Hard to Stop (19 page)

Max was dying. The sound of his siblings' words came to him in fits and spurts. He felt powerless. Nothing could help him now. He felt it with every fiber of his being. This was it.

It was all going away. Whether he liked it or not.

"Max, you are not going to die." Jake grabbed him and tied a shirt around his torso to stem the flow of blood before throwing him over his shoulder. Jake began to run, unhampered by Max's weight.

Despite their efforts, life started to seep away from him.

"They're coming, and I'm slowing you down." If he died, they could live. "I'm not going to make it, and I'm only holding you two back." The stabbing sensation in his chest seemed to be spreading.

"Nooooooo," Sabrina wailed. As close to a cry as she might ever come. Since their parents had died and they'd come to live with Petrovich, his sister had been stoic. Some people might call it emotionless. Nothing got past that impenetrable wall she'd built around herself. He couldn't see his sister suffer like that. To eliminate himself from the mix would mean the two of them would finally be free and could live normal lives.

"Max, suck it up," Jake growled. "I'm carrying the load. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself."

If he had a little more strength, maybe he'd laugh, but he didn't. The energy slipped out of him in giant waves of pain and regret. Jake readjusted him along his shoulder as they slowly made their way down the mountainside. Going anywhere fast would not be possible.

"Put me down. I…I'm okay."

"Bull." Jake grunted and continued on. But movement was slow. At this pace, they'd be overtaken before they made it to their car.

"I just need some help."

As Jake slipped him off and placed his arm around his shoulder to help, Sabrina came along on the other side. After a few moments, he started to believe they would make it. In fact, he knew they would make it. He'd contact that agency in New York and get them all out of this once and for all. This was not the time to give in. He had a responsibility to his parents, to his siblings, and to himself. They needed each other. Without that, everything he gave to Petrovich would have been in vain. Now was the time to take action. This was the end.

The guy came out of nowhere and grabbed Sabrina around the neck. She rolled with him, and they tumbled down about ten feet. Max felt powerless to do anything as he watched his sister come close to the edge of the cliff. His heart seemed to jump inside his throat as Jake went over to help, and the thought of losing both of them became a real possibility. He contemplated running into the guy and going over the cliff with him, but wasn't sure he had the strength to make it happen.

She stumbled close to the edge of the mountain. So close that one misstep would send her over the edge. He had to get to her, but his legs felt like he was walking through four-foot-high snowdrifts. He staggered and fell, his progress hampered by the leadenness in his legs and the dizziness.

Powerless.

Max shot up out of the bed as the memories flitted through his mind. His breaths came in fits and starts as he fought through the scene from that night. He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself with deep, measured breaths. But his body refused to cooperate, and he trembled. He touched the scar only to verify blood no longer flowed out of it.

Gianna slipped her arms around his waist and pulled him tight. "Max, are you all right?"

Had the dream been a warning of what could happen if they continued on this fool's journey of theirs? Or was it about him fessing up and being honest with her and telling her about the danger her brother might be in?

"Bad dream."

"Wanna talk about it?"

He looked her in the eye to see if he could detect anything that might forewarn him of trouble. "I…" Despite the anguish and fear residing inside his chest, he couldn't seem to get the words to spill.

"Did something almost happen to Sabrina? You kept calling her name over and over again." She patted his side as she spoke. The compassion he felt in that touch was incomprehensible. It was as if she knew the secrets he held so tight inside him.

Maybe it was time he let somebody in on his torment. Maybe she deserved that much from him. Max rubbed his hands down his face. "We were on an assignment. I was attacked and Sabrina almost died because of me."

She rubbed his hand. "The important part is neither one of you died. Speaking as someone who takes responsibility for pretty much everything, I see the same propensity in you. You need to let that stuff go."

He smiled. Everything about her felt right, which made him feel like an ass for holding out on her. "Maybe we need to make some kind of pact about not thinking we can solve everyone's problems and instead concentrate on our own."

"And we can't control the universe," she added.

"So we'll change our ways." They did a fist bump. "But maybe we should start our new lease on life after this whole BS is over with."

"Spoken like a true control freak. But I'm still with you on that."

*   *   *

Max pulled out his phone as soon as Gianna went into the shower that morning. He needed to talk to Jennings. Maybe he could help assuage the second-guessing racing through his mind.

"Did you find out who's after me, or anything about that Jeff King guy?"

"Good news and bad news. Looks like the Treno family is somehow involved in this. They're big-time hitters for the mob. The good news is that we've had two operatives embedded in there for about two years. The other bad news is that Jeff King is connected to the Trenos in that he seems to have a gambling issue and has run up quite a debt with them."

"Mick walked right into a trap."

"Rumor is, Jeff's getting on a train with the kid sometime today. But we don't know which one and when. I guess you could hang out at the local train station and see if you can get him out during the move. I'll send you a mug shot of Jeff King, if that will help."

"Perfect." Max blew out a breath. "Any idea why they want Mick?"

"You've got a big price on your head. They can't get to you, it seems. So they want him to reel you in, since you and his sister are together."

"Where are they taking him to?"

"Not sure on that piece."

"I'll surrender and go with the trade."

"That's not the way these guys work. You'll both be dead."

"But if you have two people inside, we'd have a fighting chance."

"These bad guys have automatic weapons. Won't work. We need to think of a viable option to keep the kid free and still make sure they don't capture you."

"Got any thoughts? Your people have to have identified some weaknesses." He'd never known The Alliance to keep somebody in an assignment for that long.

"Trust takes a while to develop in that kind of situation, so they're making slow progress. The last time we talked, they felt like they were hitting a brick wall in terms of what they'd hoped to get accomplished."

Ideas on how to make this work flitted through Max's mind, but he rejected them all. He needed to plan this smartly and maybe try a tactic he'd never employed before. And avoid casualties at all cost. He already had a high enough body count on his conscience. "If they get injured somehow when I rescue Mick, will that solidify their position with the organization or get them out of there, if that's where you think they should be?"

"What are you thinking, Max?"

"Not sure yet. Do you have any idea how who is behind this bounty on my head? I still don't get why they think using Mick is going to get me to kowtow to what they want. I'm not related to the kid or anything."

"They know your weakness is your family. Since they can't get to your own family, they're going after an innocent."

Max still didn't understand Mick's role in what happened to Damon. It could be something coincidental, or being taken advantage of, or being part of the setup. But he hadn't broken through that impenetrable wall Gianna held around her brother. There was a whole lot she wasn't telling him, but there was a whole lot he wasn't telling her as well. "Treno jumped on this because of the money. That's not the usual MO for a mobster, is it? Don't they usually go after a hit to impress?" Something clicked inside his head, kind of like turning on a switch. The idea that everything that had happened to him over the last few days had been orchestrated based on his own history slowly came into his awareness.

"Not normally, but he's trying to prove his worthiness to the higher-ups and feels like securing you is the way to do it. Not to mention the influx of cash to the organization."

"I'm not sure I like being a cash cow." He heard the water shut off in the shower and knew his time was limited.

"You're making jokes, but this is serious."

"I have a favor to ask. I want to see what you can find out about a guy named Peter Cush. He's in Europe, as far as I know." His first kill had been in a crowded soccer stadium—and maybe they'd intended to take Max out at the Rangers game, and what happened to Damon had been ancillary, or maybe to instill fear. His second kill had been a politician who was coming out of his mistress's house. Max did the deed with a small-caliber weapon at close range. In and done. Almost the same thing had nearly happened to him at Bloomingdale's. In the third kill he was the delayer rather than the shooter. The marksman who did the kill shot was Peter. Another one of Petrovich's recruits, he was a couple of years older than Max, and sharpshooting was his skill. Max needed to know what happened to the man.

"Anything you want to share on that?"

"Not yet. Still formulating the information." He tried to block out all the people he'd killed during those years. Damn, the garrote he'd used on the early morning streets of Germany. Memories kept popping to the surface. Who could do something this diabolical? "You've got Jake and Sabrina covered?"

"They're fine. I've got them both in safe houses in Europe. They're with their significant others, so I'm sure the time will fly by." Jennings chuckled. "But I assured them you were safe as well. I'm going to have to answer to them."

"I've been through worse scenarios and come through unscathed." He heard Gianna brushing her teeth. "I've got to get going, but I'll get back to you as soon as I come up with a viable plan. And you let me know if you have the information on the train thing. It's got to be happening soon."

"I will."

"Any chance I can have a one-on-one with your operatives either in person or video chat or something if we don't get Mick today?"

"I can arrange that but hope I don't have to. Take care, Max. And watch your back. Detective Collini is good, but don't be confused. Her main objective is saving her brother, not you."

"Always."

Seconds later, she tore out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her. "Max." Her normally olive skin had adopted a pasty-white pallor. Her fingers shook as she walked over and handed him her phone. When he looked into her eyes, he spotted the tears pooling at the corners.

"Is that Mick holding a gun?" He touched the screen to make it bigger, and it confirmed the 9mm in Mick's hand. Was he doing all this to rescue a good kid caught in a web of violence, or a good kid gone horribly bad? Every time he thought he had it figured out, something else came up to change him around.

"It was sent from the NYPD. They said it was on Mick's phone."

"Maybe they're trying to convince you he's different than you think? Although knowing where it was taken would be more helpful, or even how they got it."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm not saying anything except somebody's sending you a message—whether it's true or not remains to be seen. Don't you think?" He slid his arm over her shoulder. "They're playing head games with you, nothing more. They know you're a good cop and are working off that to get you to do the right thing."

She chewed her lip. "I love my brother, but I'm not blind to his faults. And this whole possible Treno connection scares me more than I care to think about."

He gulped. "I don't remember you using that name before."

"That idiot Anthony Falcone runs numbers for the mob. He's small time, but the guy he answers to is a big-time guy named Treno."

Max worked hard to keep his face a mask of neutrality. He still didn't know where the kid fell on the good kid/bad kid spectrum, but he tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. Right now they needed to get to the kid while the opportunity was there. "I got some intel that Jeff King belongs to Treno in some way. Could be a gambling debt, or whatever. But he was holding your brother and is going to be transporting him soon. Don't have a lot of time, and it's a shot in the dark, but I'm thinking we need to get to the train station and check it out."

*   *   *

 Gia did this for a living, and she knew when somebody was holding out on her. Max fit into that category. His BS skills were formidable, but she knew him well enough to pick up on his tell. Avoiding eye contact usually foretold of a lie. Max did the opposite. He forced himself to make too much eye contact.

Gia's body practically vibrated as they walked toward the train station. "Still nothing from Jennings other than the photo of Jeff King?" Troy had sent her brother to a known felon. Knowing the guy was going to hook up Mick with fake IDs should have been a clue. As long as they intercepted him before he got to Treno's people, she didn't care.

"See that guy with the baseball cap and the shiner? That's him," he whispered. "But where the hell is Mick?"

"Are we too late?" Her knees went weak. Everything about this seemed like a bad idea. With Mick MIA, the whole thing seemed even worse. Could he already be with Treno?

Max caught her arm and pushed through the crowd moving toward the train station. "Are you Jeff?"

He looked at Max and Gia for half a second before he took off running. Max let go of her hand and ran after him. He had the guy pinned to the ground less than a minute later. Gia came alongside, adrenaline giving her a kick start.