Savage Collision: A Hawke Family Novel (Hawke Family #1)(75)
Shit. Matteo is smarter than I gave him credit for.
I figured he was just another goon, another meathead Abello used for muscle and intimidation. Apparently, he has some intelligence. It must be why Abello trusts him so much.
My eyes flicker between the two other men standing behind Paul, just to the left of me. Now, these two, who haven’t spoken a word, are clearly just muscle, but not Matteo.
Maybe I can appeal to his intelligence to buy more time. I know if that call stayed connected, Savage will come for me. He has to.
Stall.
“All right, if I tell you everything Paul told me, and where you can find my notes, will you let me go?”
Of course they won’t.
I know that. But, I need to keep him talking and I’m not above playing the blonde bimbo if I need to.
He smirks at me, and the evil glint in his eyes reminds me of a cat toying with a mouse caught under its paw. He knows he has the upper hand, but he enjoys his job too much to end this quickly. He’s also too smart to kill me before he’s sure he has every single piece of evidence relating to his boss.
“If I did let you go, what sort of guarantee would I have that you won’t immediately run to the police, or the media, and reveal everything anyway?”
“You would have my word.”
Matteo drops his head back and his dark laughter echoes throughout the empty warehouse. The two goons join him, though I doubt they have any idea what he’s laughing at.
“Oh, Ms. Eriksson, it really is too bad we had to meet under these circumstances, because, frankly, I think I really like you.”
Use it.
“I agree. Another day, another time, things might have been different.” I take a step closer to him. Maybe he’s dumb enough to fall for it, and maybe, just maybe, I can get my hand on his gun before I end up dead.
He eyes me suspiciously and steps to the side, closer to Paul and his goons.
Why the hell does he have to be the only smart evil henchman in history?
“Unfortunately, Ms. Eriksson, I have my orders, so let’s not make this any harder than it has to be. Give me what I need, and I will end this quickly. If you don’t, I’ll have to make this very unpleasant for you.”
“I can handle pain,” I say with fake boldness, but my body is screaming for me to run. I’m sure Matteo knows ways to inflict pain I can’t even imagine and there’s no way I want to find out. But revealing information from a source is also not an option.
I never thought I’d actually be in this position. My stories aren’t the kind someone receives death threats for, let alone ends up with a maniacal asshole pointing a gun at them. Paul should have stayed away. He should have trusted his gut and put as many miles between himself and the Abello crew as he could. But he came back, because of me, because I pushed and pushed and pushed and made promises I couldn’t fucking keep.
Why did I have to push so hard to break this damn story?
If I had never started my probe into Mayor Dunne, and discovered the apparent Abello connection, none of this would be happening. So what if Dunne took some bribes and gave away some contracts? So what if he may have had some help from Abello in disposing of unwanted rivals and inconvenient speed bumps to his political climb?
None of it directly affected me. None of it interfered with my ability to live my life and do my job. Damn me and my ambition. Damn the journalistic integrity that prevented me from turning a blind eye to the apparent corruption. I thought I could make a difference; I thought I could actually change things.
All I’ve managed to do is put my life, as well as Paul’s, in danger, and I still don’t even have any actionable evidence.
Complete. Utter. Miserable. Failure.
Matteo barks out another laugh at my false bravado and steps closer to Paul, who has remained silently shaking near to me. “Well, maybe you need a little reminder of what I’m capable of.”
In a split second, his gun goes from down at his side to the back of Paul’s head and he fires.
I cry out when the second shot rings out through the phone and in the air outside. The first time Matteo fired, I swear my heart stopped.
Everything I had dreamed of for my future, everything I had dreamed of for a future with Danika, disappeared in a millisecond.
Until I heard Danika’s voice again, I thought for sure we were too late. It had apparently just been a warning shot, but Matteo just said he wanted to remind her what he was capable of…
Images of her lying in pools of her own blood, her eyes wide and lifeless flash across my vision, mingling with the memories of Star’s death. That’s been happening a lot lately, ever since Doc got me talking about the accident. The visions, the nightmares, things I had somehow managed to push out of my head after the accident—all of it came crashing down like a tidal wave.
And now, I might lose Danika.
No. I can’t.
The officer standing outside my open door says something to me, but I don’t hear it over the rush of blood in my ears. I’m listening for anything over the line, any indication at all of what has happened, but the line is dead.
“Oh God!” I scream and drop the phone on the seat next to me, dropping my head in my hands as the tears stream from my eyes. I can’t do this. I can’t.
Three sharp cracks ring out and I turn my head to the officer who has turned back to look toward the building. His walkie squawks and garbled words race out in an indistinguishable stream. He responds and starts to walk away from me toward one of the police vehicles.