Broken Hero Read online

  The bathroom was just as gorgeous and well-appointed as the rest of the place. With its clean white marble and gold flourishes, it felt more like a little museum than a bathroom. A few women were in there, chatting to one another about topics I didn’t care enough about to listen in on.

  I didn’t even have to go to the bathroom. I just needed the time alone. I hung my purse up on one of the gold hooks and stepped into a stall, giving myself a few minutes to myself.

  It was nice to be out, sure. After everything that had been happening with Joey, I’d been keeping a low profile, and tonight was my first night that had even sort of approached normalcy.

  In reality, however, it was anything but. I was here with a handsome, charming man, but he was a killer, a hired professional here to keep me safe from men I feared wanted me dead. This wasn’t a normal night, as much as I wanted to pretend it was.

  I spent a few more moments in the stall, enjoying the relative peace. Once I’d realized I couldn’t spend any more time in there without it seeming strange, I stepped out and washed up. I took my purse from the hook and made my way out among the group of chattering women.

  And once I stepped out of the bathroom, I glanced over at the sweeping balcony, the glittering evening city on full display. A few more minutes out there, a little more time to myself, couldn’t hurt, could it?

  Taking advantage of the fact that I was out of sight among the women, I ducked away from where Garrett was waiting, snatched a fresh glass of champagne off the tray of a passing waiter, and stepped outside.

  The air was cool and fresh, sweet even. I made my way over to the balcony, drink in hand. Once I was at the railing, a smattering of other partygoers here and there, I took a sip of my drink, letting the bubbles play on my tongue before bringing it all down in a swallow. The din of the traffic below added a soft ambiance, and I closed my eyes and took in the feel of the city.

  For a few moments, I was myself. I was a woman with the city all around me, feeling as though it was at my beck and call. I felt almost normal.

  “There you are!” A bright male voice snapped me right back to reality. My eyes shot open, and I spun on my heels to see Garrett storming toward me, the smile on his face barely covering the urgency of his movements.

  “Wha—?”

  I barely got even that much of the word out before he cut the distance between us with frightening speed.

  “What on earth are you doing out here?” he said, his voice a low hiss as to not attract attention.

  He was intimidating, that was for damn sure. But I wasn’t about to buckle. It wasn’t my style.

  “I’m having a drink,” I said, as though I couldn’t even begin to imagine what was wrong about what I was doing.

  “It’s a lovely night,” he said, clearly for the benefit of anyone listening who wasn’t me. He bent closer and lowered his voice again. “Having a drink?” he asked. “Right here, out on the balcony where anyone can see you?” He swept his hand toward all the buildings around us. “All it takes is one man in one window with one gun,” he said. “And that’d be it for you.”

  He wrapped his fingers around my wrist and hurried me out of the open and behind a small nook.

  “Hey!” I said, yanking myself away from him. “Don’t pull me like that!”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said. “But you’re doing some really, really risky shit.”

  Of course, he hadn’t hurt anything except my pride. The look on his face was one of anger and frustration. I knew he was right, that I was being stupid as hell. But I didn’t want to admit it.

  “I just… I just needed a break,” I said. “I needed to feel normal for a second.”

  He regarded me for another long moment before he finally let himself loosen up. He shook his head, as if coming back to his senses.

  “This is just all so fucking weird to me,” I said. “You know? I play by the rules. I went to school, got a job, and have a life that’s all my own. I do everything I can to make sure that every aspect of my life is in order and on the level. And now, there’s this. I let myself get suckered by one smooth-talking prick and now I have to worry about, about fucking snipers in the windows!”

  Garrett worked his jaw and looked away. He nodded before turning his attention back to me.

  “Listen,” he said. “I get it. Law’s your business, and this is mine. My clients are exclusively people like you, people who have had their lives turned upside down and gotten, through no fault of their own, on the bad side of men whom people like you keep as far away from as possible.”

  He went on.

  “It’s bullshit, and I get it. But I’m here to keep you safe. That’s my job. And if you want to get through this bum hand you’ve been dealt, you’re going to have to work with me. At least for the time being.”

  He was right, and I knew it. I was being reckless. Still, I was frustrated.

  “You need a break, you need some fresh air. That’s fine. But you need to run all this by me first.”

  That was it, right there—needing to run all of my decisions by someone. It was a way of doing things that was totally alien to me. But he was right. This was my life now.

  “OK,” I said. “Run it all by you first. Got it.”

  “I know I’m not officially hired yet, but if you decide to go with me, then I’ll get you through this. I promise. You do what I say, and you’ll be safe. You have my word. Just as long as I’ve got yours.”

  The words “do what I say” went down as smoothly as battery acid. But I fought the urge to bristle against them.

  “I understand,” I said.

  “Good,” he said. “Now let’s get back in there and try to enjoy the rest of the evening.”

  I turned to start back to the party, but before I could even make it an inch, I felt Garrett’s hand on my bare shoulder.

  “Hey,” I said. “What’d I tell you about grabbing me?”

  “Your purse is open,” he said in a low tone.

  “Oh shoot,” I said, whipping it in front of me and taking a look. “I must’ve forgotten to close it when I was in the bathroom.”

  But as soon as I took the gold zipper into my fingers, I remembered something that stopped me cold.

  I hadn’t opened my purse in the bathroom.

  I glanced down and saw among the contents something in there. It was a small index-card-sized piece of paper, thick stock with tastefully frayed edges.

  “What?” asked Garrett, knowing right away that something was up. “What’s going on?”

  I took the note by the corner and slipped it out of my purse. On it were three words, written in ornate, sweeping handwriting.

  “Joey says hello.”

  Chapter Eight

  NATALIE

  “Where’s the driver?”

  Garrett led me out of the party, and I was having a hard time keeping up with his long strides.

  “I don’t know!” I said, fear like a cold spike in my belly. “He’s not answering?”

  “Shit,” hissed Garret.

  He stopped in his tracks when we reached the lobby. He and I both were doing our best not to let the situation get the best of us.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Who had your purse? Did you see anyone touch it or go near it or anything?”

  I closed my eyes and tried to think.

  “I hung it up when I went to the bathroom, and I figured the attendant had an eye on it.” I said. “And I was in the stall for a few minutes. Someone must’ve put it in there then, maybe paid off the attendant to turn a blind eye.”

  “But you didn’t see anyone around it?”

  “There were a bunch of women in the bathroom,” I said. “It could’ve been any of them.”

  “That’s what I mean,” he said, his voice stern. “You never know who’s got their eye on you. And god knows what would’ve happened if you’d been alone in there.”

  The idea was enough to make me nearly sick with fear.

  “But we can’t w
orry about any of that now,” he said. “We need to get out of here, pronto.”

  I nodded and pulled the driver’s number up again on my phone. I hit “call” and waited for the ring.

  It rang and rang, but there was no answer.

  “Nothing,” I said, sticking my phone back into my purse.

  “Who’s this driver?” Garrett asked.

  “Someone I hired through my usual agency,” I said. “I assumed it’d be fine.”

  “You can’t make assumptions like that anymore,” he said. “That’s a luxury you don’t have. From now on, I drive or one of my men does. Got it?”

  “Got it,” I said.

  “This guy could be compromised or…something else.”

  I shuddered at that last part. I didn’t know if I’d be able to live with myself if something were to happen to someone when they were an innocent bystander in this dumpster fire of a situation.

  Before I could worry for too long, the phone rang in my purse. I took it out and saw that it was my driver.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Hey,” came the voice on other end. “This is Walter, your driver. Sorry about not picking up, my phone fell out of my hands, and I couldn’t get to it. Anyway, I’m coming around for you right now, but I’m stuck in traffic.”

  I relayed the information to Garrett.

  “Ask him where he is,” said Garrett.

  I asked the question and got an answer. He was a few blocks away, but stuck in some bumper-to-bumper traffic.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked Garrett.

  He thought the matter over for a quick second. He took out his phone and called someone who I assumed to be one of his men.

  “Ride’s on the way,” he said. “But they’re stuck in the same traffic.”

  I fired a quick text to the driver, letting him know that I didn’t need him any longer tonight.

  “I don’t want us hanging around here knowing one of Joey’s men—or women in this case—is around,” he said. “We’re going outside, but stay close to me.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  He stuck out his arm and plastered a warm smile on his face to keep up appearances. I took his arm and out we went into the cool evening air. Our pace picked up once we were away from the party.

  “Where’s the ride?” I asked, my heart thudding in my chest.

  “Just a few more blocks,” he said. “Over on West Eighty-Eighth.”

  We made our way down one block and then another. When we turned a corner off of Broadway, we found ourselves on a darkened street, not a soul to be seen. It was quiet and calm—strange for this part of town.

  “Come on,” he said. “Almost there.”

  We kept on, but right as we hit the halfway point down the block a voice called out to us.

  “Hey!”

  By pure instinct, I stopped in my tracks. Garrett did the same. I turned around and saw a pair of figures approaching the two of us. Both of them were shrouded in darkness, but I could tell by their shapes that they were both hulking.

  “Oh my god,” I shot out, my voice wavering. “What’s going on?”

  “Stay quiet,” Garrett said. “Let me handle this.”

  The two men drew closer and closer, their boots thudding on the cement sidewalk. I looked all around for anyone, any sign of life. But we’d managed to head down a street that was nearly entirely lined with buildings under construction. Unless I wanted to take off into a run and try to get back to Broadway, I was out of luck.

  The men stepped out of the shadows. They were both tall, taller than Garrett, who already had some serious height. And they were built more like mobile brick walls than men, their massive frames topped with ugly faces, both with mouths twisted into sick grins.

  They were Joey’s men—I didn’t even need to guess. They stopped once they were ten feet away from us, both of them looking Garrett and me over with beady little eyes.

  “That her?” one said to the other.

  “That’s her.”

  They both spoke in rough Brooklyn accents and carried themselves with an intimidating presence.

  “Listen,” said one of the men to Garrett. “I don’t know who the fuck you are. You her date, her fucking gigolo, whatever—we don’t care.”

  He lifted his hand and pointed a thick finger in my direction.

  “We’re here for her. We got no beef with you, pal, so if you want to see the sunrise in the morning, I suggest you turn around and forget you ever saw us.”

  “And don’t get any big white-knight ideas,” said the other. “Because we’ll kill you without even thinking twice about it.”

  Kill. The word cut through me like a razor-sharp shard of glass. They were here to kill me.

  Garrett stepped forward, his gait slowly and sure.

  “Damn, that’s a real tempting offer, boys,” he said. “But I think I’m going to have to pass.”

  An expression of total bemusement flashed on the faces of the thugs.

  “Are you fucking serious?” asked the man on the left. “It’s clear as fucking day that you’re blind, but are you stupid as shit too?”

  “There’s two of us,” said the man on the right. “And one of you. And together we outweigh you by about a ton.”

  “I’ve got eyes,” said Garrett. “And I’m sticking by what I said.”

  The man on the right let out a dismissive snort. “And you got any idea who the fuck we work for?”

  “Nope,” said Garrett. “And that doesn’t matter to me. You two are threatening a lady, and I’m not going to stand by and let it happen.”

  I picked up right then on what Garrett was doing. He was letting the two of them think that he was some piece of man candy too stupid and too concerned with chivalry to see what he was getting himself into.

  But it was looking like they, and I, were about to find out what Garrett was made of.

  The two men let out a pair of gruff laughs.

  “Oh man,” said the one on the right. “We’ve got a white knight all right.”

  “Yeah,” said the other. “A real fucking Galahad.”

  “OK,” said the thug on the right. “Since you’re clearly too stupid as shit to see what kind of danger you’re in, I’m gonna give you one last chance to get the hell out of here.”

  But Garrett only shook his head. “And leave the lady to you goons? Not a chance.”

  The two thugs shared a look, the wicked grins still on their faces.

  “Been a whole week since I got to kill someone,” said the thug on the right, reaching into his pocket and taking out a black pistol.

  “Damn,” said the other thug. “That’s gotta be some kind of record.”

  The rightmost thug raised his gun as I stood there frozen in fear. He pointed the end at Garrett and I waited for the bang.

  But it never came. Instead, what happened next was so brutal and quick that I could hardly believe my eyes.

  Garrett darted in like a viper, driving his fist into the elbow of the man with the gun. His blow landed hard on the joint, a dull crack cutting through the air. The thug let out a cry of pain as the gun dropped to the cement with a metallic clatter.

  “Fuck!” he shouted, grabbing his elbow and staggering backward.

  “What the hell?” said the man on the left.

  The expression of confusion on his face was quickly replaced by one of outrage as he realized what was happening.

  “You miserable little—”

  He pulled back his fist and swung it in the air toward Garrett, cutting in a tight arc. But Garrett was too fast for him. He ducked and the fist whooshed harmlessly through the air. The force of the punch was enough to pull the man toward the other, his fist landing right in his friend’s belly.

  The struck man let out a cry of pain and dropped to his knees, his elbow still in his hand.

  “Holy shit,” I said.

  Garrett closed the distance on the remaining thug, tearing into him with a flurry of hard punches right to
the gut. Thud after thud sounded, and the man’s eyes went wider and wider with each connected blow.

  Finally, when the air had all been beaten out of the man, Garrett stepped back, raised his fist, and brought it down like a hammer on the man’s nose. He smashed it like a grape, blood streaming down from the thug’s nostrils.

  He fell down in a heap and was, like the other man, out of the fight.

  “Ho-ly shit,” I repeated, this time even more disbelieving than I had been before.

  Garrett had dispatched the two hulking men with such blazing speed that I was half-convinced I’d just seen some kind of special effect in real life.

  The men writhed on the ground in pain, their hands on their injuries. Garrett grabbed their guns and tossed them into the nearest storm drain before turning his attention to me.

  “Come on!” called out Garrett, grabbing me by the wrist and rushing down to the opposite end of the street.

  I didn’t say a word of protest at how he grabbed me. What had just happened was a clear demonstration of how much danger I was in.

  A black car pulled to a stop at the end of the block.

  “There!” called out Garrett, pointing toward the car.

  We rushed up to the door and he grabbed it and pulled it open. His hand on the small of my back, he led me in then followed.

  He shut the door and yelled out an order.

  “Drive!” he shouted.

  The engine revved, and we peeled down the road, off into the dark of the city.

  Chapter Nine

  NATALIE

  I sat as still as a statue for a time, no sound but the rumble of the engine and an occasional horn cutting through the night air.

  “Hey, Kate,” spoke Garrett, breaking the silence. “You got some water up there?”

  “Yep,” came a woman’s voice.

  Out of the corner of my eye a bottle of water arced through the air and Garrett caught it neatly. He twisted the cap off and handed it to me.

  “Take a sip of that,” he said. “You’re about to get some serious dry mouth from the adrenaline.”

  I smacked my mouth and realized he was right. I took the bottle and brought it to my lips. I hadn’t thought I was thirsty, but to my surprise I drained the entire bottle in only a few seconds.