THE OUTLAW’S BRIDE Read online

  He had managed to keep up appearances at work, confining his abusive, drunken outbursts to his home, where he could direct them at his wife and children. Their mother had put up with it for five years before, one day, she finally packed up all of her clothes and left while Fiona and Niko were at school, and Nathan at work.

  The thing that had bothered Fiona the most about their mother abandoning them was that there had been no letter, not even a note. She had simply left. Fiona tried very hard to understand what would make a mother desert her children like that, but it was difficult not to resent her for the way she had handled things.

  Once their mother left their father, he became withdrawn. He stopped yelling at his kids, and instead began to ignore them altogether. He would get up, go to work, come home, and drink until he passed out. Fiona would have to get up in the middle of the night to turn off whatever infomercial was playing on TV and throw a blanket over her unconscious father.

  Fiona had left home as soon as she could, but stuck close for Niko, who often spent the night at her dorm instead of at home. Nathan had plenty of money, and as far as Fiona was concerned, he owed them.

  “So it’s settled,” Fiona said, firmly closing the discussion. “You’ll take my car, and I’ll get the money from Dad. In a day or two I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come back.” It would take her the better part of a day to get to their father’s place in Des Moines, especially since she had to take a bus. Niko would need the freedom of a car if he were to have any hope of getting out of here alive.

  Niko hesitated, then shook his head. “I don’t like leaving you here by yourself! They know where you live, Fiona, obviously! What’s to stop them from hurting you to get at me?” he protested.

  “I’m not going to be in town for the majority of the time,” she reminded him. “Also, how are they going to get any money at all if they hurt me? If you’re gone, I’m the only one who will be able to pay.”

  “No, I’m not doing it,” he said stubbornly, folding his arms. “We’ll just have to figure out something else. You don’t understand what these people are like, Fiona!” Niko snapped suddenly, his eyes wild with fear. “This guy Alexei is seriously bad news. I don’t just mean ‘beat and murder me’ bad. He’s got a black hole for a heart, Fi, and he and his boys hunt people down like wolves, methodically, without mercy. He buys himself a piece of bling after every job he completes.” He shivered, staring dead ahead, not seeing anything around him. “Alexei’s not half as bad as some of his men, though. Vlad’s a special treat. That rat bastard is a true psychopath, and he loves his work. He looks like a king, but he does all the dirty work behind the scenes.”

  “Well, Niko, if you have a suggestion, I’m all ears,” Fiona said, rapidly losing her patience as her heart began to fill with panic. “But as you told me not too long ago, we can’t call the police! Remind me why that is again?” When Fiona had first mentioned getting help, Niko had freaked and told her that calling the police was absolutely out of the question.

  “Alexei has a guy on the inside,” he told her, sighing. “Probably more than one.”

  “And you know this how?” Fiona asked.

  “There’s a guy—William. I’m not sure if he’s related to Alexei or what, but he comes around all the time. He’s on the force. He comes in wearing his uniform. Lets Alexei know when things are starting to get hot,” he told her. “If we breathe even a word about Alexei to the cops, William is going to hear about it, which means Alexei will hear about it, which means you, me, and everyone we know will be killed.”

  “Okay, no cops, I get it,” Fiona said, holding her hands up defensively. “I’m still not hearing you come up with a better plan than what we have.”

  Niko bit his lip and plucked at the hem of Paul ’s t-shirt; when he dropped off the money, he had also given Niko some spare clothes to wear. Niko was a little taller, a little lankier than Paul’s stocky figure, so the shirt hung wide and short on him.

  Fiona carefully scrutinized her little brother’s face, but he wouldn’t look at her. He was hiding something. “Out with it,” she commanded. “Whatever it is that you’re holding back, now is the time to bring it to the table.”

  “It’s a long shot,” Niko began. “There’s literally no reason I can think of that he would help us, which is why I didn’t mention him before, but he’s the only person I know who Alexei is even a little bit scared of.”

  “So, who is it?”

  “His name is Ace Connor, but I don’t think that’s his real name. He’s the leader of one of the last motorcycle gangs around here, The Hell Brothers.” Seeing Fiona’s confused face, he continued. “It used to be that the gangs ran things around here, with their own territories. When the Chicago branch of the Russian mob came to town, they made quick work of most of the gangs. There are a couple gangs still clinging to life, but The Hell Brothers is the only one that’s managing to stay afloat. Mostly because Ace seems to be able to outsmart Alexei at every turn.”

  “How do you figure Ace is going to even be able to help us?” Fiona asked skeptically. “I mean, if he can barely keep his own gang from getting destroyed, what hope do we have with him?”

  “He does more than keep The Hell Brothers from getting destroyed. More than once Ace has sold drugs in Alexei’s territory and gotten away with it,” Niko pointed out. “He could be trying to draw Alexei out into an all-out gang war. If he is, maybe our situation could be the exact thing Ace needs to push Alexei over the edge.”

  “That’s what you’re going with? We just walk up and ask him?” Fiona said.

  “As you once said to me, I’m all ears for new ideas,” Niko replied drily.

  “I have an idea!” Fiona cried, frustrated. “You leave town. I leave town. I get the money. I come back. I give Alexei the money. You come back. We all live happily ever after.”

  “Where am I gonna go, Fiona? I can’t sleep in the car—I’m too out in the open. And I can’t stay in a hotel because all of our money is going to Alexei! I should stay here,” he insisted.

  Fiona thought quickly. “You can go stay with Uncle Leon. He lives in Massachusetts. That should be far enough away.”

  “We haven’t seen Uncle Leon in ten years, almost as long as Mom’s been gone. He’s not going to let me stay at his place.”

  “Goddammit, Niko!” Fiona screamed, snapping. “I will fucking call Uncle Leon, okay? I will figure out something to tell him and I will call him. Just promise me you won’t say anything if he calls you by Mom’s maiden name, Carver. You know how he feels about Dad.”

  Niko opened his mouth, but Fiona cut him off. “That’s the end of the conversation, Niko. Go pack. Now.” Almost the entire day had passed. The sun was just beginning to set, and her brother needed to be on his way.

  His shoulders dropped, and he knew he was beat. “I just think—”

  Niko was cut off once again by the sharp tinkling of broken glass. A harsh buzz flew by him, followed by a loud thud coming from the wall behind him. He and Fiona stared at each other for a second, then simultaneously turned to look at the wall they had heard the noise come from.

  There was a small, bullet-sized hole in it. Niko confusedly looked at the window, which was now broken. Fiona’s eyes grew wide as she realized what had happened, what was happening. She grabbed her brother by the collar and yanked him down right as another bullet pierced a second windowpane, burying itself into the drywall right where Niko’s lungs had been.

  They huddled behind the couch, hands over their heads as they listened to multiple shooters send what seemed like an endless hail of bullets, even though from the first to last shot it had probably only been ten seconds. A minute later, they heard someone yell at them from outside.

  “Niko!” the man shouted in a deep, strong voice. “Niko, get out here! It’s time to take your medicine!”

  “That’s Alexei,” Niko whispered, his own voice shaking.

  “I know you’re in there,” the voice called.

  �
��You have to get out somehow,” Fiona whispered back. “We need to create a diversion.”

  “When did you turn into fucking Rambo?” Niko hissed. “A diversion? What exactly would you suggest?”

  “One second.” Fiona took a quick peek over the couch and crawled on her belly to the kitchen, which had managed to avoid most of the damage. She stuck one hand up and grabbed a cupboard door. Niko heard the sound of glass and flinched, thinking the mob had begun shooting again.

  “How about this?” she asked when she came back, grinning wickedly. Fiona had grabbed every bottle she had in her booze cabinet. Even the non-alcoholic mixers.

  “Jesus, Fiona, there’s a lot of liquor here,” he muttered, looking at all of the alcohol. “You want to make Molotov cocktails? Who the fuck are you?” Niko said.

  “I’m your big sister, and I’m gonna take care of you,” Fiona said with a small smile. “And stop swearing,” she added.

  Despite the fact that it had been almost five minutes since they had heard anything from the mob outside, Fiona slid onto her stomach once more and army-crawled to her bathroom. She grabbed a stack of towels and the lighter from behind her scented candles, again making sure to stay low on her way back to the living room. She sat up against the back of the couch with Niko.

  He picked up one of the towels and looked at the thick, fluffy, light pink fabric. “How are we supposed to fit these into the bottles? They’re huge!”

  Fiona sighed and gave her brother a look. “Could you at least try to be helpful?”

  “I’m sorry, Fiona,” Niko said, shaking his head. “But there’s no way we’re going to be able to tear these by hand. Couldn’t you have grabbed some scissors?”

  She stared at him, wondering if handing him over to the Russians wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all. Fiona picked up a bottle of lime juice and poured out its contents into a nearby plant, wrapping it in one of the towels.

  Niko barely had time to ask, “What are you doing?” when she smashed the bottle on the corner of a wall, the towel muffling the sound of breaking glass.

  Gently opening the towel, Fiona carefully selected a sharp piece of glass and used it to shred the other towels into more manageable strips of fabric. Niko, taking her cue, emptied any non-alcoholic bottles and filled them with liquor, creating more missiles.

  “Good idea,” Fiona said.

  He gave her a small smile and began stuffing the pieces of towel Fiona had cut into the bottlenecks. “What do you think they’re doing out there?” he asked her.

  “Probably trying to decide how to get us out of here without being seen by the neighbors. One of them had to have called the cops by now; it’s been at least fifteen minutes since they stopped shooting.” Fiona frowned, realization falling across her face. “I just thought of something—I haven’t heard so much as a siren. Where are the cops?”

  “I told you,” Niko said as he finished putting the last towel strip into the last bottle, “they’ve got William. He probably told his captain he’d check it out and then reported it as fireworks. That’s the usual story they give,” he said bitterly.

  They arranged the bottles and took a look at their handiwork.

  “What now?” Niko asked, looking at his older sister expectantly.

  “Now, you get into my car and wait,” Fiona told him.

  “I wait…until you join me, right?” Niko said.

  Fiona looked at her brother with a sad smile. “Niko, the plan hasn’t changed. You have to go, and I have to stay so I can get the money—either from Dad, or that guy Ace. Don’t worry—they won’t hurt me if they want their money.”

  Niko very strongly doubted that. But he trusted his sister, and though he would never admit it, not even to himself, he was secretly grateful for the extra head start she was giving him, though she was probably going to suffer for it.

  Still, he was terrified for her. “Is it too late for me to tell you this is way too dangerous?” he asked, knowing it was futile.

  “About nineteen years too late,” she replied, kissing his cheek. “Now get going, before they decide to burst in and finish us off. Wait a few seconds after I throw the first one, all right?”

  Niko got into a crouch. “One last thing. If can figure out how to convince him, Ace hangs out at a bar downtown called The Crabtree. It’s a biker bar, so be careful.”

  “Crabtree. Downtown. Check,” Fiona repeated, smiling. “Now, I thought I told you to get going.”

  He took one last look at his sister, then half-walked, half-crawled to the garage door where Fiona’s car was, stretching up to grab the car keys from the key hook.

  “Niko!” Fiona suddenly hissed.

  He looked back at her, nearly falling over she startled him so badly. “What?” he whispered angrily.

  “Don’t open the garage door,” she told him. “You can’t give them any warning where you’re coming from. The security deposit is pretty much fucked at this point anyway.”

  He grinned and gave a thumbs-up. Sneaking into the garage, he quietly shut the door behind him. Fiona waited for a moment, then lit one of the rags hanging from the bottle. She rotated the flame until it had grown strong enough to remain lit even while soaring through the air.

  Slowly pushing one of the couch cushions aside, she tried to get a proper look at the group of men standing outside her home. Two were talking near the walkway to her house, and three or four others hung back, waiting by their cars. Going by Niko’s descriptions, Fiona correctly assumed the white-haired giant standing at the end of her drive with the obnoxiously large diamond earring studs was Alexei. That probably meant the tall, raven-haired man next to him was Vlad.

  Silently thanking her high school guidance counselor for encouraging her to join the tennis team, Fiona carefully took the flaming projectile and hurled it through the window. Since the large front window had been completely shot to shit, she had the perfect opening available to her.

  The bottle lazily flipped end over end, casting a sharp, orange arc against the night sky. It exploded on the ground, blazing shrapnel flying in every direction. One man screamed, and Fiona peeked through the pillows to see one of his pant legs had caught fire.

  So far, none of them had reacted. They were confused by what had just happened, staring at the man on fire. Fiona took this opportunity to light another and send it flying, aiming for the cars. She wanted to remove their ability to chase Niko once he escaped.

  Fiona heard that strong voice ring out once more. Alexei was shouting for his men to hide behind the cars. They scrambled to obey, all except for the man who had caught fire. He was lying in the grass, motionless. If Niko was going to run, now was his best opportunity.

  As though on cue, she heard her car start in the garage, and barely a second later, tires screeching. There was a loud crunching noise, and Fiona watched, amazed, as Niko shot out into the street, the garage door covering the windshield of the car. He struck the front corner of one of the cars and it spun, knocking Vlad to the ground, hard.

  The large metal sheet obstructing Niko’s view slid off, and he cranked the wheel to peel out, speeding down the neighborhood road. Fiona hoped he knew where he was headed.

  Alexei raised his gun, having finally collected himself. Before he could fire, Fiona sent her fourth missile out. A piece of glass flew by, slicing Alexei’s arm, and he shot his gun high into the air. Snarling, he whirled around to face the house and pulled the trigger rapidly.

  Fiona ducked back behind the couch, covering her head with her hands and praying her cover would hold. Lighting another bottle, Fiona waited until there was a pause in the shooting, then quickly popped up to hurl the projectile out the window, immediately ducking back down afterwards.

  This time, no bullets came back at her. Instead, she heard another set of tires squealing. One of the men had jumped into the undamaged car and was racing after Niko. Fiona peered through a space in the cushions. She couldn’t see any of Alexei’s other men, which she thought was probably a bad si
gn.

  Fiona decided it was probably time for her to make her own exit. She began to make her way to the door, bringing a bottle and the lighter with her for insurance. As she crawled towards the back door of her townhome, Fiona saw that it had been jimmied and was slightly open.

  An enormous shadow fell across her, and she heard a deep voice from behind say, “Move, and I kill you.”

  ***

  Fiona froze, one hand poised in the air. If she weren’t very, very careful, Niko would end up an only child.

  “Hello, Fiona,” the voice said.

  It took every ounce of Fiona’s self-control not to turn her head in shock.

  “Yes, I know who you are, Fiona Camilla Brown,” he continued in that cold, hard tone. “Do you know who I am?”

  Fiona didn’t move, terrified to disobey his earlier instructions.