Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,110
and doubt.
We would have to be our own army. Which was okay. We’d done it before.
Max
I slammed the door shut on the SUV Eric had loaned me. The sound sent birds squawking from bushes. Beside me was Joan’s Buick. I looked in the windows and saw her purse. The garbage bags in the back. The front seat littered with coffee cups. I imagined her driving up here, the wind in her face, screaming lyrics to country music songs that reminded her of her sister.
Knowing, or at least suspecting she’d been driving into a trap.
My hands were fists at my side and I could have smashed the steel of that old car with the force of my rage.
I had been here before. More times than I could count.
Not to this stone church on a cliff, but standing up with a gun in the back of my pants, waiting to shoot or be shot.
These were the minutes before someone died—and I knew them well.
Eric had called a few times while I’d been on the road. The FBI were still looking for their informer and cleaning up the mess in the camp that Lagan had left behind.
Seven dead. One woman and two men shot in the head. Two kids and two adult women poisoned.
The body count was only going to go up.
Yeah, I’d been here before. But never quite like this.
Because Joan’s life was on the line, too. And outside of Dylan, I’d never cared so much for anyone. And somehow Lagan knew it.
I was vulnerable, gun at my back and everything. I was so fucking vulnerable.
“Hello?” I yelled.
“Max.” It was Lagan coming from the tree line. I couldn’t see him because the shadows were deep and dark up on this mountainside, and it took a while before he stepped out into the silent clearing. Jennifer and Joan were walking arm and arm in front of him. Lagan had his hand in the back of Joan’s shirt and his gun pointed at the back of her head.
She needs a coat, I thought.
It was cold up here in the hills. Night was coming fast and she looked like she was freezing. Next to her had to be Jennifer. She looked like a taller, younger version of Joan.
But the two of them had it locked down tight. Whatever freak-out was happening in their heads, they weren’t showing it.
Their strength gave me strength.
Lagan stopped about ten feet away from me. Far enough that I couldn’t grab him without risking Joan and Jennifer.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked.
“First, throw down your gun.”
“I don’t have a gun,” I said, holding out my arms as if to show him.
“This is a bad way to start a business meeting, Max.”
“If you wanted a business—”
“Throw down your fucking gun!” Lagan shrieked. The sound of him cocking his own gun, the one held to Joan’s head, echoed in my brain.
“Jesus Christ, fine,” I said. “Keep yourself together.” I reached into the waistband of my pants and grabbed the gun. For a moment I contemplated my odds of actually hitting Lagan if I fired. But he was too smart, and Joan was too close, and the shadows were too heavy.
I’d known he was going to do this, but throwing my gun into the grass was still a blow.
“There,” I said, when the gun hit the ground with a thud. “Now you want to tell me what we’re doing here?”
“Little fish,” Lagan pointed his gun to Jennifer. “Catches bigger fish,” he pointed his gun at Joan. “Catches you,” he pointed his gun at me.
“You wanted to meet, there were easier ways to do it. You had my fucking phone number.”
“Yes, but I have a new commitment to loyalty and insuring that I have it from the people I work with.”
“I’m loyal,” I said, lifting my arms as if to show him I had no weapons.
“Yes, but you lied about Olivia, didn’t you? Everyone lies. All of them.”
Lagan pressed the barrel of the gun against Joan’s head and I had to not look. I had to pretend a certain amount of indifference. I spit into the bushes just so I didn’t leap across the grass separating us and tear out his throat.
“Yeah. I lied. Because I can’t trust you. In case you missed it, we’re criminals, Lagan.”
Lagan laughed. Joan jumped, startled, and Lagan shoved her, keeping her in line.
“Excellent point, Max. But it makes me wonder if this gun to her head isn’t going to keep you motivated to uphold our deal?”