Rockwell Agency: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “The only thing we still need to know is why Sal decided to take Alana out. What did she do?” Jordan asked. “It doesn’t matter, actually, because we can take them down from the inside out without knowing why, but …I want to know why.”

  “So do I,” Wes said. “Sal seemed to treat Alana like she was insignificant. So, why kill her?”

  Jordan shook her head. “He was bluffing her. He was trying to get her to leave, thinking that if she kept her mouth shut she’d be fine. Then Natalie would kill her. Sal is handling things this way because of something with his daughter, but I don’t know what it is.”

  “What do we do next?” Wes asked, getting to the heart of the issue. “We know what’s going on now, but what do we do about it?”

  Jordan thought about it for a long time, running through various scenarios and plans in her mind before settling on one.

  “Are you sure?” Wes asked, having followed along with her the whole time. Her thoughts were constantly in his mind now, and it didn’t bother her anymore.

  “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “I’m sure. I think she’s the key to all of this, and I just have this instinct that she’ll talk to us.”

  “Natalie will talk to us,” Wes said, clearly skeptical about her decision that their best course of action was to track down Sal Amar’s daughter. “The last time we tried …talking …I ended up shot.”

  Jordan nodded again. “I know. But this time …we have a lot more information. I think we should go back to that bar.”

  “I thought we were in this hotel room because it was too dangerous for us to be wandering around outside,” Wes said. “You know, Sal could have someone find us at any time.”

  Jordan knew she was taking a risk. It was part of her job. It was in her DNA to take risks. She couldn’t just sit in this hotel room all night, trying to make contact with Natalie Amar subtly. Or waiting for Sal to find them here just like he would eventually find them anywhere if he wanted them dead. She had to act.

  But he didn’t.

  “Look,” Jordan said, walking back to sit down beside him again. “There’s no reason you have to come with me.” Reaching out, she took her hand in his, rubbing her thumb over the calluses on his palm. “You’ve done enough, seen enough, been through enough. You’ve taken enough bullets. You can stay here, in this hotel room, eat enough food for ten people, take some pain medication, and get some very, very well-deserved sleep. You were shot in the shoulder last night and you’ve spent the day running after bad guys and having sex in the woods.”

  “No,” Wes said, firmly. “No, if you’re going, then I’m going.”

  “Wes,” Jordan said, shaking her head. “This is my job. And I’m doing it in a way that works for me, but it might not be the safest way. This is how I work. But I don’t take my clients with me. I never do. Because it’s too dangerous for them, sometimes, the things that I have to do. Honestly—you should stay here. You should rest.”

  He looked at her with an unreadable expression. “Your clients don’t usually go with you?”

  “Right. Of course not.”

  “So, logically, then, I shouldn’t go with you,” he said.

  There was something off about his voice, but she didn’t know what it was. He had to be exhausted and in pain, despite the fact that she had continually healed him throughout the day. He had been shot. He needed to be resting. The more she thought about it, the more she was determined that he should stay behind while she followed what might end up being a wild goose chase to find Natalie anyway.

  Jordan nodded. “Right. You should stay here. Man the phone. Stay in contact with Barrett for me, if I need you to. I’ll call you with news. You can do searches for me on the computer. You’ll be holding down the fort.”

  “Is that what a client would do?”

  She didn’t understand the question. Normally clients came to her with their problems and she fixed them, without the clients’ help at all. She had never taken someone with her on a case before—not like this. “Yes,” she said, not knowing what other answer to give him. “That’s what a client would do.”

  “Then that’s what I’ll do.”

  Jordan was relieved. She hadn’t actually expected him to agree without a much lengthier discussion, but she didn’t question it. She would know that he was here, comfortable and safe and not doing anything that would hurt him any further. The last thing that she needed was for him to get shot again.

  And without him there, she wouldn’t have to keep an eye out for both of them. She could act more quickly. More independently.

  Standing up, Jordan leaned down and kissed Wes. “Good. It’s settled then. I’m going to head out now, because it’s about the same time we’ve gone other nights. The food will be here soon. You can dig in and then settle in.”

  Wes didn’t say anything as she walked around the room, getting ready to go, but she didn’t much notice, her thoughts focused on what she would need to take with her and what she would do once she got there. It only took her a few minutes to get her shoes on, freshen up in the bathroom, and smooth down her hair, which was still a bit wild after the shower she had taken when they first got to the room.

  She walked back out, grabbing her bag. “I have my phone. I’ll call you with updates, and you can text me anytime. It’s a long shot that I’m actually going to find her there, but I need to try. I’ll be back when I’m done.”

  Wes still said nothing, but Jordan was focused elsewhere. She gave him one more kiss, lingering in the kiss even though he didn’t hold her to him, and then she was out the door. In a few seconds flat, she was down the stairs and headed towards the car that Barrett had brought her earlier to replace the one with the shot-through tires and the other bullet damage.

  She got in the car, cranking the engine, and took off for the bar, completely focused on the task at hand. At no point did it occur to Jordan that Wes’ demeanor had changed or that he hadn’t wished her good luck or even really said goodbye to her. He had said he was fine, and that he wanted to stay, and that was good enough for her. She didn’t give it another thought.

  Chapter 29

  Alana

  “Please don’t hurt me,” Alana said when the man who had been guarding her room walked back in with food for her. Her arms and legs were handcuffed to a chair, and she had been sitting that way inside a relatively empty room ever since Sal and the backup men he had called had whisked her out of the office building where she had originally gone to meet him. They threw her into a car with blacked-out windows, and then took her to another building that she had only caught a glimpse of as they rushed her inside the back. Ever since, she had been twisted around this chair, trapped, afraid, and desperately wishing that she had followed Wes’ orders to run ahead of him out of the room.

  Actually, she desperately wished that she had never accepted the lunch invitation that ended up being a solicitation to work for the gem theft ring she had been part of for the past two years. She wished that she hadn’t spent so many days pilfering high-end, good-quality gems and replacing them with knockoffs. She wished that she hadn’t gotten greedy and taken two …maybe three …of the high-end gems for herself. It had never occurred to her that three gems would be missed in all of the gems that she handed over, but now that she had sat in this room for so long, knowing that Sal and his organization wanted to kill her, it was the only reason she could think of.

  They had to know about the two diamonds she had taken. And the sapphire. The sapphire hadn’t even brought her much money. That could hardly be worth killing her over. But here she was, trapped, and perhaps about to face her own death. And all she had were regrets.

  “Please,” Alana said, watching the man walk closer toward her. “Please—I’ll help you. I’ll do anything. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. But don’t let them hurt me. I’ll …” the words stuck in her throat. She had been about to promise him whatever he wanted, but Alana was a prideful woman, and she just couldn’t imagine giving him what he
would surely want. She knew she was beautiful. She knew that men wanted her. For the first time, she realized that if they didn’t kill her, they might do far worse.

  “Be quiet and eat,” the man said, placing the tray on her lap and moving around her chair to unlock her handcuffs. He released one hand, then secured the other one.

  “I’m left-handed,” she said, when he released her right hand.

  “Shut up and eat,” he told her again, more firmly this time. “Sal hasn’t given orders about you yet. He’ll be in to talk to you when he’s ready. You’re lucky you’re getting anything at all. I could have just let your sit in here, starving.”

  Alana started to thank him, but then she looked down at the tray in front of her. It was a McDonald’s burger, half unwrapped, and some cold, greasy fries. She recoiled from it, her hand dropping to her side. “I can’t eat this,” she said, turning her head away. “I don’t eat fast food.”

  Without warning, the man crossed towards her, slapping her across the face. “What did you say? Did you just say you don’t want the gift I gave you?”

  Shaken, Alana stared up at him. Nobody had ever dared to treat her like this, and she didn’t know what to say or do. She wanted to cry, she wanted to scream at him, but mostly she wanted to disappear and be gone from this room, and this building, and this state, if that’s what it took to feel safe again. Instead, she picked up the limp hamburger and took a bite, chewing as quickly as she could to avoid gagging. She was a vegetarian. She maintained her figure by eating only fresh foods. In fact, she couldn’t remember when she had last had carbohydrates, and the greasy film coating her tongue made her want to throw up.

  “That’s what I thought,” the man said, almost growling at her. “Self-righteous little stuck-up bitch.”

  Alana didn’t take another bite, her anger taking over from her initial shock. “I want to speak to Sal. I’m more useful than he realizes. I need to have a private audience with him.”

  “A private audience,” the guard said. He towered over her, his jet-black hair cropped close to his head and his dark eyes boring into her. His biceps were enormous, and his legs were like tree trunks. He was the size of two men—maybe three. “You’re something else. Little privileged thing, aren’t you? You don’t get a private audience until Sal calls for you, and if he didn’t know you were useful then you wouldn’t still be alive. The boss is getting things in order to deal with the two people that you brought to headquarters with your stupidity, and then he’ll call you to see what else you can tell him.”

  “I can tell him where those two people are,” Alana said, although it was a promise she wasn’t sure she could actually keep. She knew where Jordan lived, and she knew where Wes lived. She had looked Jordan up, and she knew where Jordan worked, too. It was valuable information, of course, but it wouldn’t necessarily help Sal find Wes and Jordan.

  But she would turn it over to save herself in a heartbeat. It didn’t matter that Jordan and Wes had risked themselves to try to help her. She still hated Jordan, and she was confused about her feelings for Wes. But no feelings, confusing or not, would keep her from making sure that she walked out of this building alive. Whatever she had to do, she’d find a way.

  There was a tap at the door and another one of the guards stuck his head in. “Hey, Sal wants to see her now. Why is her cheek all red?”

  “Because she’s a mouthy bitch,” the first guard said, walking over and yanking the tray of food off her lap and putting it on the floor. He undid Alana’s cuffs and yanked her to her feet. Her legs, which had been strapped to the chair for hours, went weak and began to tingle as the blood flowed through them again. She stumbled, trying to walk with the guard, and he pulled at her, shoving her towards the door.

  “I can walk on my own,” Alana said, trying to pull away from him. “I’m being treated very badly here, I just want you to know.”

  The second guard guffawed, clutching his stomach dramatically. “Oh, did you hear that, Amos? She’s being treated badly. Who you gonna tell, you pretty little baby girl? The police? I bet they would love to ask you all kinds of questions about that.”

  “I’m not going to talk to the police,” Alana said, as the first guard continued to drag her along with him. “But I think it would be in your best interest to treat me with a little bit of ... Ow!” Alana winced backward as the guard dragging her shoved her into a doorframe, knocking her in the head.

  “Let that be a lesson to you,” he growled. “Shut the fuck up until you’re asked a question.”

  Alana snapped her mouth shut, her temper seething, and she followed the guard as best she could down a hall that seemed to go on forever. He finally stopped at a door, knocked once, then opened it and nodded to her. “Get inside.”

  Glaring at him, she walked into the room and closed the door behind her, looking towards the window to see Sal standing there. “I think you should know that your guards have been incredibly rough,” Alana said, attempting to start off strong to set the tone for the meeting. She had shown weakness earlier that day, and she couldn’t afford to do it again. She had to be in charge. After all, she was the one with the information.

  “Sit down,” Sal said, pointing to a chair that sat alone in the middle of the room.

  “I prefer to stand.”

  Sal reached behind him and pulled a gun out, cocking it and pointing it at her for the second time that day. “I said sit the fuck down.”

  Alana clamped down on the fear that was rising within her again, and she forced herself to stay where she was. “I prefer to stand. I can find Wes and Jordan for you. They stole from you—I can get your property back.”

  “You have done irreparable harm to my organization,” Sal said. “You brought them to my headquarters. You exposed our location. You exposed our activities. You exposed our records and documentation. It’s partly my fault, too. I should have had you killed faster, once I realized that you were greedy and sloppy.”

  Alana’s eyes narrowed with fury. “I was never sloppy.”

  “Of course you were,” Sal said, stalking towards her with the gun. He grabbed her arm and shoved her down into the chair so hard that she felt bruises begin to bloom beneath his fingers and along the backs of her legs where they hit the chair. She gasped with pain, trying to wrench away from him, but then the barrel of the gun pressed to her temple, cool and smooth.

  “Please,” she whispered, her determination to be strong quickly disappearing. “Please—I can …I can help you.”

  “You stole from me.”

  “It was only two diamonds,” Alana whispered. “And a sapphire. I—it was wrong. I shouldn’t have. I just …I—you’re right. I was greedy. I thought that I could sell them and make some money for myself. I never did anything but that. I was always good at my job. Consistent. Trustworthy.”

  “You were sloppy,” Sal said again. “Did you think I wasn’t having you watched? Your manager at the store was starting to get suspicious. And you told someone about us.”

  “I didn’t!” Alana said, flinching when he flicked the safety on the gun.

  “You did,” Sal said. “You told a man named Jake. You slept with him. You got drunk. You said that your boyfriend didn’t understand you. That he underestimated you. That you were part of a major operation that was pulling in more money that you could ever have dreamed of, and he had no idea.”

  Alana felt sick. She didn’t know if she had said those things to Jake or not. She had been so wasted the first night they had slept together. Had she really bragged? God—she probably had. But how did Sal know? How could he possibly know? “I didn’t tell him who you were or what I was doing,” Alana pleaded, hoping that she was right. “If I just said that I was part of a major operation …that could be anything.”

  “It’s too close,” Sal said, walking around in front of her now, the gun still in full view so that she couldn’t begin to relax without it pressed to her head. “And if you did that once, then you could have done it again. To some
one who was not equally as drunk as you were. But the problem really was that you stole from me.” Sal looked away from her for just a moment, then turned back to her. “You were the perfect candidate for getting Natalie back into the game again. And so expendable. It was a mistake. A mistake to send her after you because she didn’t do it fast enough, and now, because of you, the entire operation here may be exposed.”

  “I can fix it,” Alana said, knowing that she likely couldn’t. She didn’t know who Natalie was, and she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want anything other than to get out of this situation. “I can give you Wes and Jordan, Sal. I can.”

  “I already have them,” Sal said, smiling at her, coldly. “Do you really think that I need you to help me figure out what I can have someone find for me with a few key strokes? That information is as valuable as a gem theft who pilfers from the stash.”

  Alana began to tremble. “Sal—please. It was only a few thousand dollars. You must be making millions.”

  “I make millions because I don’t let people cross me,” Sal said, walking behind her again and cuffing her to the chair. “Wes is in a hotel room about forty-five minutes away. Jordan was there with him, but she’s recently left. I have someone tailing her. It will be easy to bring them both in. In the meantime, you’ll wait here until Natalie returns my calls to her. She’ll come in here and do what she was supposed to have done weeks ago. She’ll kill you, Alana. I just wanted you to know why first. I wanted you to know that it’s your fault you’re going to die, and it’s your fault that your ex-boyfriend, your lover, and that little investigator are all going to die, too. I have a busy night ahead of me. There are many people to kill, an operation to salvage, and a daughter to rehabilitate. But for now, …you just sit tight.”

  When he had finished his speech, Sal walked out of the room, leaving her cuffed to the chair. He slammed the door behind him, and Alana began to sob, all her hope leaving the room with him. She was going to die, and there was nothing that she could do to stop it. There were so many things she had never done. So much of her life she hadn’t lived. She had it all. She was beautiful and intelligent, and she had money stashed away—enough money to take her places and let her see things. She’d had it all, right at her fingertips.