Bold Tricks

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Her words settled over me like fine, cold dust.

Gus. Wasn’t. Here.

“But Javier said …” I started. I didn’t even bother finishing the sentence.

“Javier lies,” my mom said. “How do you think I ended up here with Travis?”

I narrowed my eyes at her, the rage building up inside, threatening to spill out. “Because you’re weak. And you’re a fool. And so am I.”

“Ellie,” Camden warned me.

“No,” I hissed at him. I was about to lose it. About to lose everything. I squeezed my gun so hard I could feel the ridges cutting into my palm. Javier had lied to me. He told me Gus was here. All along I was chasing after something that wasn’t real. Where was Gus?

“Why?” I cried out. “Why did he lie?”

“Because,” she said, her eyes avoiding mine, “he knew you’d never come for me. But you’d go for your father.”

“My father?” I asked while I heard Camden suck in his breath behind me. “He’s dead. I know he’s dead. Don’t tell me Javier lied about that too?”

“Ellie, I think we should get her out of here first,” Camden said quickly. “I hear something upstairs.”

I ignored him and my mom went on. “The father you know is dead, Ellie. I’m sorry sweetie. He was … Travis killed him. To take possession of me. We never knew what we were getting into when we came here. We only wanted … revenge. For you.”

“The father I know?” I asked, suddenly recalling Javier wording things very similarly.

She gave me a sad smile. “Ellie, I’m sorry. Gus is your real father.”

“What?”

What?

This was too much. My brain started to shut down on itself.

Gus. All this time. Gus. The man I was looking for, the man who was like a father to me more than my real father was in fact my real father. This shit couldn’t even be digested. My mother had an affair with Gus. Who the fuck didn’t she have an affair with?

“Fuck,” Camden swore under his breath. “I had a feeling.”

I whipped my head to look at him. “You had a feeling and you didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t know for sure and I didn’t know how,” he said quickly. “I knew you wanted to get him back badly enough as it was.”

“And Javier knew that too,” my mother went on, trying to adjust herself. I was both so angry at her and her lies and hurting because she was hurt. “He knew you’d come here for Gus if he told you that Travis had him.”

“But why?”

“To kill Travis.”

I shook my head, trying to get some sense into it. “Still? Again? Why doesn’t he just do it?”

“Because if you do it, he cannot be blamed. It won’t be a coup. And he’ll just take right over. Everyone’s allegiance will be to him. Cartels, my girl, are archaic.”

“Don’t call me that,” I hissed at her. “I am not your girl. I cannot put up with any more of your lies. Everything you’ve ever told me is a lie. You’re just like him.” Whether I meant Travis or Javier by that it didn’t matter.

“We have to go, now,” Camden said louder.

As if on cue, the building rumbled and shook slightly, the light bulb swaying.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, automatically looking to my mom.

She looked bewildered. “I don’t know.”

“Javier,” Camden said.

My mother’s mouth dropped open. “Javier is here?”

“He brought us here,” I told her. “How else would have we found you? How else would he have insured that I would keep going after Gus?” My voice cracked over his name.

“He ditched us in the jungle on the way here,” Camden filled in. “Obviously knowing we would keep coming. I guess he was waiting for us to make the first move. Either he’s gotten impatient or they somehow know we’re down here with you.”

“Well, fuck this,” I said and quickly took my lock-picking tools to the cage she was being kept in. Once I had gotten that open, I crawled in beside her and got her handcuffs off.

She rubbed her raw wrists and looked at me proudly. “I taught you well. You always were the best at picking locks.”

My lip automatically curled. “You shouldn’t be proud at me for being a con artist, for being like you. You should be proud that I’m bothering to get you out of here after everything you’ve done to me.” I grabbed her by her arm and pulled her up and out of the cage, ignoring the look on her face, like I’d slapped her. “Can you walk?”

She swallowed hard but nodded. “Yes. I’ve only been in there for a few days. I … I talked back to him the other night and …”

I raised my hand. “I don’t want to hear it.” I looked at Camden. “You’ll take care of her okay?” Before he could answer, I snatched the other gun from his pocket and ran toward the stairs just as I heard gunfire breaking out upstairs.

“Ellie!” Camden screamed at me, full-on horror.

But I kept running, gun in each hand, taking the stairs two by two to the top.

I was getting Gus back.

And I was going to make everyone pay.

I slammed the door open into the hall and was surprised to already see a guard running toward me. I quickly raised my gun and shot him in the head before he had a chance to aim at me. Then I kicked the door back shut, my gun already pointed straight forward and saw Dom at the opposite end of the hallway. I figured the guard was running toward someone.

Dom froze where he was, his gun also drawn.

“Don’t you fucking move!” I screamed at him. “Don’t you fucking move.”

To his credit, Dom stayed put. I had a feeling it’s because he wasn’t allowed to kill me. I was going to have to make that work in my favor.

I ran down the hall toward him but when I crossed the foyer I was met with glass breaking and bullets riddling the walls. I kept running, noticing there was fire coming up from behind where Dom was, filling the end of the hallway.

I stopped in front of him and immediately pistol whipped him across his nose. He cried out, grabbing his face and dropping his gun. I scooped it up, sticking it in my boots. Now I had three guns. I had a feeling I could never have enough.

More bullets and shots came from the foyer. I quickly grabbed Dom and swung him around the corner into the laundry room, shutting the door behind us. I slammed his head against the door, stuck the end of my gun against his temple, and yelled, “Talk! Tell me every fucking thing you know or I will kill you.”

He looked at me in utter fear, at my eyes which must have shown the rage that was flowing through me. What had Javier said earlier about depravity? Well he must have known I had that in spades, just waiting for the right moment for me to snap.

And I had snapped.

“Talk!” I screamed again, my spit flying into his bloody face.

“You were set up,” he said, panicking. “From the start.”

“You fuck! And you said you liked me.”

He blinked several times. “I do like you. But I love my family.”

I pushed the gun harder into his head. “What was the plan? Where is Gus?”

“You were supposed to be a diversion. You’d kill Travis and we’d swoop in, secure the compound. I don’t know where Gus is, I don’t. Javier said he was being kept somewhere for future use. I don’t know what that means. He’s alive, though.”

“Take me to Javier,” I told him, pulling him off the door and jamming the gun into his lower back.

He looked over his shoulder. “He’s in a firefight.”

“No,” I said, “Derek and Este are in a firefight. Javier is somewhere else, biding his time. Waiting for me. Take me to him. Now.”

“Please, I have a wife and child,” he pleaded.

“I won’t kill you if you do as I say,” I told him, meaning it, too. I didn’t want to kill Dom but I was realizing I was prepared to if absolutely necessary.

“You won’t but Javier will,” he said.

“That’s your problem.”

Another explosion rocked the house, this time from the opposite wing. We stumbled a bit and Dom went for his gun but I had my gun back on him in no time.

“I don’t think so,” I said. I nodded at the door I had broken into last night, the one leading to the backyard. “Let’s go.”

I kicked open the door and hoped that Camden and my mother were somewhere safe. “Who is setting off the explosions?”

“Derek,” he said. “Improvised Explosive Devices.”

“If he accidently kills Camden or my mother, everyone here dies, including you. Tell him to rein it in.”

“I can’t–”

“I know you’re communicating to each other, do it now!”

Dom sighed and pressed the Bluetooth device in his ear while I did a quick scan of the area. I could see the pool glistening in the distance, a single body floating in it. Several statues on the grounds were cracked or knocked over.

“Derek,” Dom said. “Stop the explosions and hold. Take out only Travis’s men. If you see McQueen or any of the Watts, do not shoot, do not engage. We need them alive. Copy?”

Dom nodded at whatever Derek said in his ear. “Okay,” he said to me. “He’s been called off.”

“Lucky you,” I said. “Where’s Javier?”

His eyes darted to the pool house, a small cottage with a single darkened window that was open a crack. Just enough space for a gun to fit through. Of course.

“He’s not going to kill me, right?” I asked Dom as I readied myself to run across the lawn.

“Javier? No. We were ordered not to kill you or Camden.”

“How nice. The bombs don’t really help.”

“We didn’t know where you were.”

“Well, here I am.” I looked around me then nodded at the cottage. “I’ll try and cover us.”

We started running for it, both Dom and I running as fast as we could, knowing there was a lot of ground between the main house and the pool house. We were only a few yards away when bullets started whizzing past us.

I turned and looked up at the roof of the house to see a sniper up there, taking shots at us as we ran. I aimed both guns at the roof and fired.

My aim was terrible.

I didn’t hit the sniper.

Instead, the sniper hit me.

My leg exploded in pain and I stumbled to the ground as the bullet seared through my calf. The cherry blossoms offered no defense.

I cried out, my gun falling away from my hands, and tried to crawl toward it. I barely managed to get it and quickly rolled on to my back aiming the gun at the roof when the sniper was hit before I could even pull the trigger. He stumbled backward and then slid off the room to his death on the hot patio below.

I turned around to look at Dom who had been brought down to the ground with me.

He wasn’t moving.

A shadow appeared overhead. I looked up.

Javier was standing over me, blocking out the sun, a rifle in his hand.

“Is Camden still alive?” he asked me in a strangely hopeful voice, as if Camden mattered to him more at the moment than me.

I pointed my gun straight up at him, my hand shaking from the bursts of pain that rocked my body in pure agony.

“Yes. But you won’t be.”

“You going to pull the trigger, angel?” he asked. “After I just saved your life?”

I grinded my teeth together in nauseating anger. “You lied to me. You lied to me.” I tried in vain to keep my hand steady. “You lied about Gus.”

He smiled, eyes glowing with madness. “I did lie. You wouldn’t have come here otherwise. You would have never fulfilled your destiny. To kill the man who ruined so many of our lives.”

I was done. So fucking done.

“Tell me where Gus is or I’ll blow your fucking brains out.”

“You don’t have it in you, angel. You’re too good for that now.”

This was no longer a matter of good or bad.

This was all grey.

Hazy, fuzzy grey.

I squeezed the trigger.

The chamber clicked.

Loudly.

Empty.

And though Javier’s face was shadowed from the sun, I saw something in his eyes that I had never seen before. Absolute disbelief. Absolute shock. Absolute … fear.

And I felt relief that he was still standing there, alive. I did have it in me to kill him, that dark part of me that wanted him dead. But now I had nothing to regret.

I whimpered and rolled over, grasping my leg as another wave of pain rolled through while he stood there above me, in the middle of a firefight, absolutely dumbfounded by what had just happened.

Suddenly the ground around us erupted in another spray of bullets. I screamed and quickly rolled over, trying to get out of the way.

And Javier turned and ran back toward the pool house, toward safety, leaving me there on the grass, bleeding, while the bullets came closer.

Leaving me alone.

Leaving me to die.

I guess I had pulled the trigger first. The honeymoon really was over.

I rolled over onto my stomach, avoiding getting too close to Dom who lay dead beside me, and watched as he ran, wondering if there was a point in me crawling after him. I wondered how long I had before I died. I wondered if I’d ever see Camden again. I wondered if my life made a difference to anyone out there.

I just wanted another chance at it.

Another chance to be me.

Scars and all.

And while I was lying on the grass, my leg bleeding out, soaking my jeans, I heard a few more pops of bullets go out.

Javier was running into the pool house when he was struck in the back.

I screamed bloody murder.

He fell down flat, legs sticking out of the door, motionless.

Javier.

Shot.

Dead.

No.

No.

Not yet.

His legs twitched and he managed to pull himself into the pool house until I couldn’t see him anymore.

“Ellie Watt!” a cold voice bellowed from across the lawn. I could barely tear my eyes away from where Javier had disappeared, fighting back a range of emotions I couldn’t even pin down but I managed to turn my head. The voice had reached into me, holding me tight with an icy fist.

Travis was standing on the lawn where it met the edge of his patio, gun in hand.

In front of him was my mother and Camden on their knees with their hands behind their heads.

No.

Not this.

Not now.

My heart couldn’t take any more of this. Every part of me was shattered from leg to soul.

“What do you want from me?!” I screamed at him. I grabbed my gun out of my boot and staggered to my feet, crying softly from the pain as I touched my right leg to the ground.

“Come closer and we’ll talk,” Travis yelled back. “You might want to keep your gun down, though. You know you can’t save both of them.”

I sobbed in pain and anger and started limping toward him, practically dragging my bloodied leg behind me, gun at my side. Each step I took riddled with more pain, more sorrow, more hate toward this man who had taken everything away from me.

I wouldn’t let him take Camden.

I wondered if he knew that would be my decision. He figured I came all this way for my mother when that wasn’t the case at all. He was betting on me picking her, saving her.

I remembered when Derek had asked me what I would do if I had to save my mother, how I said I’d have to let the situation dictate my choice.

I knew my choice back then and I knew it now.

I stopped a few yards away and looked at Camden, at his beautiful soul in those blue eyes. We stared at each other locked, in our gaze, locked in love. He wouldn’t want me to make this choice either. I could only hope he wouldn’t make it for me.

“You don’t look as lovely as you did when you were Eleanor Willis,” Travis said, smiling like the devil, his gun in the middle of the two of them but leaning more toward my mother.

“You don’t look so hot either,” I retorted. His normally neat dark grey hair was messed up with pieces of plaster in it, his slick Italian suit covered in blood and tears, his terrible eyes red. “Your age is showing.”

He kept smiling and nodded at me. “Sorry about your leg. Hope it doesn’t leave a scar.”

I swallowed hard, overtaken by the anger and the pain and the determination to walk out of there with the love of my life. I chose love over everything.

Love over gold.

I raised my gun straight up in the air and pointed it at him. “I hoped this doesn’t either.”

“You kill me, Ellie,” he said quickly, a rare tremor coming through, “your mother dies.” He trained the gun to the back of her head.

“You wouldn’t kill her,” I said and though I wished it weren’t true, I had to wish it was true. “You love her, don’t you?”

His eyes narrowed. “She loved me enough to make up for it. You can’t love in this business, Ellie. Sooner or later everyone dies.”

Javier had said that to me. Now I didn’t even know if he was alive or not.

“Then why are we standing here like this,” I said, hiding the weakness in my voice. “Do you want me to come join you, is that it? Do you want me to be like my mother? The only reason she was with you is because she wanted to get revenge for what you did to me.” I didn’t even know if that was true but maybe it could knock his ego down a few.

He pressed his thin lips together and smiled. “You’re here because I’m humoring you. I’ve got a sniper trained on your head right now. None of you are walking out of this alive. I just wanted you to see what love gets you in this world, in the real world. Death. You can escape love but you can’t escape death. Not here. Not anywhere. And not right now.”

This wouldn’t be our fate.

“And neither can you,” I said, pulling the trigger.

It all happened so fast and so terrible.

The bullet went straight into Travis’s forehead but not before he had the chance to pull the trigger on his own gun. My mother leaned to the side in anticipation and the bullet ended up striking her neck instead of her head. I immediately dropped to the ground as the sniper’s bullets came out, Camden doing the same. I rolled over, getting as close to him as possible, not even feeling my leg anymore and aimed in the direction of the bullets.

There were two men on the roof now. One with the gun.

The other going behind him and snapping the man’s neck with a quick twist of his hands.

The man fell down dead. The other man waved at us, just once, then started running down the roof until he was able to slip inside an open window on the second floor.

Derek.

“Ellie,” Camden said, crawling to me, taking me into his arms. “Are you okay?”

I shook my head, words not coming, and immediately tried to get to my feet. I fell back down and then crawled over to my mother who was lying on the ground, making gurgling sounds from her throat.

“Mommy,” I whimpered, trying to turn her over. Blood poured freely from the hole in the crook of her neck, soaking my hands. She was still breathing, weak and shallow. Her brown eyes blinked at the sun then slowly looked over at me, softening when she saw my face.

I couldn’t stop the tears. I bawled, chest burning for air, and she reached for my hand and held it as strongly as she could. “I’m sorry,” I gasped. “I’m so sorry.”

“Ellie, sweetheart,” she tried to say but could only cough.

“I am so sorry,” I cried again, shaking uncontrollably. “I love you mommy, and I’m sorry I’m so sorry I did this.”

She shook her head slightly. “You did nothing wrong,” she croaked, her lips turning white. “I’m sorry. For everything I did to you.”

Her lungs wheezed and she coughed again and I could feel Camden crouched beside me, a hand on my arm. He was going to tell me to go, that we had to leave but I couldn’t leave her here, not dying like this.

She swallowed, a stream of blood coming out of the side of her mouth. “I love you Ellie. Remember that.”

In that moment I forgave her for everything. I only hoped she could forgive me. And that I could forgive myself.

And then, as I kissed her forehead, I heard her take in her last breath of air. My tears spilled onto her head and I slowly pulled away. She was lifeless, frozen, hopefully taken away somewhere where she could finally find happiness.

“Ellie,” Camden said softly, sticking his shoulder under my arms and pulling me up to my feet. “The game is still in play and you’re shot. We have to get out of here.”

My heart was a stone, a brick, a mountain, weighing me to the ground. I looked at my mom, then over at the pool house, and I wondered how things went so wrong, so fast. They weren’t the constants in my life and they weren’t the good, but at least they weren’t always the bad. Like me, they were grey and they shaded every step I’d taken.

I moved like I was in a dream, the pain in my leg overshadowed by my sorrow. Camden helped me limp a few steps before he bent down and scooped me up into his arms, instructing me to put my hands around his neck. He ran forward but I stared backward until the bodies were further away.

“You two okay?” Derek’s voice broke through.

Camden stopped and I raised my head to look. Derek was standing at the corner of the house, a large gash across his face but otherwise all right. I wasn’t sure if we could trust him but he did just take out the sniper for us. Then again, he was wearing a bulletproof vest.

“She’s been shot,” Camden said, his voice on the verge of panicking. “In her leg.”

Derek gave it a quick glance and then looked at us gravely. In his vest, ammo and weapons, piercing blue eyes and shaved head, he looked like he was in his element. Nothing fazed him. This was routine.

“I can help you,” he said. “If you pay me.”

“What?” Camden exclaimed and his grip around me tightened.

Derek was motionless. “I know where Gus is. I needed to know how much he meant to you, what you are willing to give, Ellie. I can take you to him. I can fix you. But you have to name your price.”

“Fifty thousand,” I said, knowing how much Javier had given Camden for me. I was sure, even in death, Javier wouldn’t mind if it went to save my life. “Give or take.”

“I’ll give you a break and let’s call it thirty,” Derek said. “It’s still more than what Javier paid me to stick around and help take over this place.”

The words were stuck in my throat but they managed to come out. “He’s shot, you know. He’s in the pool house.”

He nodded. “I saw. I took out the original sniper as well. But whether he’s alive or dead, he owns the Zetas now and they’re coming. I did my job for him, now I want out.”

“And how are we getting out of here?” Camden asked.

The tiniest hint of a smile appeared on Derek’s lips. “I learned to fly a few choppers in Afghany.”

He jerked his head toward the landing pad.

“Shouldn’t we … shouldn’t we make sure Javier is okay,” I said, knowing it wasn’t the popular opinion.

Derek shook his head. “We don’t have time. You have no idea what that man is capable of, do you.”

“She knows,” Camden said quickly. “She just has a big heart.”

“A big heart will get you killed. If Javier’s alive, he’s at the top of the food chain now. And we’re all just chum.”

I let that sink in and tried to forget the guilt. He had left me behind to die. I would have to try and do the same to him. And hope that if he did pull through, that he wouldn’t come after me again.

Soon we were in the helicopter, Derek at the controls, Camden beside me in the back, ripping apart a first aid kit for pain medicine. I stared out the window as we rose from the ground and took off toward the horizon. We left my past, my broken, and sometimes beautiful, past behind me.