Underwear she could buy in Atlantic City, if she even needed it, but not her meds or her ankle’s battery charger. Then it hit her. A room with the works—bed, mirror and hot tub—meant he’d see her stump. The end of her leg reminded her of an overripe grapefruit, shiny pink and pocked where the scars weren’t smooth. Sane men didn’t want sex with fruit. She knew he wanted her because she’d felt proof, but his references to Rome made it clear he meant the old Theresa. That woman didn’t exist. “Home.”
The return ride passed in a blur as she fought to control tears.
When Wulf slowed to a lower gear and turned onto her cul-de-sac, she registered an unusual darkness. He put his foot down and skidded into a one-eighty.
“What?” She clutched his waist as he rocketed away. “What is it?”
“The streetlight.”
“It was out. So?” Over his shoulder she watched the needle fly past fifty. Alongside the climbing RPMs, her stomach rose to choke her.
“Wasn’t when we left.” The lover’s voice was gone, replaced by the hard tone of the warrior as he charged a yellow light.
“You think something happened?” She recognized the feeling drenching her as fear.
“The guards across the street rigged a dead man’s switch. If they don’t hit a button every fifteen minutes, the light blinks off.”
“Guards?” She’d thought the men living in the Giardinos’ house had been FBI agents, and that Ray was pulling a joke sending them pizza, but they were guards? Then she processed the rest of his explanation, and her center fell away to the pavement under their wheels. She understood why the guards hadn’t hit the button. He meant the guards couldn’t hit the button.
“My family!” She thumped his shoulder blade with one hand. “Turn around!”
“I put you somewhere safe, then call Carl. What’s his number?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have my phone!”
“Fuck.” His shoulders jerked as he spat the word. “Where’s his work?”
“Take me back!” The bike roared like the pounding blood in her ears.
“Where are his guys this time of night?”
“Why?”
“Thor’s shield, woman! I forgot how you ask questions!”
“All you do is issue orders!” Oncoming headlights blinded her, but she recognized the huge black vehicle that swept past. “That’s them! That car!”
Wulf turned and chased Carl’s SUV, while she held his waist and prayed that Carl would notice them and stop, stop before they got any closer to whatever Wulf thought was waiting at the house.
Her stepfather must have spotted them within seconds, because he signaled a right turn into a self-storage parking lot.
“What you got?” Carl stepped out of the vehicle to face them, and he wasn’t the man she saw around the house. He stood straighter, eyes slit in a harder face, lips pushed forward.
“Streetlight’s out,” Wulf said.
Carl had his phone in his hand before he finished saying fucker.
“Wulf!” Her mother unsnapped her shoulder belt and leaned toward the open door, smiling. The red lipstick, the perfectly lined dark eyes and the cheery finger flutter devastated Theresa into speechlessness. She’d put her mother through so much since last summer. To know her mother was about to learn what Carl had already realized made Theresa want to throw up.
“Ray’s not answering.”
“Take her.” Wulf’s grip on her waist left her no choice but to dismount from the bike. “While I go in.”
“I got things in the back.” As he staggered the length of his car, Carl’s shoulder bumped the metal panels as if he was impaired.
Her doubts about whether either man realized she’d followed and her mother had exited the passenger side were dispelled by Carl. “Not your business, Jeanne.”
“If my daughter’s here, it’s my business.”
“Mom—”
“I’m taking youse both to Cookie’s.” Hearing that Carl wanted to park her with her mother made her feel as useful as the junk abandoned behind the line of storage unit doors, but she didn’t blame him.
Confusion and the beginnings of concern put lines on Jeanne’s forehead as she stepped out of the liftgate’s trajectory. “I thought we were going home.”
“Ray didn’t answer the phone.” The floor mat trembled in Carl’s hands.
“Maybe he went out for chips or—”
“Mom—”
“Maybe he went to see a girl.” Her mother’s voice rose. “What’s the—” She stopped when she registered the automatic weapons, handguns, magazines and bulletproof vests neatly organized in the bottom of the cargo storage space.
“He liked those video games too much for girls.” Carl turned his back to her mother and faced Wulf, who stood next to her. His eyes watered at the rims. “I know he was at the house.”
Slipping into the kitchen he’d left less than an hour before, Wulf scanned the room with Carl’s Heckler and Koch MP5 automatic, ready to pay the devil’s toll, but nothing moved. Like he had on a hundred other ops, tonight he had to clear a hostile building, but this time he wasn’t connected to his team by an earbud and lip mike. Tonight there’d be no high fives with the Big Kahuna, no one breaking right when he zigged left and no one covering his back.
And no one to impose modern rules on ancient justice. The men who defiled this home would find their hell very hot and very soon. He couldn’t afford to wait, not with Carl on his way as soon as he’d secured Theresa and Jeanne. Nothing excused his failures, and he wouldn’t compound them by risking another person Theresa loved.
Silently, he opened the swinging door to the dining room—nothing stuck or squeaked in Jeanne’s house—and swept the space with his rifle set on three round burst. All clear.
The white living room was next. Men skilled enough to take out the guards across the street would know when a fly landed, so they’d know he was there. He pictured the house layout. They’d be crouched behind the L-shaped couch, an effective barrier as they covered both sets of doors. They’d try to pin him while someone circled through the hall and attacked from the rear. If he didn’t want to be shredded by cross fire, he’d have to jump into their nest and go hand-to-hand.
Staying low, he reached for the pocket door. Wood panels quivered at his fingertips, as if aware of their coming demise. One slide, then puffs of white marked a fusillade of bullets as they punctured drywall and sent Jeanne’s oversized copy of The Last Supper crashing to the floor. A normal man, one like Theresa deserved, wouldn’t hear the rhythm of automatic weapons. But he knew that, in the same way two runners subconsciously synchronize breathing, most shooters converge their trigger squeezes by the third burst. At the fractional pause that preceded the fourth barrage, he charged across the living room, emptying his magazine at the men behind the couch.
The tug on his right arm meant a hit, but adrenaline masked his pain as he vaulted the cushions and slammed hard to the far side. His boots connected with a chest and drove that man to the floor. He smashed his rifle butt into the other’s face, crushing a set of night vision gear deep into the guy’s pulpy nose and forehead. The one under his feet evened the score by shooting a point-blank through and through into his exposed armpit.
Right arm rendered useless, he dropped the MP5 and collapsed to his knees. The right side of his head felt branded where the round had continued its trajectory, and the sounds of fighting had been cut in half. His functioning left hand gouged downward for the man’s eyes, but this opponent was too fast. Wulf rammed a protective vest instead of a face, but managed to grip a strap. While they rolled, he located the round shape of the man’s kneecap. Popped it as easily as Bubble Wrap.