Pete swung his gun in my direction. “Tell us. Or the next one goes in her head.”
I froze. Blinked.
Aunt Martha was ranting at him, still struggling to break free.
He shot the dirt. He shot the dirt.
Then suddenly there was a second person crawling up between the seats, reaching for her duct-taped wrists. Ty. He must’ve hidden in the trunk. So far, no one else seemed to notice him.
Hoping to keep it that way, I screamed, “Okay, okay!” and allowed my fuming captor to grab my arm once more.
Malgucci materialized behind Pete, looking every inch hard-core Italian mob. He had a long-barreled pistol pushed into the front of his waistband and one in each hand at his sides. “I don’t recommend that, son. It would be suicide,” he said with a cool aloofness that left no doubt he’d see to it. His gaze skittered over each of Dmitri’s guys. “You mess with her—you mess with the whole Malgucci family.”
A hint of a smirk flitted over Pete’s lips as he raised his hands and flattened his trigger finger along the side of his weapon.
I stilled. Was he on our side? Or not?
My captor shot a panicked glance at Tasha’s captor. “What do we do?”
They outnumbered Malgucci three to one, but clearly they took his threat very seriously.
“Dmitri will kill us if we start a turf war.”
Pete’s gaze briefly shifted sideways. There was no way he couldn’t have seen Ty. But he didn’t let on.
The guy holding Tasha suddenly did a double take at the car’s rear window. “Hey, it’s the kid.” He reached for the door with his gun hand, with Tasha in tow under his other arm.
Malgucci squeezed off a shot in his direction.
The guy yelped, dropping his hold on the door handle and on Tasha. A second shot sent his gun toppling to the tarmac.
I hammered a heel into my captor’s kneecap and spun a left hook to his nose.
His hold dropped for a nanosecond, then he plowed into me, grabbing me around my arms and middle. Squeezed the air from my lungs.
A shot rang out, and his grip loosened.
My gaze slammed into Pete’s. His chin dipped in the slightest nod. I shoved the creep off of me and scanned the scene.
Malgucci’s aim veered from the guy who’d been trying to get into the car to Pete.
“Not him,” I screamed as the guy he’d been watching rolled onto his belly, snatched up his fallen gun, and aimed at Tasha hysterically running back and forth like a duck in a shooting gallery, one three-inch heel on, one broken. “Tasha, down!” I dove toward her to take her down myself.
I didn’t hear the shot.
No, that’s not true. I heard an explosion of shots. And one of them ripped through my arm. I huddled over Tasha on the ground, shielding her body with mine. I could smell the blood spurting hot and sticky.
Someone lifted me to my feet. Tanner in full SWAT gear. A St. Louis police officer, also in SWAT gear, helped Tasha to her feet.
“How?” I babbled, not thinking clearly enough to form a complete question with Tasha wailing.
“What were you thinking, keeping me in the dark?” Tanner hissed through gritted teeth as he tied a band around my bleeding arm with jerky movements.
I bit down on a cry of pain.
“Ouch. Sorry.” His hands gentled, but his tongue-lashing continued. “We’re supposed to trust each other. Have each other’s back. I was five minutes away when I called, and you sent me in the opposite direction. Then got yourself shot.” He exhaled, the rush of his pent-up breath stirring the ends of the bandage.
“I’m sorry.” I cupped a hand over the seeping wound, fighting a wince. “I—”
He nailed me with a hard look. “You could’ve been killed!”
I swallowed miserably and looked away. I was an idiot. And I had the screaming pain to prove it. He had every right to be angry. “How did you”—I leaned heavily against him, feeling woozy—“know to come?”
“Pete called us before he engaged. He’s on the joint task force investigating Dmitri’s organization. He’d won their trust by pretending to be on their payroll, feeding them just enough police intelligence so they’d believe it, while collecting evidence against them.”
“Oh,” I said faintly, glad he was still holding me up, even though he’d clearly rather drop me on my sorry backside.
Tasha rushed into her brother’s arms. “I knew you couldn’t be dirty.”
“Huh,” I murmured. “That’s not what she was babbling ten minutes ago. She thought he was ready to throw her under the bus.” I managed a grin, albeit a weak one.
Tanner didn’t return it. “Yeah,” he said. “There was a significant lack of trust going around, wasn’t there?”
I winced.
The other SWAT members busied themselves trussing up Dmitri’s guys.
I glanced around. “Where’s—?” I swallowed Malgucci’s name before saying it aloud. He’d disappeared. And considering the firepower he’d been packing, it was a good thing. He didn’t deserve to be carted off to the station with this lot.
And something told me Dmitri’s men wouldn’t be too quick to explain the source of the unidentified bullet or two that were bound to be located by the evidence recovery team.
Aunt Martha hauled herself out of the car, along with her giant purse, and stalked over to the guy who’d tried to go after Ty, now lying facedown on the ground, getting his hands tie-wrapped. She kicked him in the hip. “Not such a bad guy now, are you? How does it feel to be the one getting tied up?”
She reached into her purse, and I had visions of her pulling her gun. “Aunt Martha,” I cried out.
“Spoilsport.” She closed up her purse with a pout.
Pete handed his clinging sister over to the waiting officer.
Her eyes widened. “I still have to go to jail?”
“You committed a crime,” Pete said.
“I didn’t kill that artist like they said. I didn’t!”
“At this point, it’s your word against Ted’s. I suggest you tell the detectives everything you know.” Pete nodded to the officer, who escorted her to a police car.
Another SWAT guy handcuffed Ty.
“Whoa, wait,” Aunt Martha said. She swung around to face him, looking ready to club the muscle-bound officer with her gun-weighted handbag. “What are you doing, young man? Ty didn’t do anything wrong.”
“There’s a warrant for his arrest.”
She turned pleadingly toward Pete. “You know he didn’t do it.”
Pete stepped forward. “I’ll take charge of the boy.” To Aunt Martha, he added, “Don’t worry, I’ll see that the charges get dropped.”
I hoped he could do that before the poor kid had to endure the humiliation of being processed like a common criminal. I turned to Tanner. “We need to go back to Tyrone’s house. I think I know where Capone stashed the evidence on Dmitri’s organization.”
Tanner cupped my elbow. “You’re not going anywhere until you get that gunshot wound tended.”
As if on cue, an ambulance careened into the lot, and Tanner motioned them toward us.
Now that I thought about it, I was feeling more than just a little woozy, and my arm felt like it was on fire. Then a shadow dropped over my vision, and my knees crumpled.
“Whoa, hang on there,” Tanner whispered, his breath stirring my hair.
My cheek lay against his solid chest. I blinked. “What . . . what happened?”
Tanner deposited me onto a gurney. “You passed out.”
“Oh”—my mind felt as if it was slogging through murky water—“that’s not good, huh?”
“No. Nothing about the way this went down was good.”