The Salvation of Vengeance (Wanted Men #2)

by Nancy Haviland

  He strolled into the shadows, following the sound of a muffled voice. Man, he hoped he was about to interrupt them getting off with a couple of chippies.

  He slowed his roll just before rounding the corner of the building and then hastily, silently, stepped back. Nope. They were getting fucked all right, but not in a good way. Caleb was facedown on the dirty cement, being held there by a hoodie-wearing fucker who had his knee pressed into the biker’s spine and the muzzle of a gun jammed into the back of his head. The owner of the other ride was lying a few feet away, hopefully unconscious and not dead, with Hoodie’s partner in pretty much the same position right next to him, a nine-mil a foot from his hand, also unconscious. Or dead.

  “Where is she?” Hoodie snarled into Caleb’s ear as he pressed the gun so deep V was sure it was hitting brain stem.

  A wash of fury fell over his vision, and he didn’t wait to see what would happen next. Moving like a shadow, he crept along the wall until he reached the pair. With a quick grab, he seized the bastard by his hood and bumped hard under his elbow, causing the gun to go flying off into a pile of oozing trash bags. He pulled him up and off Caleb’s back with a hard yank and slammed him skull-first into the sweating bricks in front of them. The crack was a sweetly sick sound that mixed nicely with the guy’s yelp of pain.

  Behind him he could hear someone shuffling to their feet—Caleb, no doubt—and someone else letting off a deep moan to let everyone know he was coming to.

  Vincente popped the guy he held in the mouth, ducking to avoid a lame right hook that went wide anyway. What were these guys doing jumping two of Vex’s boys so close to central command? Were they completely clueless? Or did they have heavy backers?

  “Who you working for?” he asked curiously.

  The question had barely left his lips when he felt a searing pain fire up in his left triceps. Tightening his grip on his prey’s throat, his head snapped to the side just in time to see Hoodie’s partner get taken to the ground by a wild-looking Caleb, the knife the guy’d used to slash Vincente clattering away on impact.

  “They’re asking about Nika!” Caleb tossed over to him on the air.

  And shit got real.

  Though, instead of going for his SIG—guys were more valuable to them alive—Vincente raised his knee and nailed the unlucky candidate in front of him square in the junk, enjoying the strangled gag that came from his throat.

  “Nollan sent you? Tell me where to find him, and maybe I won’t cut off your junk and feed it to you. You have a five count—”

  The sound of sirens stole his attention, and he whipped his incredulous gaze over to see the familiar it’s-time-to-go alarm had also registered with Caleb. They both cursed. Didn’t matter that they were the injured party here. Vincente knew all about the prejudiced view that surfaced the minute some of the NYPD saw the ODMC vests.

  “Gotta bounce, boys.”

  The reedy announcement came from the man who Vincente could now see was TP, Caleb’s brother, who’d just made it to his feet and was already shuffling toward the mouth of the alley where he’d left his bike.

  With a last vicious elbow to the side of Hoodie’s head that had him crumpling, Vincente dropped the guy and hightailed it over to his own ride. Fuck. Frustration ate at him. He should have had the truck. Could’ve loaded the two in and taken them to his place, where he and Maks would have had no trouble getting them to talk. Not one man he knew played the torture game quite like Maksim Kirov.

  Jerking his helmet on, he rode down to the mouth of the alley just as Caleb and TP’s taillights disappeared around the corner. Heading in the opposite direction, Vincente made sure to cruise, as if he were taking a casual trip uptown. He groaned and nodded to the familiar face behind the wheel of the unmarked car leading two flashing cherries as they went by him. The chirp of the breaks on the damp asphalt had him grinding his teeth. He slowed and pulled to the curb. He didn’t have to wait long before he heard a transmission shift into reverse. The other two vehicles carried on to the scene as Lore drew level with him.

  The window came down as gears shifted once more. Vincente, too, settled in by shutting down his bike. Despite them having taken different life paths, he and Lore still shared a deep-seated respect for each other. And would until the day the detective attempted to take him or one of his friends down in an official capacity.

  Then all bets were off.

  Fuck. He hoped his arm cooperated and didn’t bleed too much until the chat was over. Figured it would be his left side.

  “If you can believe it,” Lore said, eyes narrowed, “I was on my way out to Westbury to pay you boys a visit.” He pointed up the street. “Until I heard a call about a couple of bikers beating down two civilians. Thought I’d check it out with the boys. Know anything about that, V?”

  See? A witness saw the vests and had automatically assumed the bikers were the aggressors. “’Course not, Lore. Why would I?”

  “Yeah. Why would you?” Lore said dryly, playing the game.

  “You think Vex’s boys would go after two randoms for no reason?” he asked, because he couldn’t help himself.

  Lore looked as though he was trying not to smile. “Nah. I just wanted to be able to show up at work tomorrow and rub Smythe’s nose in the fact that I saw the ODMC in action, when he can’t even get a photo of one of them taking a piss.”

  Vincente grinned. It really was too bad they were on opposing sides.

  “Anyway, do you want to talk here? Or would you rather I came to the house?” He looked up at the ceiling of his car for a second, his face screwing up as if he’d just sucked on a lemon. “This is off the record, if that makes a difference,” he grumbled.

  What was this? Was Detective Lorenzo Russo of the NYPD about to ask for their help with something? This should be good.

  “No need to waste your gas traveling out there when I’m right in front of you. What’s up?”

  Lore reached for a small stack of what looked like cue cards from the dash and handed them to Vincente. He took them and nearly cursed when he felt a whole lot of blood pooling in the sleeve of his duster. One perfect drop splatted onto the asphalt, the streetlight above them highlighting it perfectly. Good thing Lorenzo was in the car.

  “This is . . . ?” he questioned as he turned the stack over to see they weren’t cue cards, after all, but crime scene photographs, four of them, the top one of a young girl.

  “I wanted to know if you boys might have some clue as to why I’ve had, as of an hour ago, four girls show up in the morgue in the past fourteen days. Now, normally that wouldn’t mean much. In fact, it fucking sucks that it wouldn’t mean anything at all but for the fact that all of them are young, all of them prostitutes, all violated in the exact same barbaric way, all strangled to death, all found around the same area—Crown Heights, if it helps to know. And all of them are redheads.”

  Vincente’s face cooled as the blood drained from his head. Holy fuck. Nollan? Could it be? Had he murdered these girls? These redheads? Because they reminded him of Nika?

  “The feds are going to be stepping in anytime now, and I don’t believe that outsiders will have the goods to shut this sick bastard down. I have a serial killer on my hands, V, and I’m clearly willing to do anything to stop him.”

  The “even ask you for help” went unsaid. But what could Vincente do to help? Nothing. He didn’t really know much except who was doing the killing. And even that was speculation. And if he was right, he didn’t know where to find Nollan. Had had no idea where to even look . . . until now.

  And had he known that fucker’s location? He’d have already done Lore’s job and stopped the killings, by destroying the killer.

  He handed the photos back after only looking at the first two, unable to stomach seeing any more.

  Two drops of blood fell on the asphalt. Splat. Splat.

  “You don’t know ho
w much I wish I could help you, Lore,” he said, meaning it from the bottom of his heart. “But I don’t know shit about where you might find this fuck. Doesn’t mean we won’t be keeping an eye out, though.”

  In fact, he’d be heading to the Crown Heights area first thing tomorrow. Would have been on his way right then if he didn’t have to go take care of his fucking arm.

  Lore took the pics with a resigned nod, brows down low. “If you or your associates hear anything on the street that you think might help, will you get in touch?”

  Their gazes met, and Vincente felt his face harden at the sympathy he could see shadowed in the detective’s eyes.

  Lore’s mother had been the chaperone at Sophia’s sixteenth-birthday sleepover. Ashlyn, Sophia’s guest that night and best friend, was Lore’s sister.

  “If we hear even a peep,” Vincente said carefully, holding that stare. “I’ll definitely be in touch, brother. No worries.”

  Lorenzo nodded once. “I’d prefer a personal call, but no matter who you reach out to, as long as this guy makes it off the streets, I think that’s all anyone can ask for.” He dropped the pics onto the passenger seat and put the car in gear. “Now go get whatever the hell that is stitched up before you fucking bleed to death,” he muttered with a nod to Vincente’s arm.

  Vincente smirked and flipped his buddy the bird as he drove away, which Lore saw through the side mirror. Miserable bastard only cracked the barest of smiles.

  Not wasting any more time, he started his bike and pointed his front tire in the direction of the Astoria apartment—closest place to do a patch job. Gabriel had said the place was being sprayed for insects, but fumes be damned. He needed to stop the bleeding now, and wasting time at the emergency room wasn’t going to happen. As he drove, he thought about what he’d learned in the last hour. According to Caleb, the two who’d jumped him and TP had been asking about Nika, which could only mean Nollan was still around and actively seeking info on his wife. Through Lore, Nollan’s presence had—possibly—been confirmed, and they now knew the sonofabitch was much more dangerous than they’d originally thought. If it was Nollan doing the killings, which Vincente was convinced was the case. The idea that Nika had lived with a guy who’d recently murdered four females, mainly because they resembled the one that had gotten away, made Vincente’s skin crawl. Also made him want to comb the back alleys of Crown Heights until he found the bastard.

  His cell buzzed, and he grimaced as he dug it out of his pocket, the knife wound burning. He connected the call after he pulled over. “Go.”

  “V.” Caleb’s voice was low in his ear.

  “Hey. You okay, brother?”

  “Yeah, thanks, man. This shit just keeps adding up in your favor,” he chuckled. “Where the hell did you come from? One minute I’m waiting to see out a new hole in my head; next your ugly mug is in my face.”

  “Was passing by and spotted your ride.”

  “Were you heading to the clubhouse?”

  Vincente ground his teeth. “No. Tell me about them.”

  The furious snort in his ear made him listen intently. “They wanted to know where to find Nika Nollan.”

  The hair on the back of Vincente’s neck sprang up like a rabid fucking dog’s. “Where’d you run into them?” Motherfuckers. Should have just killed them when he’d had the chance, no matter that Lorenzo had been a block away.

  “One of them got in touch with TP and asked to meet. Said they had some info on where to find Nollan. We put word out that we’re looking, so we thought it was legit. The one flashed his gun the second we pulled up, and we couldn’t do shit without taking one point-blank. By the time an opportunity presented itself and TP began scuffling with him, the other one with the hood had his piece in my face. What a fucking mess. I did what I could to not allow a shot to go off. That’s all I’d need is to end up inside while Nika needs me. Especially after what she did to make sure I didn’t go away.”

  Vincente wished he’d gotten there sooner. “I just had a chat with a buddy, and it seems Nollan has gone over. Four redheaded prostitutes have shown up dead since the night your sister’s situation became public knowledge. Doubt that’s a coincidence. I have to take care of something—then I’ll be in touch. We can head out, flash his pic, see if we can spot him ourselves.”

  “Holy shit, V. This fucking guy had my . . .” He paused, clearly unable to finish. “You’re not gonna tell me where we’re going, are you?”

  “Nope.” Because if Caleb and Vex decided to go to Crown Heights on their own, Vincente would add their images to the wanted poster. Better to avoid that altogether. “Keep her locked down, Paynne. Shit’s more serious than any of us thought,” he warned. Which meant Nika had to be moved. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “But she’s—”

  He hung up and put his phone away, ignoring it when it buzzed in his pocket almost immediately. He had to deal with his fucking arm before he bled to death right here on the side of the road. Rage was his only companion as he pulled back into traffic and rode to the apartment, cursing every block that passed that he had to fuck around with what he hoped were just a few stitches.

  That hope died a sudden death when he parked in the underground lot beneath the building and got off the bike. A stream of blood ran out of his sleeve and pooled on the pavement when he let his arm fall to his side. That prick had gotten him deep with that blade.

  Nodding to Tyson, the doorman on duty at the desk—who smartly glanced at and then away from the blood coating Vincente’s fingers without offering aid—he entered the waiting elevator, glad it was too late for many people to be around. He rolled his tense neck and got out on the tenth floor, angling his arm higher so he didn’t leave a crimson trail to his apartment. Damn shit had soaked his ribs and muscle shirt under his duster, the waist of his jeans on his left side, too. Lucky he’d been wearing the coat. Maks always rode his ass about leather in the middle of summer, but it had paid off tonight, which was exactly why Vincente donned it every night before heading out. Had the blade not had to go through the thick hide first, his arm would have been cut to the bone for sure.

  He didn’t bother hitting the lights as he opened up and closed himself into the unit, but he sucked in a sharp, pained breath as he went to shrug off—

  Oranges and jasmine.

  He held the combination in his lungs and refused to acknowledge that he was savoring it. Only one woman he knew had the scent of oranges and jasmine, and Gabriel was going to get a fucking shot in the teeth for lying to him about the cockroach bullshit.

  Stunned and moving slowly, keeping his anticipation and anger in check, he went soundlessly through the quiet apartment. The open concept allowed him to see the unoccupied living room with its few framed paintings and the requisite flat screen on his way down the short hallway. There were shopping bags and a couple of shoe boxes on the floor beside the kitchen counter. He took another deep breath and felt his knees wobble. Another, and his hands started to shake.

  What the hell was Nika doing here? Why wasn’t she with her brother?

  More importantly, why wasn’t she tucked safely behind the four secure walls of the clubhouse, where no one could possibly harm her?

  Was that what Caleb had been trying to tell him when he’d hung up on him? That she’d left?

  His phone buzzed in his pocket, signaling a text, and he took it out.

  Saw you go in. Didn’t know you were coming to relieve. We’re outtie.

  Alesio

  Gabriel must have had his little cousin, along with one of their other guys, on guard duty. They always worked in pairs. Vincente stayed still for a second, trapping the panic flaring in his chest now that his choice to bail had just been taken from him. No way would he leave her here on her own. It was secure, but not secure enough. Fuck. He’d avoided her for a week; now he had no choice but to spend the fucking night with her. Because he w
ould not make an ass of himself by calling Alesio back. Way too many questions would be asked.

  Way too many.

  In motion once more, he reached out and slowly pushed open the bedroom door.

  Holy . . . heaven.

  His breath jammed at the sight that greeted him. His fantasy come to life was lying half-naked on the bed, all that multicolored hair spread out around her. Her flawless body—fuck him, but he’d forgotten just how flawless—was covered by nothing more than a pair of tiny green boy shorts that rode low on her slim hips. A small white tank barely covered the perfection that should have been just another torso. The yellowing bruises still marring her skin in various areas didn’t detract from her beauty, but they did bring Vincente to a place that reminded him to dial back his appreciation. She didn’t need him ogling her, especially when he claimed to want to do nothing more than help her.

  So, should he wake her and let her know he was there? Or let her sleep and see his presence for herself in the morning? Because with everything that had happened tonight—after seeing those photos and hearing about those murdered redheads—there was no way he was letting her out of his sight. Not tonight.

  “Fuck,” he whispered, unsure what to do.

  Even at a whisper, the sound of his voice had Nika jackknifing to a sitting position, her hand blurring as it snaked under the pillow to come out with what looked to be a SIG Mosquito pointed right at his chest.

  CHAPTER 11

  Vincente flashed to the side and yanked the bedroom door half-closed, flinching as he waited to hear a shot go off. The sight of her arming herself so swiftly? Sexiest shit ever.

  She definitely wasn’t one to lie down and play dead over a fucknut like Nollan. She was prepared.

  Because she thought the guy was coming for her?