Hard to Stop Page 20

  Had to do this my way. M

  Damn him. She should have known he'd try to go it alone. All the planning and plotting he'd done with her had been a ruse.

  Good thing she'd spirited away Jennings's number when Max was in the shower the other night. Now, if she could only get to her cell phone…

  * * *

  Max's fingers twitched as he shifted the bag over his shoulder. He'd parked the rental about a half mile away and walked through the woods toward the deserted farmhouse. The meet time wasn't for another couple of hours, but he had no doubt they'd already set up a perimeter. Nobody of that ilk—including himself—ever played by the rules. Agreements flew out the window. Which was why he knew they'd kill Gianna rather than pay her the twenty million. The last few days had allowed reflexes he'd abandoned long ago to come back with a vengeance. For the first time in a very long while, he felt in his element. This time it felt okay to be a killer. He used the binoculars he'd procured to check for lookouts. This wouldn't be a one-person operation, despite Cleo's protests to the contrary.

  It wasn't long before he spotted the first person. They'd set up watch in a lower branch of one of the trees outside the property—like a hunter might hang out in a tree stand. It was impossible to tell if the lookout was male or female from his distance, as the person was covered head to toe with some kind of camo getup.

  He considered his options for less than thirty seconds before he aimed. Long-range sniper shots weren't his forte, but the margin for error was diminishing. He needed to get this right the first time. And this was about survival, not some twisted game of brainwashing. His hands were surprisingly steady when he braced the butt of the rifle in his shoulder and squeezed off the shot.

  The body crumpled off the stand, landing soundlessly on the leaf-covered ground.

  Done.

  One down. An indeterminate number left to go.

  He trudged to the spot where the body had fallen and dragged him—he had confirmed now that it was a he—further into the woods. Leaving him lying there wasn't a risk he wanted to take now. Sooner or later somebody would realize this guy was MIA, but he'd just as soon it be later.

  That perimeter location had been easy enough to sniff out. The others lying in wait wouldn't be that simple. He crept closer and adjusted the binoculars to examine the front of the ramshackle home. Two floors and no lights visible. They could be anywhere. Nothing from here on in would be easy.

  From his estimation, the sun would be up in about forty-five minutes. And going in blind wasn't ideal for what he had in mind. Instead, he hunkered against the closest tree and kept his night-vision binoculars affixed to his face. Sooner or later somebody would come looking for tree guy. He only needed to be patient.

  About ten minutes later, another person of indeterminate gender exited the home. Based on the size, he'd guess another man. Wouldn't surprise him, considering Cleo's past history of wrapping men around her finger.

  The guy scanned the perimeter of the building but didn't call for his buddy. Probably figured out Max was close by. The guy grabbed binoculars and focused on the tree the guy Max had taken down had been waiting in. Max had to assume they were night vision as well.

  Crap. He'd just lost the miniscule advantage he'd possessed.

  The guy did a sweep with the binoculars of the surrounding ground. Max rocked the rifle against his shoulder and waited. A slight shift to the left, and he'd have him in the target range. But patience seemed to be his worst enemy as the man stayed behind the front porch pillar.

  Max sucked in a slow breath and waited for the opportunity. One mistake. That was all he needed. But time wasn't on his side. The sun would be up shortly.

  The guy turned to return to the house and exposed himself for a fraction of a second.

  Done.

  Two down.

  But now things got a whole lot more complicated. It would be difficult to ignore a dead body blocking the front door. Whoever was left would come after him, and the rifle wouldn't help. He disassembled the rifle and put it in his duffel. Keeping them at bay would require a much-different skill set.

  * * *

  Damn him.

  Gia fought with the combination of fear and anger that warred inside. Most of the anger was directed at herself. She should have known he'd never let her come along. He was stubborn enough to think he could do it all himself.

  She yanked at the handcuffs attached to the wooden frame without success. Yep, that would have been way too easy. When she hopped out of bed and tried to drag the bed toward her purse and phone, that didn't work either. It was too heavy and cumbersome to get far.

  Instead, she shoved her shoulder into the bedframe, making it crash against the wall. Max said the walls were made of concrete. With enough force and determination, eventually she could break through the wooden frame. Or maybe not. Either way, it was the only thing she could think to do for the time being.

  * * *

  Instincts Max had long since abandoned kept him vigilant as he walked through the woods surrounding the farmhouse. He held the two 9mms close to him—along with spare clips, two knives within convenient reach, and a couple of flash bangs—as he sprinted toward the structure. The element of surprise was blown after he'd taken out that last guy, so he figured he might as well come in guns blazing.

  He hit the door with a kick aimed at the flimsy lock. The door fell open, bringing a part of the frame along with it. He came in like Antonio Banderas in Desperado—except in dark-colored head-to-toe camo. No doubt Gianna would laugh hysterically at the comparison.

  A knife sprang from the right, lodging into the wood and missing his shoulder by an inch. He turned and fired in that direction. The nerves in his shoulders and arms tingled. It was kill or be killed. Nothing simpler than that.

  Something resembling a war whoop split the air before Max got tackled to the ground. A knife glimmered in the paltry light seconds before it came toward his face. He twisted out of the way and rebounded to a standing position.

  Adrenaline more than exertion caused his labored breathing as he tore through the narrow hallways searching for the knife thrower. He followed footsteps trailing up the stairway. Night-vision goggles helped him avoid missing steps and holes, but his peripheral vision suffered. He reached the landing and heard a door slam shut down the hall.

  Only a rookie would be naïve enough to follow the red herring. Instead, he worked through a strategy taught to him by Petrovich. Odds were the person who utilized the door distraction was close. More than likely, the attacker waited in one of the rooms on either side, trying to draw him in with the diversion.

  Most people favored right as a normal course of action, but Petrovich would have encouraged his recruits to go left. As his own form of distraction, Max unleashed a couple of rounds of bullets into the room with the closed door, then went left.

  Inside, the pervasive dark made it impossible to see. Night-vision goggles weren't much help. The rush of air preceded by milliseconds the board that caught his blind side. Luckily, the blow missed his head, crashing against his shoulder.

  No real damage, but the pain tingled all the way down his arm to his fingers.

  This time he was prepared when the whoosh of air preceded another blow, and he ducked out of the away. Sounds of feet scrambling along the hardwood floor had him releasing a couple of rounds in that general direction. The grunt of pain gave him little satisfaction. It meant the knife thrower was still alive.

  Failure is not an option, as Petrovich used to say. That adage rang true. Especially now. He'd redirected the hatred he had for one man toward the woman who'd brought hell down on him and his family. She was more than the enemy right now. Cleo stood for everything he despised about himself.

  A concerted effort to decimate the Shaw legacy would not be tolerated. He needed to end this once and for all.

  "You're not getting out of here alive, Cleo. I promised two people long ago that I would protect my family, and I've done that since I was tw
elve. Maybe it's because that whole family thing is so elusive to you that you don't understand the concept." He made his way through the home. Why she hadn't shot at him could be for any number of reasons.

  It. Stops. Right. Here.

  No other way to play this.

  A bullet nicked his bicep, and he dropped one of his guns.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  This was going all kinds of wrong.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes. And a baseball-sized divot in the concrete. Tears of frustration leaked out of her eyes. The sturdy pine frame still in one piece. Her arm was already forming bruises from her shoulder clear through to her elbow.

  And she was stuck while Max went alone to a situation that would surely get him killed. She had little doubt that he hadn't contacted The Alliance. He had this warped sense of responsibility for things that were out of his control.

  She stretched her fingers to the nightstand on his side and opened the drawer. Besides a box of condoms, there was something that looked suspiciously like it might be a hotline directly to the powers that be at The Alliance.

  It felt like her arm might come out of her socket when she stretched to touch the keypad, dialing zero because she didn't know what else to do.

  "This is Jennings."

  She felt like weeping. "This is Gianna. Max is in trouble. He's going to need some help."

  "I was afraid of that. Give me the address, and I'll send some people."

  "They've got to pick me up first."

  "Understood."

  "And bring something to unlock the fancy cuffs you guys at The Alliance have."

  * * *

  The thump of his heart rushed through his body into his ears. Going back to his roots didn't feel slimy any longer. It felt like the right thing to do. Presenting a persona that was perfect was an illusion he'd created for himself to circumvent who he'd been. Until he respected that imperfect part of him, he couldn't heal. He was imperfect. And that was okay. It was as important as the other parts of him that he embraced.

  All the faces of the people he'd wronged swam before his eyes as he raced after what could only be redemption. It felt good to be entering the realm of final closure in this mad game he'd constructed for himself when he made a decision no twelve-year-old boy should ever have to make. None of this was his fault. But he was bound and determined to end this thing once and for all.

  The booming of his heart inside his chest was the only thing he could sense for the time being. Anything else was superficial and unimportant. Securing Cleo was the only thing that mattered. And it would happen. The Shaw itch confirmed that.

  He could picture his parents and remembered those times of happiness. Everything they did or said crystallized inside his mind. Their kindness, their patience, and all those admirable qualities he'd dismissed once he'd found out what they'd done in the past. He'd never considered the part where they had needed to do what they'd done for survival. His blatant disregard for that had rattled around inside his brain, bringing him to a dark place many times. But now it all seemed more than obvious who and what it was all about. They did what they had to do. Just like he had done.

  There was murder for the sake of murder. And then there was murder for the sake of survival. They were two different animals born of the same beast, related but at the same time starkly different in feel, in sentiment, in conviction. He was so different than the man who created him, and he would always be different.

  This was about who Max was at his core—a good, solid human being who cared about people and their well-being. He wasn't Petrovich and never would be. And neither were his parents. Or his siblings. They were as starkly different as people could be born as human beings. He had a heart and soul. Petrovich had neither.

  He pushed those thoughts from his mind and allowed the old him to take over his awareness. He sniffed the air and caught her scent. It was an unusual mix of sandalwood and evergreen, like she'd been hiding in the woods.

  She was close. He felt it with every beat of his heart, every muscle in his body. Trained like a sniper, he'd once sat unmoving for a half a day. With Cleo's jittery behavior, she couldn't stand still for more than a few moments at most.

  The Alliance had his back, but not if they didn't know where he was. But that was all right. He came into this alone. It would be only fitting for him to finish it alone. He couldn't risk anyone else's life.

  Faint sounds of breathing seemed to echo in the cavernous place. Maybe his hearing was playing tricks on him. But the slide of a shoe against the cement floor echoed to pinpoint her location.

  He held his breath to eliminate distractions.

  One.

  More.

  Second.

  He lunged toward where he thought she hid and caught her as she rushed away. She kicked and hit him in the jaw, but he held tight. "We're done with this, Cleo. There's a substantial reward on your head, you know. I think I'll take my share and donate it. What do you think?"

  "I think you're never going to take me alive."

  "You sound like one of those old-time westerns."

  Max would have sworn the person came out of nowhere when he got tackled and brought to the ground. While it was difficult to trade punches in a prone position, it wasn't impossible. He took an uppercut to the chin that rocked him, but he gave back twice as hard. Gaining the dominant position took some time, but he subdued his attacker—who wasn't a woman. He reached into his pocket to grab his knife but stopped when the tip of a gun pressed against his temple.

  "Get up, Mr. Shaw." Cleo. "Put these on him." She handed the guy some plastic handcuffs, then rubbed the point of the gun along Max's cheek and back again.

  Two people. He should have known. "I figured you'd come out sooner or later."

  "How dare you try to kill my father." Her voice echoed through the small space as she revealed herself. His eyes adjusted to the meager light, as his night-vision goggles were long gone, having come off some time during the struggle.

  "That's funny. I was trying to figure out why you'd try to kill my whole family as well." Max shrugged even as he tried to pull at the bindings.

  "You reap what you sow, Shaw."

  "If you know so much about my family, you know that we were ordered to kill your father. It wasn't a choice we had."

  "But in the end you left without obtaining your objective, didn't you?"

  "Actually, we achieved something better—freedom. You should try it some time. That revenge stuff takes a whole lot of energy. You'd be wise to give it up before it kills you in the end. It's only a matter of time before you get taken down. Being on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list puts a big target on your head."

  "Forgiveness is for sissies. An eye for an eye, as the saying goes."

  "You waited a long time to exact your revenge. Why?"

  The sound of her laughter sent a shiver up his spine. "I like the game of cat and mouse, in case you haven't noticed. It's so much more fun to watch your enemy squirm than to eliminate them right off the bat. Where's the fun in that? Unlike your sister, who tends to be impulsive, I'm a patient woman."

  "Don't use your name and my sister in the same sentence. It pisses me off. You two aren't even of the same species." She'd struck a nerve with him, as was no doubt her objective.

  "Aren't you sweet, defending your sister like that. But after I kill you, I'll be going after her and Jake, so never fear—you'll all be together in hell, where you all belong."

  "Really? I think I'll bring you there with me. How about that?"

  "How are you going to manage that? Your guns are gone. There are two of us and one of you. You're screwed, Mr. Shaw." She cackled. "You have everyone convinced you're this badass—invincible—when in reality you're nothing but a blowhard. Nothing you've done in your lifetime has been anything worthwhile or of note. You ran away from Petrovich like a scared little boy. You let your sister and brother save your life when you should have died."

  "That's kind of what family does.
Something you know nothing about. Obviously." Suddenly everything clicked together inside his head. More than anything, Cleo was jealous of what he had with Jake and Sabrina. No doubt she'd inherited the crazy gene from her father. Why should he be surprised at her current state of insanity? "I know a lot of things about you, Cleo, but innovation is not one of them. Your father worked with Petrovich and was the last of his ilk. I believe you killed your own remaining brother, if I'm not mistaken."

  "Where did you hear that load of trash?" The uptick in her pulse showed through her thready voice. He'd struck a nerve. If he kept going with the trajectory of the conversation, she'd do something stupid, and he could pounce before she could get a shot off.

  Two of them. One of him. No weapon. Hands tied behind his back. Things couldn't get much worse.

  "I have friends in high places, in case you haven't figured that out yet." He needed to keep provoking her. Taking care of the lackey at her side wouldn't be nearly as difficult as overcoming her.

  "More like friends in low places." Her lips trembled before she sucked them inside. Maybe she was coming down from whatever drug she might have taken. Based on what he knew about her, half of her craziness was drug induced.

  "Nope. I believe that's you." Max tsked. "Killing your own brother is pretty low. What a sick man your father must have been to breed such despicable creatures. Rumor has it he killed your mother as well. In a way, I feel sorry for you. You are a product of your inferior genes, just like I'm a product of my superior genes."

  She growled, then aimed just to the left of his head and fired. The bullet whizzed past Max's ear. "My father did not kill my mother. That's a bunch of lies. Never. He loved my mother."

  "Whatever you say. You are entitled to your own delusions, by the way. I've heard you have quite a few."

  "Stop trying to unhinge me. It's not going to work."

  "That's true. You're already unhinged."