This is the man who attacked Bianca and Lena, no question in my mind. I pull my Beretta, overcome with an irrepressible need to put a bullet between his eyes.
The other man hesitates.
I have a clean shot but, my brain finally kicking in, I resist the instinct to pull the trigger. If I kill him, we’ll never find out who hired him or which of the women was his target.
“Rem, don’t,” Johnny urges.
“I know.Cazzo!” I lunge forward on the curse, ready to knock him unconscious when a blur shoots out of the side stairwell, taking the guy down to the ground before I have the chance.
There’s a crack and a grunt and then Bruce gets off the floor, leaving the man unconscious as our guard looks at us wildly. “Bianca, Lena, where are they?”
“In there.” I point at the elevator where Johnny’s trying to pry the doors open. “Alive, at least as of a few minutes ago when emergency services received a call from a woman saying there’s a fire. Both GPS trackers are sending a signal from just the other side of this wall.”
“Meno male.” Bruce joins Johnny at the door, jabbing thick fingers into the widening gap. “Boss, punish me however you want, but only after they’re safe.”
I look up at Bruce from where I’m zip-tying the shooter’sarms behind his back. I have no idea how Lena ended up outside the safe confines of my apartment, but judging by Bruce’s pained expression, Bianca definitely had something to do with it.
That woman can get him to do practically anything, but he’d also lay down his life for her in a heartbeat so I’m not going to ream him a new one. At least not until I get the full story. “Get this asshole out of here. Bring him to the club, lock him in one of the basement rooms, and get a doctor to look at him if you think he needs it. He needs to be alive, Bruce. We need to know who sent him.”
The soldier nods once. “Understood, boss.”
I take his place at the elevator and Bruce slings the unconscious man over his shoulder like a wet noodle. A second later they’ve both vanished down the stairwell to what I assume is the parking garage.
“Johnny, is that you?” Bianca’s voice reaches us through the one-inch gap between the elevator doors.
“Yes, sweet girl. It’s me.” Johnny pulls harder on one door, and I yank the other one toward me, widening the gap. “We’re here, Bia. We’re gonna get you out.”
“Oh, thank God.” Bianca looks up at us from the bottom of the elevator. It’s stuck between two floors so she’s several feet below us, clothes streaked with dirt, hair disheveled, but with no obvious signs of injury.
“Get us out of here. Bianca first.” Lena gives Bianca a gentle shove forward and Johnny crouches down, hands outstretched. They intertwine arms and Johnny hauls her up, the two of them tumbling into a tight embrace as soon as she’s free.
“Your turn,” I say to Lena, cataloguing every scrape and streak of dirt on her hands, face, and neck as I pull her out of the elevator.
She’s on her feet the second I get her to solid ground. And in my arms a second after that.
I don’t know who reached for who first, but we hold each other tight for several breaths, my own heart pounding as fast as hers.
“I’m so fucking mad at you,” I say into her hair.
She nods and buries her nose in my chest. “I’m so fucking happy to see you.”
That earns her a tighter squeeze, my body greedy to prolong the contact as long as possible. To prove to myself that she’s still with me, still breathing. Still alive.
“Boss.” Johnny clears his throat behind us. “Rem, we gotta go. Firetrucks and cops are pulling up. We don’t want to stick around and answer questions, do we?”
“Absolutely not.” The women are starting to feel the aftereffects of the attack, the blood draining from Lena’s face as Bianca sags against her husband.
“Johnny needs to get her home,” Lena whispers to me, her arms still locked around my waist. “Bianca needs to get some rest. Maybe even checked by a doctor.”
The concern in Lena’s voice is apparent. Perhaps my little one has learned Bianca’s secret during this ordeal. A question we can deal with after she tells me what the hell she was thinking leaving the apartment.
“Here, this way.” I lead our foursome down a hall away from the building’s main entrance where the firefighters are starting to rush in. There’s a service exit at the back and it takes us out to a side street. Johnny’s car is close and we walk to it in pairs, pace normal, as if we haven’t a care in the world.
Johnny bundles Bianca into the passenger seat, but she stops him from closing the door. “I’m sorry, Rem. This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have taken her out of the penthouse.”
“No, stop.” Lena holds up a hand, cutting the other woman off. “None of this is your fault.”
“Debatable,” I mutter. Lena smacks me on the chest and carries on.
