DOMINIC (Dragon Security Book 3) (14 page)

I snatched up my robe, pressing it to my chest, then ran up the hall to my bedroom. Hayden had left three messages on my cell before he called the house phone. I cleaned myself up and quickly pulled on a pair of jeans and a light sweater, calling him back as I rushed around the room.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. The SUV is gone, but there’s a huge hole in the garage door. And there’s overturned furniture and bullet holes all over the living room.”

“Is their stuff gone?”

“No. There’s clothes and a duffle bag in the bedroom. And two guns, both in the bag.”

I knew Dominic. I knew he would have another gun, one he could easily tuck into the waistband of his pants or in a small holster. He was armed.

“Stay there. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

I disconnected the call and quickly pulled on a pair of boots. When I looked up again, gathering my hair to pull into a ponytail, I found Dante—fully dressed once again—standing in the doorway.

“Go home, Dante.”

“You can’t drive.”

I stood too quickly and began to sway, my body betraying me. He crossed to me, his hands outstretched to catch me. I pulled away. I didn’t want his hands on me again.

“Let me drive you,” he said, that silky voice washing over me like salve on a burn.

I didn’t have time to argue with him. I tossed him my keys.

“Do you know where the safe house in Highlands is?”

“No.”

I groaned, but I grabbed my phone and slipped it into my back pocket as I led the way to the garage.

“Just try to keep up with me.”

Dominic

We sped around the corner, rushing up the ramp to the interstate. The I-10 ran right through downtown Houston. With any luck, we’d outrun the bastard before we got into the city. Or maybe some patrol cop would come across this insane race. For the first time in my life, I was hoping to get pulled over.

I could see him in the rearview mirror. The sedan that had been in the driveway was right behind us, racing so hard that I could hear the engine roaring.

“Who is that?”

I glanced at Amy. She hadn’t spoken since I pushed her into the SUV. Shock, I thought. But she was turning, looking frantically through the rear window now.

“I think it might be the same guy who was following you in Denton.”

“How did he find us?”

“I don’t know.”

I hit the gas a little harder, pushing that pedal all the way down to the floor. We bounced forward a little as the SUV’s engine reacted. I instinctively reached over to hold Amy in her seat, as worried about her getting hurt in this race as I was that the man behind us would decide to open fire.

There was little traffic this late at night. We passed a few cars going into the city, but not many. A few were leaving the city. But none of them seemed to think it was odd that we were traveling over ninety miles an hour with some sedan following close behind.

We hit a curve and I had to slow down to keep from toppling the top-heavy SUV. The sedan easily caught up to us and slammed into the back bumper, knocking us forward. Amy barely missed hitting her head on the dashboard. I was struggling so hard to keep the vehicle on the road that there was nothing else I could do. I sped up again, moved ahead of the sedan as we hit a perfectly smooth, straight piece of highway. We were going over one hundred by then, going so fast that if we hit a barrier, it wouldn’t be a survivable accident.

“We can’t just keep driving,” Amy said, her knuckles white as she held on to the door handle.

“I know.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Someone’s bound to call the police.”

“Do you have your cell?”

That hadn’t crossed my mind. Amy reached over and patted my pockets, searching for the phone in my jeans. She pulled it out of my back pocket, forcing me forward so that the SUV slowed again. The sedan slammed into us again, catching us by a back corner. The sedan began to spin behind us, but the man must have been some expert driver because he was able to get it back under control pretty quickly.

We were going too fast. Another hit like that and we’d probably go spinning off the road.

Amy played with the phone, then held it close to me.

“Megan. On speaker.”

“Where are you?” Megan demanded.

“We’re on the Ten. We’re being followed.”

“Get off the interstate. You need to be on side roads where you can get ahead of him. Maybe find a place to hide. The interstate is too open.”

“Okay. Then what?”

Megan didn’t respond right away. “Just keep going. We’re behind you.”

I took the next available exit, calling out the name of it so that Megan could follow. The sedan was right behind us, slamming into our bumper. We were going slow enough that it was quite a shock, but it didn’t throw us out of control. I ran a stop sign and took a right, speeding up again.

That’s when he took the first shot at us. I didn’t hear it, but I saw it. The back window suddenly imploded as we made that turn. Amy screamed, dropping her head down low. She nearly dropped the phone. I snatched it from her, still barking out directions to Megan. I needed back up. The quicker she could get to us, the better.

We were on a narrow county road with trees and homes on either side. It dipped and curved, creating a course that was nearly impossible to speed over. The sedan hit us several more times, firing his weapon whenever he was close enough. I could see the gun hanging out the window and the shadow of his face as he frantically tried to take us out. Amy sat up, leaning around and telling me where the sedan was so that I didn’t have to concentrate on anything but the road.

“He’s coming up again.”

“Brace yourself.”

The sedan slammed into us so hard that we jumped forward and the SUV twisted a little, nearly going off the road. And the back began to make a grinding sound, like something was badly damaged there. I wasn’t sure how much longer we could keep going.

“Where are you now, Dominic?” Megan’s voice demanded.

“I don’t know. Still going straight.”

“Stay on that road. We’re coming.”

“You should hurry.”

The sedan slammed into us again. And then again. And then again. The steering wheel locked up, the SUV jerking and screaming. Then we were rolling.

I heard Megan calling to me over the phone. I was reaching over, trying to keep Amy from slamming into the dash. The airbags exploded, throwing me backward both from my own airbag and the airbag that burst in front of Amy. Pain burst through me, the world spinning. I thought I hit my head on the window because one second I was spinning around like a blanket in a dryer, the next I was waking up, hanging upside down from my seatbelt.

“Amy!”

She was hanging at an angle, unconscious. I moved to touch her, to check her pulse, but I could barely reach her. I unhooked my seatbelt, groaning as I slammed down into the hood of the car. I crawled to Amy, but then I heard a gun fire and the ping of a bullet hitting against the back of the SUV. Once again, my first thought was to get the gunman away from Amy.

I crawled out the driver’s side window, completely gone now. There was still a gun tucked into the back of my waistband. How it was still there, I wasn’t entirely sure. But I was grateful it was.

I crawled around to the back of the SUV. It had landed at such an angle that it offered minimal protection from the road above us. I could see his car, the tires still spinning. It had turned over and was balanced on the far side of the road, near the ditch. But I couldn’t see him. Not yet.

I got up and ran to a tree that the SUV had somehow managed to miss on the way down the embankment. I stood behind it, scanning the darkness for movement, just as I had in the living room of the safe house. My breathing was too heavy. I was afraid it would give me away. But then…he was close to the side of the SUV, bending low to check the windows. I fired. I was pretty sure I hit him, but he didn’t go down. He spun around, nearly falling backward. But then he aimed and fired as he ran back toward the road, toward me.

“What do you want with us?” I yelled to him.

“To kill you. I would have thought that was obvious.”

“Why?”

“You know too fucking much!”

I fired again, missing him this time. He’d run behind a stand of trees along the side of the road, just a few feet down from where I was. I backed up, putting a little distance between us. He fired somewhat wildly. This time he was the one with the gun without a silencer and I had the silencer. I was hoping that it would be something of an advantage, but I wasn’t entirely sure.

“What do we know?”

He fired again, using the sound of my voice to pinpoint my position. But there were too many trees between us. I felt the bark shatter and spray over my shoulders.

“Emily Greene.”

“Did you kill her?”

The man laughed. “That was easy, Dominic. She wasn’t paranoid enough.”

“And the text messages?”

“That was to draw you out. I figured either you’d come looking for the sister, or the police would pick you up. Either way, I’d get you.”

Another shot. More bark.

“It was about me?”

“It was about a lot of things. That Emily just learned too much, and she was threatening to give it to you. We couldn’t allow that to happen.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’d give it to Megan Bradford.”

Another shot.

I rolled around the other side of the tree and fired, listening as the shot ricocheted off a tree in the distance.

“Too far,” he called, laughter in his voice as if this was some sort of game or something.

“What does Megan have to do with this?”

“Ever-y-thing,” he drawled, emphasizing the syllables so that I’d be sure to catch it all.

He fired at me. I fired back. I was trying to count his shots, but he could have reloaded his weapon at some point, so I had no idea what I was counting to. I knew, however, that the gun I was holding only had seven more shots. If Megan didn’t get here soon…and Amy was still hanging from the seatbelt. If she came to and wandered into the woods, we’d have a problem.

I needed this wrapped up as quickly as possible.

“Did you kill Peter Bradford?”

“No. But I know who did.”

“And you’re going to tell me, right?”

The man laughed, another shot hitting the tree to my left. I slipped out of my hiding spot and moved back up to the tree in front of me. I fired, but I didn’t hear the shot land.

“Who was it?”

There was a long silence. He was moving again. I thought I could hear footsteps, but I wasn’t entirely sure.

“Are you CIA?”

There was more laughter, but it was weaker this time. I must have hit him.

“Luke.” There was a little gurgle. “His name was Luke Murphy. He fucking killed Peter Bradford.”

“Why?”

“He knew too much. He was about to get himself neck deep into an open CIA investigation. We couldn’t let that happen.”

“Then he was right? His software was being used to move messages between terrorists?”

“More than that.”

He was breathing heavy now. I followed the sound, holding him at gunpoint the moment I found him collapsed behind some trees. He was bleeding from a wound in his shoulder and another in his chest. His gun was on the ground, a few feet to his side. He looked up at me, defeat clear in his eyes.

“Someone else like me will come after you, you know that, right? Maybe even Murphy himself.”

“Why? Who doesn’t want this information out?”

He laughed again, but it was more of a gurgle. His lungs were clearly filling with blood. He studied my face for a long minute.

“Maybe it’s time,” he mumbled. “The CIA, they didn’t want this particular terrorist cell taken out. They were using them. They were—”

The man’s head suddenly exploded right there in front of me. I jumped back and turned, my gun raised. Dante Saladin, another asset from Dragon, was standing there, his gun aimed at the hitman.

“What the fuck?” I demanded. “He was about to give me information!”

“He was here to kill you, brother. I was saving your life.”

“His gun is a foot away! What the—?”

“He’s dead. That’s all that matters.”

Dante pushed past me, stooping to pick up the gun before anyone else could see how far from the killer’s hand it really was. As he did, I caught sight of the SUV, still sitting on its roof. I ran down, skidding on my knees to check on Amy. She was still unconscious, her body still sitting at an odd angle. I carefully pushed the button on her seatbelt, but it was stuck. I dug in my pockets for a knife, but couldn’t find one. By this time, I could hear the crunch of leaves as people came down the embankment toward us.

“Knife!” I called.

“Here, brother,” Hayden said, tossing one to me.

I flipped it open and used it to saw through the seatbelt. Amy fell in a heap. I carefully pulled her out through the passenger side’s broken window, careful not to scrape her back on the broken glass.

“The police are on their way,” Hayden said, crouching down beside me. “Megan’s already working the story, getting things put to rights up on the road.”

“The man has three bullets in him. I think the police will notice that.”

“Yeah, well, Dante apparently thinks he can take care of that. Make it look like wounds from the accident.”

“How’s he going to do that?”

“Don’t know.”

I ran my hand over Amy’s face as I laid her in my lap. She was still out, but there were no obvious injuries. Just a little blood on the side of her face where she probably hit the side window. Maybe a couple of broken ribs? It was hard to tell when she wasn’t awake to respond to my careful palpitation of her body.

“An ambulance should be here soon.”

“He was CIA. Said that he knew who killed Peter Bradford.”

Hayden stared at me, his head tilted slightly to one side. “You’re kidding.”

“Yeah. He was about to tell me more, but Dante shot him.”

“Why?”

I shook my head. “There’s something not right about that guy.”

“Yeah. He was with Megan when I called her. I think maybe there’s something going on there.”

“I hope not.”

Hayden started to say something, but Megan came half walking, half falling down the embankment.

“Ambulance is on its way. You okay?”

“I’m fine.”