Page 64 of Guarded By Them

Chapter Twenty-two

Dillon

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THE HIKE BACK TO WHERE we’d left the car was painful in more ways than one.

The Capellos’ men had picked up the guns we’d been forced to throw down, so we were completely unarmed. We were pushed and shoved from behind, reminded with the press of a muzzle into our spines that they could shoot us at any moment, if they chose.

“Can we at least get our flashlights out of our bags?” Kodee said with a growl as he tripped over yet another root.

“No,” Frankie snapped. “Make do with ours.”

Maybe he thought we’d try to use them as weapons—not that a couple of flashlights would stand up much against guns—or had something else in our bags we might be able to use. I wracked my mind, trying to figure out a way out of this. In one sense, we should be grateful that we had been saved, but in another, we were now going to be turned into the Capello brothers’ little bitches.

If we did manage to escape, would we even make it? The Capellos were offering their protection, and a part of me thought we were better off just taking it. We were going back to the city, and of course it was dangerous, but after the last few days had played out, I was starting to think it wasn’t any more dangerous than being on the run.

Instinctively, we all closed in around Rue, wanting to keep her safe. We’d come far too close to not only losing her, but losing each other.

“Jesus, couldn’t you have caught up with us a little sooner,” I said, “so at least we wouldn’t need to walk all the way back again?”

“Be happy we got to you when we did,” Frankie growled. “You’d be dead if we hadn’t.”

“We’d also still be alive if you got to us sooner,” I pointed out.

None of them answered me, but I could practically sense the Capello brothers rolling their eyes at me. I guessed I should be relieved that was all they were doing. I needed to keep my mouth shut, but at some point, between thinking I was about to receive a bullet in the back of my head and now, I had started to feel kinda reckless.

“Has a date been set for Joe Nettie’s trial?” I called out to the backs of the Capello brothers, who were leading the way back through the trees. I figured we needed to know.

“Yes,” Manuel Capello replied over his shoulder, without actually bothering to look back. “It’s one week from now, so you can understand why we’re so keen to get Rue back.”

One week. That didn’t buy us much time.

“If Rue takes the stand,” I continued, my mind whirring, “and Nettie goes free anyway, what happens then?”

Frankie shrugged. “That depends on what happens between now and then.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you look like you’re going to be an asset to our business, we’ll keep you around and make sure you remain under our protection. If you make things difficult for us, however...”

He didn’t need to finish his sentence. We all understood the implied threat.

“What about Rue?”

There was no getting away from the fact she’d still be in danger. If she took the stand, she’d have a flashing beacon on her head. Whether Joe Nettie went to jail for the rest of his life, or if he walked free, his friends would still want her dead.

“What about her?” he replied, throwing the question back to me.

But his question was different than mine. I was asking how we’d keep her safe once the trial was over, but he was saying that once she’d done what they needed, she would no longer be important enough for them to worry about.

What if the only way for her to stay alive was if she was no longer with us?

I didn’t want to entertain the idea of never seeing her again, but wouldn’t that be better than her ending up dead?

“What if we work for you, but in return, the moment the trial is over, you promise Rue will be able to leave the country?” I suggested. “If we’re going back to the city, we’ll be able to recover our equipment. We can make her a passport that’ll be good enough to get her out of the country.”

If only we’d thought to do that when she’d been staying with us. We could have been a long way from here by now, lying on a white sandy beach somewhere, listening to the splashing of waves, and having sexy members of staff serving us cocktails. But that dream was long gone, and we couldn’t turn back time. Instead, we were traipsing through the forest in the dark with guns pressed to our backs.

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