Bodyguard Daddy (7 page)

Unless...

His heart pounded frantically with fear, but he couldn’t consider such a horrific possibility. They hadn’t been hit. But the shooter was getting closer to the hotel—firing more shots through those windows.

A shriek rang out.

It wasn’t Amber’s. Her voice wasn’t as high-pitched. It wasn’t a child’s cry, either.

Had someone else been hurt? Caught in the cross fire?

Milek cursed again. But he hadn’t fired toward the hotel. He was firing in the direction from which the shots seemed to be coming. There had to be a silencer on the assassin’s gun, because Milek heard only a faint whoosh of air when a bullet left the barrel. But he still couldn’t see the shooter.

So Milek was just wasting ammo now. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his last magazine. He needed to make these shots count. He needed to hit the Ghost this time or he risked becoming one himself.

Because a hired assassin wasn’t about to run out of ammo. The man would have enough bullets left to kill Milek and Amber and Michael if he found them.

He prayed she had listened to him—that she would hide herself and their son where the killer wouldn’t be able to find them. Because he wasn’t sure how much longer he would be able to protect them.

As evidenced by the shriek, there were other people in the hotel, though. The night clerk and the concierge. Maybe a bellhop. And several other hotel guests. Someone would have called 911 by now.

Help had to be on its way. The Ghost wouldn’t stick around; he wouldn’t risk getting caught. Unless Milek could distract him until the police arrived...

“Frank!” he called out. “Frank Campanelli!”

Movement ceased. There were no more whooshes of air, no more breaking glass. He’d stopped shooting; he was listening.

“Yeah, Frank,” Milek continued. “The police know it’s you who killed the district attorney. They know it’s you who fired the shots into Ms. Talsma’s home. And the FBI agent saw you today.” Apparently Nick Rus could see ghosts. Milek had been so totally focused on Amber and his son that he hadn’t gotten a good look at him. “You’re a wanted man, Frank. You’re not going to get away with this.”

A chuckle came from out in the darkness.

Of course the assassin had no fear of getting caught. No one had come close to apprehending him during his long and infamous career.

“The special agent who’s after you—it’s Nicholas Rus,” he said. As Milek talked, he moved closer to where that chuckle had come from. “He’s the agent who brought down Viktor Chekov. Rus is River City’s version of Eliot Ness.”

Hunched low, Milek slipped between the rows of cars. One of his father’s lessons on how to be a thief had been about moving silently. Like everything they’d been taught, Garek had picked it up more easily—was better at it, even now. But Milek was good.

If he’d been driving to the hotel, he knew Frank wouldn’t have been able to follow them the way he must have followed Nicholas Rus. Rus was a good agent, but he wasn’t a bodyguard. He didn’t know all the ways and means of protecting an endangered client.

But Milek had wanted to sit in the backseat—close to his son. He hadn’t been able to stop staring at the little boy and it hadn’t been just to make certain Michael was okay. While he’d had his reasons, Milek regretted never seeing his son, and for the past year he’d thought he had missed the opportunity of ever getting to know his child.

But maybe that car ride to the hotel was all the time he would have—because another rule of being a bodyguard was giving up your own life to protect your subject. And Milek had never been as willing to do that as he was now.

That was why he spoke again. Frank would know where he was, that he was getting closer. But it was a risk Milek had to take, so he could pinpoint the hit man’s exact location and make his remaining bullets count.

“Rus didn’t bring down Chekov alone,” Milek continued. “He had help.”

Frank snorted; Milek was close enough now that he clearly heard it. “Feds never act alone,” Frank said. “A whole bunch of Feds have tried to take me down, and they haven’t succeeded yet.”

“It wasn’t other Feds who helped Rus take down Chekov,” Milek said. “It was me and my brother.”

Frank laughed again but cocked his gun.

Milek heard the telltale click of the bullet sliding into the barrel. He was close.

And Frank knew it, too.

Close enough that neither of them would be able to miss now.

“Not that I care,” Frank said. “But who the hell are you?”

Garek was the cocky one—the one who enjoyed annoying other people. Milek had never understood his brother’s enjoyment of that until now—until he wanted to infuriate the man who had tried and was trying to kill the only woman Milek had ever loved and the child they’d created together.

“I guess you should know the name of the man who’s finally going to bring you down,” he agreed. “I’m Milek Kozminski.”

There was no snort now. No laughter. Frank Campanelli knew who he was. For the first time, Milek found an advantage to being as infamous as he and his family were.

Frank said, “You worked for Chekov.”

Garek had. But Milek would let the man believe whatever he wanted.

“Your family...”

“Is basically a bunch of criminals,” Milek finished for him. “Maybe that’s what it takes to catch one...”

The saying was actually it took a thief to catch a thief. But maybe it was also true that it took a killer to catch a killer.

Milek had killed before. And in order to protect Amber and Michael, he would willingly kill again.

Frank laughed, but the chuckle was gruff and shaky with nerves. He must have realized he wasn’t dealing with a Fed or a regular bodyguard.

He probably thought he was dealing with a man like himself—one with no scruples or morals or conscience. Unfortunately, Milek had a conscience. But he doubted it would bother him if he took out a hired assassin—a man who’d killed again and again for money.

Milek cocked his gun.

This was it. His last magazine. His last chance to take out the Ghost—even though he risked becoming one himself. He didn’t care, though. He didn’t care about anything but Amber and Michael. To save their lives, he would gladly give up his own. So even knowing he would draw Frank’s gunfire, he straightened up from where he’d been hunched over between the cars. He would rather have Frank fire at him than into the hotel any longer.

And now Milek was close enough to the Ghost that the hit man might not miss him when he fired back. As Milek squeezed the trigger, gunfire erupted again.

* * *

They were gone. Nicholas Rus had searched the entire hotel. But he found no trace of them. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing—since he had found no bodies. Of course, that didn’t mean they weren’t dead.

It would be more of a surprise if they had survived.

The hotel looked like a war zone. Shattered glass. Broken vases. And the parking lot was even worse.

Cars had been destroyed, their windows broken, the metal dented with bullets. Could anyone have survived such an onslaught of gunfire? Even Milek Kozminski...

Nick shone the beam of his flashlight on the asphalt. The fragments of glass sparkled in its glow—except for those fragments spattered with blood. The blood, thick and dark, pooled around the fragments, too.

Someone had been hit. Maybe badly.

He hoped like hell it had been Frank Campanelli. But if the Ghost was dead, where was his body? Where were Milek and Amber and the boy—if they hadn’t been hurt?

His cell rang; he felt it vibrating inside his pocket. But he hesitated to reach for it. He knew who it would be and what they would want to know.

He had already answered enough questions for the night—when he’d had to explain the accident scene to the local authorities. He hadn’t admitted to them who’d been driving the van, though. He hadn’t wanted any more people to know Amber Talsma wasn’t really dead. That was why he’d convinced her and Milek to leave the scene—why he’d driven them to this hotel—thinking they would be safe here.

He had been a fool—a fool to let someone follow him and a fool to think that anyone, even Milek, could have protected Amber from as highly skilled an assassin as Frank, The Ghost, Campanelli.

He’d been a fool to think he could keep it from getting out that she was alive. On the way back to the hotel, he’d heard the report on the radio—the news of their empty graves and the speculation that she must have faked her death. Everybody knew she was alive now.

His phone stopped vibrating before he ever reached for it. But that was fine. Whichever one of them who’d called would leave a voice mail—like all the voice mails they’d left before demanding information from him.

But Nick had no answers for the Payne/Kozminski family. He didn’t know where Milek and Amber and the child were—let alone if they were all right.

Had Frank taken them—taken their bodies? Maybe after he’d let his targets get away last time, he had needed the evidence of their deaths in order to get paid.

“Son of a bitch...” he murmured into the darkness.

An officer glanced over at him. The local authorities had been called here. Nick had heard the calls come in to Dispatch while he’d been talking to a detective.

Shots fired at the Harbor Hotel.

“Why do you want to go to that call?” the detective had asked when Nick said he needed to leave.

He’d said nothing.

“Who are you protecting?” the detective had asked.

But that was just the thing. Rus hadn’t protected anyone. He’d left them behind—with the killer, who must have followed him to the hotel. They hadn’t even had a vehicle in which to escape. He’d taken the shot-up SUV to the police department. So where were they?

Maybe Milek had utilized the skills his father had taught him and stolen a car. Nick found himself actually hoping the guy had committed a crime. But nothing had been reported stolen. The only report had been of those shots fired.

Shell casings gleamed in the darkness, illuminated when crime scene techs took flash pictures of the casings beside which they had already placed evidence tags. So many shots had been fired.

And the blood...

He should have been here. He shouldn’t have left them alone—not with a notorious killer after them. He cursed again, but silently—the words echoing inside his mind.

His phone began to ring once more—vibrating madly inside his pocket. He didn’t need to answer it; he could feel the anger and frustration of his family.

They probably didn’t think of him that way. But he had begun to think it—that they were his family. He had never had a real family before. Until she had died a year ago, it had been just his mom and him, and she’d been no Penny Payne. There had been nothing maternal about her.

Nick had gotten more love and attention from the neighbors. Of course, as an adolescent he’d been annoyed to have the younger kids tagging along; Gage had even followed Nick into the marines and then into the Bureau. Recently he’d quit the Bureau, though, and reenlisted in the marines.

And Annalise...

Nick’s heart contracted in his chest. He couldn’t think about Annalise anymore—not the way he used to think about her. He had destroyed that relationship just as he’d probably destroyed the one he’d been building with the Paynes. He stared down at the puddle of blood and felt as if his own was draining away.

Nick hadn’t just lost the woman and child he’d been trying to protect for the past year. He had lost his family, too.

Chapter 6

H
er heart pounded hard and fast with nerves as she clasped her arms around her son and held him tightly—protectively—while they cowered inside the janitor’s closet she’d found unlocked. She had locked it from the inside, after pulling Michael into the closet with her. It wasn’t dark. A bare bulb hung over their heads, illuminating the small space.

She would have fumbled for the switch. But Michael was afraid of the dark. If she shut it off, he might begin to cry.

“Mommy, this is a good hiding place,” he whispered.

“Shh,” she said, her voice shaking with fear. “We have to be very quiet.” So the killer did not hear them. Was he out there? The gunfire had stopped. But that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. What if Milek had been wounded, or worse?

Now fear clenched her heart. What if he hadn’t survived? What if she’d lost him again?

Not that she’d ever really had him. If she had, he wouldn’t have broken their engagement and her heart. But she didn’t care about the pain he’d caused her. She didn’t want him in any pain—especially because of her. And she wanted him alive—even if he was never with her again.

Please, be alive...

The door rattled as someone tried the knob, and her breath caught. Michael let out a soft cry of surprise, then slapped his hand over his mouth. Tears welled in his eyes.

She had locked the door. Surely that would keep out whoever was out there. But the knob continued to rattle. Then it turned. He had unlocked it.

Maybe it was the janitor. But she doubted it. All the staff had been hunkered down behind the front desk. It was someone else. Someone who meant her and Michael harm.

So as the knob turned, she screamed.

And jerked awake from the nightmare she’d lived just hours ago. She’d only been dreaming about what had happened back at the hotel. She wasn’t dreaming now. A hand covered her mouth. It wasn’t hers. It was big and strong and slightly calloused.

Disoriented from sleep and the dream, she had no idea where she was or where Michael was or who held a hand over her face. Panic overwhelmed her, and she struggled, grasping the hand to pull it away as she tried to rise.

But a big body covered hers, pushing her down into the mattress on which she lay. “Shh...” a deep voice advised.

Or warned?

But then she recognized the voice and stilled.

“Shh,” he said again. “You’ll wake Michael.”

The thought of her son, and wanting to hold him, had her struggling again. But Milek had carried their sleeping child into another room of the warehouse he’d converted into a condo years ago. Then he’d brought her in here—the master bedroom. He’d left her alone, though. She had no idea how long ago. Had she been asleep for hours or minutes?