LITMIR.BIZ

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as he hauled his arm back, ready to slam a jaw-breaking fist into her face.

      His hand never reached her.

      Barrow—with swift speed and agility—was on the two of them. She felt a moment of pain as he wrenched her out of Dillinger’s grasp, thrusting himself between them.

      “No, Dillinger, no. Keep the hostages in good shape. This one especially! We need her, Dillinger. We need her!”

      “Bitch! You saw her—she tackled me.”

      “We need her!”

      The hostages had started to move, scrambling back, restless, frightened, and Capone shoved someone with the butt of his gun.

      Barrow lifted his gun and shot the ceiling.

      Plaster fell around them all like rain.

      And the room went silent.

      “Let’s get her out of here and up to the library, Dillinger. Dammit, now. Come on—let’s do what we came here to do!” he insisted. “I’m into money—not a body count.”

      Kody felt his hand as he gripped her arm, ready to drag her along.

      Dillinger stared at him a long moment.

      Was there a struggle going on? she wondered. A power play? Dillinger seemed to be the boss, but then Barrow had stepped in. He’d saved her from a good beating, at the least. She couldn’t help but feel that there was something better about him.

      She was even drawn to him.

      Oh, that was sick, she told herself. He was a crook, maybe even a killer.

      Still, he didn’t seem to be as bloodthirsty as Dillinger.

      Dillinger stepped around her and Barrow, heading for the stairs to the library. Barrow followed with her.

      “Hey!”

      They heard the call when they had nearly cleared the room.

      She turned to see Capone standing next to Betsy Rodriguez. He wasn’t touching her; he was just close to her.

      He moved his gun, running the muzzle through her hair.

      “Dakota Cameron!” he said. “The world—well, your world—is dependent on your every thought and word!”

      She started to move toward him but Barrow stopped her, whispering in her ear, “Don’t get them going!”

      She couldn’t help herself. She called out to Capone. “You’re here because you want something? Well, if you want it from me, step the hell away from my friend!”

      To her surprise, Dillinger started to laugh.

      “We’ve got a wild card on our hands, for sure. Come on, Capone. Let’s accommodate the lady. Step away from her friend.”

      From behind her, Barrow added, “Come on, Capone. I’m in this for the money and a quick trip out of the country. Let’s get her started working and get this the hell done, huh? Beat her to pieces or put a bullet in her, and she’s worthless.”

      “Miss Cameron?” Dillinger said, sweeping an elegant bow to her. “My men will behave like gentlemen—as long as your friends let them. You hear that, right?”

      “I can be a perfect gentleman!” Capone called back to him.

      “Tell them all to sit tight and not make trouble—that you will manage to get what we want,” Barrow said to her.

      She looked at him again.

      Those eyes of his! So deep, dark, blue and intense!

      Surely, if she really knew him, she’d recognize him now.

      She didn’t. Still, she couldn’t help but feel that she did, and that the man she knew wasn’t a criminal, and that she had been drawn to those eyes before.

      She shivered suddenly, looking at him.

      He didn’t like blood and guts—that’s what Dillinger had said.

      Maybe he was a thief, a hood—but hated the idea of being a murderer. Maybe, just maybe, he did want to keep them all alive.

      “Hey!” she called back to the huddled group of captives. “I know everything about the house and all about Anthony Green and the gangster days. Just hold tight and be cool, please. I can do this. I know I can do this!”

      They all looked at her with hope in their faces.

      She gazed at Barrow and said, “They need water. We keep cases of water bottles in the lower cabinet of the kitchen. Go through the music room and the dining room and you’ll reach the kitchen. I would truly appreciate if you would give them all water. It will help me think.”

      But it was Dillinger who replied.

      “Sure,” he said. “You think—and we’ll just be the nicest group of guys you’ve ever met!”

Chapter Two

      Nick Connolly—known as Barrow to the Coconut Grove crew of murderers, thieves and drug runners who were careful not to share their real names, even with one another—was doing his best. His damned best.

      Which wasn’t easy.

      Nick didn’t mind undercover work. He could even look away from the drugs and the prostitution, knowing that what he was doing would stop the flow of some really bad stuff onto the city streets—and put away some really bad men.

      From the moment he’d infiltrated this gang three weeks ago, the situation had been crazy, but he’d also thought it would work. This would be the time when he could either get them all together in an escape boat that the Coast Guard would be ready to swoop up, or, if that kind of maneuver failed, pick them off one by one. Each of these guys—Dillinger, Capone, Floyd, Nelson, Kelly and Schultz—had killed or committed some kind of an armed robbery. They were all ex-cons. Capone had been the one to believe in Nick’s off-color stories in an old dive bar in Coconut Grove, and as far as Capone knew, Nick had been locked up in Leavenworth, convicted of a number of crimes. Of course, Capone had met Nick as Ted—Ted Johnson had been the pseudonym Nick had been using in South Florida. There really had been a Ted Johnson; he’d died in the prison hospital ward of a knife wound. But no one knew that. No one except certain members of the FBI and the hospital staff and warden and other higher ups at the prison.

      None of these men—especially “Dillinger”—had any idea that Nick had full dossiers on them. As far as they all knew, they were anonymous, even with each other.

      Undercover was always tricky.

      It should have been over today; he should have been able to give up the undercover work and head back to New York City. Not that he minded winter in Miami.

      He just hated the men with whom he had now aligned himself—even if it was to bring them down, and even if it was important work.

      Today should have been it.

      But all the plans he’d discussed with his local liaisons and with Craig Frasier—part of the task force from New York that had been chasing the drug-and-murder-trail of the man called Dillinger from New York City down through the South—had gone to hell.

      And the stakes had risen like a rocket—because of a situation he’d just found out about that morning.

      Without the aid, knowledge or consent of the others, for added protection, Dillinger had kidnapped a boy right before they had all met to begin their takeover of the Crystal Estate.

      It wouldn’t have mattered who the kid was to Nick—he’d have done everything humanly possible to save him—but the kidnapped boy was the child of Holden Burke, mayor of South Beach. Dillinger had assured them all that he had the kid safely hidden somewhere—where, exactly, he wasn’t telling any of them. They all knew that people could talk, so it was safer that only

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