Fire Rising

PROLOGUE

May 2014

The Rose and Crown pub

Oban, Scotland

Sammi wiped the last part of the highly polished bar as the front door opened and Daniel came rushing into the pub. She wondered at his harried expression and the sweat beading his face. When he locked the door and turned to her with wild eyes filled with sorrow and remorse, she knew something was dreadfully wrong.

“What is it?” she asked cautiously.

Daniel meandered through the tables as if he couldn’t decide whether to hurry or wait and made his way to the back of the bar. His eyes darted about and his face was flushed. “We need to leave. Now.”

“I just shut down for the night.” Sammi reached for a glass before she tilted a lever and watched the dark ale fill half the glass before she shut it off and lifted the glass to her lips. She drank several swallows as she thought about her ex-lover and his peculiar actions.

Their affair had been wild—and short. She knew Daniel wasn’t the type to stick around forever, nor was he the guy she would settle down with. Not that there was such a guy.

Or that she would even let anyone get that close.

But he had a keen business sense. Even as their quick affair died down, their friendship grew until he was a part of her business. His connections to distributors and suppliers cut her costs by a third, saving her a lot more than she thought possible.

“Sammi, I mean it,” he said, ire deepening his voice as he reached for her arm.

She dodged him to prop an elbow on the bar, her look daring him to try and force her. Her ears still rang from the noise of the night, and her mouth watered for the lobster sandwich waiting for her in the pub’s small kitchen.

“Tell me what’s going on first.”

“Dammit. We doona have time.” He raked a hand through his thinning, dark hair and let out a string of curses. “We need to leave now.”

“I’ve still got the floors to clean, which was your job tonight if you’ll remember the schedule. You know. The schedule I put up last week? The one you agreed to. You might see it if you spent more time here. What’s up with that, by the way? You’ve scarcely been around lately.”

He swallowed and nervously glanced at the door. “I’ll tell you everything once we’re on the road. Go pack a bag as quick as you can.”

Sammi nearly snorted her ale through her nose at his absurd request. “What?” she asked incredulously after she stopped coughing. “Why do I need to pack a bag?”

“They’re coming, Sammi. We’ve got to leave!” Daniel shouted violently. “Now!”

A tingle of apprehension ran down her spine. “Who is coming? I’m not moving until you tell me, so you might as well spit it out.”

He put both hands on the bar and hung his head as if the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. “I was an idiot. I … I got in with some bad people when I was a lad. Had no choice really. Everyone in my family does some sort of job for them. I kept working with them because the money was so good. And easy.”

“What people?” she asked hesitantly, unsure if she really wanted to know. Sammi set down her glass and glanced at the door Daniel had locked as apprehension began to grow.

“Their name doesna matter. They’re organized crime.”

Her blood ran cold at his words. “What did you do for them?”

“Laundered money. Through the pub.”

“My pub?” It was like she had been kicked in the stomach. The man she’d trusted to share the accounting of her business had laundered money for the Mob. It was too surreal to even grasp.

Daniel lifted his head, his blue eyes filled with guilt. “We both made money off it. I made sure of it.”

“Oh, God.” This was going from bad to worse. She knew it, yet she still found herself asking, “What have you done?”

Daniel pushed off the bar and took her hands in his. “I skimmed some of their money. Just a little, Sammi, but I wanted to make sure you were set. You struggled with the pub after your mum’s death, not to mention me using the pub for the money laundering. It’s the least I could do for you.”

She didn’t know what to say. The man before her, the man she had shared her bed and her business with, was a stranger. However, the fact he was scared put her on high alert.

“They found out you took the money, didn’t they?”

He nodded woodenly. “I was supposed to meet them two hours ago.”

“Supposed to? You mean you didn’t?” She could only stare in complete shock.

“Do you know what these people do to those who steal from them?”

Sammi looked around her pub as realization sank in. She had scraped together money, and with a little help from her mother, she had managed to acquire the pub five years ago. It was her life. The dark, smooth wood of the bar, the bottles of liquor lining the shelves, and the smell of food cooking in the back were the only things she looked forward to every day.

She was going to lose it all. Because of an idiot she had trusted. “I’ve seen enough movies to know.”

“They’ll come for me. You can’t be here when they do. They’ll … you don’t want to know what they will do to you.”

No, she really didn’t. But she also didn’t want to walk away from her pub. It was hers, and she would fight for it. First, she had to stay alive. “How long will we be gone?”

Daniel frowned, his dark brows lowering over his eyes. “We won’t ever come back. Their reach is long. If we remain in one place too long they’ll catch us. No credit cards, no mobile phones. We need to disappear and find new identities.”

The room began to spin, just as her life was doing. She had woken that morning thinking about going down to the docks tomorrow to get first pick of the freshest seafood in all of Scotland.

“All of my money is in the bank.”

“We can no’ chance it,” Daniel said. “Take what you have here. We’ll improvise. I’ve got some money stashed in the warehouse. You know the one I bought under that fake name.”

She did know, but she couldn’t see how they would get there without the Mob finding them first. And how was she supposed to survive without her credit cards, bank, or her mobile? The thought of being on the run left her shaken, unsettled.

Dazed.

“Move,” Daniel said as he shoved her to the swinging door that separated the pub from the back.

Sammi glanced into the brightly lit kitchen and the lobster sandwich waiting for her on a white plate atop the stainless steel counter. Instead, she turned to the right and passed the door to her office and started up the stairs that led to her flat.

There was no need to turn on any lights. The streetlamps shining in shed enough for her to see her way clearly to her bedroom.

At three in the morning, Oban was the quietest. How many nights had she fallen asleep listening to the sound of the water as it lapped against the docks? How many times had she woken to the squawks from the gulls as a ship docked? How many drinks had she served the people of Oban?

All of that was going to be left behind. It didn’t seem fair. Maybe she wouldn’t go. Daniel was the one who had stolen the money. He was the one they would be after.

“Who am I kidding?” she asked herself.

They would probably shoot her rather than look at her. Even if she feigned ignorance, she was sure they wouldn’t let her go.

She didn’t want to die, so Sammi did what she had to do—as always. After grabbing a bag from under her bed, she pulled open several drawers and was about to start stuffing clothes in when she heard a vehicle pull up.

Sammi hastily rushed to the other side of her loft that faced the parking lot and sidled against the wall next to the window. She hesitated for just a second before she carefully peered through the sheer gold curtains.

That is when she caught sight of the Lexus SUV and the three burly men who stepped out and flanked a tall, impressively dressed man who was obviously their leader.

He paused to button his suit jacket and glanced up at her window. She couldn’t tell much about him other than he had dark, clean-cut hair.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” she mumbled as she ducked and crawled away from the window as fast as she could.

She had to get down to Daniel so they could get out the back before—

Her thoughts came to a screeching halt with the sound of the pub door crashing open. There was no way they could get out now. Sammi stood at the top of the stairs, her heart beating a slow, sickening rhythm.

This was the night she was going to die. The realization turned her blood to ice. She glanced at the phone, wishing she had returned Jane’s phone call as she had planned to do earlier that day.

Jane, the half-sister who had walked into her life so suddenly two years ago. It had been impossible not to like Jane. No matter how Sammi tried, she and Jane had become closer than she had let anyone after her mother died.

Sammi’s thoughts halted as Daniel cried out in pain. Adrenaline spiked as she flattened herself against the wall in case someone glanced up the stairs.

“You should’ve known better than to steal from me,” came a cultured English accent from below. “I might have been more lenient had you come when I summoned you.”

“Ow … I,” Daniel said around large puffs of air. “I was going to bring you the new tallies from the latest batch I’ve laundered.”

“How much did you take this time?”

Sammi cringed when Daniel hesitated.

“Danny,” the man said, a hint of malice and something even darker infusing his voice. “I suggest you answer me.”

“I on-only took ten thousand.”

“And what have you done with my money?”

The sound of footsteps approaching had Sammi backing farther away from the stairs. She didn’t hear Daniel’s response as she focused on whoever might come up after her.

Several tense minutes passed before the man walked away. Sammi let out a relieved sigh, but when Daniel let out another scream, she knew she couldn’t wait around forever.

She licked her lips as she looked across the space to the windows on either side of her bed. If she could get to them, she could use the water pipes to slide down. But that was a big if.

“Where is Miss Miller?” the leader asked.

She was really beginning to hate that sophisticated tone of his.

Daniel refused to answer. A moment later she heard the unmistakable sound of a fist meeting a body. Daniel coughed, his wheezing breath telling her the punch had landed in his stomach.

“I’ll ask once more, Danny. Where is Miss Miller?”

“She’s not a part of this,” he said.

Sammi closed her eyes as she heard another punch being thrown.

“Right his chair, Fabian,” the leader said.

A chair scraped against her floor, then there was nothing but silence. Sammi’s imagination ran rampant with what could be going on.

“Danny?”

“She’s not here,” Daniel barked angrily. “Sammi took a couple of days off.”

There was a snort. “You mean you sent her away so you wouldn’t have to explain yourself to her, right?”

“Whatever you say, Mr.—”

Daniel was cut off with another punch to his face. Sammi opened her eyes and looked at the windows again. Her time was running out. The men wouldn’t take Daniel’s word for it. They would search the entire pub. If she wanted to see the sun rise, she couldn’t remain.

She drew in a deep breath and released it at the same time she dashed across the open doorway. Her thought had been speed, not stealth. A mistake she realized all too soon when a board creaked beneath her foot. She froze, and that’s when she heard the leader send someone to search upstairs.

Sammi’s hands shook as she tried to unlock the window. The adrenaline kept her from falling apart, but it was the panic that caused her to fumble.

She got it open when the first thug bounded up the stairs. With the lights out he couldn’t see her, but that didn’t stop him from firing off several shots around the room—one coming entirely too close.

While he groped for the lights, she wedged the window open enough so she could slip out. She had a grip on the pipes with her legs and one hand so she could lower the window until it was nearly shut.

Luck was on her side, because at that moment the lights flicked on.

Sammi heard voices out in front of the pub and quickly slid down the pipes as fear pushed her. She landed hard on the ground, tweaking her ankle. After a hasty look over her shoulder, she ran between empty crates and into the water with nary a sound just as footsteps running toward her grew louder.

Even in the dark water, she huddled against the dock, afraid they would see her. They were there waiting for her to make a noise and reveal herself, but she refused to do something so foolish.

Sammi shivered from the cool water and the terror gripping her. Any moment her life could be snuffed out, ending before she had accomplished any of her goals.

They walked to the edge of the docks and stood there searching the black water. The silence was the hardest. She silently begged them to talk, to say anything to break the quiet.

She got her wish when they began firing several rounds that zinged all around her like tiny missiles. After what seemed like hours, the leader called to his men and they walked off. Sammi waited until she heard their SUV engine turn over, and then she started to climb out of the water.

That’s when her pub blew up.

Sammi was forcefully thrown back into the sea by the impact. She looked up through the rippling waves and saw the flames shooting into the dark sky. It wasn’t until she started swimming that she felt a twinge in her shoulder.

She broke the surface and drew in a ragged breath, letting her burning lungs take in huge mouthfuls of air. People were running about, shouting as they tried to put out the fire so the rest of the street didn’t go up in flames as well.

Sammi swam father down the dock away from her pub and climbed unsteadily up the ladder. Only then did she touch her shoulder and hiss in a breath at the contact.

She fisted her hands, only to bite back a curse. When she glanced down at her palms, she found they were bleeding and raw from her journey down the pipes.

The adrenaline was putting off most of the pain, but that wouldn’t last long. She needed to put some distance between her and Oban before the real pain slammed into her.