GetOn (13 page)

“You must be one big pain in the ass. The boss isn’t happy.
The only way he won’t kill your girl too is for you to show up to his place.
Alone. You bring any more pals, she’s dead, you’re dead, they’re dead. If you
know anything about Ford, you know bringing cops is a complete waste of time,
and he’ll kill you anyway.”

Garrett stayed silent for a moment, the gun heavy in his
hand. Trent, his longtime best friend, dead? Mia, the love he’d just found,
captured and quite possibly minutes from death herself?

This was his worst nightmare. It wasn’t supposed to happen
this way. He’d been about to save the world, avenge Priscilla, move forward in
life.

Not slide back into hell.

But there was no choice. If he had to walk straight into the
mouth of hell itself for her, he’d do it.

“Tell me where to find them.”

“Goddammit,” Mia hissed as she yanked at her bonds. Duct
tape. Weren’t big-time asshole drug lords supposed to use more sophisticated
means of tying people up? This shit was impossible to escape from.

She should know; she’d been taped to a fucking chair for two
hours now. At least they’d taken the bag off her head.

Ford’s guys had grabbed her and Trent, but Trent hadn’t gone
down easily. She’d screamed and tried to help him as the goons started pounding
Trent with fists and kicks, but they’d thrown a bag over her head and tossed
her into the back of a car.

She hadn’t seen Trent since then, and she hoped like hell he
was okay. They’d keep him alive, right? He knew much more about what was going
on than Mia did, and they hadn’t said she was doomed to die. But god, if Trent
had been hurt or killed, it would crush Garrett. She knew how much they meant
to one another.

And if not for her, Trent and Garrett could have watched
each other’s backs.

Quick, distract yourself
. She blew straight up,
trying to convince the single curl that had strayed onto her forehead to join
the rest of the mess currently rioting around her shoulders. It tickled, and
she couldn’t reach it with her shoulder to brush it back. It was kind of nice
to have something so trivial and small to work on. It kept her from freaking
the hell out at the situation she was in.

A noise across the warehouse drew her attention. Warehouses.
Why did it always have to be warehouses? Didn’t this guy have a posh penthouse
apartment somewhere, or a McMansion up in the hills? Why couldn’t any of this
shit go down with expensive carpeting and comfortable furniture?

A few rays of the setting sun shone through one of the high,
long, grease-covered windows. Dust motes floated in the air, and the sight
suddenly reminded Mia of home. That little Texas house she’d shared with
Abuela
.
Trying to catch the motes with her chubby hands, laughing as she stirred them
into a frenzy.

“My little Mia, you will never catch them that way. You must
slow down, see everything.”

Her
abuela
had been so wise. If Mia had slowed down
with Garrett, she might not have gotten him into this mess.

An angry tear tracked down Mia’s cheek. If she got out of
this, she’d apologize to him and Trent. This was her fault. All her fault. Her
life had been a series of shit storms, and it was time to stop taking other
people into them.

A door opened somewhere behind her. “Art,” someone called
from the back of the warehouse. Mia straightened but didn’t turn. She barely
breathed.

“What is it?”

“Redmond called. He just got free. That guy is on his way.
He thinks it’s that cop who set up that sting.”

Mia’s heart thudded. Garrett was alive, thank god.
Please,
let him stay away
. She slammed her eyes shut and prayed.
Let him call
the cops to get me and Trent out of here, don’t let him rescue us on his own.
He’ll be killed. He’ll be—

“The guy knocked Redmond unconscious and tied him up before
he left. He doesn’t know how long he’s been gone, but any time now we should be
expecting company.”

“Babe?” A low, accented female voice this time, also from
behind Mia. Goddammit, why had they put her facing the loading bay door instead
of the offices behind? She couldn’t see a fucking thing except work tables,
rusted-out equipment and the fading sunlight.

“Ramirez texted me. He wants me to go with him to the race
tomorrow night.”

Soft, wet sounds followed. Mia clenched her fists.
Ugh.
They were seriously making out while holding hostages?

“I’ll be so glad when we don’t have to deal with that
irritating fuck anymore,” Ford said. Mia strained hard to hear his next words.
“He’ll be dead tomorrow night, and then you and I can be together.”

“Ooh, I look forward to that,” the woman purred. “I’ve been
telling my husband about you, what a good businessman you are. I don’t think
we’ll have any problem getting Ramirez’s position after he’s dead.”

“I knew I could count on you.” More kissing, and Mia wanted
to throw up. She decided to start counting the steel girders overhead to
distract herself, but it didn’t really work that well.

How could they so casually talk about killing people? Giving
up on the silence, Mia subtly turned her head right and left, looking for some
sign of Trent. Though she knew there was nothing to stop them from killing him.
And her.

God, please let Garrett not come after us.
Don’t
let him die because of me.

“Hey, Eskie, go check on that little shit we picked up. See
if he’s still breathing.”

Mia jerked her feet, but nope, they were still taped to the
chair legs. He had to mean Trent, didn’t he? But before she could figure out
where those footsteps were headed, the sound of a motorcycle engine bled
through the loading bay door.

“Oh my god,” she whispered aloud, dread and hope curling
together in her belly. “Oh my god.”

“Eskie! Champ! Go see who that is.”

Ford appeared next to her, and Mia had to bite her lips to
keep from spitting on him. She settled for a glare instead.

“I think, little Latina, your boyfriend has arrived.”

She gritted her teeth so hard they ground together. But her
gaze was glued to the warehouse doors as they opened, and nothing could have
yanked her away from the sight of Garrett, leather jacket zipped halfway, no
helmet, wraparound shades covering his eyes.

He was okay. Oh god, he was fine and alive and healthy.

And he’d just walked into his enemy’s lair for her.

If they got out of this alive, she’d kill him.

Garrett was strangely calm as his bike entered the
warehouse. He kept a tight rein on his emotions, drawing on his years of
experience on the force. But underneath his calm, businesslike exterior, he was
vibrating like a goddamn violin string.

Not even when Priscilla had died had he felt this much rage,
this much violent anger overtaking him. His best friend might be dead, and the
woman he loved was being dangled like bait for a fish. Never again. This would
end here, no matter what.

He’d done what he’d sworn he’d never do, all in the name of
ending this for good.

He hoped like hell it was worth it.

Garrett cut the engine and slid his sunglasses atop his
head. Swinging his leg over the bike’s saddle, he didn’t even blink as four
guns pointed in his direction. He just put his palms up to show he wasn’t
carrying anything.

“Ford.” Garrett nodded at the man he’d been hunting for so
long. His anger roiled and bubbled. Mia was duct taped to a metal folding
chair, her wrists behind her back, and she looked positively murderous.

If things weren’t so dire, he’d have laughed. Only Mia could
be kidnapped and pissed instead of terrified. He’d no doubt she’d kick Ford’s
ass herself if she could get free.

“Long,” Ford said with a smile. He stepped forward, almost
as if he was about to offer to shake Garrett’s hand. Fat fucking chance. “Nice
to see you face-to-face after all these years.”

“I can’t say the same,” Garrett replied, dropping his hands
by his sides. “I’m here, so let her go. If you play nice, I won’t call the
cops.”

Ford tilted his head back and laughed, his Adam’s apple
bobbing. “Cops? Oh that’s funny. That’s really fucking funny.” He stepped right
up to Garrett and pointed his finger in Garrett’s face. “If you know
anything
,
then you know the cops can’t touch me.”

“They haven’t yet,” Garrett admitted, eyes cutting to Mia,
warning her to keep silent. “But we both know it’s only a matter of time. There
are some things not even
you
can get away with.”

“Oh really? That’s fucking rich.” Ford stepped back,
steepling his fingers beneath his chin. “Let’s see. Biggest drug bust on the
East Coast—and I’m off scot-free. Embezzlement, smuggling, prostitution…oh and
of course, let’s not forget murder.” Ford got in Garrett’s face again, but
Garrett didn’t move. “Or don’t you remember poor little Priscilla? I do. She
wasn’t who I wanted. I wanted to kill
your
ass for getting in my way.
That deal cost me millions, you know. Fucking
millions
of dollars, and
you had to stick your fucking nose in it!” Ford was yelling by the end, his
temper completely blowing his cool. “So I found
her
, when I was looking
for you, and I decided to throw you a bone. I’d kill Priscilla, and leave
you
alive to learn your lesson. But you didn’t learn a goddamn thing, did you,
Garrett?”

Garrett knew his time was running out. He’d have to talk
quickly if he was going to get anything else.

“I’ve learned about your little races. They’re more than
just fun, we both know that. But what about Ramirez? What do you stand to gain
by murdering your own supplier?”

A small gasp from Mia distracted Garrett for a split second,
and he followed her gaze across the room. Two of Ford’s men had dragged a limp
form out onto the warehouse floor.

It was Trent, facedown on the concrete. He wasn’t moving.

His chest tightened, and he wanted to go ballistic, pick up
Mia and get her the hell out of there before they could kill her too. But he
didn’t, couldn’t. He had to see this through. He’d just have to pray things
worked out the way he’d been promised.

“Ramirez,” Garrett said, nodding to the woman who had come
up behind Ford. The tall blonde had dark eyebrows and olive skin. “Is he your
husband? Your lover?”

The woman laughed, wrapping her arms around Ford’s waist.
“Ramirez doesn’t matter. He is merely a pawn in our game, and soon he won’t be
alive. Just like you.”

“So the race is a setup to kill him. You’re from Columbia,
aren’t you, Gloria?”

She frowned, and inwardly Garrett sighed with relief. “I bet
your husband misses you. How can he run the business without you?”

She tossed her hair over her shoulder, revealing the low
neckline of her fitted orange top. “I can help him from here. Besides, it is
none of your business!”

“Listen to me, Long,” Ford said, stepping free of Gloria’s
embrace. The woman smirked at Garrett and moved to stand by Mia. “I think we’ve
talked enough. You know how this goes. If you get in my way, you’re dead. I had
plenty of people killed before Priscilla, and now you, your girlfriend and
Ramirez are in line. It’s nothing personal.” Ford shrugged as he pulled his gun
from his pocket. “It’s just business.”

“Garrett!” Mia yelled, jerking at her bonds. “Oh god,
please—”

Gloria clapped a hand over Mia’s mouth, but jerked it away a
second later, blood streaming down her arm. Mia’s lips were coated with blood
and her eyes were wild.

Ford cocked the pistol, and Mia screamed the words he’d been
afraid he’d never hear. “Garrett, I love you!”

He bent low and ran forward just as gunfire blared through
the warehouse, the violent echo ripping through his body.

Before things went black, he allowed himself a moment of
regret.

She’d never know how much he loved her too.

Her heart stopped, but the beating sound continued rushing
around her ears. As if in slow motion, Garrett fell, his body bouncing
obscenely on the warehouse’s concrete floor.

Mia jerked against her bonds, her wrists and ankles burning
in protest at their tight bindings, but it didn’t help. She was still trapped,
watching a pool of blood spread beneath Garrett. The bullet must have gone
through him.

He was dead. Trent was dead. But what was that sound?

Mia shook her head, gasping. That had been her. Her
screaming.

She barely heard it over the sound of people in dark
clothing, helmets and Kevlar swarming the building, their assault rifles
pointed directly at Ford and his cronies.

“Help him!” Mia nodded toward Garrett. Maybe they could stop
the bleeding, save him. “Please, help Garrett now!”

“Freeze! You’re under arrest.” One of the SWAT team
approached Ford. It kind of sounded like a female voice, but she clearly wasn’t
about to take shit from the guy.

Ford smiled but dropped his gun. “I’ll go with you, but I’ll
be saying nothing until I’ve spoken with my lawyer.”

“You don’t need to say
anything
, asshole. The whole
country just saw what happened. What you confessed to.”

Ford’s face went pale. “What?”

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can
and will be used against you in a court of law…” As the officer started
Mirandizing Ford, Mia turned back to Garrett.

Finally, an ambulance was backing up through the warehouse
door. Mia bounced in anxiety, willing them to hurry. He was losing so much
blood.

“Help him!” she begged the EMT from across the room.
“Please, dear god, help him!”

“We will,” the EMT nodded then bent to his work.

Mia sat there in the center of controlled chaos. SWAT team members
searched the warehouse, arresting Ford’s entourage and putting them into police
cruisers to be driven away. Another crew of EMTs worked on Trent, and for a
heartbreaking minute, Mia knew he was truly dead. But then they brought a
stretcher and oxygen, and loaded the beaten and bruised Trent into another
ambulance.

“Thank god,” Mia whispered, her eyes filling with more
tears. After having staunched the flow of Garrett’s blood, they loaded him up
and then closed the doors.

Shutting her out.

“Hey!” Mia screamed, jerking the chair a good six inches
toward the ambulance. “Can someone let me go? I need to be with him! Please!”

Finally someone, the SWAT leader who’d arrested Ford, came
over to her and began slicing her duct tape bonds.

“Thank you, please hurry!” Mia said, worry and adrenaline
flooding through her. “I’ve got to go with him.”

“Which one?” The woman had removed her helmet, revealing a
thick braid of red hair pinned to the back of her neck.

“The one who got shot. I want to go with him to the
hospital, can I do that?”

The woman knelt in front of Mia’s chair to slice the bonds
at her ankles. “Well, we really do need to take your statement.”

Mia might be freaking out, but she wasn’t stupid. “I’m his
wife. I need to be with him!”

The woman darted her light-green gaze up at Mia. Her lip
curled at the corner, almost looking as if she didn’t really believe Mia’s
story. Mia set her chin, not blinking, not looking away.

The woman finally nodded, pulling the last of the duct tape
from Mia’s sore skin. “Fine. We can get your statement at the hospital.” She
helped Mia to her feet. “You’d better get in there, they need to move him out
of here pretty quick.”

Mia’s legs were asleep but she didn’t care. She hauled ass
across that warehouse floor, waddling like a drunken duck. When she yanked open
the ambulance door, three EMTs turned and looked at her.

“I’m his wife,” Mia growled as she pulled the door shut
behind her and crawled up to Garrett’s head. “Put this fucker in drive.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the driver said with a smirk.

Mia put her palm against Garrett’s cheek, her heart thumping
anxiously as she tested his temperature. Cool, his skin was too cool.

She leaned down, pressing her lips against his forehead. “I
love you,” she whispered against his clammy skin. “Garrett, you’ve got to live,
because I love you.”

It was the longest vehicle ride she’d ever had.

* * * * *

Garrett moaned in his dream. Son of a bitch, something hurt.
He’d been riding through the night, Mia on the back of his bike, her arms
clenching tight while her breasts rubbed against him. Suddenly, a curve in the
road had come from out of nowhere and he’d swerved, losing control of the bike.
He’d connected with a tree, hard, breaking his shoulder and smearing blood on
the trunk.

But he didn’t care about himself, there was something else.
His bike? No, that was totaled, a smoldering wreck against the base of the
pine. He smacked his good hand against his shoulder, trying to staunch the flow
of blood as he staggered back toward the road. What was it? What was he
forgetting?

“Mia!”

He ran for her. In the center of the road, a metal folding
chair straddled the two yellow lines. Sitting in it, slumped forward with her
curls matted with blood, was Mia. Her wrists were tied behind her back, her
ankles secured to the chair legs with barbed wire.

“Oh my god,” Garrett cried as he reached her, falling to his
knees. “Wake up, Mia, please! I didn’t get a chance to tell you…” Words failed
him as tears ran down his cheeks. “To tell you…”

“Tell me what?”

She wasn’t moving, but that was definitely her voice.

His throat was thick, but through his tears he breathed the
words.

“I love you, Mia.”

Her head lifted and her eyes opened and she smiled. “It’s
about damn time you told me. I’ve been waiting for a good twelve hours to hear
that now.”

Soft lips touched his, and that’s when he realized he’d been
dreaming. But only halfway. He opened his eyes, and silhouetted in a
fluorescent glow was Mia, her dark curls just as wild and blood-free as they’d
ever been.

Thank fuck for that.

“Mia,” he gasped and tried to wrap his arms around her.
“Goddammit!”

“Hey,” she said softly, pressing his arm back down against
the bed, “ease up there, biker boy. You’ve been shot, remember? Bullet,
shoulder, ring any bells?”

“Shit.” Thoughts of the warehouse came back to Garrett then.
The setup, the horror, the fear that he wouldn’t be able to get Mia out, that
this would drag on forever if he didn’t get Ford to talk enough. And then, the
pain crashed down on him. He closed his eyes, completely unashamed of the tear
that leaked from the corner of his eye. “Trent?”

Mia’s hand covered his comfortingly, but he interrupted
before she could murmur sympathetic platitudes.

“How am I supposed to go on without him?”

“Easy,” said a familiar voice from across the room. “You’re
not.”

Garrett’s lids flew open. “Trent!”

His dark-haired, muscled friend looked like he’d been on the
receiving end of a bout of major league batting practice, but he was smiling as
much as his swollen jaw would allow. He limped to Garrett’s bedside, clasping
his friend’s forearm in a gentle but heartfelt grip.

“What the fuck happened?” Garrett asked, joy at his friend’s
survival overtaking him.

“I’ve got the same question for you,” Trent said, wincing as
he shifted position. Mia helpfully dragged a chair to Garrett’s bedside,
allowing the injured Trent to sit. “They just let me go from upstairs, so I
came down here to check on you. I’ve told the police what I knew of the
situation, but they wouldn’t tell
me
anything. I called Quentin and Reg,
but they’re both at the station, so I’m pretty clueless. Care to elaborate?”

Garrett laughed. “You’re one of the smartest guys I know,
Trent, I would have thought you’d have figured it out by now.”

“I figured it out,” Mia said, lovingly massaging Garrett’s
foot. Her tender ministration didn’t last, though. She pinched his toe as she
glared at him. “You could have gotten killed.”

“Ow, goddammit! Let me go!”

“I’ve been watching the news while both of you were being
worked on. It seems that
someone
—probably your computer-savvy friend
Reg, I’m assuming—set up a wonderful live feed that was operating on every
computer in the city of Atlanta’s main police station, the U.S. Department of
Justice’s Facebook page and the most popular internet video-streaming service.
Looked like the camera was hidden on Garrett’s clothing, so everyone got a
front-row seat to Art Ford’s confession. It went viral on Twitter and recordings
are all over YouTube.”

Mia released her pinching grip and resumed a gentle rub on
Garrett’s other foot. “They’re calling for Arthur Ford Senior’s resignation
from the Grantman Corporation, and Congressman Wasserman is already distancing
himself from the family.”

“Oh god,” Trent said, shaking his head slowly as a smile
spread across his face. “You did it, Garrett. Exactly as you planned.”

Garrett closed his eyes. In the darkness, he saw the woman
he’d failed. Priscilla. She’d died because of him, but finally, finally he felt
as if he’d done right by her. She seemed to wave goodbye then, and with a heavy
breath, he let himself believe that she’d forgiven him.

No, it was more than that. He’d finally forgiven himself.

Another face appeared in front of him, this one both angry
and delighted by turns, full of life, laughter and lust. Mia’s face. God, he
loved that woman, every infuriating inch of her.

“I think he’s asleep,” Mia whispered. “We should probably
let him rest.”

“Don’t you fucking dare leave me, Mia Bartholomew,” Garrett
said, opening his eyes. He held out a hand, and she came to his side. Lacing
his fingers through hers, he pulled her close. “I mean that, Mia. Don’t leave
me. I love you too much to ever let you go.”

She leaned over until they were nose to nose. She let her
gaze go half-lidded, staring deep into him as she answered. “You’ll have to pry
me off the back of your motorcycle, biker boy. I’m not going any damn where.”

And then he kissed her like there was no tomorrow. Although
now, he was pretty certain there were plenty of tomorrows, and every one of
them would be with Mia. And that was pretty damn wonderful.