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Gennessey tried not to think about whether they would make it out before the bomb exploded. They had to. She now had a face and a name to her target, and she would bring him down for her family.
They burst through the door to the lobby. Her head whipped around until she saw their team pushing guests and staff out the front doors. Jay immediately went forward to help with the evacuation.
BB dropped Autumn to her feet, and Gennessey reached behind her to pull Autumn forward into the crowd heading outside.
She spotted movement out of the corner of her eye. Whipping her head around, she shoved Autumn behind before she realized what she saw. Because most of the guests bottlenecked around the door, the expanse of lobby between her and the hotel bar was open. A lone, menacing figure stepped out of the bar.
She barely had time to register his dark clothes and equally dark hair before her stare landed on the gun at the end of his outstretched arm pointing straight at her.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
BB felt the rush of adrenaline that sharpened his senses, a feeling he associated with intense missions. Seeing the man step into the lobby with a gun trained on the woman he loved made this op more intense than any he’d been on.
Though he’d never seen a photo of the man, he knew the gunman was none other than Ryan Bannon. He recalled Autumn calling her half-brother crazy. Seeing the wild look in his eyes and the unsteady hand that held the gun, he thought her description didn’t live up to reality.
His heart skipped in his chest when Gennessey placed herself between the gun and Autumn. He reached for his gun and pointed it at Bannon as he moved to stand by Gennessey, effectively creating a shield for Autumn.
“Drop it, Bannon!”
His finger hovered over the trigger, wanting to take out the man but not wanting to risk it with others still in the lobby and his team otherwise distracted.
“You think I won’t kill you to get to her?” He aimed his gun at BB’s head, the angle ideal for a kill shot between the eyes.
It wasn’t the first time BB stared down the barrel of a gun. He steeled himself for what would come. If he was meant to give up his life to protect the woman behind him and the one beside him, he would make the sacrifice. Because Bannon would only have one shot before his team reacted and took him out.
Gennessey took a step forward with her gun drawn. “You’ll have to go through me first, and after you shot at my family, that’ll be the last mistake you ever make. Drop the gun, or I’ll drop you.”
“Is this really how you want this to end, Autumn?” Bannon’s voice rose above the chaos. “You want your friends to die protecting you?”
“No one has to die, Ryan.” To her credit, Autumn sounded calm, though BB was certain she was overwhelmed with fear. “Why are you doing this?”
“You know why. This is the only way. If I’m ever going to have everything I want, I need you gone.”
“Don’t be stupid, Bannon.” BB wanted to draw the man’s attention away from his target. “No way in hell you’re getting out of this without losing your life or your freedom.”
“I don’t do anything without a plan. You think I’d step out here without a way to escape? After I kill my half-sister, of course. I really did enjoy talking with you, Autumn. It’s a shame it has to be this way, but there’s only room for one of us in this family. That unfortunately makes you collateral damage. I don’t expect you to understand, but it’s nothing personal. It has everything to do with our business.”
“Who are you trying to convince, Bannon?” Gennessey taunted him. “This has nothing to do with business as much as it has to do with you. You want your daddy’s attention while paying him back for favoring Autumn over you. You think this will earn you some kind of street cred with the Maddens, but we both know they could care less about Big Tommy. If he takes down the O’Banions, the Maddens are in line to take over their business. You aren’t even important in all of this.”
“Shut up!” Ryan’s hand started to shake with barely contained fury. “That’s not true. If he takes down the O’Banions, he’ll step up to take their place. He’ll have the power that I want. I have to kill him to claim my rightful place.”
Even from across the lobby, BB could see the wildness in Bannon’s eyes. The mobster was unhinged, and someone not in his right mind presented a different kind of danger from a more calculated criminal. His mind clicked through ideas to end the standoff without any of them getting hurt, but all of them carried a risk. He fought the urge to glance at Gennessey, to see if he could gauge her thoughts, but he didn’t want to risk shifting his focus from Bannon and his gun.
A movement along the periphery caught BB’s attention, but he schooled his reaction so Bannon wasn’t alerted. It took him a moment to realize Sam crept along the edge of the lobby, careful to use the furniture and columns to keep Bannon from spotting his approach.
BB wasn’t sure how he knew, but he was certain Gennessey’s saw Sam’s approach and guessed his intent to take the mobster down without anyone getting hurt.
That left BB and Gennessey with the job of keeping Bannon distracted and calm enough not to prematurely shoot his gun.
“Listen, man, whatever your plan is, it won’t mean a thing if the bomb you planted takes us all out,” BB pointed out. “The second timer kicked it before anyone had a chance to disarm it. It’s likely to go off any minute now. You didn’t go to all this trouble just to go out like this.”
Bannon laughed a maniacal sound which grated on BB’s nerves. “You idiots. It doesn’t have that much power. It’s only strong enough to destroy the room and maybe the ones on either side. It wasn’t meant to destroy the building. Just to kill Autumn and draw our father out of hiding.”
“You need help, Bannon. Drop your gun, and we’ll get it for you,” Gennessey coaxed him.
“I don’t need anyone’s help. Other people just get in the way. This is something I have to do myself.”
“You’re not fooling us, Ryan,” Gennessey snapped. “You have no choice but to do this yourself. Your sniper failed to do the job at the wedding, and the other guys you brought with you couldn’t get it done. They got out while the getting was good and left your sorry ass to take the heat.”
