The Deeper Game (Taken Hostage by Hunky Bank Robbers Book 3) (20 page)

Damn right!

We chased around back and forth. I felt like maybe an hour passed, though maybe it was ten minutes. I thought about alternate plans—climbing to the top, or burying myself as a way to hide, but nothing seemed as effective as keeping a giant motherfucking pile of stones between us.

Then there came a silence that went on a little too long. I waited until I caught a flash of green out the corner of my eye.

Crap!

I bolted away; a nearby spray of stones told me that his shot just missed me.

He’d taken off his shoes
. He had the same stealth I had, now.

It got harder to keep the pile between us after that. He’d chase around and just appear and I’d have to take off, but sometimes he’d change directions and come at me the other way. He could never quite catch me, but I was feeling tired and a little freaked out. Dusk was falling, too, which made it harder to see him.

It was when I was on the side of the pile that was nearest to his truck that I got the idea to go back there. It was a lot of tundra to cross, but the rock pile strategy wasn’t exactly sustainable anymore.

I ran for it.

I heard another shot, but I kept going—Zeus had once told me that it was nearly impossible to hit a target while you were running. I felt sure he’d be running.

Miraculously, I got to the truck and found the door open. I went in and looked around. Where were my guns? I could hear him coming. With shaking hands, I searched under the seats, yanked open the glove compartment.

What had he done with my guns? He couldn’t be carrying them all!

He was nearing. I jumped out and shut the door, hiding behind the truck just as I’d hid behind the rock pile.

“Lose something?” he asked from the other side, voice disturbingly close.

I crouched there on the other side of the door, pulse racing. Well, fuck it. As long as I could keep the vehicle between us, I was safe. I just had to survive for the next minute, and then the minute after that.

“I threw them into the grass,” he said. “Over behind the pole.”

I looked out at the weedy patch at the base of a utility pole at the edge of the lot, about ten parking spaces away. I thought I maybe saw the glint of metal, but it would be suicide to go for it.

“You know you can’t get away,” he said in his creep voice.

“Maybe not, but I can outlast you.”

“Actually you can’t. This isn’t the rock pile, honey. All I have to do is jump up on the hood.”

“I’ll crawl under then,” I said, shaking deep down.

“And I’ll jump down and shoot you,” he said.

Wildly, I thought this scenario through. Yeah, he could do that. My gaze darted all around. I felt violently shaky, like a cornered animal. I could taste my own death.

“Checkmate,” he added smugly.

Fuck.
Again I eyed the grass patch.

“Now, all I want to do is take a little walk with you,” he continued. “Do I drag your bloody corpse, or do you walk with me?”

“Drag my bloody corpse, asshole,” I said.

The vehicle rocked, and I knew he was getting on top of it.

I scrambled underneath, moving on pure fear.
Survive just one more minute,
I told myself. One more minute. Add one minute to another. Add that minute to another.

The truck bounced above me again. Was he on the move? Which side would he come at me from? I scrambled toward the front, and something caught my dress, scraping my back. I kept on—the front was the least likely side he’d come at me from, I’d decided. Sometimes you have to go forward until you can’t. Sometimes that’s the only option you get.

It was then that I heard the roar of a nearby engine and the spit of rocks under tires. Somebody else was here. Would they die, too? I just kept crawling under the car toward the front. Maybe he’d already jumped off. Maybe he was crouching on the ground, aiming at me.

Brakes squealed. Doors opened.

And somebody—or something—yelled.
Roared
. The sound was very nearly inhuman.

Yet there was something familiar about it. My heart pounded.

Something crunched the gravel—or more like tore it up. I peered out under the bumper and caught sight of big black boots pounding past in the direction of the rock pile…I scooted closer and saw that it was Zeus, chasing Manning to the rock pile. Odin appeared, chasing after them. They were both still in their black bank robbing clothes.

A voice nearby called out. “Isis?”

Thor.

“I’m under here,” I sobbed. “Thor!”

Tennis shoes appeared.

“I got her!” Thor yelled. “She’s with me!”

His knees and then his face appeared, shaggy blond hair hanging sideways like the most beautiful thing in the world. “Goddess,” he said, stretching his arm under the truck toward me. “You’re okay. We’re here.”

“He’s out there,” I whispered.

“Not for long.” He got down on his belly to be face-to-face with me. “You’re okay,” he said softly. He came under with me, right next to me, and wrapped his arms around me. “We gotcha.”

I burst out crying, big ugly sobs into his shoulder. “He was going to throw me into the pit! And you were in traffic—”

“Shhh.” He tightened his arms around me, pulling me close in the cramped, dark, oil-smelling space. “Shhh.” He held me there on the sharp stones.

“I thought you wouldn’t come,” I whispered.

“Of course we came. Are you hurt anywhere?”

“I don’t know! Kind of. But not really.”

“Come on out, goddess.”

I just held onto him, not wanting to move.

“Will you come out, goddess?”

I didn’t get how traumatized I was until that second. I knew that with Odin and Zeus after him, Manning wouldn’t come for me, but I still felt frightened.
You’re okay,
I told myself, making myself scramble out with him. Thor helped me up. An angry shadow crossed his eyes as he got a good look at my chin where Manning hit me, then he pulled me into his arms.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered into my ear. “I should never have left you.”

“You thought Lupe needed you.”

“
You
needed me. It’s on all of us that we didn’t figure things out.” He pulled back and touched my chin. “He did this?”

“Yeah. Nothing broken.”

“Where else are you hurt?”

“My back. My feet.”

“Come on.” He picked me up and carried me back toward our SUV. “We were so worried,” he said.

“How did you figure it out?”

“Odin called about twenty minutes after I took off. He and Zeus were feeling wrong about the whole situation. Going ahead with these questions about Sleazy Travis being our guy—it was reckless. So Odin turned on his phone and called me, just to check in. He was freaked that I wasn’t with you. I texted Lupe a trick question. She texted me back, and I knew it wasn’t her.” He opened the back of the vehicle and settled me onto the end. He grabbed a soft blanket and wrapped me up and slid in next to me. There was eerie silence all around the quarry. “They got out of there and went to the Nav and found the message. I got there a little later. God, when we saw that mirror—”

“He made me write it.”

“I know.” Tenderly, he touched my cheek and looked into my eyes. “We all knew.”

“Thank you,” I said.

He snorted, like that was ridiculous, me thanking him. “We should be begging for your forgiveness, goddess. We were putting vengeance over what’s really important,” he said. “The Prime, it’s just some bank. Fuck the Prime Royale. Fuck ZOX. What matters is our family.”

I took a lock of his bright blond hair between two fingers, loving him like crazy. “He killed Venus,” I said.

Thor’s blue eyes glittered darkly. “And I believe he’s paying right about now.”

“They’ll kill him.”

“Well…”

I shuddered. “And they just left the Prime open and unburgled?”

“Nah, Matteo pulled the Gigis in. So he’s the fucking hero. Those girls are shit at takeovers, but they can crack a safe. They’ll breach those boxes.”

“You won’t get the jewels. The revenge on ZOX—they won’t know—”

“Vengeance isn’t as important as you. As us all staying together,” Thor said.

I began to tear up. I’d needed to hear that so badly.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Thor held me. “I’m sorry I left you.”

I mashed my face into his soft shirt, breathing him in. “You had to help Lupe.” A crunch of stones sounded from the direction of the rock pile. The crunches sped up—two pairs of feet. I didn’t have to look to know who it was.

“She’s okay,” Thor called.

I turned to look, then. Zeus was ahead of Odin, eyes shining like diamonds in his sweaty face. A violent smudge of mud glistened on his cheekbone, and as he neared, I realized that it was blood. Odin was behind him, dark hair tousled, hard planes of his face set in a glowering mask.

“Goddess.” Zeus mashed into me, holding me against his big, solid body. I circled my arms around him, taking comfort in his hulking strength and heaving breath.

Odin came in on the other side of me, grabbed the back of my head, and kissed me on the cheek. “Goddess,” he said, mashing halfway into Zeus. “I’m so sorry,” he said when our gazes locked. “We were such
fucking-g
fools, hypnotized by the jewels and vengeance.”

“But you came,” I said.

“We should’ve never left,” Odin said, eyeing my chin. “There is so
fucking-g
much we should’ve seen.”

“Forgive us,” Zeus sliding a gentle palm over my shoulders, regarding me with an expression that seemed to contain both joy and grief. “You are more precious than anything in that bank,” he said. “And we almost lost you. Do you know what that would’ve done? Do you know how much we love you, goddess?”

For once I was speechless.

Thor took my hand. “We love you. We realized we’d never even told you that while we were racing over here.”

My heart nearly flew out of my chest.

“We love you. I love you,” Thor said.

“I
fucking-g
love you beyond anything,” Odin said.

“I love you, too,” I said, looking from Thor to Zeus to Odin. “I love all of you and each of you. Like crazy.”

Odin’s voice sounded gravelly, serious. “We don’t deserve that love right now—”

“You’re crazy,” I said. “You always do.”

“No, Odin’s right,” Zeus said. “We don’t deserve it right now. But we are going to spend however long it takes making this up to you.”

“Because you are everything precious to us,” Odin said.

My eyes went to the rock pile. “Manning—”

“He’s dead,” Zeus said.

“Good,” I whispered.

“We ripped him apart. Literally,” Zeus growled. “Odin ripped his guts out.”

I shifted my eyes to Odin and I knew from his expression that it was true. Also, his black shirt was wet with blood. Zeus’s clothes were bloody, too.

“You want to see his body?” Zeus asked.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m just going to believe you.”

He looked disappointed. “But it might be good, psychologically, to have seen his corpse with your own eyes so you know deep down that he can’t hurt you again.”

It was sweet, but also a little bit morbid. “That’s okay.”

Zeus’s expression hardened. “Nobody fucks with the God Pack.”

“Right,” I said, feeling a sudden hopelessness at the reminder of their lust for vengeance.

“No, it’s different now,” Odin said. “Vengeance needs to be a choice, not a compulsion.”

“Except for killing Manning,” Zeus said. “That was kind of a compulsion for me, but now that he’s dead, vengeance can be a choice.”

“So we’re going to the island?” I teased. “To retire in splendor?”

“No,” Zeus said. “Let’s not go crazy. The point is, we’re not the bitches of vengeance anymore.”

“Never again,” Thor said.

Ironically, I had twisted sensei A/V Robert Manning to thank for that.

“You guys are amazing,” I said. Because really, this was huge.

Right in that moment they seemed totally free. Free like animals. Bloody. Primal. Beautiful. Intensely alive.

Three weeks later, my guys and I were lounging on the porch in our matching plush bathrobes after some exuberant fun in the hot tub. The last remnant of my struggle with Manning, my chin bruise, was nearly all the way faded. You could barely see it.

Zeus set down his paperback novel and stood. “Who wants lemonade?”

I smiled up at him. “Could it be strawberry lemonade?”

“Could and will.” He headed inside.

Getting kidnapped, chased, and nearly tossed to your death in a quarry pit turns out to be quite the boon if you’re the type who likes being waited on hand and foot by three hunky bank robbers.

Which I am.

But it went so much deeper than that. The experience changed us. I got this new appreciation for my guys. Out there in the quarry parking lot with them all bloody and invigorated, I knew they could never be happy on an island hideaway.

And they had a different relationship with vengeance, too. They were no longer the bitches of vengeance, just like Zeus had vowed.

They might still rob banks, they assured me, and they would strike back if ZOX came after them, but they didn’t
have
to do any of it. Odin was doing more painting these days. Thor was into his clinic work. Zeus wanted to open a detective agency.

At the moment, however, we were enjoying the quiet evening. I was busy knitting wee little socks to send along with the fabulous baby gifts we’d picked out for Lupe, who had given birth to a healthy baby boy just the week before.

We’d had the security system and cameras ripped out and replaced. It was so creepy to know Manning had been watching us all that time. He’d messed up the robbery for my guys, of course, though Matteo and the Gigis had made out like the bandits—the jewels in the Prime Royale went beyond everybody’s wildest dreams. Those four were off living it up in various glamorous capitals around the world as they dealt with different black market brokers. BeeGee hadn’t forgiven Matteo on a personal level, but they were working together again; it gave Matteo a chance to prove himself. Hopefully he would.

Before they’d left, Matteo and the Gigis had dropped by and handed over a chunk of the haul as a gift for us having done so much of the prep work. It was a lovely gesture, and now we were more fabulously wealthy than ever.