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  “Michael’s in there, with Catherine. Chances are, both of them are about to get taken down.”

  “And neither deserve it, but, with DeeDee, who knows?”

  “I have to go back for Catherine,” he said.

  “And depending on where Michael’s at, for him too. I don’t know how involved he’s been in all of the spider’s webs, but his time has run out,” Fallon said.

  “And it’s probably because of the obvious affection between him and Catherine.”

  “Yeah, I can see that being an issue. Particularly if he refused to do what DeeDee needed him to do today.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  They synced up their watches, and Fallon said, “I wish we had a plan.”

  “The plan is to get in and to get out alive,” Kano said, with half a smile. “You know—our usual stuff.”

  “I hear you,” he said. “It’s just a little bit worrisome.”

  They were already back at the corner. “Did you get hurt at all?”

  “No, they were just having fun, poking and prodding, making sure I knew the end of my days had arrived.”

  “Of course,” he said, “fear tactics. I’m surprised they didn’t just take you out right away.”

  “No, they wanted you. They made that very clear. I wasn’t important enough,” Fallon said, with laughter in his voice.

  Kano shook his head. “Sorry I got you into this.”

  “You didn’t,” he said. “I volunteered. Remember?”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you knew what you were getting into.”

  “With you, it’s always pretty open-ended,” he said. “You have made a few enemies in your life.”

  “We all have,” he said. “Whoever thought it would be like this though?”

  “None of us apparently.” They were at the door where he’d entered.

  “You think it’s safe to go in the front door?”

  “Hell no, it isn’t. There’s a door behind where you were held.”

  “Why didn’t we go out that way?”

  “I figured that’s what they would expect.”

  “Let’s check that out first then. If there’s a welcoming committee, we could cut down the odds nicely.”

  They approached the corner he had mentioned where the door was, and, sure enough, two men stood there. One of them slouched against the back wall of the building, playing with something on his phone.

  “How much longer do you think they’ll be?” the other guy said.

  “Who knows? I would have thought those guys would have gotten out by now.”

  “Unless Michael’s holding them in there. Do we even ask him?”

  “No. We’re under orders not to.”

  The other guy didn’t say a whole lot. “We’re not taking him out too, are we?”

  The guy on his phone looked up, smiled, and said, “What’s it to you?”

  His buddy shrugged. “Nothing. I just kind of liked him.”

  “In this business, you don’t like anybody,” he said, “because, from one day to the next, you got to kill them.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Not up for the job?”

  The other guy looked at him, a studious hard look in his eye.

  The first man immediately shook his head.

  “Of course I’m up for it,” the second guy said. “I’m not a wuss.”

  “Good thing,” he said, “because you know that you’ll be next otherwise.”

  “I’m fine,” he sneered. “I am getting tired of waiting around though.”

  “Deal with it,” he said. “It happens all the time.”

  “Great. Who does such a boring job?” He stretched back, his knee bent against the building, arms crossed over his chest, and closed his eyes.

  “Yeah, catch a snooze while you can,” the other guy snickered. “I won’t tell.”

  “Yeah, you would,” he said, “but I’m not snoozing, just resting my eyes.”

  At that, the other man laughed.

  “Should we be making that kind of noise?”

  “Nobody can hear anything,” the first guy said. “It’s the dead of night and a completely deserted area of town. We’re waiting for two guys to take a moment to break free from inside. I don’t think they’ll be looking at us too carefully.”

  The one guy just nodded and didn’t say a word.

  He kept his arms crossed, but Kano detected a certain edginess in his position. Whether it was the fact that he would be next, if he weren’t up for the job—which should have been an eye-opener for anybody. But it could also be that he was waiting to make sure the two men supposedly exiting from the warehouse were taken out fast. If he were new to the job, he could have been upset over that too, because killing someone was never easy. It did get easier over time.

  At first, there should always be that hesitation to take a life, but some of these guys either didn’t care or didn’t know better. But killing that first man was often enough to make anybody sick. It really brought home mortality and how fragile the nature of life was in a way that most people didn’t expect.

  Kano had had his own moments of realization, but still, he was in the business because he knew his services mattered. Not a whole lot of people liked to hear that because they were stuck in the realm of “The world is a lovely place,” but it wasn’t. It sucked at times, and an awful lot of vipers were out there, just like this spider he’d been dealing with. He couldn’t believe DeeDee had gotten away with what she’d gotten away with for so many years.

  It seemed wrong on so many levels, but it didn’t matter to anybody, and, as long as she could pay off the people who needed to be paid off, she would continue pulling her little shit deals. Kano, for one, would be more than happy to take her out, but he thought it would take a whole lot more than that to take out her business. And, if she died, they wouldn’t get any answers on Bullard and the team.

  DeeDee could be looking out for Bullard herself. But, at the same time, Kano wasn’t sure he trusted that either. Knowing DeeDee, she was looking at how to take over Bullard’s operation. But the team wasn’t up for a takeover like that. They’d probably take her out instead. He had to wonder if anybody on the team could have betrayed them, though it was hard to believe, since they’d all been committed to this thing from day one, and several had been injured already. He immediately discarded the idea. He knew them all personally and had worked with them all for many years.

  It wasn’t something he wanted to even contemplate, but it had happened more than a few times. So betrayal was something they learned to live with, but it was nothing that they could digest easily. If he did find out it was somebody on his team, he would deal with it, slow and sure, and he would make sure his body was never found because that kind of betrayal was not something they could live with. He looked at Fallon, who’d been working his way around into position. At his birdcall, Kano stepped forward and asked the two, “So are you guys looking for me?”

  The one guy opened his eyes, looked at him, and said, “No, should we be?” he sneered. “Who the hell do you think you are anyway?”

  “We were supposed to come through that door,” Kano said, “but we chose another route.” He changed his tone to confidentially friendly and said, “It’s really kind of a sucky way to set a trap, you know?”

  The other guy straightened up and asked, “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Oh, nobody who matters,” he said cheerfully. “Because, once you’ve failed, you’re already done for.”

  “What do you know about this?” the new guy asked curiously.

  “More than you do,” Kano said.

  The two men approached slowly. “Where’s your other friend?”

  “You mean, the guy you kidnapped? See? That’s something we’ll have a little talk about.”

  “Yeah, you and who else?” the one guy sneered.

  “I don’t need anybody else,” he said, “but you picked on a friend of mine, and that’ll never go down wel
l.”

  The second guy just laughed. “As if you’re somebody fancy,” he said. “You’re no different from any other asshole around here.”

  “True enough,” he said, “but some assholes we get to deal with are much better than you.”

  “Right,” he said, with a sneer. “Besides, you can’t do anything to us. It’s two to one.”

  “Right, and you’ve got the guns too?”

  “Sure do,” he said. “That’s how we got your friend so easily. Not that he was hard to take.”

  “Nah, he’s a bit of a wuss that way,” Kano said, enjoying himself, knowing Fallon would be gnashing his teeth at his response. “But that’s alright,” Kano said. “He’s still essentially a good guy.”

  “Bullshit,” he said.

  “Besides, it doesn’t matter,” the first man snapped. “You won’t be leaving here anyway. Then we’ll go grab your friend again.”

  “I don’t think so,” Fallon said from behind him.

  The first man, who’d been on his phone, turned, and glared at him. “So do you really think that if we didn’t take you the first time, we can’t take you the second time?”

  At that, Fallon shook in his hand a two-by-four he’d picked up somewhere. “Oh, I don’t think so,” he said, “and I want a little payback.” The guy with the phone looked at him, and smiled. “Happy to. I haven’t had a good fight in a while.”

  He charged Fallon, but that two-by-four came out with lightning speed. Instead of going higher or for a midsection, he turned it into a bone cracker and brought it down hard on the guy’s kneecap. The big man went down, screaming in agony. But the second blow hit the side of his head, and he shut up immediately.

  At that, Kano looked at the second guy and said, “See? That’s how we do things in our world.”

  The second guy looked around nervously. “Hey, I don’t have anything to do with this.”

  “Yeah, you do,” he said. “I heard quite clearly that you were up for killing the prisoner and the other two people inside, including Michael, who you like. So, if that’s the kind of life you expect to get for yourself, that’s great, but what you’ll end up doing now will land you in jail, where you’ll be dealing with a bunch of murderers, who got nothing better to do but sit there and piss you off every day.”

  “I didn’t do nothing, man,” he said, backing up, his hands out in front of him.

  “How the hell do you think you’ll walk away after kidnapping somebody?”

  “I didn’t know it was kidnapping.”

  “Really? You really don’t know what kidnapping is?”

  At that, Fallon laughed. “Wow, he’s pretty stupid.”

  “That’s okay. He can probably go back to school while he’s in jail,” Kano said, “unless one of the guys kills him first.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa! No, you don’t understand,” he said. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You were part of my kidnapping,” Fallon said. “I can definitely attest to that.”

  “No,” he said, “you were unconscious.”

  “No,” he said, “I only pretended to be unconscious. Anybody in this business knows that you don’t give away all your cards while you’re playing the game.”

  The guy just looked at him, dazed. And that was the opening Kano needed. He reached out with as much force as he needed and hit the man with a hard uppercut to the jaw. The guy’s eyeballs rolled to the back of his head, and he collapsed onto the concrete.

  Chapter 12

  “So will you let me leave?” Catherine asked Michael, studying the man she’d known all her life. He’d been a stalwart presence. A comfortable substitute parent for her mother.

  He looked at her in surprise. “Of course,” he said, “you’re free to leave.”

  “And what about Mom?”

  He nodded slowly. “I’ve been wondering about that myself,” he said. “I was expecting two guys.”

  “What are the chances of them coming to take you out?”

  “I hope not,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets, but he wasn’t ignoring her or her concerns. “I guess it’s something I didn’t want to look at.”

  “Of course not,” she said, “but …” And she let her voice trail off here.

  “You don’t want me killed. I know,” he said. “I don’t want that either.”

  “Come with me,” she said. “You don’t have to put up with this anymore.”

  He gave her a sad smile. “But there’s always that hope,” he murmured.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “There isn’t.”

  “I’d have to know for sure.”

  She winced at that. “That could be a pretty ugly scenario.”

  “It could be,” he said. “I would hate it to be but—” He looked around, frowning.

  “Where are they?” she asked.

  “Where are any of them?” he murmured. “Your friends or mine.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “but we’ve been apparently on the wrong side of each other for a long time.”

  “Nope,” he said, “you were always part of the family.”

  “But even you said I should leave and get free of all this.”

  “I did,” he said, nodding. “It’s no life for a young girl.”

  “Yet trying to get free hasn’t been easy,” she said.

  “Why did you even contact her again?” he asked.

  “She called me. She couldn’t wait to tell me that Kano had come to town to see her. When I found out they were having dinner, I invited myself. Now I just want her to leave him alone and to give us a chance to see if we have anything left of a life.”

  “That’s just rubbing her nose in it.”

  “No,” she said quietly. “I want to explore the idea of making a life with the man I love. The man I’ve always loved.”

  “I don’t think she’ll ever accept that. Not only did you go against her wishes but you chose somebody she especially doesn’t want you to deal with. Plus, he’s the one who changed everything between the two of you.”

  “I know,” she said sadly. “But, at the same time, I’m not sure I can ever reconcile myself to my mother. She’s likely to go to jail anytime for her ex-husbands’ deaths,” she said. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

  “Maybe find some forgiveness in your heart,” he said, with a tired smile.

  “Right,” she said, as she walked to the front door. “I’ll leave now,” she said. “I still wish you would come with me, Michael.”

  “I don’t think I can,” he said.

  She nodded. “It’s nice to know that you’re loyal, right to the end, I guess.”

  “I’m loyal to you too,” he said, his voice breaking. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “If somebody told you that you had a chance to be with somebody you really cared about, and, for you to do it, you had to walk away, what would you do?”

  He gave her the sweetest of smiles. “I’d hold open the door for you, if that’s how you really feel.”

  “It’s how I really feel, Michael,” she murmured.

  He sighed, nodded. “Fine, you must go,” he said. “I’ll take the fall.”

  She winced at that. “That’s not what I want you to do.”

  “Somebody has to take the fall,” he said, “and failure is not an option.”

  She stared at him, tears in her eyes. “It can’t be like this,” she said. “There’s got to be another way.”

  “Not with your mother,” he said. “There’s absolutely nothing for her but black-and-white.”

  “Do you know anything about the Bullard mess?” she asked suddenly.

  “No,” he said, “other than she was trying to find out because it’s Bullard.”

  “And the rogue guys in your company?”

  “That’s what she thinks it is, but we’re not sure.”

  “Nobody working on it?”

  “She was.” Michael looked at Catherine sideways. “Do you really think DeeDee w
ould have done that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I hope not, but my concern is getting Kano and Fallon out of here. And they won’t stop until they find out what happened. Bullard isn’t just any old boss. He’s been a very good friend. And there have been subsequent attacks on the team as well.”

  “That all makes it tougher too,” Michael said. “Whenever something like this happens, there’ll always be somebody who wants retribution.”

  “I know,” she said, “and somehow I have to find my way through that too.”

  “And how is it you can find your way through for Kano but not for your mother?”

  She stopped at that and winced. “Hopefully I won’t have to find my way through it for him either,” she said quietly. “I would hate for him to kill anybody, if it wasn’t in self-defense.”

  “And you could still live with it, if it weren’t?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said, “but I have to understand that there are gray areas.”

  “And that brings us back to your mother,” he murmured.

  “Yes, and no,” she said, with a smile, “because, in my mother’s case, that’s a whole different game. And she still has those two ex-husbands—or apparently maybe three. Who even really knows?”

  “I’m not so sure she killed them,” he said.

  “Has she killed anybody?”

  At that, he stopped and sealed his lips.

  “Exactly. If not in self-defense, I think it would be hard for me to find my way through that.”

  “You would be happier if your world wasn’t quite so black-and-white,” he murmured.

  “Maybe,” she said, “but that’s kind of hard.”

  “Maybe you’re a lot more like your mother than you thought.”

  “No,” she said, with half a smile. “I don’t think so. I think it’s very much a case of me trying to get clear of this.”

  “You didn’t pick a partner who will allow you to get clear.”

  “I think you’re wrong there,” she said. “No.” She stopped, smiled, and added, “I know you’re wrong. I do know who Kano is inside. And he’s not a murderer.”

  “You can’t be sure of that,” he said. “Look at the work he does.”

  “I can be sure of it,” she said, feeling the conviction growing inside her. “I’m not sure where this will all end up. But I know I don’t want to waste any more time. We’ve lost years and years, and part of that was my fault. But I don’t want it to continue to hold us back.”