Born Wild (11 page)

Eve bit her lip, smiling, more comfortable now that they'd both shared confidences. It was another hallmark of any good bartender. “And you'd choose Mac if he let you?”

“In a heartbeat,” she admitted. “But, alas, he wants no part of me.” She shook her head, frowning, thinking back on all his rejections and trying and failing not to feel the sharp sting of them.
What
does
he
have
against
me?
Again, she racked her brain and came up with a big ol' handful of…nothing. “I think I'll join you in that strawberry daiquiri,” she told Eve who laughed delightedly.

“I'd love that.”

Nodding, Delilah turned toward the freezer. Pulling out a bag of frozen strawberries and some ice, she mulled over Mac's decree that she could use a little subtlety—Subtlety? Her?
Pfft, as if
—as she dumped the load in the blender before adding sugar, lime juice, lemon juice, and top shelf rum. From the corner of her eye, she saw Eve fiddling with her phone, playing a game or texting or something. Then the device jingled out the opening bars to a Styx song and, with half an ear, she caught the woman's exasperated-sounding, “Enough with the phone calls, Dad. I'm fine.” That was followed up by, “No, I'm not going to come back home. And,
no
, I'm not going to make it to our weekly dinner tonight. Didn't you read the email I sent you this morning?” Delilah hit the button on the machine, drowning out the rest of the conversation, and allowed herself to focus all her efforts on forgetting about one infuriating ex-FBI agent turned motorcycle mechanic.

***

Somewhere on Lake Shore Drive

5:13 p.m.

He ran a hand over his mouth once he thumbed off the cell phone, staring at the device as his heart thundered out a terrible rhythm. The time was now. It was do or die. Meaning, he'd better
do
what he'd promised or he was likely going to
die.

It was awful, really, what it'd all come down to. But self-preservation won out every day of the week. And, yes, he fully realized there'd be many who'd disagree with him. Many who'd think he was the scum of the Earth for choosing himself over her. Hell, even
he
would've shouted from the rooftops a couple of years ago that no way, no how would he sacrifice her to save himself. But that's only because he hadn't been faced with the actual choice back then. When a person was faced with the actual choice of their life in exchange for the life of someone they loved, convictions often crumbled.

His certainly had…

It's time
.
Time
to
finally
end
it.

Taking a deep breath, he punched in a number that made his upper lip curl with distaste.

“Yo,” a man whose accent was pure Southside Chicago gangster answered. “You got a location for us or what?”

“I do,” he said. “She's at Red Delilah's biker bar for the next hour or so. Hurry.”

“Don't you worry. We'll finish the job you were too chicken-shit to do on your own.”

Wishing he could reach through the phone and shove his thumb in the fucker's eye, he satisfied himself instead by jamming a finger down on the phone's keypad, instantly ending the call.

“Goddamn sonsofbitches,” he growled into the empty room, reaching for the decanter of scotch, disgusted to find his hands were shaking.

I'm sorry, my dear, sweet Eve
, he thought as he raked in a steadying breath.
I
wish
there
could've been another way…

Red Delilah's Biker Bar

6:01 p.m.

Fighting with the colorfully lit jukebox, trying to get the darned thing to accept her five-dollar bill, Eve felt woozy. And sad.

The wooziness was a direct result of having gulped down two of Delilah's world-class strawberry daiquiris in record time. The sadness was a direct result of the way her life was going.

Oh, let me count the ways…

For starters, her PhD—the goal she'd been striving toward for three, long years—was on indefinite hold because not only had her laptop burned up in her condo fire, but now all her dissertation materials were sitting at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Also, someone, possibly someone she
knew
, was out there right now with a mind to kill her. And as if those two things weren't bad enough, it now appeared that her love life—never a thing of beauty except for a brief, three-month period twelve years ago—was floating in the toilet while the Fates fiddled with the lever.

Yep. It's official. You're a real piece of work, Eve Edens.

She was just about to give up on the jukebox when the fickle machine suddenly decided that, yes, in fact it
was
hungry. It sucked in her money in one greedy gulp.

Victory!

It was a small win, sure, but at this point she was taking what she could get.

Scrolling through the options, she choked on a strangled sob when one particular number met her bleary gaze. Punching in the request for the tune, she used the rest of her money to jump the other songs currently waiting in the musical queue and turned just as the first driving drumbeat sounded.

This song reminded her of that magical summer with Billy and—

“Boo!” one of the patrons shouted. “No contemporary country music allowed on Sundays!”

“Can it, Buzzard!” Delilah yelled from behind the bar, throwing an olive at a bearded man Eve recognized from the two previous times she'd been in Red Delilah's. Idly, she wondered if the old, potbellied biker actually
lived
there. Maybe he had a sleeping bag somewhere in the back? But then Eric Church started singing about young love and loss, and she closed her eyes, letting the familiar lyrics of “Springsteen” wash over her, wallowing—yes,
wallowing;
a girl was allowed to do that on occasion—in her own regret.

A memory of Billy lying with his head in her lap on a patchwork quilt under a tree in Grant Park, listening as she read from
Breakfast
at
Tiffany's
, stumbled through her slightly sluggish, strawberry daiquiri-addled brain. He'd been idly twirling a yellow flower—A dandelion? She couldn't recall precisely—between his thumb and forefinger. And when she glanced down at him, down into his handsome face dappled with the sunlight spilling in through the leaves, she expected to find his warm, laughing eyes closed. But his gaze hadn't been shuttered by his lids and long, dark lashes. Just the opposite, in fact. He'd been looking right at her, and the expression on his face? Oh, sweet Lord, it'd made her heart jump in her chest. Okay, not jump.
Leap!
Because it was the first time she'd ever seen
love
in a man's eyes. And not those pale-by-comparison kinds of loves like
puppy
or
platonic
. Heck no. It was
romantic
love. And oh, it'd frightened her almost as much as it'd delighted her…

Wistfully swaying beside the jukebox, lost in the bittersweet memory, she was completely caught off-guard and more than a little stunned—her eyes snapping wide—when the front door flew open with a
bang
. Of course, even more shocking than the unexpected interruption was the man in baggy jeans, gold chains, and a ski mask who immediately charged inside.

“Hands in the air!” he yelled, holding a nickel-plated pistol out in front of him gangster-style, on its side, just as a second, similarly attired gunman stepped over the threshold.

Of
course, there's another gunman
, she thought with distaste, her mind working a little slowly due to either the shock or the second daiquiri or, more likely, both.
Like
nuns, guys like these always travel in pairs.

Only this duo was far from anything holy…

The second thought to stumble through her sluggish brain was,
geez, I just can't catch a break, can I?
The third thought was
he's holding that gun all wrong.
And the fourth thought, the most
appropriate
thought—Hello! Finally, the right synapses were firing—was
oh, crap!
But before she could form a fifth thought, the unmistakable
chick-schnick
of a shotgun being wracked assaulted her ears.

“You picked the wrong place to rob, my friends,” Delilah growled, and Eve's eyes flashed toward the bar. The redheaded proprietress was standing there looking, for all intents and purposes, like a playboy model—except for the teensy, tiny fact that she had a sawed-off shotgun pressed tightly against her shoulder, and a deadly challenge gleaming in her green eyes. “And in case you're too stupid to understand ballistics, let me give you a lesson.” Her voice was tough and strident, not belying an ounce of the fear Eve knew she
had
to be feeling. “The chances of me tearing you to shreds with this here scatter-gun are much higher than you hitting me with one of those nine millimeter slugs.”

The masked men seemed to hesitate, then the one closest to the open door turned to look directly at Eve.

“There she is,” he said. And before she could
begin
to contemplate what on God's green Earth he could possibly mean by that, he raised a gun toward her head.

Yep. Gun. Raised. Toward. Her. Head…

Everything that happened next was a blur, because her self-defense training kicked in and she instinctively dove for the man's ankles. Knocking him off balance, he crashed onto her back, crushing her and forcing all the air from her lungs like she'd been punched in the sternum.

“Uhhhhh,” she gasped, raking in much-needed air and the not-so-much-needed aromas of heavy cologne and weed. Fear sizzled along each of her nerve-endings until she was the human version of a live wire, and it combined with the hot burst of adrenaline to give her more strength than she would have under normal circumstances. When she pushed up from the floor, she was able to partially dislodge her assailant. And then the fight was on!

“Bitch!” he yelled as they became a tangled mess of grappling arms and kicking legs, each wrestling for control of the weapon with a killing intensity. It seemed like hours passed as they strained and struggled, heaved and bucked. But in reality, it was probably only seconds. Then, Eve misjudged which way the gunman was moving, and he was able to use her lapse along with his superior strength to pin her to the floor. His black eyes bored into her from the holes in his ski mask, promising death.

If
you
think
I'm done,
her burning eyes screamed up at him,
then
you're dead wrong! I'm not going down without a fight, by God!

She wrapped both fists around the wrist of his gun hand, grunting and snarling while simultaneously kicking and flailing to try to heave him off her. But to her utter horror, with both of her hands occupied with the task of preventing the masked man from pointing that Smith and Wesson at her head, there was nothing to stop him from reaching over with his free hand to enclose her throat in a meaty grip. Which was exactly what he did.

Instantly her brain buzzed from lack of oxygen, and darkness edged into her vision.

Oh, no! Help me, Lord, I'm losing it!

Her vision tunneled, and she couldn't seem to form a whole thought. As her world dimmed, she vaguely registered the
boom
of a shotgun and the wall next to the front door exploding in a shower of splinters.

Bam!
The first gunman returned fire, and in a tiny corner of Eve's mind she recognized the sound of bottles breaking.

Miraculously, the gunplay was enough to distract her attacker, and with only the most instinctual portion of her brain working, she saw an opportunity.
Now!
Twisting the gun from her opponent's hand, she wanted to yell in triumph when the warm metal settled into her fist. But the sweat on her palms, and the fact that there was a two-hundred-pound man strangling her, precluded any whoop of victory and had the weapon slipping from her grip.

It fell to the wooden slats of the floor with a loud
thump.
The masked man released her throat to make a grab for it, and she barely had enough time to drag in a wheezing breath that instantly snapped the world into focus before she was wholly occupied in the mad scuffle and scramble to retrieve the dropped pistol. She twisted out from under her attacker, latching onto his wrists. But in the process she inadvertently kicked the gun beneath the happily playing jukebox.

Damnit!

Boom!
Another blast of the shotgun, this time aimed directly above her assailant's head. The top of the jukebox shattered, the music coming to a record-scratching halt, and a shower of colorful glass rained down on them like sharp, stinging confetti. In the ear-ringing silence that followed, her attacker, now relieved of his weapon, must've figured Delilah was right about that lesson in ballistics. Because he scrambled to his feet and dove for the open door.

Eve flipped onto her stomach in time to see his Nikes disappear over the threshold.

Delilah had just saved her life…

But for how long?

Her head weighed a hundred pounds, but she still managed to lift it, fully expecting that when she did she'd be staring down the barrel of the first gunman's weapon, but—

Boom!
A third blast from the shotgun.

This time, Delilah caught a piece of the first masked man's leg, shredding his jeans and the flesh beneath. He howled in agony, grabbing at the wound with one hand and squeezing the trigger of his pistol with the other. Bullets exploded from the gun in quick, ear-shattering succession as the gangster wildly laid down covering fire, his limping retreat toward the door leaving a shower of blood droplets in his wake. A light fixture burst with a crash
.
The red vinyl cushion on an empty booth belched up a cloud of cotton stuffing after absorbing a round.

Eve once more covered her head, her blood rushing through her veins so hard and fast it sounded like a waterfall roaring between her ears. When she breathed, the acrid smell of cordite and the iron-like aroma of hemoglobin filled her nose, making her fight the urge to gag. A vehicle roared to life followed by the sound of tires squealing. Through the swinging front door, she caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a white van hauling butt away from the place.

Then, silence reigned…

For one heartbeat, maybe two, the world stopped spinning, and Eve glanced up to find the bar set in a motionless tableau. Patrons littered the floor, hands over their heads, completely and totally frozen in fear. Then, an ear-piercing scream splintered the silence, and Eve turned to see Delilah scrambling over the bar, the bartender's pretty face twisted with horror.

What…?

But then she saw it. The potbellied biker—Buzzard?—was slumped on his stool, a ghastly river of red dripping down his stomach and pants, pooling beneath his dangling black biker boots in a slick, gruesome puddle.

“No!” Delilah screamed, pressing a hand to the gushing wound in the center of Buzzard's chest. “No, Buzzard! No!”

Eve was the first to jump to her feet, hurdling prone patrons as she raced toward her purse still sitting on the bar, digging frantically for her cell phone.

Where
are
you? Where the heck are—

When she finally found it, she punched in 9-1-1 with shaky fingers and looked over at Buzzard—Delilah was sobbing hysterically and continuing to try to apply pressure to that gruesome wound. To her utter horror, she discovered the man's eyes were open and vacant, staring at nothing but death.

Oh, sweet Lord, no…

“Nine, one, one. What's your emergency?” a nasally voice sounded over the phone.

“I-I need an ambulance at…” she had to swallow the bile and tears burning up the back of her throat. “At Red Delilah's biker bar.” She gave the address. “A man has been sh-shot.”

The emergency operator asked her a question, but she didn't hear it as the phone slipped from her nerveless fingers.

There
she
is.
That's what the second gunman said before raising his weapon. Which meant they'd come here for her. To kill
her
. But instead…Buzzard was dead.

And
that
meant this was all her fault…

No God, no!
She choked on a sob, her knees threatening to buckle beneath her, but she refused to give in to the grief and hysteria bubbling just beneath her surface. It might be too late to help Buzzard, but perhaps she could still help poor Delilah…

***

The Corner of Western and North Avenues

6:32 p.m.

“What in the world?” Bill heard Mac yell over the grumbling sound of dual V-twin engines. He gripped Phoenix's handlebars tighter as he squinted up the block to where the red-blue-red flash of emergency vehicle lights bounced menacingly against the surrounding buildings.

They'd kinda, sorta, pseudo-fixed the Bat Cave door. But the thing was still acting sketchy as fuck, sometimes opening and closing of its own volition, so they'd decided to ditch the Hummer in exchange for the bikes. Especially considering that the tunnel was such a tight fit for the giant SUV that opening the doors of the vehicle once
inside
the sucker was nearly impossible.