Page 61 of Forbidden Girl

Jeremy is a lumbering idiot, not light-footed in the slightest, but he’s keeping pace and that’s all I can ask of him. As soon as the guards see us, they’re on high alert. I use what little femininity I possess to my advantage and give them a wave. “Sorry, is this private property?” I call out to my designated mark. He recognizes that I’m a woman, and even in the faint glow of streetlamps I see his relief. Sometimes sexism does have its advantages: I’m a girl, not a threat. That’s the dumbest thing a man can think. We’re smaller in stature, but nature has made us cunning in ways men cannot comprehend.

To Jeremy I murmur, “Go.”

I have my gun concealed in my palm. I walk straight up to Whiskers and hold it up to his forehead. I am firm and fearless—as far as he can tell. He is shaking, terrified. Perfect. That’s the state I need him to be in. I look over to find Jeremy struggling a bit, but he’s bigger than the guard. He takes him into a chokehold and uses brute strength to strangle him into submission.

“Listen carefully,” I mutter close to my guy’s ear, “I know you have a gun. Hand it over.” He complies without protest, and I tuck it into the back pocket of my black jeans. “You’re gonna call your employer and very quietly let him know what’s going on here. Do it now.”

He fishes his phone out of his pocket but is barely able to hold it steady. Patrick is on speed dial. There’s one ring, then Calloway’s voice. “What?”

The guard says in a near whisper, “The warehouse is being robbed.”

“How many guys?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m coming.” Click.

“Good. I’m sorry for this next part.” I hit him so hard in the back of the skull with the butt of my gun that he passes out cold. He hits the pavement face first.

My dad drives the truck up to the front of the building. Matt and Ryan jump out and each grab the handles of the huge, tracked doors. They slide open with a metallic groan. Inside, a goldmine of devastation. My father claps his hands together, rubs them triumphantly. “Alright, let’s see what we got. Matty, get on that forklift over there. Rowan, there are cans of gas in the back of the truck. Get this place ready to burn.”

I retrieve the gas, walk up and down the aisles, pouring the contents of the red plastic canisters on the floors as I go. From the start that was my Plan B: If the cops flake, this place is getting torched. Maybe I’ll lock Calloway and my dad inside and watch the fucking joint go up in smoke.

When I’m finished, I shoot a text to Jules. She and Maria have to rile up Patrick and Teague, give ’em some real ra-ra cheerleader shit to hype up their manhood.

I stand by the doors, leaning against the wall with my arms folded. Watching and waiting. The underlings manage to load three pallets of grenades and one pallet of AK-47s into the truck before I hear the rumble of speeding tires on the planks of the pier. That’s my cue to find cover. I sneak to the rear of the warehouse, duck behind a towering pallet.

Outside, car doors slam. One, two, three. “I fucking knew it would be you, Monaghan!” Calloway shouts.

And then there are no more words, only the earsplitting crack-crack-crack of handguns as they release bullets.

Then, sirens. Blue and red flashing lights cutting through the darkness of the warm summer night, reflecting off the inner walls of the warehouse. The pistols fall silent, replaced by a deep voice through a megaphone. I glance around my pallet in time to catch Calloway’s men and my dad’s men placing their weapons on the ground. I don’t see Calloway, but my father is lying motionless just beyond the wide-open warehouse doors, his blood oozing out of him and pooling around his head. It was a headshot. It had to be.

I knew I’d feel something when this day came, although I didn’t expect that the world would suddenly be moving in slow motion. I slink closer to my father’s body, careful to stay out of sight and well-hidden by crates. It feels like miles of hard, sluggish trudging through a swamp of grief. I’m aware of ATF agents cuffing Matt and Ryan and Jeremy, and Teague, the two guards, and a few other guys I don’t know, but all I can focus on is Callum Monaghan, dead on the weather-battered, splintering pine boards. I’m close enough to see that his eyes are cold, lifeless orbs forever focused on the sky. I hope the stars imprinted on his cones and rods as he faded away. That would’ve been a comfort he didn’t deserve; I wish for it, nonetheless.

I have tears for him. Another thing I hadn’t expected, but they splash down my cheeks—droplets at first and then a steady stream. I wipe them away with my fingertips. “You stupid, selfish, insatiable man,” I whisper aloud, in case his soul is still lingering. The only thing that could’ve allayed his greed was his demise.

Incoherent screaming demands my attention. Teague, arms cuffed behind his back, rears against the agent escorting him to an ATF vehicle. I see what he sees—Patrick Calloway bent backward over a rusted guardrail, his top half peppered with bullet holes. I have tears for him, too. How tragic and poetic, two kings killed by one another—destined to be each other’s downfall. These violent delights have violent ends. They always do.

I have to go look into Jules’s eyes and tell her that her father is dead. She shouldn’t learn of it any other way. Agents will be coming in to start cataloging soon. I don’t want to be here when that happens.

I make my way to the blue-gray door at the rear of the warehouse, away from the commotion and the cops, the gore and the corpses. I think I’m clear until, “Stop right there!”

Of course, I don’t stop. I don’t even bother to turn around. I run. I hear footsteps chasing after me, commands being yelled, the hissing static of two-way radios. Outside in the narrow alley, I’m converged on from all sides. Ahead of me is the end of the pier. This is it.

There is no escape.

There’s one.

It’s suicide.

Or freedom.

Freedom, either way—just two different kinds.

I climb the guardrail, take a breath, and hurtle feet-first off the pier. On my way down I pray. I close my eyes as I splash into the Charles River. The water is warm, and mercifully neither rocky nor shallow. I kick my way up to the surface, float on my back, and let the current carry me downstream into Boston proper.

TWENTY-FIVE

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