Deadly Promises (Tracers #2.5)(31)

He gently fingered the key on his cell phone in his pocket to text a message and prayed it went through.

“Okay, let’s trade,” Starface demanded, holding up the end of the rope to make his point.

“Send her over here then I’ll hand your man the card.”

“No. Put the card on the bar and I’ll let her go.”

Jeremy laughed as though he and Starface were cutting up with each other. “Like you really expect me to do that. You know my word is solid.”

“It was in the pen, but I haven’t seen you in a few years so…” Starface shrugged, indicating his lack of faith.

“You owe me,” Jeremy threw out.

Starface frowned, twisting the birthmark into a hideous shape. “How you figure that?”

Jeremy couldn’t look at CeCe when he said, “Sam the Man was going to the feds. If I hadn’t cut him a better deal someone else would have and we wouldn’t be standing here.” He didn’t have to see CeCe to know she understood what he’d said. He heard her sob at his admission of being involved.

Of all the things he’d endured, breaking her heart would be the hardest to live with.

“How’d you find out about all this?” Starface wanted to know.

“Ziggy covering his bases,” Jeremy said, sticking with his story. He had to get her free now. “You’re late delivering. He’s got money out all over town looking for this card.” Blade had come up with that little tidbit when Jeremy was on his way down to Buckhead.

Starface cursed something low and vile.

CeCe flinched back, drawing Jeremy’s attention to her. She looked through him as if he were dead, which he had to be to her by now.

Time to move this along or things were going to get dicey. “We dealing or not?” Jeremy snapped.

The room tensed with all four of them waiting on someone to make a move. Starface finally untied CeCe and waved his arm toward Jeremy telling her to go.

CeCe couldn’t decide if she wanted to cry with relief or out of rage. She was too terrified to do either at the moment with both her and Jeremy’s life in danger.

This Starface guy would not let Jeremy just walk out of here.

She moved across the room on shaky legs, her eyes on the backup man pointing the second gun she’d faced in two days. She swallowed and turned her attention to Jeremy, who didn’t look anything like the man she’d spent the last three weeks falling in love with.

Gone was the easygoing charmer.

Danger radiated from Jeremy, his rigid stance threatening anyone who twitched the wrong way and that look on his face more feral than anything she’d ever witnessed.

Regardless of how deep he was in this mess, she knew without a doubt in that moment that he could, and would, kill anyone in this room who hurt her.

That might be comforting if he was law enforcement, but not after admitting he was involved in this whole scheme. Had known Starface in the pen. She’d berated herself for hours over judging Jeremy by a double standard. If she could just stop time and tell him she was sorry, that she owed him as much of a chance to explain as he’d offered her.

But he’d just admitted his part in all this.

When she walked up to Jeremy, she searched for something to say. He gave a brief shake of his head, without looking at her. The deadly glint in his eyes remained focused on the threat at her back.

Jeremy took her by the arm and gently pulled her behind him. She glanced around at their potential escape route through the rear door. The narrow walkway went fifteen feet then took a hard right turn to the exit.

Did Jeremy intend to back them out of here?

“Get out of here,” Jeremy said softly without turning around. He was talking to her.

“They’ll kill you the minute I leave.”

“For once, it’ll be worth it.” He swallowed. “You’re worth any cost.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. “No, Jeremy—”

“Nobody moves,” Starface snapped. “Not until I get my card.”

“I’m staying. She’s leaving,” Jeremy said in an unyielding tone. “Once she’s gone you get the card.” He paused, then ordered, “Now, CeCe.”

How could she leave him? They’d kill Jeremy the minute he handed over the card. “But—”

“You’re putting us both in more danger if you stay,” he said, ending any argument she could come up with.

Jeremy had a plan and she might get him killed by not knowing what it was. In spite of everything that had happened, she trusted him so she had to trust what he told her right now.

CeCe backed slowly to the rear exit while the three men stood silently facing off. When she reached the door and stepped outside backward she was slammed by a driving rain. As the door was closing all the lights inside the bar went dark.

Shots boomed through the room.

Jeremy. She reached for the door but hands grabbed her, wrenching her back. FBI agents surrounded her.

She struggled to free herself, yelling at them to get inside and help Jeremy.

Vinny rushed up, ordering, “We had a deal. Give her to me.”

Sirens screamed between booms of thunder exploding overhead. More gunshots cracked inside the building.

“Jeremy’s in there,” she yelled at her brother and anyone who would listen. “Somebody help him. Let me go!”