Minutes to Kill (Scarlet Falls #2)(6)

“It’s going to be OK,” Hannah said. Heart careening, she stomped on the gas pedal. The car lurched backward. He slid off the hood. Turning the wheel, she shifted into drive and accelerated, all her thoughts on the bouncers in the lobby of the club. Damn rental was sluggish. One minute. They’d be there in one minute. She glanced in the rearview mirror. He was standing in the center of the aisle, arms crossed over his chest.

As if he was waiting.

Hannah paused, apprehension sliding over her like a damp cloak.

“He’sgonnakillme he’sgonnakillme he’sgonnakillme.” The girl rocked back and forth, zombie-like, in her seat.

“You’re OK.” Hannah focused out the windshield. The main aisle was just ahead. “What’s your name?”

“Jewel.” The girl sobbed again and grabbed the armrest.

“It’s going to be all right, Jewel.”

A mammoth black SUV shot toward them. No! She applied the brakes and spun the wheel, trying to avoid the collision. Too close.

Crash!

The SUV hit the front of the rental car, pushing it sideways. The driver’s side fender smashed into the concrete block base of the overhead light. Metal crunched. Glass shattered. With no seat belt, Hannah hurtled forward, hitting the steering wheel hard, the impact knocking the air from her lungs. Head spinning, she wheezed.

The young girl’s panicked screams filled the car. As Hannah’s lungs seized, lights danced in her vision. She watched, detached, as another figure appeared in the passenger window, a metal bar in his hand. Tire iron? He was shorter and darker than the first man. She caught a glimpse of a square face and mean black eyes. He raised the iron over his shoulder and baseball-batted the glass, shattering it. Small bits of glass rained into the vehicle. Jewel’s screams melted to sobs. He reached through the opening and pressed the unlock button with his knuckle. He wrenched open the car door. Jewel went feral, arms and legs flailing. But her kicks and wild fists had no effect on the big body that leaned into the car.

A second shadow slanted across the windshield. “Get that blond bitch. She saw me. And hurry up. She called the cops,” the first man said.

The driver’s door handle rattled. “You’ll have to pull her out that side. The door’s stuck.”

“Fuck it. Just go. We need to get out of here.” They dragged Jewel from the vehicle. One of them reached back into the vehicle and took Hannah’s purse and phone from the floorboard.

Minutes later, men shouted. Footsteps approached. Hannah’s vision blurred as her eyes teared.

“Miss, are you all right?” Someone was at the car window. “Hold on. The police are pulling into the lot.”

Too late. Sirens blared, and voices shouted. The emergency crew arrived, pried the door open, and lifted her out of the vehicle. A single idea dominated her thoughts: in the span of five minutes, she’d failed, and that poor girl was gone.





Chapter Three

Mother. Fucker.

What to do?

Smoothing his goatee, Mick glanced over the seat at the girl lying prone on the floor of the SUV. “You just fucking don’t get it, do you?”

Her only response was a whole-body flinch. The two girls who shared the second row of seats in the big SUV had drawn their legs up onto the seats. Three more girls crowded the third row. None would so much as look at Jewel, as if the sight of her was enough to earn them a pounding.

Maybe it would.

Mick had learned early on in this business there was nothing like a good beating to make a girl behave.

“What are you going to do with her?” His little brother, Sam, glanced at him from the driver’s seat. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth. One hand dangled over the top of the SUV steering wheel. His white wifebeater showed off full sleeves of multicolored tats covering wiry arms and shoulders.

“I want to kill her.”

“That would be fun.” At twenty-three, his skinny brother was a Chihuahua, small but always eager to attack. Regret filled Sam’s words. “The boss would be pissed.”

They both went quiet for a second, remembering their last meeting with the boss, when Mr. K had personally castrated one of his other lieutenants before slitting the man’s throat. Bad management skills weren’t tolerated.

“You’re right,” Mick said.

Sam was the only person on earth that Mick trusted.

His little bro could kill effectively with any weapon, explosives, or his bare hands. The US Army had trained him well, then kicked him out when his love for violence became too apparent over in Iraq. Sam had never been the same after he’d come back. Instead of PTSD, Sam had acquired a bloodlust that he couldn’t legally satisfy back in the States. Killing was as natural to him as swimming to a dog.

“She’ll pay.” Sam flicked his cigarette out the window. “Just in another way.”

Curled on the floor of the SUV, the girl cringed. Mick craned his head over the seat. “I’ve told you this a hundred times: We own you. If you try to run, we will hurt you. What is it about that statement you don’t get?”

Sam steered the SUV off the main highway and drove into a residential area. Small, cracked houses squatted on small, cracked lots of dried earth. He turned right and passed two vacant properties before pulling into a stained concrete driveway. A small whimper sounded from the backseat as he shifted the car into park.