It opens before we can get there, and the look of shock and surprise on the Italian footsoldier would be funny at any other time, but before he can reach for his gun, I pull the trigger and get him right in the chest.
Another man comes out, his hold on his gun sloppy as hell, and Rory drops him with a bullet in his left eye.
We keep our steady pace, because we can’t be sure there aren’t any more men here, but I do sneak a glance at the crates and see three that are empty but very dirty on the inside.
On my right, Mac checks each room quickly, and my jaw tightens when we finally get to the two dead bodies and I get a good look inside the room.
The man is only in his underwear, and his face looks deadly pale in the ominous artificial lighting of the room.
This time I do quicken my steps, and I fall to my knees next to the metal chair. I first check for a pulse on his neck. It’s not the strongest but it’s there, so I put both guns in their holsters and grab the knife from my ankle, cutting the ropes around his ankles first, then the ones around his wrists.
The way his hands pinken tells me all I need to know, so I begin massaging them to get the circulation going.
As I do, I finally get a good look at his face.
Both eyes are swollen shut and there’s a deep cut on his lips, and another one on the bridge of his nose. Since it still looks straight I don’t think it’s broken, but the way his stomach and left side is bruised, I doubt that’d be the most concerning thing anyway.
“All good,” Rory says, her voice matter of fact as she looks at who I hope is Colby.
“Let’s go, then.” I put his limp arm around my shoulders, get a good grip across his back and under his knees, then I stand again. “Watch my back,” I tell Mac. And if my voice sounds angrier than usual, well, I have the reason in my arms, don’t I?
We don’t waste time cleaning up after ourselves, but just walk out the way we walked in—Mac even closes the door behind him—and when I get to the car, it’s to see Rory moving the middle seats so I can maneuver around them and put Colby down in the back seat.
I breathe deeply, trying to calm the adrenaline of the mission coursing through me. For some reason my gaze is drawn down to the man in my arms. The peaceful look on his face shifts something inside me.
The irritation vanishes as I watch him breathe deeply, but even the thought of that shift vanishes when his mouth opens, and then so do his eyes, barely a movement, but it’s there.
Then he groans. “Maggie. Misss Murphy.” He can barely speak properly. “Please,” he begs, and the worry and heartbreak in that single word is enough to turn that stirring into a hurricane inside my chest.
“What did you say?” I ask him. Suddenly I’m desperate to make things right, to help him.
“Apartment. Take me.” That’s barely a sentence, but his words come out clearer that time.
“We need to get him to the clinic, Boss. Look at his fucking face,” Mac says, still standing guard next to me.
“No,” Colby protests, his voice sounding pained. “Maggie.”
“Who the fuck is Maggie?” Rory asks.
“I guess it’s his daughter,” I mumble, still not looking up from his face. “Take a picture and send it to Duffy so we can make sure it’s him. We need his fucking address.”
Rory climbs down from the SUV, already taking her phone out of her leather jacket, so I go right in and set him down on the leather seats. The soft breath he lets out tells me he passed out again.
I take his head in my hands and move it gently to make sure it’s not crooked, and then stare at that bruised lip. The way it curled when he was talking, so worried about his daughter, isn’t something I see too often.
I’m faced with suffering every day no matter how much I try to make sure my men and their families have good lives. There’s no escaping it in my world, not when I’m still carrying out Da’s last order.
But the strength it must’ve taken for him to speak, to say his daughter’s name and beg us, I don’t have a single doubt that he loves her. Respect for him grows in my gut, and Ican’t shake it off. There’s not a lot of people I admire, but I?—
“Duffy says it’s him,” Rory says, and that gets me moving again. I can’t keep staring at him.
Colby.
Who the fuck is he?
Colby
“I told you, your pet is fine, he just needs to sleep it off.Like you.”
