ally clapped her hand over her mouth, her other hand digging into Flynn’s arm. Rothgar put his fist on the desk and pressed very, very hard.
Together they watched Missy, in black, wearing night vision goggles and body armor, throw down her sniper gun and hold Cecily back from the edge of the bridge.
Rothgar looked away from the image of Cecily screaming down into the water to the other monitor. Shane’s car was underwater. The electrical hadn’t shorted yet.
“Please don’t die,” Ally begged.
Precious bubbles slipped from Shane’s nose and mouth as he struggled against the water pouring through the broken windows. The pressure was forcing him back.
“Punch the driver’s side,” Rothgar muttered.
One of Shane’s arms wasn’t working right. His motions were disoriented. Between the white rush of the incoming water and the fact that he was running out of oxygen, he wasn’t making good time.
There was a pause as he floated still for a second. As if he could breathe for him, Rothgar sucked in a deep breath.
Shane slammed his shoulder against the cracked window as hard as he could, and the video went dark.
They had to hold Cecily back. She was ankle deep in the water as Shane waded toward the shore, his shirt torn off, water and blood sluicing down his arms and chest. He moved slowly, taking oxygen from the tank strapped to Chase’s body next to him.
His head was down; she couldn’t see his face. She had to see his face.
She sloshed forward up to her thighs, trying to break free of Missy’s hold on her arm.
Missy finally let go, her babbling about a first aid kit and blanket just a murmur in the background.
And then Shane looked up and saw her. Looked right into Cecily’s eyes and waved everybody off, pushed away Chase’s oxygen tank. He struggled to press through the water on his own, his gaze locked with hers.
They met in the middle. Cecily stopped moving, trying to find words that wouldn’t come. “The car . . . the car . . .”
“Fuck the car,” Shane said, hauling her into his arms. His mouth came down on hers, taking possession like he never wanted to let her go. When they finally came up for air, he added, “The only thing I want is you.”