Vendetta Road

by Christine Feehan

  “I’m never giving her up, so I’m finding ways to keep her occupied so she doesn’t think about trying to leave me.”

  He was growing right there in her mouth, and the sensation was so good. She closed her eyes, no longer hearing more than their voices off in some distance. She decided the first step was to want to give him the best experience of his life, so good he wouldn’t be able to talk or even think, and to do that, she had to drown out everything but him. She concentrated on the shape of him, the taste and texture of him. She simply worshipped him. She loved him with everything she was. She lavished attention on him, using every technique she knew aroused him the most.

  Next, she had to make this so good for him that he could no longer see or hear anything but her and her mouth and what she was doing to him. She knew he had gone beyond the point of no return when he groaned. His fist tightened in her hair and he began to talk dirty to her. His hips thrust deep, and she forced herself to relax. He let her breathe and then surged forward again.

  “Look at me, princess. I want to see your eyes.”

  She loved that. She loved when he looked into her eyes. She lifted her lashes to all that startling blue and saw what she was doing to him—shattering him. So perfect. She lashed him with her tongue and took him deeper.

  His strangled cry was the sound of ecstasy to her ears. She loved that sound and wanted to hear it again and again. It helped to keep her from panicking when her air was cut off and she thought he might not let her breathe. Even then, she felt him pulsing on her tongue, his heart beating against the roof of her mouth. She forced her throat to relax as he pushed even deeper. Then he was helpless, emptying himself into her, groaning deeply, mindless because she gave that to him. She took her time making certain he was clean before she let him help her up. She had done exactly what she’d wanted to do, and she’d never been happier. She loved him with every breath in her body. With every beat of her heart. She chose this man, and she was determined to be happy and confident in herself as his woman and just as confident in their relationship.

  SEVENTEEN

  Czar lay on the rooftop of the apartment building across the street from their target. His honor, the renowned judge Bonner James, one of the main members of the con ring, had his elegant luxury condo facing the ocean so he could have his view. The back side of his condo faced the apartments were Czar had positioned himself so he could direct his pack.

  The judge had a visitor tonight. His bedroom was in the back of the house, and he kept his curtains open. Never a good thing for a judge who sat on the bench and wanted an impeccable reputation. Most likely his proclivity of having Mistress Scarlet visit him was what had gotten him in trouble in the first place. Czar had never understood why others gave a damn about what a man or woman preferred in the bedroom, but apparently society liked to pass judgment. As far as he was concerned, that was what was wrong with half the world.

  They’d have to wait until Mistress Scarlet finished collecting her tools of the trade and left. She was very businesslike, patting the judge’s face as she unstrapped him and gathered everything up, including the money on the bedside table. They exchanged a few words and then she breezed out of the condo.

  The judge wrapped himself in a short silk robe and went to the small bar he kept in his bedroom to pour himself a nightcap.

  He’s alone. Awake. Move in.

  In answer to his command, Transporter rappelled from the roof to the front of the condo and knelt by the door. Around him, the rest of the team dropped from the roof, spread out, staying still; it was always the unexpected that got one in trouble.

  He’s turned on his stereo and appears to be settling. He’s in bed, Czar told his team.

  That was good. They could hear the music. Classical. The judge liked it loud. Hopefully the neighbors were used to it.

  Transporter had the door unlocked and he cautiously pushed it open. Ice took lead, entering first. The room, as expected, was empty. He was a little shocked that the judge didn’t have a better security system than the crappy one they’d found and disabled. It was more for show than real, probably because the judge didn’t want to take a chance that anyone might be able to get a shot of him on camera doing what he loved best, so he’d bought a security system off the Internet rather than having one installed by an actual company.

  Ice moved into the room, padding across the floor, careful not to touch anything. They had Winston’s prints and a few hair follicles they’d gotten from a brush in his bathroom. They had decided that Winston would take the blame for the deaths of the other members of the con ring. It was known that he had a bad temper, and when he was angry, he was clearly capable of murder. More than once he’d been seen yelling at a couple of the others. Ice had been in his home several times in the last week, collecting everything they would need.

  The story had broken in the news, and it had been huge. The missing heiress was married to a biker. That was exactly the kind of news that seemed to appeal to everyone. Winston had insisted she was ill, and her marrying a biker only proved his point. He wanted her seen by a doctor and remanded to his custody. He had been very specific about which doctor she was to see. Dr. Cyrus Mills had to be involved with the con artist ring, and when Code looked closer into his financials, it was very clear that he was.

  Ice had been shocked at how many upstanding citizens were involved. Code began to go back several years and found more than fifteen women who had died under what he considered suspicious circumstances, and that was just in the Northern California area. Perhaps if they’d all been married to the same man, their deaths would have raised an alarm, but only a few times had the same man been widowed there in California. Code said the pattern was repeated in other places.

  Winston had wanted in on the scheme, and he’d been given his chance. No one was very happy with him. Now, he had drawn attention to them. Even if they got Soleil back, it wasn’t as if they could just kill her right away, unless they could make it look like a suicide.

  Ice and Storm crossed the room to the hallway. Czar sent Mechanic and Transporter to check the other rooms while Savage walked boldly into the bedroom, the twins behind him, immediately spreading out. Absinthe followed them in.

  The judge had his eyes closed but, sensing the menace, opened them and tried to grab for his phone. Savage yanked it from him. He didn’t say anything, just put the phone in his pocket and stepped back.

  Ice smiled at him. “Good evening, Judge. I’m so glad you had a nice relaxing evening with Mistress Scarlet. I always like to know a man’s last night is a happy one.”

  The judge put his sternest face on. “What do you want?”

  “You had to know, sooner or later, your lifestyle was going to catch up to you, and I don’t mean the lovely Mistress Scarlett. Your friends have been murdering women for several years now, and you help them do it.”

  The judge shook his head and pulled back, looking innocent. “No. No. Absolutely not. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You don’t want me to let Savage loose on you, Judge. We already know you’re a part of the con ring targeting very wealthy women.”

  The judge hesitated, started to bluster and then changed his mind. “Those women are dying. The men make their last days very happy ones. They choose to let those men in their lives and are glad for them. They’re grateful. No one suffers. The money has to go somewhere.”

  “Some of those women were in their early forties or late thirties. And then there’s Soleil. She’s not even thirty. They weren’t dying, and you know it. You may try to justify it, but in the end their lives don’t matter to you, only the things you can have with the money they pay you.”

  “What do you want? Tell me what you want!” The judge fisted his silk robe as he shouted his demand, his face twisted with anger and fear. He was used to commanding authority, but no one seemed very impressed.

  “I want
to know the name of every single person working with you. All of them. You shouldn’t leave anyone out. This gentleman”—Ice indicated Absinthe—“will know if you’re telling the truth. He is going to check your pulse while you tell us.”

  “Don’t you touch me,” the judge snapped.

  Ice produced a gun and shoved it in the judge’s mouth. “Or I could just blow your fuckin’ brains out right now. It’s all the same to me.”

  The judge nodded, and Absinthe took his wrist loosely. Ice removed the gun. “Start talking. Just names. Be clear.”

  “Dr. Cyrus Mills. Detective Danny Sullivan, San Francisco PD. Officer Paul Bailey, California Highway Patrol. Dr. Ronny Tiptree, medical examiner. Simon Overfield, Evergreen Mortuary. Donald Monroe, he’s a lawyer. Harbin Conner, he’s an assistant police chief.” The judge coughed, his eyes darting around the room as if looking for a miraculous escape.

  Ice shook his head. “You’re doing great, just keep going.”

  “Darrin Johnson. Ben Thurston. They go after the women.”

  “How many others? Who are they?”

  “The widowers. There’s six of them. Originally five. Winston makes six. Cooper Knight, Bob Flannigan, Peter Daniels.”

  “That’s the entire ring?”

  “Yes, yes. I think they have others helping them in other places. They’re branching out.”

  “Nice. Must be lucrative.”

  “They want to recruit some women to help them,” the judge offered eagerly, seeing that everyone appeared much more relaxed.

  “How’d this start? Who’s the boss?”

  “We all are. It just kind of evolved. We got talking over poker. All that money at the charity events we have to go to. The women dripping in diamonds. What a waste.” He looked around the room at the grim faces. “It is, isn’t it? So much money we could all share.”

  “Would be nice if all of you lived through tonight, wouldn’t it?” Ice asked. He caught up a pillow, thrust it over the judge’s face and fired three bullets into him.

  * * *

  Paul Bailey, an officer with the California Highway Patrol, sauntered out of the diner where he stopped every evening to get his coffee before he resumed his patrol. Driving the choked highways could get both boring and dangerous if he didn’t keep up the fuel. He was on the lookout for bikers—the scum of the earth, as far as he was concerned. He didn’t like that they could ride legally through traffic when everyone else had to sit and wait for the lanes to open. He didn’t like a lot of things about them.

  And now, Soleil Brodeur, the woman Winston had targeted, was married to one. Sleeping in his bed. She was beautiful. Sexy. There were photographs of her in every news article and magazine everywhere he went—even the diner. Shit. Winston had that. Could have kept it for a while, and he blew it. Now some biker had it while he was stuck driving the highways and listening to people bitch all the time.

  He opened the door to his patrol car, slid in, and froze. There was a file taped to his dashboard. He ripped it down and opened it. Names jumped out at him. Dates. His heart began to pound, and he looked wildly around him.

  That’s when he saw that his rifle was gone. He kept it strapped right where he could pull it free if needed. It wasn’t there. Not quite believing it, he looked on the floorboards and then on the seat again. He started to call it in but hesitated. Even after destroying the file, there would be so much paperwork. So many questions. An internal investigation. He couldn’t afford to be looked at too closely.

  Cursing, he stepped out of the car and looked around. Above the diner, on the roof, something moved. He squinted, looking for focus. A man seemed to be standing there, just looking at him. And then he saw the other one—the one holding the rifle. Flame seemed to blossom from the barrel, and something knocked him over. The sound reverberated loudly through the night and he found himself on his knees, and then his face hit the dirt, and everything went black.

  * * *

  “You know we’ve got to get rid of that son of a bitch,” said Harbin Conner, assistant police chief of the San Francisco Police Department, dealing the cards to the others at the table. “He’s all over the news.” He glared at Donald Monroe, a very high-powered attorney. “And you advised him. Now we’re in a hell of a mess.”

  “Winston had already gone to the cops in Vegas to help him look for her and then taken it to the newspapers. We were left hanging. I thought it would get to the judge and he’d quietly handle it and we’d get off scot-free.”

  “It didn’t work out that way, did it?” Detective Danny Sullivan snapped. “She’s become this romantic heroine. The heiress with the biker. What a crock of shit.”

  “You have anything on this club? I’ve never heard of them,” Monroe asked.

  “I’ve got our people looking into it,” Harbin Conner said. “They’re up north, on the coast, three or four hours from here. They’re a small-time, nothing club. Even the Diamondbacks don’t think they’re worth pushing around. Very small. Probably a bunch of weekenders wanting chicks to think they’re hot.”

  Dr. Cyrus Mills picked up his cards, discarded two immediately and tapped the table. “This will blow over. No one needs to panic. If necessary, we can lie low for a while. I agree, Winston needs to go. He’s a weak link. We let the woman live for a while with her biker, and she’ll get sick of slumming and be ready for a wealthy man who wants to spoil her.”

  Harbin Conner nodded at the assessment. “I’ve never understood why these women want the bikers to debase them and treat them like servants. Why get beat up and carry their drugs for them, taking all the risks?”

  The detective nodded. “Most of them won’t turn on their man for anything.” He shrugged. “I don’t get it either. And this chick, the heiress, she’s young and damned good-looking.”

  “Maybe after Winston, she needed a real man,” Dr. Ronny Tiptree ventured. He was a medical examiner and best friends with Mills. “He’s got a foul temper.”

  “Who brought him in?” Sullivan asked.

  Monroe pushed chips into the middle of the table. “Cooper Knight. He’s delivered two big scores for us. I’m not putting this on him.”

  “Still, maybe we should serve him notice so that he works all the harder for us,” the assistant police chief said. He tossed his chips into the middle of the table, indicating he was in. “We started this with one widower, and we should have stuck with five. Let’s pull back in and wait this out.”

  Monroe tossed back his drink. “Over cards. Funny how playing cards can always have you coming up with the best ideas, Harbin.”

  Harbin raised his glass toward Monroe. “Here’s to all of us. We get rid of Winston and leave the little biker bitch alone for a while. Tell the others to lie low and then when we know we’re in the clear, we can resume business as usual.”

  “What did the honorable Judge James have going tonight that was so important?” Detective Sullivan asked. “He rarely misses poker night.”

  Monroe winked at him. “Mistress Scarlett had to cancel her last two visits, and this was her only night open for him.”

  “He told you that?” Sullivan raised his eyebrow.

  Monroe shook his head and indicated Harbin. “He did.”

  “Got her phone bugged,” the assistant police chief said. “I like to know who in our little community likes to use her services.”

  They all burst out laughing.

  “My wife wants to head to Paris in the next couple of months,” Mills said. “If she hasn’t already been talking to your wife, Ronny, she will be.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been hearing nothing else for the last week. Was going to warn you.”

  “Your wives spend more money than half the old biddies in San Francisco,” Monroe accused.

  “True, but they put on the best fund-raisers and attract the richest widows as well,” Tiptree pointed out. “I’m out, gentlem
en.” He tossed his cards facedown on the table. “Without the two of them, we would have a much more difficult time finding out about our marks. They’re better at gathering information than detectives, present company excluded.”

  Sullivan raised his glass to Tiptree.

  * * *

  Czar looked around at the team spread out in front of him. “There you have it. Our great minds. Whiskey and cards, they plan to kill innocent women for their money. Nice. Really nice. And they think bikers are scum.”

  “Do you think the wives know?” Reaper asked. “I couldn’t tell from their conversation.”

  Czar thought it over and then shook his head. “That doesn’t feel right to me. I doubt if the others would trust them to that extent. I think the poker friends thought the scheme up and that it started with one, they got away with it and then they got greedy.”

  “We have to be certain we got the head of the snake,” Ice said. “I don’t want any of them coming after Soleil.”

  “And nothing can tie back to her,” Storm added.

  “The cops might look at her because her name’s been in the news tied to Winston, but there isn’t a tie at all to any of the others. The file we left in the highway patrol car didn’t have any reference to this scheme. Bailey liked to blackmail people. The others didn’t know about his side business. Code found his money and the damning entries in his computer. That will explain his death. It will appear that someone got very tired of being blackmailed.”

  “Are you certain blowing all of them up is a good idea, Czar?” Transporter asked from under the Mercedes Dr. Mills drove.

  “We were very fortunate in that Winston was in the military and handled explosives for four years,” Czar said. “It’s a fitting way for them to go, and when the cops find Winston, he’ll have the evidence of all these bombs in his apartment. We used his credit card to buy the materials as well.”