24. Chapter 24

twenty-four

Athena

L ucas was struggling, that much was obvious. I didn’t know how he stayed conscious for as long as he did. Even though he was free, he was still in danger, and Lombardi was about to aim a second kick at him.

I met Lucas’s eyes, studied his face, but the arrogant little ass just winked at me from the dirty ground.

This was not a funny situation. I would not laugh at the silly grin he gave me, especially when the grin was interrupted by a cough, the second kick landing somewhere along his spine.

“Ready to get out of there, baby?” he asked, voice strained.

“Absolutely. Wanna tell me how you did it?” I asked, trying to keep my cool. If he wanted to pretend he wasn’t getting his ass kicked I’d go along with it. I was ready to do some serious ass kicking of my own. Lombardi was rounding Lucas’s body, and leaned forward to throw a punch at his face. Luke dodged the worst of it by rolling over again, but still spat out a bit of blood before he could speak properly .

“It’s easy. I bet you can get it on the first try.” Another kick landed in his stomach, but he absorbed most of it by curling further into a ball. Sometimes you couldn’t be on the offensive, and defensive moves had to do. “Push your chest out as far as possible. Widen your shoulders. You want to a big frame.”

I did as he said, imagining a large grizzly. Ignoring the pained grunt he let out when Leo Lombardi kicked him a fourth time, shouting at him to shut up, I waited for him to recover and give me the next set of directions.

“Once the tension is as tight as possible use one quick motion. Throw the whole weight of your body forward, bending at the waist. If you don’t bend you’ll just topple, so work those abs, baby, and just do it. The tape’ll rip right in half, just like ripping a small piece of tape off the roll.”

Shit, Lombardi was getting impatient. His hand was twitching toward the gun at his waist. I could imagine what he was thinking: was it worth it to try and get the information out of us, or should he just start shooting before I got free, too?

I met Lucas’s eyes and knew he saw the same thing I did. Lombardi would make a decision in the split second I acted, so we had to be ready for it, no matter what it was.

I made a half-hearted attempt to lean forward and break the tape, knowing it wasn’t enough strength to make anything thicker than a strand of hair rip.

“Damn, too weak?” Leo taunted, turning his attention to me, arms crossed over his chest and hand away from the gun again.

“It’s alright, baby, try again,” Lucas said, nodding at me. I “tried” a second time, using this attempt to feel for how much strength I’d need when I was actually ready to make an attempt .

“Bitch thinks she’s all that, but you’re just as weak as the rest of them. And just as stupid, too, thinking you could save your little boyfriend even if you did make it out of that chair.”

I seethed, but focused on Lucas instead of responding.

“You’ll get it,” he promised. “And once you do, put tension on your ankles, just like with the chest. Widen your stance and point your toes out, then squat down to force the tape on your legs to split. It’ll work.”

Lucas was lying on the ground about four feet away from me, curled in a ball and breathing unsteadily. He was in a car crash without a seat belt hours ago. His head smashed against the windshield hard enough to crack it. His chest hit the steering wheel with who knew how much force? And yet he was still alive, still awake, still coherent enough to free himself and give me directions so I could fight my way out of there as well.

But he wouldn’t stay awake much longer. I could see the pain and disorientation eating at him, each hit and kick knocking him farther away from the waking world. And if he had broken ribs from the accident one carefully placed kick from Lombardi could puncture a lung.

Lucas was counting on me to listen to him and get out of my bindings. He was literally taking the hits for the team so I could get free, giving up any possibility of control so I had the opportunity to finish the job for the both of us. If I hesitated or failed on the first try, Lombardi would have the upper hand and kill one or both of us immediately.

I could do it.

I would do it .

I widened my frame again, shifting my stance as well in preparation for the second step, tensed my torso, tightened my abs, and thrust my body forward, bending at my hips and forcing the top half of my body to move downward.

The tape ripped and my torso was propelled forward. I let the inertia guide me, using the momentum until I landed in a crouch, the tape wrapping my ankles together splitting just a second after the tape across my chest. I landed with one hand on the filthy floor to stop my forward descent, pausing in that position for just a moment to get my bearings.

Lucas was staring triumphantly up at me, so much love and affection in his eyes.

He loves me , I recalled. He was counting on me.

My eyes left his and met Leo Lombardi’s, his filled with fury and hate. I used the hand on the ground to push myself back upright, slowly but without hesitation, making sure I still had my sense of balance and strength. The fading adrenaline caused me to pass out not long ago, but it was quickly returning, pumping blood through my veins as I watched Leo Lombardi kicking Lucas while he was down. It might have been out of Lucas’s control to stop him after the shit his body went through, but it wasn’t out of mine. Nobody messed with my man.

I shifted into a standard fighting stance as Leo charged at me.

“I’m going to kill you and your annoying as shit boyfriend,” he snarled, taking a swing at my head. I dodged it easily.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have been picking on someone your own size,” I goaded him. “It would have been smarter to take out the bigger threat first: you know, the opponent half your size. ”

“Maybe I’ll take my time strangling you in front of your weak ass boyfriend and then go back and finish him off.”

Lombardi’s words didn’t bother me. Lucas was anything but weak and I knew it. After everything he went through, he still managed to escape his bonds and teach me how to as well. He was strong, and capable, and now it was my turn to be the same. We were a team.

I glanced over to Lucas where he lay on the floor, catching his breath. His nod told me he was with me, trusted me to take care of business.

Leo’s words didn’t mean fuck-all, especially when he kept throwing his weight into hits, but was too damn slow to land any of them. I had this.

Leo Lombardi was going to wish he’d never gotten out of bed this morning.

“I thought you wanted us to talk. Strangling me wouldn’t really get you the information you want.”

“I don’t think you guys have shit on me. If you did, then you would be able to keep me behind bars long enough to indict me.”

I glanced over toward the chairs where my purse rested on the floor. I had a heavy duty waterproof phone case. Was it possible my phone was still in my purse, still working, and still recording everything going on around us?

I shifted back a couple more steps, getting as close to my purse as possible.

“So you’re going to keep trying to kill me, huh? Hasn’t worked so far. You haven’t even landed a hit.”

“I almost shot you in the fucking chest a couple days ago. It was just pure luck that you moved out of the way in time, little bitch.”

“And is it luck that you can’t get your meaty paws on me right now?”

“Oh, I’ll get you. You’re just as weak as him,” he nodded over to Lucas, taking another swipe at me. I circled around the chairs, putting them between us. “You passed out after swimming out of the bay. Your body can’t take much more of this. That adrenaline is going to run out sooner or later, and then I’m going to kill you both.”

Awesome. If the phone was still working, the recording app was picking up a lot of good stuff from him. I needed to keep him talking.

“Oh yeah? I think you’re full of shit.” I couldn’t imagine the strength leaving me, the adrenaline fading, but that was exactly the point, wasn’t it? I might very well go into shock again soon.

“I think that your pretty little head will crack just the same as your mother’s if I throw you down hard enough.”

What?

The surprise stalled me long enough that Leo finally got a real hit in, his monster fist smashing into the side of my face and knocking me to the floor. It shouldn’t have surprised me that he was the one who killed my mother. Maybe it should have been a given, since he was their enforcer, but I’d been putting all the blame squarely on Carlo and Angelo Morelli.

It was Leo Lombardi who actually held my mother’s body in his hands and threw her down the stairs hard enough to make her brain bleed. He was the one who did it all along .

And then he was on me, his fingers closing around my throat.

“But your death won’t be easy like hers. Neither will Special Agent Blake’s,” he said, spitting out Lucas’s title like it was a bad word. His fingers began to squeeze, his superior strength pinning me to the concrete. My fingers couldn’t break his grip, arms too short to put pressure on the weak point in his elbows from this angle.

“And then I’m going to kill anyone else who might have information on me and the boss. That stupid homicide detective. Claire Reynolds and Willie-Boy Bracco, wherever they’re hiding. They’re all as good as dead when I’m done with you. You are so fucking dead—”

But then Lucas grabbed at Lombardi’s shoulder, distracting him and giving me enough room to pull both of my legs up, planting my feet against his chest before kicking out, sending him off of me, flying back several feet.

“You okay?” Lucas asked, one hand going to my neck.

I nodded, but didn’t take my eyes off my opponent. Leo was groaning, having landed on the chairs, the wood now in broken chunks underneath him. He was the weak one. He wouldn’t be getting back up any time soon.

I stood with Lucas’s help and we leaned against each other for support. I hurried to grab hold of Leo’s gun on the floor between us and him, pointing it at him where he laid.

“You still don’t have real fucking evidence against me. You can’t just say that I told you I killed her.”

I shrugged. I had his own recorded confession, whether he knew that or not .

“Maybe you’ll get me locked up for a few years for handcuffing you two, but you can’t prove I fucked with your brakes or tried to kill you or anyone else,” he smirked. “For something small like kidnapping or false imprisonment I’ll get out eventually.”

Small? He really cared so little for other people’s freedom?

“I’ll get out, and then I’ll kill you. But I’ll make you beg first. Hurt you.” I could feel the malice in his eyes. He really wanted me to suffer. “You’re going to pay for this.”

“What, for humiliating you? Beating you?” I wouldn’t let him intimidate me, even as the goosebumps rose up on my arms.

“And I’ll kill him,” he nodded to Lucas, whose arm was wrapped around my back. “I’ll make him wish he was never born with how much pain he’s going to feel.”

Lucas could take care of himself. It was always a possibility that Lombardi might get out of prison during our lifetimes even if we got him convicted of first degree murder, but we could take care of ourselves. With Lucas at my side we could handle anything.

“I’d threaten to kill that sister of his as well, but I think I missed my chance to choose her as a victim.” Lucas growled next to me, his grip tightening. “I’ll settle for killing his mother. She—”

I pulled the trigger.

Nobody was going to cause that woman even one more ounce of pain.