Chapter Eleven

Despite their current situation’s precariousness, Kenzie felt refreshed and ready to tackle anything thrown in her path. She’d woken up in the morning—or afternoon—when Declan rose to shower. She was stiff from sleeping on the floor and sore in places that hadn’t been sore in way too long, but she still felt optimistic. Jamal had been asleep, so she carefully got up, powered on her computer, and checked her messages. There were over one hundred in her inbox. Most were junk mail that could be deleted, but several were from former coworkers. Apparently, they hadn’t given up on her. She clicked on the one from Missy Patton, one of her fellow editors. Missy had followed in Kenzie’s footsteps and reported Jared for sexual harassment. That set off a flood of others daring to step forward. Pickens Publishing was in a downward spiral.

Her eyes widened on a message from Jared. She stared at it for a good two minutes before opening it to find a generic apology full of regret and misunderstanding, blah, blah, blah. Jared was so very sorry. Huh. He’d never apologized for anything. His secretary had undoubtedly written the message under the lawyer’s direction.

“That one goes right into the trash,” she muttered.

Several emails were from Bernadette, each one more desperate than the last. The woman was about to have a coronary. The agency was knocking on bankruptcy’s door, and she needed Kenzie’s decision sooner rather than later. Things were critical, and if they could stop the damage, it needed to be done now.

She was running for her life, and they expected her to care what happened to the company that axed her for speaking up about harassment? She wanted to fire off a nasty email to Bernadette but settled for an honest one.

I’ve decided not to come back. Please don’t email me again. I won’t change my mind.

She hit send, expecting to feel relieved it was over, but she felt oddly sad. Being away for a few weeks proved she didn’t miss the job. She missed some of her coworkers and the authors she worked with, but it was liberating to realize the job didn’t define her.

After clearing out the rest of her inbox, she checked the news to see what had been happening in the world and caught up with the latest celebrity gossip. When she heard Declan finishing up in the bathroom, she shut her computer down and stuffed it back inside her bag.

When he came out of the bathroom freshly showered and clean-shaven, she couldn’t stop the lurch of her heart. He was an Adonis, and she’d slept with him.

By late afternoon, her optimism waned. Sitting around watching cartoons took a toll. Jamal was entertained and happy, and she should work on her novel, but it would be too hard to concentrate. She was dying to know if Bernadette had responded.

The highlight of the day came when they exercised with push-ups, jumping jacks, and sit-ups. Declan cranked out dozens more than either she or Jamal could attempt. He even used Jamal as a weight bar to bench press, much to the boy’s delight.

Accelerating her heart rate felt good, though Declan did the same to her system with just a look. When the phone rang, she excused herself to the bathroom. After using the facilities and washing her hands, she removed the band from her hair and brushed out the tangles. She returned to find Declan was already off the phone. He gave her a recap of his conversation while she refastened her hair into a ponytail.

“All that exercise made me hungry,” Jamal announced. “Can we order a pizza?”

Since it looked like they’d be here a while longer, they might as well fuel up. She found a phone book on the table between the beds and placed an order using a fake name with Speedy Pizza. The girl informed her it would be delivered in an hour, to which she almost asked why the name Speedy?

She couldn’t stand her sweaty clothes any longer, so she took a shower and washed her hair. She wished she had some of her Harmony products to use, but the cheap moisturizer she picked up at the department store would have to do for now.

Declan was waiting with clothes in his hand when she stepped out.

“I’m going to hit the shower.” He withdrew money from his wallet. “I’ll leave this in case, but I should be out before the pizza arrives. If it does, make sure it’s the delivery person wearing an official uniform before opening the door.”

“I will.”

While he rinsed off the sweat, she checked her messages again. As she suspected, Bernadette had responded, but her gloves had come off, and she’d quit with the fake niceties. She was now accusing Kenzie of being a cold-hearted, manipulative bitch who conspired to bring Pickens Publishing down. She deleted the email without responding. Kenzie owed them nothing.

She’d just cleared out her unread messages when someone rapped on the door. “Speedy Pizza,” the man called out. Kenzie checked her watch. Thirty-five minutes was speedier than an hour.

“I’ve got it.” Jamal jumped up from the floor and grabbed the cash Declan laid on the dresser.

He started for the door when Kenzie yelled, “Wait.” He froze with his hand inches away from the knob. “Let me make sure he is who he says he is.” She powered off her computer and shoved it back in her bag.

Jamal tweaked the curtain aside. “I see his car with the logo, and he’s wearing the Speedy Pizza uniform,” he confirmed. Before she stood, he opened the door. “Here’s the—”

“Gotcha!”

“No,” Jamal wailed. “Let me go.”

Kenzie watched in horror as a man in a Speedy Pizza uniform wrapped an arm around Jamal and pointed a weapon at her. She barely managed to dive to the floor and cover her head as he opened fire.

“Kenzie? Are you hurt?”

She looked up as Declan rushed from the bathroom with his gun and charged for the door.

“No, but they took Jamal!”

“Damn it. I can’t return fire. I don’t want to hit him.”

Kenzie grabbed their bags while Declan yanked his shirt over his head, and they raced out the door. They leaped over the fallen pizza, now a mess of cheese, sauce, and pepperoni smeared across the sidewalk.

“The SUV should be…there.”

Declan whipped the door open and vaulted into the driver’s seat.

“Declan, look,” she said as she bucked her belt. A shirtless man was tied up in front of the room next to theirs. The real Speedy Pizza delivery man. Thankfully, he hadn’t parked his car behind theirs because Declan punched the gas, and they shot out of the parking space. With a maneuver worthy of a NASCAR champion, he executed a one-eighty, and they chased the black car out of the lot.

#

Luis Gomez pumped a fist in the air. He’d finally won! He’d grabbed the kid. None of his Eighty-Sixer brothers needed to know how hard it’d been. He’d warn Blaze to keep his trap shut. Now they just had to make the brat talk. First, they needed to lose the tail. He glanced over his shoulder at the big black SUV that had roared after them and now practically kissed their bumper. He should’ve whacked the other two while he had the chance, but he’d been shocked the kid had answered the door.

Though he’d been reluctant to call in the Dogs, it paid to have contacts who had contacts. His gang had inroads in the Chicago Police Department, but nothing like the Dogs with their hometown cop shop. Their ally not only dug up the woman’s computer IP address but had pinged it to determine her location. Luis had been sincerely impressed. They’d gotten a hit earlier, but the computer hadn’t stayed on long enough to pinpoint the exact location. They knew the general area, so he and Blaze had parked in a lot of a fast-food taco joint and waited for her to turn it back on again. It’d taken forever. They’d both had to go inside the restaurant and use the bathroom more than once. Then the cops came and almost arrested them for loitering.

They’d ended up driving around, and the wait had been excruciating. Blaze had downed four bean burritos, and Luis paid for it, both literally and figuratively. Blaze was short on cash, so Luis lent him the money. After he wolfed down the food, the beans worked their magic, and the stink in the car was enough to make Luis vomit. He hung his head out the window and panted like an overheated Saint Bernard.

It’d been worth the nasal torture when his contact called and directed them to the same motel from last night but a different room. They hadn’t wandered far at all.

His contact offered to send a crew to help with the takedown, but Luis declined. He didn’t want them getting in the way and messing up the grab. Not that he told him that. No sense in making enemies out of the Dogs. His excuse had been that they’d be heading directly home to Chicago as soon as they had the kid. And it wasn’t even a lie. They’d had the tire replaced on their ride, and though a couple of windows were cracked from bullets, it was in working order.

They staked out the room when they arrived at the motel, waiting for the perfect opportunity. The curtains were pulled so that they couldn’t see inside. Maybe he was making another mistake by waiting for the cover of darkness, but he didn’t want to mess up this up again. If someone saw them grabbing the kid in broad daylight, they might call the cops. The best option was waiting until it was dark for a surprise attack, but luck was on his side when, minutes later, a beat-up brown car with a Speedy Pizza light on top zipped into the lot and screeched to a stop. There were few cars at this end of the motel, so Luis knew it was for the occupants of the room they were watching.

He’d jumped out of the car and approached the delivery man as he removed the pizza from the warming bag in the back seat, letting his gun do the talking with a poke to his back. The man spun around, his eyes widening when he noticed the pistol. His prominent Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

“What’s the name on the order, Roger?” he asked, reading the name off of his Speedy Pizza uniform.

“Uh…” His knobby knees knocked together like castanets. “Smith.”

Luis rolled his eyes. Could they have been less obvious? “I’ll be delivering that. Take off your shirt and give me your hat.”

“W-what?”

Luis motioned with the gun. “The shirt, now.”

The man stripped off his uniform and hat while shaking like a baby’s rattle. Luis stuck his arms through the holes and fastened the buttons.

“Nice dress,” Blaze guffawed.

The deliveryman was like ten feet tall, so his shirt hung on Luis’s five-seven frame. “Shut your burrito chute and tie the man up.”

Blaze unwound the rope they’d purchased earlier. “Just saying with a nice pair of heels and some earrings…”

Luis flipped him off and jerked the pizza from the back seat. Blaze was still chuckling as he stalked to the door. Luis was reconsidering the man as his second in command. No one made fun of his height and got away with it. He was so touchy about his stature, he even lied to himself. He was only five-five.

The pizza box burned his palm, so he adjusted his grip and rapped on the door, keeping his head down. “Speedy Pizza,” he called out for good measure.

When the door whipped open, he’d been momentarily stunned to see his prey in front of him. He figured he’d have to shoot his way inside, but the kid made it easy. The big man hadn’t been around, so he fired at the woman, grabbed the kid, and tossed him in the car. Easy as pie.

His hands shot out, and he clutched the dash in a death grip as Blaze slammed the brakes to avoid plowing over an older man crossing the street. Luis would’ve mowed the grandpa down for being in the way. Blaze was driving like Richard Petty without the years of training. Or the skill. Luis reached over his shoulder and jerked his belt in place. He had too much to accomplish to die now. He noticed Blaze had already buckled up. The kid was getting tossed around in the back like a sock in a dryer. Served him right for forking Luis’s leg. He’d make the kid pay for that one. His thigh still throbbed like a mother, and it was all puffy and red. It might be too late for a tetanus shot now. He’d undergone hours under various needles for his extensive body art, some by highly questionable means, and he’d been fine. It’d be his damn luck to be taken down by a pint-sized utensil stabber. Blaze would probably have that carved into Luis’s tombstone.

“I thought we were going to wait until it was dark to grab the kid so we wouldn’t be recognized.”

“Are you questioning me?” Blaze was on fragile ice as it was. Yes, the plan had been to wait, but he was a leader, so he improvised. It worked, so why was Blaze giving him lip?

Tires squealed, and he was slammed against the door when Blaze took a curve at eighty miles an hour. “Slow down,” he ordered when the next turn tossed him against Blaze. They’d left the city limits of Detroit, and now they were barreling down a narrow two-lane road leading to who knew where.

“Can’t,” Blaze insisted. “They’re gaining on us.”

Luis righted himself in the seat and twisted to look over his shoulder. The SUV was practically on top of them. He aimed his gun to fire when Blaze’s violent curse had him whirling back around to peer out the windshield. Dread pooled in his gut. They were rapidly approaching a sharp curve marked with about fifteen gigantic yellow signs adorned with flashing lights and black arrows pointing in the direction they needed to turn.

“I can’t make it!” Blaze screamed.

The car careened off the pavement, lurching along a dirt path rutted with potholes. They bumped and bounced, and then the ground gave away, and they were flying through the air like a ball shot from a cannon. Luis shrieked like a banshee. Neither he nor Blaze could swim.

Luis’s last thought was to wonder if he was Thelma or Louise in this scenario.