Kane's Ransom: A BWWM Mafia Romance Novel (22 page)

But before they could leave, the kidnapper coughed - and when they glanced back over at him, he'd lifted the rifle to point directly at them.

"Hold on," he rasped. "We're not done yet."

"Not done?" Killian repeated, and Alicia saw her man's hand slip surreptitiously around to his back, reaching for the pistol that she knew he'd tucked away back there. "You've got the money, and we've got our hostage, back alive and all right. Sounds like the kidnapping's been concluded to me."

"The kidnapping, yeah," the kidnapper with the gun agreed easily enough. The man from the backseat had tucked the case back into the SUV, and now turned around with a rifle of his own. "But see, turns out that we can't just let you walk away, even after paying us."

"The deal's over. You can just let us walk away-"

"You're not listening!" the kidnapper suddenly shouted - and he fired a shot up in the air, just over their heads. "Marcus fucked us! It doesn't matter if you pay his debts - he's got to pay for crossing us, send a lesson to everyone else! Now step away from the fucking car!"

And he leveled the rifle at them, clearly ready to use it at a second's notice!

Chapter twenty-five

"Get over here! Down on the floor!" the kidnapper shouted at the three of them, brandishing the rifle. Although maybe he shouldn't think of them as kidnappers, Killian reconsidered as he stepped around the car.

After all, this was soon going to look a lot less like a kidnapping, and a lot more like a murder scene.

"Easy, easy," he said in the calmest tone he could manage, holding up both his hands with the palms out. He could see Alicia's wide eyes, her face looking paler than its usual dark color as she stared at the assault rifle pointed at them both. "We really don't want any trouble. Surely there's a way for us to work this out-"

He glanced down, watching his steps as he approached the Hispanic man holding the rifle. He was the closest of the three Curanos. Ten, maybe twelve feet away, he estimated.

"Shut up," the Curano snapped back, gesturing with the rifle at the ground. "Who are you, some rich asshole she's sleeping with? Decided to bail out your bitch? Shouldn't have gotten involved."

"Easy," Killian repeated again, taking another step closer. He could feel his phone in his jeans pocket, pressed tightly against his thigh as he advanced.

The man in front of him had the gun partly raised, the barrel currently pointing at Killian's feet. He was practicing good trigger discipline, at least, Killian observed; the man's finger was pressed along the stock, not looped inside the trigger guard and against the trigger itself. It would only take the man an instant to switch his finger over to the trigger.

Killian prayed that the instant of delay would be enough.

In front of him, less than eight feet away, the Curano narrowed his eyes. "Hey! Get back over by your bitch and her-" he started.

Killian lunged.

He kicked off with his back foot against the concrete, rushing forward with his hands reaching out - not to grab the man, but to push the barrel of his gun off to one side, keeping it from pointing at either him or Alicia or Marcus behind him. He managed to grab the barrel with his fingers just in time - the Curano pulled the trigger, but the bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the ground, disappearing into the depths of the warehouse.

Before the Curano could adjust his aim, Killian hit him. The force behind his charge brought both men to the ground - and knocked the gun from his opponent's hands, sending it skittering across the floor.

Both of the men rolled back and forth, grappling with each other. Killian could still feel the presence of the pistol he'd brought, tucked into the back of his jeans. In order to get it, however, he'd need a free hand - and the Curano beneath him required both of his hands to keep himself from being strangled.

The other Curanos, one of them also holding a rifle, the other now brandishing a pistol, yelled out something. They had their own weapons up, Killian spotted, but they couldn't get a shot off - the surgeon and the kidnapper were too close together. But Killian couldn't spare the momentary distraction of focusing on anything but the man grappling with him.

The Curano beneath him threw both of their bodies to the side, rolling and managing to pop up on top. He yelled something triumphantly in Spanish as he lifted his hand, his fingers curling around into a fist. He clearly meant to drive it down onto Killian, caught beneath him.

Killian dodged to the side at the last second, however, and the Curano's fist slammed into the bare concrete floor. For just a second, the man howled and lost focus, clutching at his shattered fist.

That momentary lapse of concentration was all that Killian needed.

As soon as the man looked away, distracted by his broken hand, Killian scrambled to the side, sliding his own hand beneath his arched back. His fingers bumped against the textured plastic handle of the Glock, slid off. Come on, he prayed desperately, grabbing a second time.

Finally, he felt the gun's grip in his hands. As the enraged Curano crouched above him prepared to swing his other hand down, Killian pulled his own gun free, flipping off the safety and firing off two shots.

The Curano on top of him toppled back, holes drilled in the middle of his chest.

As the gun barked in Killian's hands, he felt one other sensation - the vibrating of his phone in his pocket.

Bringing his gun around, Killian rolled back. He raised the gun to point at the other two Curanos-

-but froze as he saw both of them pointing their weapons. One of the other two men had his pistol trained on Killian, but the man with the second assault rifle was instead aiming at a different target.

Alicia and Marcus, still standing, frozen, by the Maserati.

"Drop it, or they both die," the other man with the assault rifle hissed.

Killian frantically ran the odds in his head. Could he pull off both shots? He desperately tried to think of any way to salvage the situation - but his mind came up blank.

He couldn't drop them both before they opened fire - either killing him, if he shot the Curano with the assault rifle first, or killing Alicia and Marcus, if he shot the man with the pistol first.

There was no way out.

Slowly, he lowered his gun. He'd felt his phone vibrate, hadn't he? Killian prayed that the sensation hadn't been a trick of his mind. "Okay, I'm done, I'm done," he gave in, putting his gun on the ground.

For a second, Killian caught Alicia's wide eyes. He wished, more than anything, that he could take even one last minute, could speak with her. He would give anything to wrap his arms around her one more time, right now, to take away that look of panic and helplessness that he now saw in her eyes. That look stabbed into him like a blade to the heart.

He wanted to tell her that- he paused, but this time the word didn't shrink away in his head.

He loved her.

He'd only known her romantically for a day or two, but he'd spoken with her for months, bantering back and forth every time that he set foot in the diner. He had come to know her mind long before he ever slid his hands over her body, and even if she'd been ugly, paralyzed, any other number of factors that would usually be a deal-breaker, he'd still love her, would still love that personality inside her. He'd still love that determination, that iron will hiding beneath her nervous exterior.

"Down on your knees!"

Killian did as commanded, slowly sinking down until first one knee, and then the second, landed on the rough concrete floor. He ran his eyes around the dark, upper recesses of the warehouse. A thin bank of dirty windows let in some light, but the upper rafters were mostly shrouded in darkness.

"You too!" the Curano with the assault rifle shouted out next, gesturing to Alicia and Marcus. He motioned over towards where Killian knelt on the ground with his rifle. "Down on the ground!"

Alicia didn't protest, but grimly sank down next to Killian. She glanced over at him - and to his surprise, he saw a brief little smile dance around her lips.

"Thank you," she whispered to him - the last words that he'd expected to hear.

"Thank you?" he repeated, totally lost. "Why? For what?"

"For helping me, for doing everything that you could to get my brother back for me," she replied, and her hand reached out, wrapping around his own fingers. For once, those brown eyes of hers didn't look at all concerned or nervous. They danced with life, as though her body was trying to express all its remaining vitality before the inevitable oncoming bullet.

The two Curanos didn't care about his words, or hers. They stepped forward, brandishing the weapons. Next to them, Marcus cringed and turned his head away, closing his eyes, but Killian kept his own on Alicia, and she steadily gazed back at him.

Come on, come on, he prayed. Any moment now.

Killian wanted to respond, to say one last thing to Alicia. But as he opened his mouth, he caught a little flash of reflected light out of the corner of his eye, coming from the dirty, small windows up at the top of the warehouse.

His heart, already beating rapidly in his chest, jumped up another ten beats. The Curanos, looking down at him, hadn't spotted the little flash of reflected light. They stepped forward, glancing at each other to make sure that they were both ready to kill these hostages.

"Come on!" Killian hissed to himself, trying to remember to keep on breathing.

The men raised their guns - and then gunshots rang out, echoing around the warehouse.

For an instant, no one moved, frozen in place as the cracks of those gunshots slowly faded away, still echoing off the walls of the warehouse.

Two gunshots.

And then, moving in near perfect unison as though choreographed, both of the Curanos toppled forward, their guns dropping down onto the concrete and landing beneath their sprawled, twisted bodies.

Killian felt Alicia's hand go rigid around his own as they stared down at the two bodies lying on the ground in front of them, as twin pools of blood began to spread out across the concrete.

Finally, she found breath to speak.

"What happened?" Alicia asked, her voice quivering.

Killian smiled as he rose up to his feet, tugging her up with him. "I did everything that I could," he replied, as she fell into his open arms.

Chapter twenty-six

For a second, Alicia just clutched at Killian, not understanding what had just happened, but knowing that she was alive. Those two men on the ground had been about to shoot her - but now, they both lay dead instead.

Now that she'd climbed back to her feet, she could see a wound in the back of each man's head, a neat little drilled hole amid their short hair. There hadn't been any exit wound on the other side, so there wasn't any splatter of brains or gore spilling out in front of the two men - just blood leaking from those little holes in the backs of their heads.

Killian squeezed Alicia tightly as she hugged him, but after a minute, she let go and pulled back slightly. "What happened?" she asked, happy but still confused.

"I saved your asses, that's what happened!"

Killian, Alicia, and Marcus all turned as the new voice rang out in the warehouse. A man was strolling forward, a rifle tucked under one arm, grinning at them with a face that looked more villainous than heroic. The newcomer beamed at the confusion on their faces - although Killian recognized him, Alicia realized, glancing up at the man with his arms wrapped around her still.