Hard to Kill (15 page)

Considering the early hour, if Antonio was still playing the part of good guy, that could mean Sabrina was still sleeping. He didn't want to think about the possibility that he'd shown his hand and the fact she might very well be dead, either inside the house or within the confines of the car.

He tamped down the ominous thoughts. From everything he
'd read about Antonio, he didn't like to get his hands dirty. He also knew her well enough to realize she wouldn't go down easily. Betting on the chance she was still inside the house, he opted for Plan B.

Getting inside was easier than he might have imagined; he slipped in an open window. He slid along the wall and felt his heart rate stumble and restart in his chest, all while hoping he
'd made the right choice in betting on the fact she was still sleeping.

He crept along the perimeter close to the wall, allowing his eyes to adjust to the lack of light. The house was eerily quiet and he couldn
't help but worry.

The knife came out of nowhere, nicking his bicep before he stopped its progress by grabbing the offending arm with a twist. When he turned and spotted a shaken-looking Sabrina in the dim light, the adrenaline subsided, relief in its wake.

Kane couldn't help but smile. "You're seriously starting to tick me off."

"
How did you find…" She stopped and felt along the seams of her pants then shirt.

"
No tracker this time." He put his arm around her shoulder because she looked as if she might drop to the floor any second. "I looked up your friend Antonio."

"
How?" Her eyes went wide as she stared.

"
It wasn't difficult, knowing the Petrovich connection." He gave her a hard look. "You do know that the guy is bad news."

She shrugged and avoided looking at him.
"So am I. I don't see the problem."

"
Antonio sells his services to the highest bidder. Rumor has it there's a reward out on both of us for Marco's murder. It's within the realm of possibility that he would sell you out for a couple hundred thousand euros."

"
Maybe he and I are lovers." She steeled her gaze at him.

He worked his jaw for a few seconds before he spoke.
"Naw, I don't see that either." Even though he dismissed her claim, the male part of him had a niggling doubt.

She huffed.
"You're awfully cocky."

"
I know guys like him. It's my job to bust guys like him."

"
And me as well?"

"
Geez, will you knock it off with the pity party." He shook his head. "Where did he go?"

She chewed her lip.
"I'm not sure. He was going to meet with somebody this morning but thought it would be best if I stuck around here."

"
How convenient."

She straightened her shoulders.
"Antonio and I go way back with Petrovich."

"
The same man who taught you and your brothers to be ruthless, except, despite what you think, you're not wired that way. Now there's a price on your head that would make Antonio not think twice about turning you in." Kane let loose a string of expletives. "And you didn't think it was suspicious that he conveniently had a meeting this morning. He's setting you up. We need to get the hell out of here."

"
He said the guy—''

He could almost see as the truth tunneled deep into her brain.

"I thought it was a dream—" She stopped mid-thought as she turned and headed for the stairs.

He followed. She charged into a bedroom, gathered her things, and stuffed them into her backpack. Seconds later, they bounded down the stairs together.

"I'm right, aren't I? What happened?" Something in what he'd said scared her. It would be nice to know what.

"
I'll tell you when we get to the car."

"
This way. Through the back field. It's only about a quarter-mile."

When they got to the truck, she threw her bag in the back and jumped into the passenger seat.
"Do you think he's on his way?"

"
I know he is, and he brought some friends." He pointed to the trail of cars coming down the rural road in their direction.

"
Those aren't police cars. Which scares me even more." He glanced at Sabrina, his jaw set in a strong line. "Does Antonio know where you're going or who you're after?"

Mute, she shook her head.
"No…I…" She couldn't seem to form the words, especially when her chest constricted.
No more mistakes. You're better than that. Stay sharp, Saby.

The sting of Antonio
's betrayal lay like a rock in her gut. She shouldn't be surprised, but she had been. Would she ever figure out that whole trust thing, or would it be only her brothers that offered her the security she needed?

Kane sucked in a breath and focused on the road.
"Does he know about me?"

"
I didn't get into specifics except to say I was hunting for a girl held captive by sex traffickers." She chewed her lip as she struggled to remember her exact words. "I mentioned Trinity but not you."

But he
'd guessed about you
. That made her wonder if he knew ahead of time she'd show up. She felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, without a bottom in sight.

He blew out a breath.
"They'd have no reason to believe you have help with this, even though there's a reward out on both of us. They might assume we parted company, since you showed up alone. With a little luck, we still might be able to get out of this alive." He urged her to squish onto the floor of the truck. Then put on a hat with gray hair peeking out the back and plastered a phony beard and mustache on his face.

She had to admit, his cheesy disguise seemed to transform him enough to escape a superficial inspection. That, along with the old farm truck he drove, should get them past Antonio and whomever he
'd contacted.

The idea of Antonio
's disloyalty sank deep into her chest and squeezed. Confirmation of what she'd been feeling while she was at his home clanged around inside her gut. It was both unpleasant and unnerving.

Long ago she
'd learned to trust no one but family, and now Kane wanted her to do the unthinkable. Trust him with her life.

She watched his fingers as he shifted the old truck into second, and hoped this worked, since this piece of crap couldn
't outrun a donkey, let alone another car. Her own fingers held steady on the gun as determination steeled her spine. If it came down to it, she'd do what she had to do.

"
Caio
." Kane had managed to make his voice sound gruffer and older as he drove past what she could only assume was Antonio and his posse of bad guys.

Even though she wouldn
't have suspected Kane had succumbed to nerves a few seconds ago, he blew out a breath once the car passed. "Four cars. Two guys in each car. I think I passed the smell test. They're still headed toward Antonio's house."

"
Can I get up?" She was itching to see for herself. They needed cover, and this old pick-up wasn't going to do it indefinitely. 

He glanced in the rearview mirror.
"They pulled into Antonio's. We need to figure out a place to hide."

She eased up in the seat.
"There's a small village about a mile down the road. Stash the truck there and we'll head off on foot. We probably can walk faster than this tank can move anyway."

He gave her a quick smile.
"You're probably right. They might put two and two together and figure out that older farmer's truck doesn't belong around here."

"
I want to be out of the line of fire when they do."

"
Use the binoculars and try to see what's going on."

She stuck her head out the window and held them to her eyes.
"They're still in the house as far, as I can tell."

"
What exactly did you overhear this morning?"

Admitting she
'd once again screwed up was difficult. Especially when betrayal licked at a sensitive spot inside her she'd learned long ago not to ignore. "Bits and pieces of a conversation." She blew out a breath. "I think he might have put something in my wine last night. I felt so exhausted and out of it I wasn't sure what was going on, but he was talking on the phone—" Her breath stutter-stepped as the men poured out of the farmhouse. "Uh oh, we're in trouble. They came running out and got into their cars."

"
We've got to hope they wouldn't have suspected this old truck to be your getaway car."

"
You were right. Eight guys including Antonio." Saying his name out loud brought a grinding sensation to her chest.

"
Any ideas?"

"
Give me your phone and I'll find the closest train station." He handed her his phone. No doubt they'd be suspecting that would be her first choice, especially if they thought she was acting alone, but if they could somehow evade them until the train came…

"
Got it. Ten miles north." Sabrina glanced behind them and spotted a black car roaring down the road, gaining on them. "Trouble." She shook her head. "And we're not going to make it to the train."

He glanced in the rearview mirror.
"Only one. They must have split up."

"
That's the good news." The teaspoonful of adrenaline left in her body sprang to life. "I'll go back onto the floor. We shouldn't assume they're after us, but still…I'll take my gun and be ready."

"
They're coming alongside." Kane maneuvered the gun into his left hand against the door as he slowed and moved to the right side of the road.

"
Maybe they're only going to pass." Sabrina kept her finger on the trigger and sank further onto the floor while the itch crawled up her back. She had no doubt this was going to go bad. She didn't know when or where, but it was inevitable.

"
Code word for they're not buying my line of BS is Uncle Salvatore." His jaw was clenched as he threw an old flannel over her squished form. "If you hear that, be ready."

She nodded and made herself as small as she could. The sounds of the engine rattled the frame on the old truck as she held her breath and tried not to move a centimeter. She could visualize the car getting closer until it had come side by side with the truck. Kane spoke to them in Italian. They returned the conversation in German asking if he
'd seen a woman. He kept reciting "
Non capisco.
" But they kept hounding him with questions.

Her fingers trembled as she strummed the handle of the gun. Waiting was the difficult part. Not being in control was the
really
hard part. Sitting blind, letting her ears tell the tale was excruciating. How many times had she been in the same predicament with her brothers, and it had never felt good. Her heart tripped and started inside her chest more times than she could contemplate.

Every impulse inside wanted her to break out from beneath the blanket as Kane continued to act the part of feeble farmer, especially when they described her in detail to him. Being played by someone she
'd called a friend wasn't something she relished. Then again, it proved her theory of never putting herself in a position of vulnerability, or relying on anyone but herself. Or her brothers.

They were survivors, pure and simple. Nothing could ever change their legacy.

Finally, she heard a car engine roar to life after one of the men called him a "
schwachen alten Mann,
" a "feeble old man" in German. She barely suppressed the chuckle as she emerged from beneath the cover.

"
Oscar-worthy performance, Kane."

"
It was, even if I do say so myself." He brushed his knuckles against his chest and helped her back into the seat. "I'm assuming you heard most of what they said?"

"
Sure did."

"
They showed me a picture of you as well. Definitely taken within the last couple of days, since your hair was short. They also had a photo of me. We're both wanted for Marco's murder, which only confirms what we already knew. So despite what you think about this crappy truck, it seemed to fool them."

She sat on the seat and tapped an anxious finger against the dashboard.
"I'm worried about Antonio. He's going to know I had help getting away, since the motorcycle is still at his house. It wouldn't take a genius to figure out it was from you. We've got to get out of the area as quickly as possible."

The words were barely out of her mouth when a car barreled toward them. It was dark and sleek and looked suspiciously like the others they
'd seen.

"
This can't be good."

"
Take the next turn. We'll head toward the town with the train station. Hopefully we'll beat them there and we can lose them on foot." She handed him back his phone. "The next train is in two hours."

"
They'll be all over the train station. Sounds risky."

"
Do I look like a gal who's afraid of risks?" She gave him a cheeky smile even while fear traveled down her back.

*  *  *

As far as plans went, hers pretty much sucked. But since Kane couldn't think of anything better, he hit the gas and hoped they'd make it into the town before the bad guys figured anything out.

"
Grab the stuff and we'll try to blend in." He figured she was pretty much a sitting duck, and keeping to the periphery might be their best bet for now. It appeared to be a tourist town, based on the people milling about and the number of souvenir shops. The town included a bustling market and a terraced hillside, including what looked to be homes built a couple hundred years ago. Given the terrain and the number of people, they had half a chance of pulling this off.

"
I guess we're lucky it's Saturday," she said. To his surprise, she grabbed his hand as they walked. The tremble in her fingers shot straight through his arm. She might talk tough and put up a great front, but it was all for show.

"
Let's try to find a place where we can hunker down. The station is a little too obvious to be safe."

"
We don't have too much time to kill." Despite her words, the wide-eyed expression told him more about the fear she felt than she'd ever admit.

Not that he blamed her. To his way of thinking, five minutes was too much time, knowing there were four cars with guys hunting them down. He raised his hand and pointed toward what appeared to be abandoned houses set into the hills.
"I'll grab some stuff for us to eat and meet you back there. I can't guarantee they haven't put notices up about us all over town, so best for you to keep a low profile."

"
I'll be fine." She patted her backpack and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

As he walked away, he felt the hint of trouble circling the air. All he kept thinking about was that they
'd sent four cars.

The uptick in pressure had to mean that he and Sabrina were on to something, or at least somebody thought they were. Either way, it didn
't matter. Both scenarios were bad news in terms of their current predicament as well as anything else going forward. They weren't safe now and wouldn't be until Trinity was behind bars.

As he strolled the small market, he couldn
't help but think about the look on her face when she recognized the truth of Antonio's betrayal. In that half-second or so, she couldn't hide the evidence from her expression. He'd seen hurt quickly replaced by anger reflected in her eyes. She wasn't nearly as tough as she thought she was; then again, neither was he.

Kane sifted through the options for sustenance and selected some fruit and cheese as well as bread, and stuffed the bag inside his backpack. Despite the urge to return to her as quickly as possible, he plodded his way back toward Sabrina using his best old-man shuffle to avoid attracting undue attention. Suppressing the nerves running up and down his spine was the difficult part. It was only a matter of time before whoever was in those cars came looking for them.

As he turned the corner, he spotted a black car roll into town. Considering the later model, he had to assume it was part of the group they were trying to avoid. He tempered his pulse, which threatened to compromise his old-man hobble, and headed toward Sabrina.

Except when he got there, she was nowhere to be found.

*  *  *

Sabrina peered around the corner of the outbuilding and fought back the fear inching through her body. The prickle seemed to zero in on the base of her skull and project through every vein and artery in her head. They were not playing.

Two black cars cruised through the small town at a rate of speed that belied their intent. They were going so slowly that even people walking were moving faster.

She was seriously screwed. And so was Kane.

Coming here had been a mistake. Dragging him into her mess was another mistake. When would she learn? She pushed back the nagging thought of so many years ago and tried to blend into the scenery as much as possible.