On Her Six (Under Covers) (24 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Grandma!” Sam needed to be free. Needed to touch her grandmother. Reassure her Sam was still there. Loving her. She’d see her through this. Somehow. Some way.

She bucked and twisted, the rope digging deeper, blood seeping down her arms. Maybe if the bindings dug farther into her skin, they’d eventually sever her arms. It couldn’t possibly hurt half as much as her heart hurt right now. “Grandma, look at me.” She whirled to face her father. “Look what you’ve done. All because you thought you were protecting us.”

Her dad continued to shake in the German’s arms, his gaze growing more distant. He looked at her, but it was as if he didn’t see her. He drew long, harsh breaths through bared teeth.

Rose turned, tears in her eyes. She gave Sam a weak smile. Even after all she’d been through, she still attempted to ease Sam’s fears.

Searching her grandmother’s eyes, her breath hitched. They were still green. The same green they’d been her whole life.

Her body slumped in relief. Thank God. “How?”

“How what?” Heinrich asked, grinning. “How was I able to turn her so quickly?” He looked at Rose and his grin evaporated. “That can’t be. I watched you take it.” He grabbed Rose’s face and forced her mouth open.

Rose whimpered and her eyes squeezed shut.

“I saw you. I saw you take it.” Heinrich turned with his arm out to the German with the stack of Vamp paper. When a sheet didn’t materialize in his hand immediately, he snapped his fingers. “Give me another.”

Sam’s body stiffened. Grandma Rose might have gotten a dud on the first dose. There was no way she’d survive a second. She wrestled with the rope, fighting like a caged animal to free herself.

But she was helpless. And her father stood to the side, panting and thrashing. The goon tightened his hold, muscles in his jaw working as he fought to keep her father from breaking away.

Heinrich shoved a second, much larger square of Vamp paper into Rose’s mouth, then forced her jaw closed. Holding it, he glanced at his watch as if to time the transition.

The room was silent as everyone stared at Rose. She blinked back tears, likely from that scumbag’s forceful grip on her jaw. Red welts appeared from where his nails dug into her skin.

Rage built inside of Sam. Instead of pushing it down, like she normally did when she thought about Heinrich and all he had taken from her, she let it bubble up. She let it rise to the point of almost exploding. Blood pounded in her ears, and her pulse raced. She was going to get him for this. Viktor Heinrich would pay, even if it killed her.

Heinrich paled. “But—I don’t understand.” He lifted the remaining paper and examined it.

Sam’s head snapped toward Rose, scanning her grandmother’s face.

Wide, green eyes amplified by her bifocals stared back.

Sam’s relief overshadowed any rage. It was more satisfying to have Rose alive and well.

Grandma was okay. Thank God, she was okay.

Sam didn’t understand why the Vamp didn’t work, and she didn’t care.

Grunts and groans echoed from where her father stood, still held upright by the man behind him. Dad didn’t seem to have a handle on himself, violent tremors shaking his body. His arms were crossed over his chest, immobile, but his hands bounced in place. His breathing increased to unhealthy levels, his chest heaving, as if he had to gather and conserve as much oxygen as he could.

“What’s happening to him?” she asked.

“Withdrawal,” Heinrich said. “He hasn’t had a hit in a few hours.”

This was worse than she’d ever seen. Far beyond any of the Vamps at Club Hell.

His eyes rolled back in his head, his black pupils disappeared so all that showed was red. The man holding him jostled in place, bouncing on his toes while trying to keep a steel arm locked tight.

“Do something!” she said.

Staring in fascination at her father, Heinrich said, “Why?”

“Because he’s dying.”

“Hmm. So he is.”

“You don’t care? What about all the help he gave you? All that crap you said about his drug testing?”

Heinrich shrugged. “I’ve never actually
seen
a person die from Vamp.”

Her dad’s face filled with color. Thick strands of spit trailed down his chin. He focused on the man holding the drug and tried to launch himself toward him.

“How long does he have?” she asked.

“Not long, I suppose,” Heinrich said, still watching her father.

“What’s it going to take for you to help him? Name it and it’s yours.” She couldn’t bear to watch him die. It didn’t matter what he’d done or what he’d turned into. He was still her father.

Heinrich swiveled to face her, excitement glittering in his eyes. “What are you offering, Samantha?”

“Anything. Anything you want. Just save my dad.”

Bargaining with a drug dealer to give her dad more drugs was ridiculous. But if that’s what would keep him alive until they could figure something else out, so be it. She’d rather have her father in her life as a drug addict than not in it at all.

“It’s tempting,” Heinrich said. “I could come up with so many useful things to do with you.” His gaze fell between her legs and one corner of his lips hitched up.

A shiver ran through her at the thought. “Whatever you want. Just give him the Vamp. Please.”

Her father’s strained, high-pitched scream sounded as if it shredded his vocal cords.

“Please,” Sam cried out. “Help him!”

“Fine,” he said, glancing at his watch again. “My shipment is due any minute anyway. I don’t feel like hearing that screeching while I’m conducting business.” He reached for another slip of paper. He ripped it in half and balled up one side. He glanced back at her and said, “Anything I want?”

She swallowed her fear. “Yes.”

Dad trembled, trying to rotate out of the larger man’s embrace. Shadows played over his features, making sharp angles on his cheeks and chin. He definitely hadn’t grown fangs, but as he snarled, his teeth seemed more pointed, hungry to sink into something.

He’d transformed before her eyes. The sweet, loving man who’d raised her was gone. A feral addict stared back with sinister, uncaring eyes.

Her father was lost to her. Gone. Forever. Without a cure.

Would it have been better if she’d never looked for him? Assumed he was dead or corrupt? Would not knowing hurt less than seeing him this way?

She didn’t know.

And what would happen if they couldn’t find a cure? How would she protect Grandma Rose and herself from this monster?

But he’s your dad.
And family was meant to protect each other and care for one another, through the good and the bad.

She was going to see him through this.

The loud, slicing
bang
of a gunshot sounded.

Sam screamed and jerked her attention to the doorway.

Hans-Number-Forty-Five stiffened, then glanced down at his chest with a blank expression. A deep, scarlet stain expanded on his crisp, white shirt.

Chapter Thirty

Heinrich leapt back as his goon fell to the ground. Blood pooled from under the body, mixing with dirt and grime on the floor.

“Ash!” Sam’s voice was an incredible sound. His first instinct was to go to her, his body leaning in her direction, but he had business to handle first. With the COMs out, he had no idea what was going on with Tyke and Calder. No idea who’d walk through that door behind him.

He spared a quick glance at the women, ensuring they were still in one piece. Spotting the dark streams of blood running down Sam’s arms sent a tsunami of rage through him he didn’t try to control. Goddamn it, Heinrich had hurt her. He stepped in that asshole’s direction.

“No,” Sam said. “Don’t hurt him.”

“Why the hell not?” he asked through tight lips.

An animalistic scream snapped his attention to the right. Her father. His eyes.

Heinrich, that motherfucker, was going to get it back tenfold.

“He needs the Vamp,” she said, her chin gesturing in the direction of one of Heinrich’s men.

The guy turned as if to shield the paper he was holding.

Ash pointed his gun in the larger man’s face and signaled with a tilt of his head for him to move to the side with Heinrich.

The man holding Davy, who twisted and turned wildly in the larger man’s arms, looked at Ash like,
Little help?

“You will not let him go,” Ash said. “Do you understand?”

He must have heard the finality in Ash’s tone or realized the danger Davy could be to everyone in the room, because the guy nodded and squeezed his arms. Davy grunted and slanted forward as if reaching for his salvation just out of reach. With his service pistol trained on Heinrich, Ash reached in his pocket to retrieve a knife. With a flick of his wrist, he freed Sam and her grandmother from the ropes. Both stood, massaging their reddened wrists and arms.

He forced Heinrich and two remaining goons into the corner of the room, the door he’d entered through at his back, and positioned himself between the women and Heinrich.

Then silence.

“Daddy!”

Davy slumped over in the German’s hold, head and arms dangling forward.

Sam dashed to her father, grabbing him around the biceps and shaking him.

His eyes were closed, and there was no indication whether he was breathing.

When Sam leaned her ear near his mouth, Ash said, “Wait.”

She pulled back and looked at him.

“Let me,” he said, approaching. He wasn’t about to watch the man hurt Sam. Even if Davy couldn’t help it.

He faced Heinrich as he placed his finger on the pulse at Davy’s neck.

Nothing.

He pressed down on the man’s vein, willing the goddamn thing to jump.

He dragged his gaze to Sam.

“No,” she said. “Don’t you dare say it.”

His hand fell to his side and fisted. First she’d had to endure years of not knowing where her father was or if he was alive. Now, she had to witness his death. Had to see his demise with her own eyes.

Her face caved in, her features breaking apart. She shook her head back and forth. “No. I didn’t come this far for you to be dead. I didn’t go through all of this for you to give up now.” She grabbed a handful of Davy’s hair in her hand, and she yanked his head back up. “Do you hear me?” she shouted into his lifeless face. “You will not give up now!”

Ash put a hand on her back and stroked absently. He kept his attention on Heinrich, who wore a morose expression. Sam curled into Ash’s arms, and he held her with one arm, while keeping the other with his gun at the ready.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” he said.

Rose stared at her son with sagging eyes and shoulders.

“We were too late,” Sam said, wetness soaking his arm. “He needed the drug sooner. We were seconds too late.”

The Vamp.

Ash spun away from Sam and held his gun in the face of the German holding the stack of paper. Ash plucked a piece from the top and rushed back to Davy. Sam must have caught on to what he was doing because she clenched her father’s jaw and strained to get it open. Ash tore a piece off, and once Davy’s lips parted, he thrust the paper inside.

And they waited.

Moments ticked by as everyone kept their gaze on Davy.

Ash slid a glance to Sam. She had her arms around herself, her lips curled in as if in silent prayer.

The German holding Davy bent to look at the man in his arms. “Did it
verk
?”

Davy still hadn’t moved.

Sam’s eyes closed, and she released a ragged breath.

“Hmm, what a waste,” Heinrich said.

Ash’s gaze flicked to him, his finger itching to place itself on the trigger of his gun.

Then he caught movement. Davy’s head slowly came up, and his eyes opened. He sucked in a sharp breath as if surfacing from a deep lake.

Sam gasped and threw her arms around her father. The German holding him smiled and let go. Davy swung a bony arm around her shoulders, and they hugged.

“It worked,” she said. “I can’t believe it. It worked.”

“Wha-what happened?” her father asked. He rubbed his head like he might have a massive headache.

“We’re not even going to mention it,” Sam said.

Rose slipped under Davy’s other arm, and the three of them hugged each other.

Ash breathed a sigh of relief. Thank Christ he’d survived. Vamp or not, he was still alive. There was still a chance to save him.

“I’m sorry, Sammie,” Davy said, pulling out of the embrace. “I had to. I had to give those people Vamp.”

“Shh. Tell me later.” She reached for his hand, but he yanked it away.

“No. You need to know. I gave those people Vamp because I had to. I knew Heinrich was planning to release it to the public. I had to find a way to stop him. I’m not proud of what I did. But I had to do something. If I could find a cure. Something to help those people, then it would’ve been worth it.” His chin dropped to his chest. “But I failed. There’s no cure. I damned them for nothing. And now they’ll die because of me.”

He raised his head to look at his daughter. His expression softened into regret.
And so will I,
his expression said.

With his gaze on Heinrich, Ash spoke, “I think it’s time you all make your exit.” It was about to get fucking ugly, and he didn’t need witnesses.

“No,” Sam said.

She stepped forward, rubbing her shoulders. She wiped her palms against her shorts, leaving spatters of dark stains on the fabric. “I’m not leaving until I see for myself that he’s hauled off in handcuffs.”

She didn’t glance at Ash for his opinion on the matter. And he knew better than to argue.

“Grandma, you need to go,” Sam said. “Take Dad and—”

“But—”

“Please don’t argue,” Sam said, her hard gaze fixed on Heinrich. “I need to know you both are safe. Go home. I’ll meet you there.” She turned to her father. “You’ll be okay, right? I mean, with, you know…”

His lips thinned and he nodded. “I’ll keep it under control.”

“Good.” She shot her grandmother a steady look. “I’ll be right behind you, I promise. Now go.”

Her grandmother hesitated, rocking her weight from one foot to the other, but she must have seen the desperate look in Sam’s eyes, because she nodded. She placed her hands on her granddaughter’s cheeks and garnered her full attention. “Cuff him and then leave. This is over. Justice is served. You’ve gotten what you need. Now let it be done.”

Sam gave one swift nod.

Rose turned to her son, glancing up into his red and black eyes. She kissed her right palm, then cupped his cheek with it. He leaned into the touch, offering a small smile. He bent to pick up the drugs, then tucked them under one arm. Holding his hand out to his mother, she took it and they exited.

Satisfaction was evident in Sam’s voice when she approached Heinrich with cuffs in hand. “Orange is going to look great on you, Viktor.” She pulled one arm behind his back, and then the other.

“You think you’re so smart,” Heinrich said, swishing his shoulders, making Sam struggle to keep his arms behind him. “But you don’t know anything.”

When Ash placed the barrel of his gun against Heinrich’s forehead, he stopped moving.

“Go ahead,” Ash said. “Give me a reason.” Anything would do. Even a flinch. His fingers itched to end the lowlife with one pull of the trigger. But Sam deserved to see Heinrich brought to justice. Everything else on this mission hadn’t been handled properly. This was going to be. He’d see to it for Sam’s sake. Heinrich would be brought to justice through the legal system.

Heinrich might have stilled, but he continued to smirk. “This doesn’t end with me. It’ll never end. There’ll be plenty of people to carry the torch. It’s just too easy.” Sam clasped one side of the metal cuffs with a snap, and then the other. Doubt clouded her eyes. She believed what he was saying—it wouldn’t end with him. There would be others. Like her dad. And there wasn’t anything she’d be able to do about it. She couldn’t save everyone. Even if she wanted to. That’s what he loved most about her—her giving heart. It was the size of the Empire State Building, and it seemed to grow more every day. Her heart got her into this situation, but it was also what was going to get her out. Ash was going to make sure of it.

“All you simple people, living your simple lives,” Heinrich continued. “Americans are so arrogant. You’re ignorant to the way the world really works. No one gives a shit about family. Or pride. Or decency. All they care about is money and greed.” He gave Sam a snide look from the corner of his eye. The damn cloud wouldn’t lift from her gaze. Ash’s own body tensed. “You know I’m right. Just look at dear ol’ dad. He didn’t see things my way and look where that got him. He—”

Mother. Fucker
. Ash should have pulled the trigger. Holy hell did he want to. Heinrich was the root of everything she’d had to endure. And for him to throw something like her father back in her face? He deserved to have
his
rearranged. Instead, Ash dropped the gun to his side and cold-cocked Heinrich in the eye. He put everything into that punch. All the rage and emotion he’d been feeling since meeting Sam; all the sorrow he’d wanted to take away for her after she’d lost so much.

Heinrich went limp, causing Sam to lose her hold on his wrists. He fell, slamming his cheek onto the ground. His eyes closed, and his breathing was steady. Ash’s fist screamed in pain, and based on the intensity, it’d be awhile before that asshole woke up.

Sam’s eyes, wide and misty, glanced from Ash to Heinrich. He noted a hint of gladness behind the sheen. She smiled, one of her big, special smiles, and his body pieced itself back together. He wanted to carry her home and show her exactly how happy he could make her.

What a turn of events. Trusting a woman again. Letting her heal him. He’d never thought it was possible for a man like him. But she did it. She showed him there was still a hell of a lot of good left in the world. And that good would always defeat evil, if you were brave enough to fight for it.

Samantha Harper made him braver than he’d ever been in his life. She made him want to fight again. For goodness. For justice. For her.

She leaped into his arms, nuzzling her cheek against his chest. He dropped the rifle from his shoulder, and it clattered to the ground. He squeezed her tight, locking her in the safety of his embrace, too caught up in the moment to care about appearances if anyone saw him.

“Thank God you came,” she said, her voice muffled against his thick bulletproof vest. “I didn’t know how we were going to get out.” She pulled back and looked at him, her smile dimming. “My dad’s hooked, and I don’t know what to do to help him.”

Running a hand down the side of her face, he said, “We’ll figure it out.” He glanced at Heinrich’s body on the floor. “By the time he wakes up, he’ll be in custody, and we can use all sorts of fun methods to interrogate him. Before long, he’ll be begging to tell us what he’s been doing with the drug experiments. We’ll find out what to do to help your father.”

If there was anything they could do.

Her lips flattened, obviously thinking the same thing.

Once a Vamp addict, always a Vamp addict. Until death.

No. If it was the last thing he did, he’d get her answers. He’d find
something
to help her dad.

Shhhh.
“Ash,” Reese’s voice rose through the static in his earpiece.
Shhhh.
“Ash. Are—”
Shhh.
“There?”

One arm tightened around Sam, and he lifted his other to place a finger at his throat, turning on his mic. “I’m here,” he said. “What is it?”

Shhh. Shhh.
“Lorena.”
Shhh. Shhh.
“Way.”

Shit! The shipment!

His grip tightened on his service weapon, and he started to spin toward the exit.

“Do not move,
mi amante
,” a woman spoke, holding a handgun of her own.