Page 2 of Queen's Ransom

Helena waited for Celia to get the first timing belt off, lowered in her right hand, before she made her move. Hooking her toe in the belt’s loop, Helena kicked out and pulled Celia off-balance. But only for a second. Shifting into a lunge, Celia yanked the shop rag out from under the parts and chucked it at Helena’s face, her fist following in its wake, using her momentum to power the swing.

Helena batted aside the rag and blocked the jab with a raised forearm, catching Celia’s weight against her. “Good,” she said. “You’ve been practicing.” While Helena had blocked the landing, Celia’s quick correction and subsequent action, making use of what she had on hand for self-defense, would buy her time against an unsuspecting attacker. Such as her ex-husband, if that idiot ever showed his face again.

As far as Helena was concerned, all Celia had to do to get the upper hand against her was ask. Fire back in her eyes, a flush streaking across her cheeks, a long brown curl escaping her ponytail, Celia was fucking stunning. And so fucking close after months of personal and physical distance. Close enough to smell the shop grease, the lingering traces of Dove soap, and the strong Italian coffee Celia kept on constant brew at the shop.

Until Celia pushed against Helena’s forearm and righted herself, resurrecting the distance between them. “Cruz doesn’t exactly take no for an answer.”

“Mel’s a good teacher.” The FBI agent turned bounty hunter was the only person who could best Helena in hand-to-hand combat. She was a certified badass and a friend. One Helena had trusted to protect and train Celia during her absence.

“She is.” Celia knelt to pick up the scattered parts. “Dependable.”

Unlike her. Direct hit. Helena muffled her sharp inhale and knelt beside Celia. “Fuck, Cee. I’m sorry.”

Celia whipped her face the opposite direction and the avoidance fucking stung. Deserved, but stung. Helena picked up the last spark plug and placed it with the others in Celia’s rag. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

Celia stood and laid the rag full of parts on the platform, neatly spreading them out again. “You didn’t promise me anything.”

“I promised to be your friend.” Helena rose but didn’t step back. “To help you.” She’d wanted to promise more, offer more, but between wanting to give Celia space to work through her divorce and juggling her own obligations—succeeding Hawes as assassin-in-chief and managing a grueling year-end wrongful convictions caseload—she’d done the opposite of promising or offering more. She’d overcommitted, pulled back, then fled. And now so had Celia.

“You sent Mel,” Celia said as she removed and replaced spark plugs. “And I knew Chris and your brothers had my back.”

“It’s not the same.” The next time Celia’s face was angled her direction, Helena grasped her chin. Not to force her gaze, but to get a closer look, to run her thumb across Celia’s smooth skin and see if there was any discoloration beneath the layer of foundation.

Nothing, thank fuck.

“Have you heard from him?” Helena asked.

“Not a peep.” Celia shook her head, dislodging Helena’s hold. “Do I have the Madigans to thank for that?”

Celia didn’t know the full scope of their operations, but she wasn’t blind. She’d been there for Chris during his and Hawes’s shit last summer, during their grandmother’s attempted coup. She knew the Madigans did more than run a cold storage business, and Chris’s past career as an ATF agent—before he’d become an in-house investigator for the Madigans—had taught Celia to not ask questions she didn’t want the answers to. Her discretion and her acceptance of their atypical reality were two of the many reasons Helena liked her so much.

“That,” Helena conceded, “plus a restraining order and an airtight divorce judgment.”

Celia finished replacing the second timing belt. “You don’t know Dex like I do. He always comes back.”

Helena grasped the timing belt and gave it a gentle tug, drawing Celia’s attention. “If he does, he’s gonna find things have changed. You’re not alone, Cee. You never will be again.”

Appreciation and relief eased the tightness around Celia’s mouth and eyes, softening her features. A crack in the glacier. Helena would take that, valued it more than any desire she’d hoped for. Celia deserved comfort and peace after too long without it. She wasn’t much older than Helena, and she’d already raised two kids into their teens and taken over her late father’s garage, all while dealing with a worthless ex who cheated, abused, and frequently disappeared.

Like Helena had. She didn’t want to make that mistake again. “I’m sorry, Cee. Truly.”

A blink, a nod, and another flash of heat in Celia’s dark eyes. That morphed into anger as tires squealed on the road outside the yard fence, the accompanying growl of an engine growing louder. “Assholes.” Celia tossed the timing belt aside and stepped toward the bay door. “They act like the road out there is a drag strip, never mind the parks at either end of the street.”

Except run-of-the-mill assholes who pretended to be speed demons usually drove BMWs, preferred the left or center lane, and forgot to cut their lights as they sped up.

The black Charger that slashed across lanes of traffic toward the curb in front of the shop, just on the other side of the chain-link fence around the yard, gaining speed with its lights off in the dusky twilight, did not appear to be driven by the average run-of-the-mill asshole.

Celia registered the same reality, her eyes going wide. “What the—”

Helena grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her back inside the bay. “Get down!” Spinning them, she curled over and around Celia, moving them into a crouch behind the stack of tires. She blindly flailed out an arm, searching for anything that could work as a weapon. Her fingers closed around a wrench as a hail of bullets pinged the exterior metal walls of the garage. Glass shattered a bay over, and beneath her, Celia screamed.

“Stay down!” Hand to Celia’s back, making sure she stayed low and out of sight, Helena peeked over the top of the tire stack. Was it a drive-by or an incoming attack? Neither, it seemed, as the Charger screeched to a halt outside the opening in the yard gate. If she’d been alone, Helena might have taken advantage of the narrow window of surprise and gone on offense. But she wasn’t alone. She had to play defense. “How do I get the garage doors down?” That had never been something she’d needed to look for before.

“Red button,” Celia replied, voice shaky but clear. “Between the bay doors. Double tap for the gate too.”

Helena calculated her steps and the evasive maneuvers she needed to make to cross the several exposed feet to her target. Not quick enough. Another flurry of gunfire erupted. Not aimed directly at or into the garage bays but at the offices and customer waiting area. More glass shattered.

Damage, then. That’s what they were after.

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