Do or Die Reluctant Heroes

Ian had never particularly liked strip clubs. There was something inherently unpleasant about watching desperate women take off their clothes for money. And even if they weren’t desperate, even in the unlikely scenario that they wanted to be there, it still seemed distasteful to watch.

Like paying for sex.

Or agreeing with someone’s bullshit opinions about politics or crappy movies or badly written books only to get laid.

It was really not Ian’s style.

Henrietta’s was doubly unpleasant—a vast, cavernous room decorated as if the management couldn’t decide whether they wanted to own a strip club version of a Cracker Barrel or an 1880s wild west whorehouse. There were lots of red and black velvet curtains with gold braided trim combined with quirky period signs and pictures and antique farm implements hanging on the walls.

The bar was rustic with a brass kickbar. Ian approached and ordered an Arnold Palmer from a tired-looking woman wearing bikini bottoms and blue-sequined, star-shaped pasties.

He’d opened the hand warmer out in the parking lot and had slipped the packet into the pocket of his T-shirt, where it was acting like a beacon. It was also making him wish that the club had a more powerful air-conditioning system.

He swiveled in his seat, elbows back on the bar, to give the place a more detailed look-see as he hummed his first verse and chorus. Row, row, row your boat … The big room had a main stage, which was currently dark. But there were a half a dozen smaller stages off to the sides, where pole dancers were unenthusiastically phoning it in.

Tables dotted the carpeted main floor, and there was a balcony level, with box seats like that of an old-timey theatre. Hanging signs pointed the way upstairs, where there were also, apparently, private party rooms and—merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily—a VIP lounge.

His drink finally came. The exhausted bartender apparently had had to look it up in a book to figure out it was half lemonade and half iced tea, no alcohol, and it must’ve been hard to read in the dim light. Ian paid for it, leaving a hefty tip for her future-eyeglasses fund or maybe her buy-a-shirt campaign, then wandered toward those stairs. “Ground floor is mostly one main room—bathrooms behind the bar, and of course, there’s gotta be an extensive backstage area, but that’s probably moot,” he said into his drink, hoping those expensive mics were picking him up. “I’ll walk the perimeter in a sec, but I’m going upstairs while I have the chance.”


His route up was blocked by a dark red velvet rope with dull brass ends that hooked it to the wall on both sides of the staircase. Apparently, the upper section wasn’t open to the public at this time of day.

But the bartender was settling in for a siesta, and the bouncer by the front door was still checking his Twitter feed, head down as he peered at his phone. So Ian and his high-heat-radiating chest quickly went past the rope. The packet was on the verge of burning him, and he pulled the fabric of his shirt slightly away from his chest. “Row, row, row your boat, gently up the stairs …”

Black-framed daguerreotype reproductions of stony-faced cowboys, outlaws, and tight-lipped pioneer women covered the red-painted walls. Their grim scowls and accusatory eyes seemed an odd choice for the route to the “private party rooms”—unless the thrill of getting a lap dance or maybe even a hand job in an Americana-themed museum was on more men’s bucket lists than Ian had previously imagined.

Cast-iron handrails stretched up, on both sides, and even though the red-and-gold-patterned carpeting was showing its age, the management had installed rubber guards on the edge of each step—to make it slightly harder for drunk clientele to fall and destroy what few shreds remained of their dignity.

There were a lot of steps. What should have been two complete flights led to a half turn. Whatever was beyond that Ian couldn’t see. But before he got to that turn, he stopped—and stopped singing—because someone was coming. There must’ve been a door at the very top of the stairs, because he heard it open, heard someone grunting as he or she—he, had to be—came through. Whoever he was, he was either grossly overweight, or maybe he was carrying something heavy.

There was a murmur as he spoke.

It was possible he was carrying someone.

He spoke again—in that same deep voice, his words indiscernible. Even the language being spoken was questionable—Ian didn’t think it was English, but the coaxing tone was unmistakably clear. Just a little bit farther, almost there. Please don’t puke on my shoes.…

But then there was a stumbling sound, and Ian quickly transferred the hand warmer from his shirt to the back pocket of his jeans, and put his drink on the back edge of the nearest step, since a collision with whoever was coming down the stairs seemed imminent. He went up, ready to help catch whoever was falling.

But the man who was conscious—capable of walking and talking—didn’t need help as he used the triangular landing at the turn in the stairs to anchor the man he was supporting against the wall. His back was to Ian as he staggered slightly beneath his drunk companion’s weight.

At least one of the two was definitely skunked. His eyes were closed and his balding head lolled on a thick neck as his buddy kept him from tumbling down the stairs. He was short but stout and clearly heavy—with a dark mustache and almost comically bushy eyebrows.

The other man—the conscious one—was taller, with sun-streaked brown hair and broad shoulders beneath a dark, well-cut business suit.

There was something familiar about him—about the way he was standing or moving or …

That taller man lifted his head as he turned, suddenly aware that he and his barrel-shaped friend were not alone in the stairwell.

And because Ian had moved closer to assist, he and the tall man were face to face. He. Was now. Face to face.

With Georg Vanderzee.

AKA the Dutchman.

Ian froze, and Vanderzee did, too. And Ian knew that, like the Dutchman, he, too, failed to hide the spark of surprised recognition in his eyes.

In truth, Ian was more than surprised—he was shocked. Last thing he’d expected was to run into this man, here and now. But he was good enough at thinking on his feet to recognize that surprise—and even shock—was absolutely the correct expression for this situation, so he didn’t make the mistake of trying to hide it. He let it all hang out.

He even hammered it home, simultaneously letting Yashi know what had happened. Provided he and the others had the surveillance mics up and running—and working correctly. Although, shit. Martell was supposed to come inside to bring Ian a phone. Hopefully this information would stop him. “My old friend from Holland.” He didn’t want to use Vanderzee’s name, and potentially blow the man’s cover. “No freaking way,” he added.

But then Ian went on the offense, hard, and looked at the man sideways, letting suspicion and accusation into his voice. “Who the f*ck told you I was in Miami?”

* * *

“Holy shit,” Martell said, as the van he was riding in with Deb moved another four feet forward before coming to a complete stop in the bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Yashi and Phoebe were parked behind a Dunkin’ Donuts—it abutted the strip club’s back lot. They were successfully using their high-tech super-spy microphones to follow Ian as he moved about the club. Yashi had set up some kind of scrambled radio signal so that Deb and Martell could listen, too.

And they’d all just heard Ian make contact with the Dutchman.

“No one told me you were in Miami,” said the voice that had to be Vanderzee’s. “I had absolutely no idea you were even in the States.”

“You expect me to believe that?” Ian came at him. “You and whoever the f*ck this is, showing up here on the exact same day I’m supposed to be meeting … Well, you probably know who I’m meeting, right, because I sure as shit don’t believe in coincidences.”

“Okay,” Deb said, as she inched the van another few feet forward. She’d washed the deep-space black from her hair and now it was just a nondescript light brown. She couldn’t do anything about those ultra short bangs, though, and they gave her a quirky European look that Martell found appealing. “So now we know the Dutchman is with another person.”

Martell’s phone rang, and he quickly silenced the ring, even as he looked down to see … “Francine,” he said, “ ’Sup, baby?” and Deb shot him a look, one eyebrow raised.

“Is Ian with you?” Francine demanded, without verbally slapping him upside his head for that unauthorized baby, which should have been his first clue that something major was wrong. “Tell me Ian’s with you, back from scoping out the club, and then get out of there—fast.”

“No, I’m in van two with Deb,” he said, lowering his voice and turning away because now Deb was giving him an I can’t hear Ian look. “We’re stopped on the expressway. There’s been some big-ass accident up ahead—must’ve just happened. We’re in the breakdown lane, but that’s not moving either. Ian’s inside Henrietta’s, where he just made unplanned contact with our man.”

“Are you kidding me?” she asked. “Shit. That must be why he’s not answering his phone.”

“No, he’s not answering because he left his phone back at the house,” Martell said. From what he could tell, Ian was continuing on upstairs while the Dutchman and the other guy staggered down to the main floor, where Dutch was going to put his mysterious friend into a cab. At which point Vanderzee would join Ian back upstairs. Or so he’d promised. That was either a really good thing or a really bad thing. “I was supposed to go in there and bring him mine when we arrived, but we’ve been twenty minutes away for the past half hour now. What’s going on?”


“Where’s van one?” she demanded. “With, what? Yashi and what’s-her-name? Phoebe? Are they near the club?”

“Did you hear me when I said he’s made contact?”

“Yes,” she said. “F*ck. Martell, put me on speaker, so that both Deb and Yashi can hear me.”

“Yeah, I don’t think—”

“PUT. ME. ON. SPEAKER!”

Ow. It was possible he was now deaf in his right ear. Martell cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to have to interrupt this incredibly important life-risking mission. But here’s Francine. On speaker. Go ahead.”

“I got an email from Berto,” she said, speaking loudly and clearly. “And I just called him back to verify the following: Davio Dellarosa knows that Ian’s in Henrietta’s, and he’s just sent a four-man kill squad out to delete him, ETA ten minutes.”

* * *

Beep. Beep. Beep-a-beep! Bee-bee-beep, bee-bee-beep, bee-bee-beep, bee-bee-beep …

“It’s brilliant,” Phoebe told Yashi, who was hitting the van’s horn to the pattern of the lyrics in “Row Your Boat.” “You’re brilliant. You really are. But Ian can’t hear you from where he is, inside the club. You have to let me go in there to warn him.”

“I can’t,” Yashi said.

“And I can’t let you not let me do it,” she countered. “Someone’s got to go. If it’s you, the mission’s scrubbed.” He’d just told her that if an FBI agent, i.e. himself, got that close to the Dutchman, they’d have to assume Ian’s cover was blown. “I, however, am not an FBI agent,” she reminded him.

He held out his left hand. “Mission scrubbed,” he said, counterweighing it with his right hand. “Dunn kills me for putting you in danger.…”

“I won’t be in danger,” she told him. “Ian’ll be right there. He’ll keep me safe.”

“From the Dutchman?” Yashi asked. “Or from Dellarosa’s four-man kill squad?”

“Just f*cking let her go.” Francine sounded distorted. Her voice was coming through the speaker of Martell’s phone, and then through the scrambled connection between the two vans. “Shelly called Henrietta’s but went straight to a recorded message. There’s no reaching Eee that way.”

“Van two is too far away,” Deb’s voice announced. “Even if Martell could run five-minute miles he wouldn’t get to the club in time.”

“If I could run five-minute miles, I wouldn’t be here,” Martell pointed out. “I’d be practicing for the Olympics.”

“If this mission is scrubbed,” Phoebe asked, “what happens to those kidnapped kids?”

A whole lot of silence answered her—both from the van she was sitting in, and the one stuck in traffic.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Phoebe said, and got out of van one.

“ETA seven and a half minutes,” Yashi shouted after her as she ran. Across the parking lot to the back door of the club. Seven and a half minutes before four men with guns came looking for Ian, to kill him.

She yanked open the door and stepped from the brightness of the afternoon into dim, musty darkness.

A gigantic man was standing there—all big biceps and shiny shaved head. Little goatee. Tats escaping out the collar of his shirt and up his no-neck. Phoebe blinked at him—he must’ve been a bouncer—as she tried to get her bearing. Ian had reported that he’d gone upstairs.

The man blinked back at her but thankfully didn’t ask to see her ID—she’d left it on that yacht, back on Monday night, which was the last time men with guns had tried to kill Ian.

“You one of the new girls?” the bouncer said instead.

So she said, “Yes. Why, yes, I am,” as she looked around the room. When she’d left the van, the Dutchman hadn’t yet joined Ian upstairs. But she didn’t see anyone even remotely Dutch-looking over by the front doors. Which, of course, didn’t mean anything. He might’ve been outside. He might’ve run away. He might’ve returned and gone upstairs while she was running through the parking lot. He might not even look Dutch—which meant what, anyway? He was carrying tulips?

“You’re supposed to come in the stage door,” the bouncer chastised her. “Every time. No exceptions. Not even for picking up a paycheck.”

“Will you let it slide, this time?” she said in her best Marilyn Monroe, adding breathy exclamation points to her words. “I was called in for an emergency private party! I’m supposed to go right upstairs! Don’t want to get Mr. Mrrph-Rff mad at me! Please!”

And there it was—an arrow pointing to the stairs that Phoebe then pointed to with both hands, like a stripper version of a car-show model. The bouncer hesitated and that was all she needed.

“Thank you!” She bolted, crossing the lobby and ducking under the decorative barricade that was intended to deny access to the second level. She took the stairs two at a time, pulling herself up by the banister, turning a corner, and bursting out the door into a long, narrow hallway that had three separate closed doors leading off of it. What had once been an upper lobby had been cheaply renovated into the club’s so-called private party rooms. And Ian was in one of them.

Phoebe had no idea what exactly went on in the private party room of a strip club, although she could certainly guess. That rope at the bottom of the stairs gave her hope that two out of three rooms were empty. Although logic dictated that if one room was being used, all three could just as well be occupied.

But the clock was ticking as she went to the first door and leaned close to listen.

She heard nothing.

The second door, too, revealed only silence, and she realized that the rooms might have been intentionally soundproofed. But then she looked at the construction—shoddily slapped-up dry-wall and door frames that were not quite square—and she rejected that theory, moving toward the third door.

Which was where she heard him. “… gently down the stream …”

Phoebe grabbed and turned the doorknob, opening it even as she knocked lightly on the hollow door.

And there was Ian, alone in a room that defied the western theme by being filled with a 1990s man-cave-appropriate dark fake-leather sectional sofa that made up three sides of a square. A wet bar was along one wall, and next to it, the far corner of the room had been claimed for a half bath, with a toilet and sink. Phoebe double-checked, but the door was open and the little room was empty. The Dutchman hadn’t yet made it back upstairs.

Ian was standing near a window that was glazed over, not just for privacy, but because it faced the extremely unglamorous back parking lot. The look of shock on his face would’ve been funny had the message she’d come to deliver not include the words kill squad.

“Bad timing,” he said. “Bad, bad—”

She spoke over him, realizing that for all he knew, the equipment had malfunctioned, and she had no idea that he’d made contact with Vanderzee. “We know,” she said. “We all know. We’ve been listening. They’re listening still.”

“Shh!” he said, and she realized that her instincts had been right—these rooms weren’t soundproofed. And the Dutchman could well be on his way back up.

“But here’s the SNAFU,” she continued, closing the door, lowering her voice and moving closer to him. “A four-man kill squad’s ETA is five minutes. Four. Better bank on four. Three to be safe.”


Ian was just standing there, as dumbstruck as she’d ever seen him. It was a lot to process, so she elaborated, giving him as much information as she knew. “Berto emailed Francine with the warning that someone recognized you when you walked into this place, and whoever they were, they called Davio. Francine called Berto to confirm, and he told her Davio hired four men to come here and kill you, from someplace called Oakland Park—”

Oakland Park was apparently the right amount of detail to convince him, because he finally moved. Toward her, saying, “Shit. Shit! You promised you’d stay in the van.”

That was what he was upset about …?

“We didn’t have a lot of options, considering you forgot your phone, and Martell and Deb are still stuck in traffic. It was me or Yashi, and it couldn’t be Yashi.”

He grabbed her by the arm. “You need to go back downstairs, get back into the van, and get the hell out of here—”

“Drive away and leave you?” she asked as he pulled her toward the door. “Did you not hear what I just—”

“I’ll use this,” Ian countered. “I will. It’s actually perfect. But I can’t have you here.” He opened the door and peered out, looking both ways down the corridor before he pulled her out of the room with him. “There’s gotta be a back stairway. And you’re going to take it and go.”

“And leave you on foot, unarmed, against four killers in a car? Ian—”

“Phoebe. Think. If I don’t connect with Vanderzee here and now, it’s not going to happen. Because from here on out, Davio’s going to be watching for me. Not just in Henrietta’s, but every-fricking-where in Miami.”

“He already is,” she told him as he dragged her with him, toward a left turn at the end of the hall. But that led to the dead end of a balcony, and to what looked like a series of boxes with special seating.

“Jesus. This place is a freaking fire hazard. How can there not be a second set of stairs?” Ian pulled her back the way they’d come. “Okay, look. I’m going to go wait in that room, but you just keep on walking. Down the same stairs that you came up, and right out the door. Do you understand? Don’t stop to talk to anyone. In fact, burst into tears and run if anyone says anything to you.”

Burst into …? “You must think I’m a really good actor.”

“I know you are. Don’t argue with me. Just do it. Go.” They’d reached the open door to the party room in which she’d found him, and he let go of her arm, but she stopped, too.

“Please,” Phoebe begged. And it wasn’t all that hard to imagine being able to conjure up a full-scale, noisy tear-burst if she needed it. In fact, she could feel her eyes already starting to fill.

“Shit,” Ian swore again. And then he kissed her.

He put his hands on either side of her face, not roughly, but not quite gently, either, as he covered her mouth with his. Perfectly. Tenderly.

“I can take care of myself,” he said, looking into her eyes before he kissed her again, and then one final time. It was over too fast, before she even got a chance to kiss him back. And now he was backing away. “Go,” he said again.

And great. Now she was crying, a tear slipping down her cheek that she impatiently brushed away. “Ian, God help me, if you get yourself killed—”

“Hello. Who’s this?”

Phoebe closed her eyes, because she knew even without turning around, just from the look on Ian’s face, that Georg Vanderzee, AKA the Dutchman, had returned. She also knew that he’d heard her calling Ian by name. She could see the reality and implications of that in Ian’s eyes—since she’d just spoken to him in a very familiar way, there was no way they could pretend she was just some woman who worked here, and besides, who in their right mind, in broad daylight, would mistake her for a stripper, anyway?

So she did the only thing she could think to do that would get Ian out of there in advance of the coming kill squad—the only thing she could think to do that would also maintain his current connection to the Dutchman.

She turned toward Vanderzee, wiping her face, and said, “I’m Phoebe. I’m Ian’s wife.” She reached over and took Ian’s hand, even though the look in his eyes was not a happy one. “And I’m not supposed to be here, so he’s very mad at me, but he lost his stupid cell phone so I couldn’t call him and warn him that Davio Dellarosa, a man who hates him very much, knows that he’s here. Davio has sent a team of gunmen to kill him. Ian told me that you’re an old friend, a good friend, and I’m hoping that’s true, and that you’ll please, please help us. We need to get out of here. Now.”

* * *

Phoebe couldn’t have timed it better if her words had been a dialogue cue in an action movie.

She said now, and the next thing Ian heard was the sound of squealing tires from a car skidding to a stop in Henrietta’s parking lot.

He went back into the private room and over to the window, which was covered with a sheet of stick-on plastic that made it translucent. He peeled back a corner and revealed—yes. A dark midsized sedan with all four doors open was sitting right by the club’s back exit. And four men—all wearing ski masks and long coats despite the heat of the afternoon—were already pushing their way inside.

Vanderzee was right beside him, looking at them, too. “Merde, what are you into?” he asked.

“Oh, this and that,” Ian said. And look. Here was how the club had passed its safety inspection—there was a metal fire escape right outside. He opened the window, kicked out the screen. “Phoebe. Come on. Move.”

She took the hand he held out for her, and together they clattered down the metal stairs, with Vanderzee right behind them, cursing a blue streak in a mix of French, Dutch, German, and English.

“My car’s over here,” the man said, and he led the way, at a sprint, across the lot.

Ian knew Vanderzee wasn’t helping them out of friendship or the kindness of his generous heart. He was helping them because if he didn’t, they were going to be gunned down, right there, in broad daylight. And because it was broad daylight, and because people in this neighborhood were out and about, someone, or maybe some surveillance camera, would catch sight of his car speeding away from the scene, and suddenly Vanderzee would be up to his balls in a murder investigation. And since he was currently involved in a kidnapping and murder of his own, he couldn’t risk that.

Phoebe’s cheap plastic sandals were slowing her down, so Ian put his arm around her waist and half-carried her with him as he chased after the Dutchman, past the car that Davio’s hired guns had left by the door. If it hadn’t been a necessity to stay close to Vanderzee, Ian would’ve jumped in and driven away in it, because the last thing he needed was a car chase through Miami. Stealing the killers’ car was one surefire way to prevent that.

Instead, he dragged Phoebe toward Vanderzee’s embassy-staid town car.

“Let me drive, let me drive, let me drive,” Ian said, but the man ignored him, climbing in behind the wheel and ducking down, because—shit—a shooter had opened fire.

Everything went into slow-mo.

The world was already in high-def, and had been ever since Phoebe’d introduced herself to the Dutchman as Ian’s wife. The color of the sky was an unnatural shade of blue, and the sunlight skipped and danced off the few cars sitting there in the lot. He could see the white cargo van in a neighboring lot, parked in the shifting shade of a palm tree, the barely visible shape of Yashi behind the wheel. He could see power lines overhead and potholes in the asphalt and Phoebe’s face in between the two as she heard the gunshots—her wide eyes, her nostrils flaring as she tried to move faster, that beautiful mouth he’d just kissed …


What the hell was wrong with him? He shouldn’t have kissed her again. What was he thinking?

Ian yanked open the back door and pushed Phoebe inside as a bullet plowed into the shiny black finish of the Dutchman’s car.

He spun to look back at the club. And yes, the first of the gunmen had emerged through the window that Vanderzee, the freaking amateur, had carelessly left open. The man had come onto the fire escape, where he’d spotted them. But he was armed only with a handgun. At this distance, with that weapon, even a sharpshooter’s aim would’ve been erratic. Still, Phoebe was shouting something, and her head was still up, so Ian dove into the car, pushing her down beneath him onto the floor, shouting, “Go, go, go!” as the Dutchman did just that, peeling out and heading away from the club, toward the exit at the back of the parking lot.

Phoebe was shouting something else, something urgent that included Ian’s name, and he tried to lift at least some of his weight off of her. But Vanderzee took a hard left and then a hard right as he maneuvered his way around the few parked cars, and as the movement tossed them, Ian struggled to regain his balance.

If he were driving, he would’ve taken a different approach, heading instead for the front exit. Even though doing so would’ve brought them temporarily under fire, he would’ve rammed the shooters’ vehicle with this boat of a car, ensuring that they wouldn’t be followed.

Now, as he poked his head up to peer out the back window, he saw the gunmen running down the fire escape to their car, so they could do just that. One, two, three of them …

The fourth man wasn’t moving, and Ian registered the fact that he was standing there—at an elevated level, aiming what must’ve been a rifle—a split second before a hole was punched into the back windshield. He was already reacting and ducking—just barely. He felt the bullet whiz past his head even as he heard the sharp retort of the gunshot, even as the bullet crunched, simultaneously, into the door’s padded armrest, as beneath him Phoebe shouted her alarm.

“They’re following,” Ian grimly announced to the Dutchman, who responded with more of that multilingual cursing as the car pulled out onto the back road. “Don’t let them follow us!”

That last was aimed at Yashi—hopefully the fed had turned his roving microphones in the town car’s direction. Ian needed interference, and he needed it now, even if it meant sacrificing one of the vans. Because this mission would not happen, and Ian wouldn’t win Aaron’s immunity, if one of these hired goons got a clear look at the town car’s plates, and camped outside of the K-stani consulate, day and night, looking for the bounty he’d receive by delivering Ian’s dead body to Davio Dellarosa.

And that was far from the worst-case scenario.

The worst case, if the kill squad was allowed to follow, involved imminent death, not just for Ian, but for Phoebe, too.

Another bullet hit the car, somewhere on the side, in the back—which was good, because it meant they weren’t yet following. Either that, or they’d left their sniper behind on the fire escape.

“Try to get some buildings—something with some height—between the shooter and us,” Ian ordered Vanderzee as he pushed himself up and found himself nose to nose with Phoebe.

“You think I don’t know that? There’s nothing here but rows of shitty little houses. There’s nowhere to turn!”

Perfect.

Ian pulled himself up on the seat to risk another look out the back.

“Oh my God, Ian,” Phoebe said, and started to sit up.

“Stay down.” He reached out with his left hand—and realized that his fingers were dripping with blood. He wouldn’t have thought the world could get any sharper and brighter, but just like that, it did. “Are you hit?” he asked her, seeing that yes, there was blood on her sweatshirt, garish and red against the crisp white. He felt himself going into full mental overdrive as he tried to figure out the fastest way to get her to the closest hospital. To hell with this mission, to hell with the Dutchman, to hell with everything but making sure that this woman didn’t die …

But she was speaking over him. “Ian, you were shot! You!”

He was the one who was bleeding, thank you sweet Jesus. Phoebe was trying to sit up again, reaching toward his T-shirt sleeve. It was soaked with blood that was dripping down his arm.

He pushed her back down. “I’m okay,” he told her, although there was too much adrenaline in his system to know that for a fact. Still, he wasn’t gushing blood—this was not bad for a bullet wound. Plus, he’d been using his arm to support himself, so he knew it wasn’t broken. “Stay down!”

He again used his injured arm to brace himself so that he could poke his head up above the seat—up and back—to get a quick look out the back window. And sure enough, the kill squad’s sedan was behind them, shooters leaning out the windows, waiting to fire until they got closer. And closer …

“They’re behind us,” Ian reported. “Shit, they’re close enough to get your plate number!”

“No, they’re not,” the Dutchman said. “I’m not a fool—it’s smeared with mud. I made sure of it before I came here.”

Well, that was a break, at least. Now all they had to do was keep Davio’s men from shooting out their tires and killing them. “Do you have a weapon?” Ian asked.

Phoebe thought he was talking to her. “It’s in the lockup, remember?”

“Vanderzee,” Ian said. “Are you armed?”

The other man didn’t answer right away.

“Are you carrying?” Ian asked again.

The Dutchman swore again, this time in Farsi. But he handed Ian his weapon, a compact SIG Sauer that wouldn’t ruin the lines of his jacket.

And thus trust was established. “Thanks, bro,” Ian said. Or it would be, if they survived this goatf*ck.

If this were a Hollywood buddy movie, this was where Ian would deftly shoot out the pursuing car’s front tires and save the day, after which he’d hand the SIG back, butt first, to Vanderzee. And then they’d both smile, and the audience would nod because it would be clear that the two main characters were on the path to true friendship.

Except Vanderzee was an a*shole sociopath that Ian would never, ever, ever call friend.

He lay back on the seat as he checked the weapon, making sure there was a round chambered and ready to go. As soon as he raised his head to aim that weapon, he’d shout for Vanderzee to hit the brakes to put him into range. But the shooters would then be in range, too, and there were going to be two, maybe three men firing back at Vanderzee’s car.

“Are there two of them now?” Vanderzee asked. “White van—behind the sedan?”

What? Ian peeked up again, and—glory, hallelujah—there was Yashi, in the white van, behind the bad guys, gunning the powerful engine that Ian had paid extra for, and—bang! He slammed the van, full force, into the back of the sedan.

“Who the f*ck is that?” Vanderzee asked, even as he raced the town car faster down the seemingly endless narrow residential street.

As they both watched, Yashi did it again, this time hitting the sedan at a slight angle, from the back and to the side, pushing it, hard, toward a line of parked cars.

“That’s my guardian angel,” Ian told Vanderzee, using the same words that Berto had with Shelly just a few nights ago. And just like that, the entire plan for this rescue mission became clear to him, in a flash—the way his best plans always did. Just bang, and it was all right there, like a delivery via Dropbox into his brain. In that instant, he knew what he had to do to rescue those kids, and exactly how to pull it off.


He was not only going to use Davio’s unbridled hatred of him and his family, but he would also use Davio’s son Berto, who was proving to be Ian’s newest bestest friend, thanks no doubt to Francine. It was risky, sure, but he knew instinctively that it would work.

“His name is Berto Dellarosa—the guy in the van,” Ian told Vanderzee, as the shooters’ sedan sideswiped the row of cars parked on the street. “He’s the guy who called Phoebe to warn her about this hit. He didn’t think he would get here in time to pull me out, but I guess he did. I’ll tell you all about it—about the deal I’ve got going with him, a deal that double-crosses his father. There’s a potential to make a lot of cash—just, please, get us out of here first.”

The kill squad’s sedan was going so fast that when it sideswiped the cars its front wheel got snagged. It went into a spin that caused an oncoming truck—the only other traffic on this road—to jam on its brakes and skid to a shrieking stop in someone’s dusty yard.

Yashi, meanwhile, was driving like a demolition derby pro. He’d braked, but now he accelerated again, hitting the sedan one final time to send it rocketing into a telephone pole, where the front hood crumpled and the airbags exploded.

The last thing Ian saw was Yashi doing a hard youie and driving—fast—back the way he’d come, as the Dutchman finally found a cross street and turned.

Hold on. It was what Vanderzee should have said before he took the sudden sharp right. Instead he just blasted into it and Ian tumbled on top of Phoebe again.

“Slow down, slow down, slow down,” Ian told the Dutchman, even though he was nose to nose with Phoebe again, and was looking directly into her eyes. “And weave, man. Let’s not stay on this same street for long.”

Ian could see Phoebe’s questions—Berto Dellarosa? In a white van?

“We’re safe,” he told her, nodding and mouthing Yashi. “Berto must’ve found a way around the traffic. He knocked Davio’s kill squad into a telephone pole, at the very least popped their airbags, which neutralizes their car.” He pushed himself off Phoebe and up onto the seat as he raised his voice slightly to address Vanderzee. “That was f*cking great driving, man. Don’t stop, though—we need to keep going, but we also don’t want to get pulled over for going too fast. I don’t know about you, but I could really use not having to explain the bullet holes to the police.” Ian made himself laugh, as if that was a good joke.

From the front, Vanderzee laughed, too. “That was … Shit, Dunn. You’re one crazy bastard.”

“Yes, I am,” Ian agreed, as he helped Phoebe up so that she was sitting beside him on the seat.

“How about the bullet hole in your arm,” she said tartly. “Can we maybe take care of that before we have to explain it to the police?”

“I’m fine.” He shot her a warning glance. Let him spin this fiction. She’d done quite enough already, thanks.

She ignored him. “He’s bleeding all over your nice car,” she leaned forward to tell Vanderzee. “Are you okay? Were you hit, too?”

It was actually a nice touch—the realistic reaction of his “wife” to his getting grazed. And Ian had only been grazed, he saw as he pushed back his sleeve. There was a strip of skin missing from his arm, true, but it was a relatively small strip. In a perfect world, he’d go to the ER for stitches. In his current world, he’d patch it himself and end up with a souvenir scar.

Assuming he was going to live long enough for the wound to heal.

“I’m unhurt,” Vanderzee told Phoebe.

“Thank God,” she said. “And thank you. You saved our lives. I don’t know how we can ever, ever repay you.”

Ian poked her leg. That second ever was a little heavy on the drama.

“Your husband saved my life once,” the Dutchman told Phoebe. “I think this makes us even.” He glanced up into the rearview mirror to meet Ian’s eyes. “I can’t believe you got married.”

“At times, I honestly can’t believe it either,” Ian said dryly. “It happened so fast. Here. Thanks. I’m glad I didn’t need it.” He used the opportunity to lean forward and return the SIG. As much as he hated to let it go, it was better to do that sooner than to wait until the man asked for it back. “Safety’s back on.”

“Thank you, my friend.”

And weren’t they all just the perfect picture of geniality? But now that not getting killed was off his to-do list, Ian’s mostpressing need was to get Phoebe back to the FBI safe house.

“Seriously, man, I made a mess of your car,” Ian said. “Why don’t we stick this puppy in one of the long-term parking garages at the airport. Back it in, so the damage to the rear windshield doesn’t show. As soon as I can get to a phone, I got people who’ll come out, replace the glass, patch the hole, clean it up good as new—no questions asked.”

“You want us to walk through the airport looking like this?” Phoebe asked.

Was she trying to make this harder for him? Or was she just getting into playing the part? Well, Ian could do that, too. If she really was his wife, he’d be pretty freaking bullshit angry about her being in a place where bullets had been flying. “I need to get you someplace safe,” he said, not bothering to hide the tightness in his voice. “So no, we won’t walk through the airport. We’ll stay in the garage. Find a car that we can borrow. Get you out of there.”

Phoebe looked back at him, blinking rapidly, which appeared to be her version of SOS or maybe WTF. “But you were going to talk to, um, your friend Vanderzee? Mr. Vanderzee? About the you-know-what. Deal. With Berto?”

Ian widened his eyes at her, and she quickly added, “Or maybe not with Berto. Maybe I got that wrong and … I’m so sorry.” She was aiming her words now at Vanderzee. “This is really awkward because we haven’t been properly introduced on account of the fleeing-for-our-lives thing. I mean, you know I’m Phoebe. Dunn. And I’ve heard Eee call you Vanderzee, but is that your first name or your last? All I know for sure is that you knew Ian before I did, that you used to be friends, and that you’re amazing. A real hero.”

The Dutchman laughed, smiling back at Ian in the rearview mirror.

And Ian saw exactly where this was going. He knew exactly what was happening—and he couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it. Georg Vanderzee was falling in love with his wife.

“I love her,” the Dutchman proclaimed, just as Ian knew he would. “Please call me Georg. And to be honest, we’re not that far from my rental. I’ll put the car in my garage—I have people who will take care of it, too. It’s not a problem. In fact, I’d prefer if my people handled it. You and Phoebe—a very pretty name for a lovely lady—can get cleaned up. We can all have a drink to celebrate our adventure and our newfound friendship. And we can talk about this lucrative opportunity you mentioned. I happen to have a project of my own that’s going to pay out quite nicely, but it’s temporarily on hold, so funds are tight. Depending on your time frame, this could well work out perfectly for all of us.”

Perfectly was not the word Ian had in mind. He must not have been able to hide the muscles jumping in his jaw, because Vanderzee glanced at him in the mirror again, and said, “My house has top-of-the-line security. Your bride will be safe.”


“Well, that sounds great,” Phoebe said.

And Ian had to nod, forcing a smile as he attempted to incinerate her with his eyes. “Oh, yeah. It sounds great.”