“I want your word,” I say stubbornly, and I hold the gun up to my head. My hand isn’t even shaking. From behind me, I hear a woman gasp. I don’t know if it’s Garcia or Darla.
“You have it.”
“I want your word as a Catholic and a fellow Irishman.”
He snorts. “Fine, fine. You have my word, as a Catholic and as a fellow Irishman.”
I really hope Garcia understands. If these men do just take me and leave the others alive, I need her to know who they are. Maybe they’re rivals to the Donovans. But they’re much more likely to be the Irish Freedom Fighters, the same ones behind the attack on our townhouse. I assume they want me as a hostage. Maybe to keep Luca in line. Maybe to force Tara to do their bidding, whatever that might be.
That’s fine; alive and kidnapped is better than dead and buried, and I’m used to being held against my will. It’s happened too often to me now to worry about it all that much.
But maybe they’re lying, and they’ll kill me after all when I open the door.
“Move back from the door,” I instruct them. “Andstayback.”
I turn again to Garcia and Frank. “Shoot when you’ve got the shot,” I murmur. Garcia gives one sharp nod, her eyes still on the door. Frank still looks furious, but eventually nods his agreement. I turn back to the door, clear my throat, and say loudly, “I’m coming out.”
I slam the handle down and let the door swing open. The gun barrel is pressed painfully hard into my temple, as though the hand holding it is not my own.
Outside, the three men are standing spread out, only one of them directly in front of me, and I’m pretty sure neither Garcia nor Frank have a clear shot. I try to stay in front of Garcia for now so at least they won’t see she’s got a gun on them.
“Put that down now, Howard,” says the man in front of me. “I’d hate for it to go off accidental.”
They haven’t shot me yet, so I guess they really do need me alive. “No,” I say, and take a step forward. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Alright, alright; if it makes you feel safer,” he says jovially. “Come on, now, towards me.”
I’m just outside the doorway of the freezer when it happens. The outer kitchen doors bang open again, and the three men in the room swing around in surprise. A dark, shadowy figure slinks through, low to the ground, and I squeeze my eyes shut as the whole room explodes with the noise of gunfire.
Chapter Nineteen
FINCH
When it stops, I still have the gun to my head, but my hand is definitely shaking now. Somehow, I’m still alive.
“The Boss told me you got over that death wish of yours,” says a familiar voice.
“Still comes in handy from time to time,” I half-whisper. I open one eye, then the other. The kitchen doors are still swinging, and in the occasional light it lets in from the corridor outside, I see three men in paramilitary uniforms on the floor, all lying in pools of dark, spreading liquid.
As for me, I’m not dead, not dreaming,probablynot hallucinating. I let out a laugh, my hyena laugh, but it’s muffled by the mingled relief and disbelief in my throat. “Well, shit,” I say, dropping the gun from my head. I turn back to look into the storage room, where Garcia, Darla and Frank are all staring at me in confusion.
“It’s okay,” I tell them, still chuckling, slightly hysterical. “It’s okay. Daddy’s home.”
Frank struggles to his feet, grabbing at me to push me behind him, but I laugh again. “You’ve been away too long, Brother Frank. Don’t you recognize him?”
The man behind me comes forward as Frank and Garcia light up their phones. Walking into their wavering, crossed-over spotlights is a familiar, welcome figure, and when the lights reach his beautiful face, I hear Garcia suck in a breath.
Frank gives a low curse. “Well, fuck me. You sure are a sight for sore eyes—the one I got left, anyways.”
“And you, Frankie,” says Angelo Messina. He smooths back his hair and holsters his gun. “So. I leave town for a while and I come back to this? What exactlyisthis mess you’ve gotten yourselves into?”
I can’t help myself. I throw my arms around his neck and hug him as hard as I can.
“How?” I demand once I step back, unable to vocalize anything further. Frank and Angelo pull out of their own back-slapping hug, and my hands have turned so sweaty with relief that I need to put the gun down again. I go to Luca at once, where Darla is checking him over again, and so I’m right next to Garcia when she speaks.
“Angelo Messina, I am arresting you on suspicion of—of murder,” she quavers. She gets up to her knees, then sits back down on her heels. “Anything you say—”
“Seriously?” I ask her. “He just saved our lives.”
