Loose And Easy Read online

  Getting the Ranger out of the warehouse, where he could scout the building and find Esme, was precisely what they needed. Getting Burt out of the warehouse was simply the best Dax could do for his uncle under the current circumstances. There was no calling an ambulance down into this mess. He wasn’t too concerned about losing the two gang members. If anything started to happen, he would just as soon not have two unknown shooters at his back. And if anything started to happen, there was going to be shooting.

  Bleak had his Aunt Beth.

  It was her name tag Easy had left on the floor.

  Dax was guessing Beth was being held in the warehouse somewhere, probably through the door where that big guy had gone to get Uncle Burt, and that real big guy was undoubtedly still with her, and that was the threat Bleak had used to get Easy to go up those stairs with him.

  His bad girl could take Bleak. The problem was his sweet Aunt Beth. She couldn’t take anybody, and Dax didn’t know what kind of shape she might be in after a night of Bleak’s hospitality. Judging by Uncle Burt, his hopes weren’t too high.

  This was bad.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  This was horrifying, Esme thought, looking down into Bleak’s betting room from his office and seeing her mother handcuffed and taped to a chair. She’d been hurt, and it was all Esme could do to keep from pounding on the window and yelling that she’d be okay, her girl was here to save her.

  But Esme was currently frozen in place, and she needed just a second to pull herself together.

  Franklin Bleak had his hand on her ass.

  There they were, the two of them standing at the window, and Bleak opening up the blinds to show her his big surprise, and in her first moment of shock at seeing her mother so poorly mistreated, the bastard had grabbed her ass.

  He was still grabbing it. She could feel all five of his fingers and his palm pressing into her. It was his fourth mistake, and the whole thing was just lose, lose, lose for him from here on out.

  “Take her out to the van. We’ll meet you there in a couple of minutes.” Bleak was on the phone to Eliot, who Esme could see crouched behind her mother, cutting away at the tape holding her to the chair. He’d already uncuffed her arms, which tactically wasn’t the advantage it should have been. Her mother was either in shock, or her arms had fallen asleep, because she wasn’t moving, not until Eliot finished with the tape and hauled her to her feet, and even then, she wasn’t exactly moving, just swaying, until she started to collapse. Eliot caught her, threw her over his shoulder, and headed out a door leading to the outside on the south side of the building.

  “So where are we going?” she asked, though she already knew the answer-nowhere. Whatever was going to happen, she was going to make damn sure it happened right here, where she still had backup and a chance.

  “ Mexico,” Bleak said, giving her ass a little pat before he turned away and started across the office. “I’ve got a place down there on the beach.”

  “I like Mexico,” she said, not taking her eyes off her mother until the door closed behind her and Eliot.

  “You’ll really like my place.” Bleak gave a little chuckle, and Esme turned. “I’ve got maid service and a pool.”

  He really was crazy. He’d kidnapped her mother, and he thought she’d like his place on the beach?

  He knelt down in front of a very large floor safe and started dialing in a combination, and she tallied it up as mistake number five, right after kidnapping her mother, beating her father, blackmailing her, and assuming she either wasn’t armed or didn’t have the sense to take the initiative. He glanced back once, but the only possible reason he could have for taking his eyes off her for even one second was that he didn’t consider her a threat.

  He was wrong.

  She moved and had her gun jammed up against the back of his skull before he had the safe door open, exactly where it would have been if he’d taken his eyes off her or not.

  “Get facedown on the floor.”

  He started to splutter, and she pushed the gun harder against him. He’d either get the picture, or he wouldn’t. The choice was his.

  He chose to lie down on the floor, exactly as she’d ordered, which saved his life. She didn’t have time to mess around with him, not with her mother outside and in Eliot’s clutches. She didn’t have any handy restraints on her, either, but it didn’t slow her down.

  With the gun still pressed against the bottom of Bleak’s skull, she slipped her knife off her skirt and thumbed it open. She made two quick cuts, slicing the backs of each of his sleeves and a little bit of him in the bargain.

  He squirmed and squealed, and she’d had enough.

  “I’d just as soon blow your brains out here, Bleak, as turn you over to the cops, so shut up and put your hands together.” He’d either obey, and she’d tie him, or he wouldn’t, and she’d shoot him. He seemed to get the message.

  He held his hands together, and she wrapped one slit-open sleeve around both his elbows, the silk tightening as it twisted. Then she cold-cocked him with her pistol, knocking him out.

  In seconds, she was through the door leading to the room where her mother had been held, and she was running down the stairs.

  The minute Johnny got through the door to the outside, he peeled off from the “Let’s Rescue Burt Alden” group and started down the loading docks. Burt Alden was on his own with two Crazy Spider boys, and Johnny wished him the best of luck. From the looks of him, he was going to need it.

  All Johnny needed was Esme.

  There were no outside windows on the warehouse, except for in some of the doors, and what Johnny was looking for was a door on the south side, the side Esme was in.

  Now that they’d met face-to-face, so to speak, that bastard Bleak was at the goddamn top of his freaks and perverts list, and his skin was crawling just thinking about her being alone with the guy.

  At the corner of the building, he slid up next to the wall and looked to see what was on the other side. Lights from the parking lot in front didn’t reach back this far, and it was dark except for one bare bulb hanging over a closed door.

  He avoided looking at the light and instead looked beyond it. He could hear someone walking, but didn’t hear any taps, so he knew it wasn’t Bleak. Silently, he dropped off the side of the docking bay and crouched low to the ground. One of Bleak’s white vans with his logo on it was parked about ten yards from the door with the light above it, and once Johnny slipped into the shadows away from the building and along a fence enclosing Bleak’s property, he could look back and see the man heading toward the van.

  It was the fighter, and he was carrying something, a woman, but it wasn’t Esme. This woman was heavier, not by much, but she was definitely rounder and more softly built than Esme, and she was dressed in scrubs. The fighter opened the back doors on the van and unceremoniously dumped the woman inside. Johnny didn’t know who she was, but she hadn’t been struggling, and wasn’t moving, which made him think she was out cold, and there was just something about putting an unconscious woman in the back of a panel van that didn’t set right with him, especially by a guy the likes of the fighter.

  He moved quickly and silently along the fence, getting into position, when the back door of the warehouse swung open.

  “Eliot!” Esme yelled, her gun drawn and aimed. He didn’t know at what the hell what. Standing in the light, looking out into the darkness, she couldn’t be seeing a damn thing. It was just too damn dark, a new-moon night with the sun not quite breaking the horizon.

  The fighter stopped and turned. Johnny could see the expression on his face, and it was one of confusion again.

  “Let my mother go!” Esme said, her voice carrying across the lot, her steps carrying her down the side of the building.

  Her mother, Beth Alden? Franklin Bleak had been damn busy tonight.

  “Where’s Mr. Bleak?” the fighter, Eliot, asked, his confusion turning into belligerence.

  “He’s on his way down, but he wants my
mother to stay here. He’s not taking her to Mexico with us.”

  Oh, hell, no, Johnny thought. No women from here were going to Mexico tonight.

  “Walk away from the van, Eliot,” Esme said, continuing to move away from the light, he was sure in an effort to see her opponent more clearly. “Mr. Bleak wants you back up in his office. He needs help with the money.”

  Nice try, but actually, Esme was not a very convincing liar.

  “No,” Eliot said, a little unsurely. He was facing Esme, but reached back into the van and threaded his fingers through Esme’s mother’s hair before taking a strong, one-handed grip on her head. “Mr. Bleak told me to snap her neck, if things went wrong, and I think this is wrong.”

  And that’s what came from thinking-trouble.

  Johnny raised his pistol, lining up on Eliot’s head and moving forward. If the bastard made another move, he was dead.

  And the bastard did, but it wasn’t to snap Beth Alden’s neck. With his attention on Esme, the fighter slowly slid his other hand to his waist, thumbing aside his jacket, his hand open. The instant Johnny saw the guy’s gun, he fired.

  Eliot dropped like a stone, his pistol never leaving its holster.

  Inside the warehouse, three of Bleak’s guys scattered like rats at the sound of gunfire, all of them heading in some fashion toward the loading docks door, leaving Dax and Duce squared off with Dovey Smollett and some big guy in a Chicago Bears jacket. But it wasn’t a contest. Within a split second of the gunshot, Dax had drawn his pistol, getting the drop on everybody, and was moving toward the back of the warehouse.

  “Duce, you cover them.”

  “I’m cool,” the Locos shot caller said, drawing a big, old, unwieldy but intimidating “Dirty Harry”.357 Magnum out of the back of his pants.

  Gangsters, Dax thought.

  White boys, Duce thought, barely holding off from a grin. He had two of them in his sights, two of Bleak’s. That jerk, to think he was going to pull off a coke deal in Duce’s backyard with the Parkside

  Bloods looking on.

  Bleak was fucking nuts.

  And he’d gone up those stairs with a duffel bag full of eighty-two thousand dollars.

  Duce liked that. He liked it a lot. He liked it so much, he was going to take his.357 and go give Franklin asshole Bleak a little visit.

  But he owed Dax Killian, so he stayed put right up until Dax went through that back door, and then Duce moved out, running about half sideways to keep his gun leveled at the two white boys.

  The big guy lifted his hands with a phone in one, which was nice, real polite. Little old Dovey Smollett was shaking so bad, Duce doubted if he’d be raising anything for a while.

  “Hey,” the guy in the damn Chicago Bears jacket said. Didn’t he know he was in Bronco country? “Can I call my girl? I’m running late, and uh, she gets real mean if I’m late.”

  Jerk white boys, couldn’t even keep their women in line.

  “Sure, cabrón, call your woman.”

  The guy hit a speed dial, and man, his woman must have been sitting on her phone, she answered so fast.

  “Loretta,” the guy said. “Honey baby, this party is almost over, been some real noise out here. If you want to see me, you better be ready now… sure, baby. See you soon.”

  Honey baby? Duce liked that. He thought his Carmelita might like honey baby, too. He knew she’d like the eighty-two thousand.

  When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he started sidestepping up, keeping his gun on those two white boys the whole way.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Oh, my, God-Esme moved even faster down the side of the building, heading for the corner, which she hoped would provide her with some cover. She’d just gotten Eliot lined up in her sights, when the other shot had been fired and Eliot had disappeared from her field of view.

  “Esme,” a voice called out, and she stopped cold.

  Oh, my, God-relief flooded through her. It was Johnny.

  She started forward, running toward the van, when his voice stopped her.

  “Go get Solange, bring her around. I’ll get your mom.”

  “Is she-”

  “Fine,” he said. “She’s fine, but we need to leave, now. Oh, hell.”

  “What?” she called out, backpedaling for a moment, but still heading around the corner for the Cyclone. With Bleak out cold and Eliot dead, she couldn’t imagine that Dovey or those other guys were going to give them too much trouble about getting her dad and getting the hell out of here.

  “I can smell the cops coming, that’s all. Come on, Esme, move.”

  She did, breaking into a run. He’d left the keys in the ignition, and she didn’t have any trouble firing the Cyclone up and finding reverse. She hit the lights, and after a few feet, spun the wheel and eased back around the corner, until she came to a stop at the van. She threw the shifter into neutral and pushed down the parking brake.

  Eliot was everywhere, literally, but she didn’t dwell on it. Snap her mother’s neck? She didn’t think so, and she was oh, so grateful to Johnny for keeping that from happening. If he hadn’t, she would have-and there still would have been Eliot everywhere.

  Between the two of them, they got her mom into the passenger seat, and Esme was about to crawl into the backseat, when the warehouse door opened and another shaft of light fell out on the Cyclone.

  “Are we clear?” Dax asked, his gaze catching hers.

  “Clear,” she said.

  “And the money?”

  “Up the stairs behind you. In a duffel on the floor in Bleak’s office, next to him.”

  The door closed again, and she and Johnny both got in the rumbling Cyclone.

  “Where’s my dad?” she asked.

  “On his way to the hospital in Duce’s Escalade.”

  Thank God. Esme allowed herself another moment of relief. Now all they needed was Dax and to get the hell out of here.

  Dax ran up the stairs, burst through the door, and immediately saw Bleak bleeding and tied on the floor, out cold.

  He couldn’t help but grin. His bad girl was so good, and he was so proud of her.

  He snatched up the duffel and turned to leave, when the other door in Bleak’s office opened, and suddenly, there he was in a true Mexican standoff. Duce stood in the doorway, his.357 in his hand, and a whole lot of “what the fuck am I gonna do now” on his face.

  “You let those guys go?” Dax asked, and Duce shrugged, but he still had his.357.

  Yeah, that’s the way this was going to go down. Goatfuck all the way. He didn’t want to kill Duce, not for money, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let Duce kill him.

  “Let’s call it good,” Dax suggested, unzipping the bag and without a moment’s hesitation or even bothering to look, he reached in and pulled out ten thousand dollars. He’d counted it. He knew exactly what was in each bundle and he had four bundles of twenty-five hundred in his hand.

  He put the cash on the floor.

  “Let’s call it good,” he repeated, and at Duce’s short nod, he turned and left-a done deal.

  He all but slid down the stairs, crossed the betting room on a running stride, and hit the door with enough force to knock it back on its hinges, and he no sooner cleared the door than he heard two things-the rumbling roar of Johnny revving up the Cyclone, and the sound of sirens closing in.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Esme hurt all over from lack of sleep, and lack of food, and a whole damn night spent running around in a pair of three-inch heels, and yet she had a smile on her face. Her father wasn’t close to dying. Other than a broken arm and three cracked ribs, he was going to live long enough for her to personally kill him, unless her mother got to him first.

  Johnny’s driving had revived her mother while they’d still been on their way to the hospital. About the second rubber-burning, tire-squealing turn, she’d come out of her faint enough to grab onto the console, and by the time they’d hit eighty miles an hour on a Commerce City street, s
he’d had enough blood and adrenaline pumping through her to talk, though she hadn’t said much beyond “Slow down!” and “Watch out!” and “God save me!”

  The doctor had checked her out anyway, and given her a clean bill of health, and as soon as Dax came back to get them, Esme was taking her mother home.

  And when she went back to Seattle, she was taking her mother back with her, at least for a couple of weeks. Her father was either going to have to figure out his gambling problems or go it alone, and Esme didn’t have a clue which way it would all end up. But she was never going through this again. She hoped her mother decided the same.

  She checked her phone-7:25 A.M. Johnny had gone to a meeting, of all things, and promised he’d call her when it was over. God, she was thinking about him. Johnny Ramos, U.S. Army Ranger. The night had been wild, the sex amazing, and it all felt so right. It felt like love, which was crazy in one night, except he’d been a part of her life since she’d been thirteen years old, the part she’d longed for, and to be with him had felt so right, so easy.

  She’d already told Dax she was staying in Denver for a week or two, just taking some time off. She needed to see where this all went. To bed, for sure, but maybe someplace else as well.

  She checked her phone again-7:26 A.M. Johnny had thought his meeting would wind up by nine. Dax had said he’d be back before eight, and after dropping her and her mom off, he was headed to the airport, where he was going to see if he could track down Warner’s jet, see when it had come in and when it had left, then back to Seattle, and from there to Singapore.

  But she was staying in Denver.

  She took another quick glance at her watch-