A gunshot sounded, and she hesitated just long enough for the guard’s hand to close around her ankle. She screamed, trying to kick herself free, but the guard had a grip and was trying to drag her under his now naked body.
“Help!” she screamed, tears clogging her vision. She fought with everything she had left and screamed again when she heard another, much closer gunshot. The guard fell next to her onto the mattress, and she stared at him with a mixture of relief and horror as blood poured from a wound in his head.
She felt Harley’s hands on her arms as he lifted her off the mattress and cradled her against his chest. She sobbed into his shoulder and he wrapped his free arm around her.
* * *
“Oh, dear God, Norah. I'm so sorry, I had no idea he was a traitor. You are safe now. Shhh, it’s okay, I’m here.” He stroked her hair and back. He had nearly lost his damn mind when he had seen the guard’s large body over her. Harley had almost been too late, and wished he had possessed the time needed to rip apart the guard with his bare hands. Maybe castrate the asshole.
Son of a bitch, he thought to himself, what the hell had he been a part of by working with Hewitt and Hewitt?
“Come on, Norah, we have to go.”
She nodded absentmindedly and he pulled her down a hallway towards a stairwell. He knew it led down to the parking garage, but he also knew Tom would have had the car pulled around to the alley behind the office.
They snuck across the lot, and, leaving his car there, hot-wired another and then sped out into the daylight. They drove in silence for hours, putting as much distance between them and Seattle as they possibly could. He knew Tom had eyes everywhere in the city, and he needed to make sure they were safe while he figured out what the hell to do.
What in the hell are we going to do? Tom had been who he had counted on directing them to the next step, and the bastard had turned on them. He could only imagine he had been working for Matthews all along. He thought back to when the case first crossed his desk.
Tom had done everything he could to try and convince Harley it was a dead end. “Focus on something else, son,” he had told him. Harley’s hands clenched the wheel. He had trusted him, had believed that he was a good, honest man. He shook his head and pulled into a bus stop in some small town in the middle of nowhere. He hadn’t even been paying attention to where they were going; his only thought was to get Norah as far away from danger as possible.
He put the car in park and then turned to look at her. Her face was pale, her eyes wide and red from crying.
“Norah, are you hurt?” He looked around through the windows, wanting to make sure they were not followed into the parking lot. He had checked while they had been driving, but you could never be too careful. He wanted to ask her now, when he could see her eyes.
“No. I-I think I’m okay. My dress, I saved for this dress,” she said, her eyes filling again. “I took on a part-time job at a clothing store but didn’t tell Clayton. He never would have let me do it, and I wanted to buy it for myself so I would own something that Clayton hadn’t paid for.” She smoothed out the tattered gown and then let it fall, exposing a strapless bra. “And now I just want to get the fucking thing off!” she yelled, and buried her head in her hands.
Harley hit the steering wheel. Why had he taken her there? He should have dropped her off at the safe house like he had planned. Or seen the damn signs that he now saw clearly, and realized Tom was a fucking asshole.
“I should never have taken you there. I’m so sorry, Norah.” He hit the steering wheel again. “How could he do this? Dammit!”
Norah put her hand gently on his arm, a bold move that surprised both of them.
“You didn’t know. I don’t blame you for trusting someone, and you saved my life, Harley. Three times now.”
He looked into her eyes and saw what he had wanted to see since the moment he laid eyes on her. Trust. She finally trusted him. He only hoped that once he told her what he had to say, she would still have that same look in her eyes. He would be as gentle as possible, but it was well past time she knew.
“Norah, there are some things I need to tell you.”
She stilled and stared at him. “What?”
“There’s a reason I was at that banquet, and it had nothing to do with the charity. I have been tracking a man over the last two years who is the head of one of the larges crime organizations in the state and quite possibly the nation. I tracked him to that dinner.”
Her eyes widened. “Who?”
“Clayton Matthews.”
“That’s not possible. Clayton was a good man.”
“He hurt you.”
“That was different. Clayton helped hundreds of people start better lives. What could you possibly think he had been guilty of?”
He ignored her question. “Did you ever see him interact with anyone who didn’t quite fit in with his normal crowd? Any increase in funds while you were together?”
“No.” She thought for a minute and her brows drew together. “He inherited his money and spent most of it throwing charity banquets and supporting local shelters. He would assist struggling families with foreclosure or medical bills. I helped him locate those who needed help through my contacts at the shelters I worked with.”
Harley doubted she realized she just implicated herself with his scheme. He even doubted she had been privy to any of the information about what Matthews really did.
“There were a few men he spent time with that looked like they belonged to the mob or something,” she continued, “but I always figured they were part of his security team.”
He looked at her confused, so she added, “We had a lot of threats due to the women’s shelter we had recently opened. Jealous exes and abusive fathers, people insisting we tell them the shelter’s location. Just what was he involved in?”
“It may be hard to believe at first.” He sat across from her and took a drink from his own mug. “Your fiancé was involved in a large under-the-table organization that loaned money to those that needed it, focusing on those with medical bills and failing businesses.” He paused cautiously, wanting to gauge her reaction at the next part. “When they couldn’t repay him, either by giving him back the money plus interest, or they weren’t able to or willing to complete the tasks he gave them, he sent men in to clean up the mess.” He watched her face for any sign of recognition, but found none.
“What do you mean, clean up the mess?”
Like ripping off a Band-Aid, he thought to himself, and decided to abandon his original plan of being gentle. It might have been a dick-headed move on his part, but he needed to get to the bottom of what was going on, and there wasn’t time for feelings. She was going to find out anyways.
“He sent men in to kill the families of those who borrowed from him. Or had them held for ransom until they paid the debt in full.” He watched her eyes widen in disbelief and horror.