Over the Line (15 page)

Lee

“Did you check the beach?” Rob asks as my three siblings spill into the yard. His gun is drawn and Ulie looks shell-shocked. In the back of my mind, I pray Oliver’s still alive.

My heart is galloping in my chest and I’m out of breath, so it takes me a second to answer. “I ran the path down to the beach and shouted for him.”

Ulie runs to the edge of the bluff and screams for him.

Grant moves toward the run. “He’s got the dogs with him,” he says, looking at the sand at the opening of the gate. He walks slowly around the side of the house. “The tracks go this way.”

“Fuck!” Rob hisses, tucking his gun into his waistband.

Grant follows the tracks and we follow Grant. They weave down the hill on the opposite side of the house from the driveway and skirt along the side of the sandy road.

“It looks like they started running when they got to the road,” Grant observes.

We follow the tracks to where they end at the pavement of the main road.

Grant looks toward town. “He went left.”

“Where would he have gone?” Ulie asks, a thread of panic in her voice.

I shake my head. “He just told me he didn’t want to leave.”

Rob rubs his eyes. “I’m going out looking for him.”

We jog en masse up the driveway. Grant shoves my Cheetah at Ulie. “Watch Savoca.”

My heart gets a momentary reprieve. Oliver’s okay.

Ulie tentatively takes the gun and moves toward the porch as Grant hops on his bike. He’s already gunning down the drive as Rob and I run inside to grab our car keys. Rob peels out, but just as I start my car, Wes’s silver sedan turns into the drive. Rob skirts past him, but I get out of the car as Wes rolls to a stop next to me.

His passenger window lowers and I lean in. “Sherm is missing.”

His eyes widen. “Are you thinking someone’s taken him?”

I shake my head. “He was upset. He took the dogs and headed toward town as best as we can tell.”

“Climb in,” he says with a nudge of his head toward the passenger seat.

I drop into the seat and he’s rolling down the driveway before I’ve even buckled in.

“What had him upset?” Wes asks, his brow creasing with concern.

I breathe in and hold it for a second to settle my shaking. “He was afraid we might have to leave.”

Wes’s eyes shoot to me for a second as he turns onto the main road back toward town. “Why would he think that?”

Crap. Do I tell him now? Panic is running in rivers of adrenaline through my bloodstream, making it hard to think straight. “Rob thought he might have seen someone from Chicago. Turned out to be a false alarm.”

“You’re sure?” he asks with another glance my direction.

I open my mouth to say yes, but close it again. I look at him a long heartbeat. I should tell him. That’s why I called him. He’s a good man, and I know he’d be fair to Oliver. As I play out every other scenario I can think of in my head, this is the one Oliver is least likely to come out of dead.

Ahead, Grant’s bike is pulled over on the side of the road, and a few hundred feet beyond, I see Rob’s car. When we reach it I see my two siblings even farther up the road.

We pull over just behind them.

“There are tracks here,” Grant says. “He was still running, the dogs just ahead of him.”

Wes steps out of the car and looks where Grant is pointing. “Impressive. You ever think about a job in law enforcement?”

Grant gives him a stone-cold stare, not appreciating Wes’s dry attempt at humor. He turns and jogs back to his bike. We wait for him to pass and we follow. He goes slowly, riding close to the shoulder and watching the tracks. A few minutes later, we’re in the center of town. The rumble of Grant’s bike dies when he cuts the engine and proceeds through the parking lot on foot. Here and there he picks something out of a sandy spot on the pavement. As we’re passing Murdock & Sons, Rob, Wes and I duck inside the open shop door. Grant keeps tracking Sherm and the dogs.

The place smells like rust and exhaust and the surfaces are all cluttered with car parts and containers of various auto-related fluids. A pair of legs covered in greasy coveralls stick out from under an old Pontiac.

“Chuck,” Rob calls.

Chuck is Polly’s son, and since his parents and Adri’s are best friends, Adri and Chuck have been attached at the hip since they were born. Rob and he work together at Spencer Security and have formed a strained bond. I think Rob respects him, which is saying a lot.

Chuck wheels himself out from under the car and sits up. He rakes his platinum curls out of his eyes and blinks when he sees the three of us before gaining his feet. “A visit from the Caped Crusader,” he says, offering a hand to Rob. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Sherm ran off. Any chance you happened to see him?” Rob asks with a tip of his head at the open door.

“Oh, man. No. I’ve been under old man McCreary’s Pontiac all afternoon. Just getting ready to throw in the towel.” He chucks his shop towel onto the workbench in a symbolic gesture.

Rob backs toward the door and Wes and I follow. “If he turns up here, let me know, okay?”

“You got it, man. Hope the little dude’s okay.”

“Me too,” I say. “Thanks, Chuck.”

Rob starts toward Grant, but I jog next door and step into Polly’s. There are several full tables, but no staff up front. I swing open the kitchen door just as Polly’s on her way out and hit her in the face with the door.

“Sorry!” I say, realizing that’s what the little round window is for. I should have looked through it.

“No problem, sweetie.” She smiles over my shoulder at Wes as he pushes through the door. “You and your man here for dinner?”

I inwardly cringe. “My little brother ran off and we think he came through here with his dogs not too long ago. I just wondered if maybe anyone saw him?”

“Well, let’s find out.” She moves to the center of the room. “Can I have your attention?” she says over the chatter and background music. It takes a second, but eventually the last few chatterboxes are nudged by their tablemates and the room goes quiet. “We’ve have a family here who need to know if any of you fine folks happened to see a boy pass by here with his dogs.”

“I did,” a woman with blue hair near the window says. “A boy and two gray dogs on leashes. It was maybe fifteen minutes ago.”

Wes moves to the table and I follow. “It was just him and the dogs?” he asks. “No one else with them, or possibly chasing them?”

With that, her eyes fly wide. “Heavens, no! Is he in some kind of trouble?”

“No,” I say. “He was just upset. Thank you so much for your help.”

“Hope everything’s okay,” Polly says as we turn for the door.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” I say, trying to reassure myself.

When we get back to the parking lot, Grant is with Rob, who’s got his phone pressed to his ear.

“But he’s okay?” he says.

“Who’s that?” I ask Grant.

“Adri. Sherm showed up at her door a few minutes ago.”

“I’m coming for him
now
,” Rob says, irritation sharpening his words. He fists his hand into the hair on top of his head and his lips pull into a thin line at Adri’s response. “No! He needs to know he can’t go running off.
Ever
.”

I slip the phone out of his hand. He makes a grab for it and knocks it out of my hand. It tumbles to the pavement. I snatch it up and lift it to my ear. “Adri, what’s up?”

“Hey, Lee. Sherm asked me not to tell anyone he was here. I told him I couldn’t do that, but that if I let you and Rob know he was safe, he could stay for a while. Can you please talk Rob down? I’d hate to lose Sherm’s trust over this.”

“Hold on.” I press the phone to my chest and glare at Rob. I grab his arm and tow him away from the others. “What the hell is wrong with you? Let him stay with Adri until we sort everything out. It’s the perfect solution.”

He thinks about that for a second and grabs the phone back. “He okay with you and Carl for dinner?” There’s a pause, then, “Okay. I’ll be there later to pick him up.”

He hangs up and glares back at me. “He can’t run off every time he’s scared or upset. It’s not safe.”

“I get that. But you have to be reasonable. And it’s really best that he’s not at the house right now anyway.”

He nods as Wes and Grant comes over. “Everything settled?” Wes asks.

I glance at my siblings and get wary looks back. “Yeah. He’s with his teacher.”

“Later,” Grant says, heading to his bike. I don’t call him on the sudden change in demeanor as he tries to play the whole thing off like no big deal. I’ve never seen him that scared. It’s enough to know he was the one leading the charge to find Sherm.

As we climb in the cars, Grant takes off in the opposite direction from home. I watch him peel out and wonder for the millionth time where he goes.

“Everything okay?” Wes asks from the driver’s seat before starting the car.

“Yeah. Just relieved Sherm’s safe.”

“Me too.” He looks at me with a more scrutinizing eye. “But you didn’t call me out here to look for Sherm.”

My pulse pounds in my ears. This is where I tell him about Oliver to keep my brother from killing him. But suddenly I know I can’t do it. My mind searches desperately for door number three. Irrationally, the thought that Oliver can just join us in WITSEC flashes through my mind. But even if it was possible, which I know it’s not, there’s nothing he’s said that leads me to believe he’d even take that option if it were offered. He belongs in Chicago.

Wes’s pointed gaze meets mine, waiting for an explanation.

I clear my throat. “Before, when I asked about protocol if someone found us here, you said something about a lockdown. What does that mean?”

His blue eyes darken a shade as they drill into mine. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Lee?”

“No. This whole thing just got us wondering how it would work if the situation arose.”

He pushes against the steering wheel, pressing his shoulders deeper into the seat. “We’d station someone at the house.”

“And if it turned out the threat wasn’t credible, you’d lift the lockdown?”

He nods slowly. “Probably.” His eyes soften as he regards me. “So, what was it you needed help working out?”

I watch Rob’s car disappear around the first bend and my heart leaps into my throat. I don’t want Rob in that house without me. “I’ll tell you on the way back.”

He looks at me a second longer before cranking the car to life. “I’m listening,” he says as he pulls out of the parking lot.

“Before we left Chicago I was . . . involved in some things.” I glance at him and his eyes are on the road. “They weren’t all legal and I’m afraid one of them in particular might come back and bite us in the ass. I just have to know what our options are in case something happens . . . if I’m tracked down.”

His alarmed gaze cuts to mine, then back to the road. “The person who Rob thought he saw . . . do you have reason to believe your location has been compromised?”

I rest my pounding head against the seat. I have to tell him.

“Lee,” he says slowly. “Talk to me.”

His concern cuts to my heart and tears well in my eyes. “What if I didn’t want the person arrested? Could you just move us and let him go?”

He takes the turn onto our road and stops. “That’s not my call, Lee. If there were reason to bring him in, known or suspected criminal activity . . . a warrant, I wouldn’t have any choice.”

Ahead, I see Rob climbing out of his car up near the house. “And we’d leave here forever,” I say to myself.

“Lee?” he says, pulling my attention away from where Rob is charging into the house to do God only knows what to Oliver. “You need to tell me what’s going on with you.”

I have to tell him. I have to save Oliver from Rob. “I was in a relationship in Chicago. I did something unforgiveable.” I swallow, my eyes gravitating back to the house. A tear breaks the damn and spills onto my cheek. Oliver is in there. Oliver, who owns my heart.

Oliver, who I’ll never see again if I do this.

Wes’s enormous hand envelops mine. “You’re safe here, Lee. And if someone somehow manages to find you, we’ll move you.” He takes my shoulders in his hands and turns me to face him. “No one’s going to hurt you on my watch.” He thumbs the moisture off my face, leans in to kiss me.

I press deeper into my seat, making more space between us. “I’m sorry, Wes. You’re an incredible man and you deserve someone who has her head on straight. Unfortunately, that’s just not me right now.”

He lets me go and shifts back in his seat. “Because of this guy . . . in Chicago.”

The bitter undercurrent to his words surprises me. “I just need some time to sort it out.”

He starts the car rolling and we wind up the drive. When we stop at the top, he stares straight out the windshield at the porch, his jaw ground tight. “Take all the time you need.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, stepping out of the car.

“Me too,” he answers.

I close the door and he turns his car around and heads down the drive without another word. I spin and bolt for the door, then take the stairs two at a time.

Oliver

Lee’s Cheetah sits on the dresser, and Ulie is perched on the windowsill all the way across the room. This is probably my best shot at escaping. I’m strong enough now that I might be able to yank the ties on my ankles loose or tear the scarf. But then what? Lee would be relocated and the stroke of pure luck that led me to her this time wouldn’t repeat itself. I’d never find her again. So I’ve made my decision. I’m going to fight for what I want.

Or die trying.

Rob strides into the room, and I can tell by his determined expression we’re picking up right where we left off. “My sisters are smarter than me, and they seem to think I shouldn’t kill you,” he says with a flick of his hand at Ulie. He sinks into the chair in the corner and rests his Glock on his knee. “You show up at my apartment blathering about a truce, and now you’re here, unarmed. Either you’re suicidal or spectacularly stupid.”

I shake my head. “Neither, actually. I’m a businessman.”

“So explain why your guys shot at me in Chicago.”

“Because that’s what they do. That’s what I’m trying to change.”

His eyes narrow as he leans forward. “Then change it. You don’t need me for that.”

“You’re wrong. I do. Old-school believes the only way to control people is through intimidation and fear. The higher the body count, the better. I need someone like-minded at the helm of your organization if there’s going to be any real change. We can’t stop shooting at you if you don’t stop shooting at us.”

There’s the sound of someone pounding up the stairs, then Lee bursts through the door, splitting a panicked glance between me and her brother. When she finds everyone still alive, she moves to the side of the bed and pulls the sheet lower, looking over my bloodstained bandages.

“I thought you were done with the goonery, Rob,” she mutters, dropping to her knees next to the bed as she pulls back the gauze.

“You know I’ll do whatever it takes to protect this family, Lee,” he answers.

“I fail to see how torturing a bound man is protecting the family.”

Despite the precarious nature of my current situation, I can’t stop the smirk. “Rob’s not the one who shot me.”

She glares at me as Rob adds, “Yet.”

Her eyes snap to him.

“Why don’t you tell me how that happened?” he says, leaning back in his chair.

Lee goes back to work cleaning me up. “He was in my closet. I thought he was here to kill us, so I shot him.”

“But now you think we should spare him. Why?”

Lee’s jaw tightens as she blots my wound with Betadine. “I should have stitched this already. It wouldn’t have bled as much if I had.”

“Give me a reason to let him live, Lee,” Rob says, “or there’ll be no need for stitches.”

She springs off the floor and glares at him, her fists bunched at her sides. “Because that’s not who you are anymore! Because we left that behind in Chicago!”

His eyes darken as his face clouds, and I realize there’s more to this family drama than meets the eye. Then I remember the voices on the porch the night Lee was on her date. Rob and a woman.

“We left
him
in Chicago,” he grinds out with a nudge of his chin my direction. “Now he wants us to go back.”

She shakes her head slowly and her eyes find mine. She searches my gaze for a long heartbeat before saying, “That’s not going to happen.”

And that’s my answer. No matter what there was or might have been between us, Lee’s not coming back with me.

Which means Rob has no reason to let me live.

“You’re right,” I say. “You should shoot me and get the hell out of here. My family will be looking for me. It wouldn’t be good for them to find me here.”

“Don’t tempt me.” Rob says, reaching for his phone. He looks at the screen. Without a word, he gains his feet and strides from the room.

“Ulie,” Lee says, looking to where her sister is holding the wall up. “Do you have anything you can heat up for Oliver to eat? If we’re not killing him today, we should probably feed him.”

She nods and scoots out of the room.

“Why did you tell Rob to shoot you?” Lee hisses under her breath once we’re alone. “The last thing he needs is permission!”

“Because the longer we sit here in limbo, the more danger you’re in. He’s trying to protect you.” My gut tightens into a hard knot. “At least one of us has our priorities straight. I never should have come here. I should have left you alone.”

She presses the tape down over my bandages, then leans slowly forward, gazing into my eyes as if searching for something she lost there. She must find it, because she closes the rest of the distance between us and presses her soft lips against mine.

“What the hell are we going to do?” she asks once our lips part.

“You have to kill me or cut me loose, Cheetah. It’s the only way I can guarantee your safety.”

“No one’s dying today,” she chides.

“Then let me go. I have resources in Chicago. I’ll find Jimmy D and take care of the threat. Then it will be your choice whether to come back or not.”

“Is it really Jimmy?” she asks, rage flashing in her eyes. “Because he’s never going to be able to step into Papa’s shoes. He’s dumber than a stick.”

“Maybe I can sort that out with Rob.”

Her expression grows wary. “I don’t want you two alone together.”

“You know I can take care of myself, Cheetah.”

“Not when you’re hurt!” she says, throwing a hand at me. “And unarmed.”

I crack a smile. “Then give me your gun.”

Her mouth hardens into a scowl. “It’s all fun and games till someone ends up with a bullet in his brain.” She spins and leaves the room without another word.

I drop my head back into the pillows and blow out a breath, staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out what to say to Rob to keep Lee’s premonition from coming true. I have so royally screwed this up.

Downstairs, voices rise and fall. I can’t make out everything that’s being said, but it’s clear Lee and Rob still aren’t seeing eye to eye on what needs to happen from here.

It’s a long while later that the door swings open and Rob’s bulky form fills the doorway, a plate and two beers in his hands. “Did she at least cut you loose to take a piss?”

The smell of food makes my stomach growl. “Nope. Hasn’t let me have a smoke since I’ve been here either.”

“Cruel and unusual punishment,” he says, stepping into the room. “Not that you don’t deserve it.”

He empties his hands on the nightstand and unties me. “Don’t got any smokes, but I can help you out with the bathroom run. Keep in mind, if you give me a reason, I’ll pound you into a bloody pulp.”

“Got it. I’ll try not to piss on your foot.”

He yanks loose my ties and looks down at the bandages as I drag myself up to sit. “You’ve been pulling all kinds of unorthodox shit trying to get to us. Showing up at my apartment, tracking us here. If you really knew who held our contract, you would have spilled it when I was about to blow your brains across the room. So what’s the real deal, Savoca? What are you trying to pull?”

“I’ve been straight with you all along. There is no ulterior motive. I want a changing of the guard. For that to happen, I need you back in charge. It’s in everyone’s best interest.” It’s not a lie. Just not the whole truth. With Rob back in Chicago and an “agreement” between the clans, Lee and I could have a real shot.

“Because organized crime is a business,” he parrots with a roll of his eyes.

“You disagree?”

He looks at me a long minute, then his eyes narrow. “When we were in Chicago, you asked if I’d ever been in love. Was that a threat? Because if you hurt Sophie to get to me, I might have to kill you despite what I promised my sisters.”

I shake my head and try to stand. It takes me two tries to gain my feet. “It was a legitimate question. The world looks different when you’re in love. None of the old rules apply anymore.”

He juts his chin toward the door, indicating that I should move. I do. My legs feel stronger, but I don’t necessarily want Delgado to know that. I hold the walls for balance as I move slowly up the hall.

“You sound like you’re speaking from experience,” he says from behind me.

“I am.”

“So, that’s why the big change? You’re in love?”

I reach the bathroom door and turn to face him. “It doesn’t need to be like this anymore. Our families have been at war since before we were born. You and I can change that.”

“For a woman.” There’s not the scorn I expected with the statement, and I know my assumption about he and the woman I heard him with is true. He doesn’t want war anymore either, but his solution is to walk away.

“You don’t have to give up your life for a fresh start, Delgado. We can make one in Chicago. Let me go back. I’ll find out for sure who holds your contract and I’ll take them out. With the threat neutralized, you’d be free to come back to Chicago.”

“No,” he says with a sharp shake of his head. “The guy I was there is dead.”

“You should just think about—”

“Just shut the fuck up and piss already!” he shouts, slamming his hand into the doorframe.

I turn and thumb down the waistband of my underwear, relieving myself.

“You say you’ve changed for a woman,” Rob says from behind me, his voice lower now, more in control. “So have I. It doesn’t matter whether we’re shooting at each other or not. I don’t want that life anymore.”

Despair bunches my insides when I realize there’s no winning this. I can’t force him to come back. And if he doesn’t, Lee won’t.

“So you’re going to spend the rest of your pathetic existence running and hiding instead?” I spit. The effort causes a stabbing pain in my chest and I hold my breath until it passes.

Rob cuts me a glare and slams the door in my face.

I brace my hands against it until I’ve pulled my shit together, then decide to shower while I’m here. I crank the water on and step in before it’s warm. The cold prickle against my skin helps to ground me.

There has to be a way to convince him. I can’t have risked everything to find Lee only to lose her again.