Brooke finally nodded.
“Okay.” Gently I lifted the necklace over her head. When I passed it to Eli, it was with the heart open, the chip plainly visible.
“I’ll be right back.” Eli winked at Brooke. “I promise.” He sprinted from the room.
I helped Leah settle Brooke at the table. “How about a cinnamon roll and some eggs?”
Brooke’s eyes lit up. “And bacon?”
Leah chuckled. “We both love our bacon, don’t we?”
“Yes!” Brooke turned to me, eyes softening me up more than a puppy dog’s ever could. “Please?”
I laughed. “I can see I’ll have to up my bacon game. Turns out I do have some just waiting for you.”
Brooke’s smile made my chest go tight.
Eli was back before breakfast was over. He handed the necklace to me, and I slipped it over Brooke’s head. She smiled at me again, this time around a big bite of bacon. Leah’s gratitude shone from her eyes when I glanced up.
“I’ve got the”—Eli paused, eyed Brooke—“information downloading.”
“I imagine you all have some planning to do,” Abby said. “Maybe Brooke wouldn’t mind helping me carry the dishes to the sink, and after I load the dishwasher, we could play Frogger.”
Brooke looked to her mom as if for permission. When Leah nodded, she asked, “What’s Frogger?”
Abby gasped. “What is Frogger? You mean you’ve never played Frogger?”
Brooke shook her head, smiling a bit at Abby’s antics.
“You have been missing out, girlfriend.” Abby stood and began to gather plates. “Frogger is only the best video game of all time! These guys play their zombie games—”
“Zombies?” Brooke’s eyes rounded.
“Zombies! And race cars. And—” Abby waved off the rest of the list as if our RPGs were too silly to care about. “Give me the classic games anytime. And Frogger is the best of the classics.”
Leah stood, watching Abby and Brooke carry dishes over to the counter. The uncertainty in her expression, the need to both be with her daughter and address the issues we both knew weren’t going away, tore at me. I moved behind her, slid an arm around her hip to her stomach, ignoring the tensing of her body against me.
“She’ll be fine with Abby for a little while,” I said quietly. “And we’ll be an easy intercom away if she needs anything at all.”
Leah grabbed my wrist. “I don’t know how to do this,” she admitted, voice just as soft so that Brooke couldn’t hear. “I’m a mom, not a...vigilante. I can’t fight the mob.”
“You’re a stronger fighter than you will probably ever realize, eshet hayil. But this time you don’t have to fight alone—we’ll do it with you.” I wanted to do it for her, but hard as it was for me to accept, I knew I couldn’t. Leah needed to have some part in closing this door to her past.
I couldn’t resist the pull of her warmth and bent to nuzzle the side of her neck. “Come downstairs and we’ll work it out.”
She turned into me, her hand coming up to grab my shirt, clutch it in her fist just over my heart. I covered it with my own.
“Okay,” she finally said. “Let me tell her where I’ll be, and we can go.”
When she released me, a part of me went with her. I thought that might always be the case. Even if she walked away from me, we would always be connected. But my job was to convince her to stay; I just had to figure out how.
Chapter Twenty-One
Leah —
Brooke happily followed Abby to an office where an old-fashioned Atari setup waited. I was surprised the thing actually worked, but according to Eli, the refurbished classics were all the rage nowadays. I left Brooke to learn about Frogger and followed the men down to the bat cave.
Downstairs, we gathered around a small conference table that looked more like it belonged in an executive boardroom than the basement playground for three assassins. Remi sat next to me, his big body barely contained by the chair he squeezed himself into. I don’t think that’s why his arm and leg pressed against mine, though. That was because he wanted to torture me. His heat and scent reminded me that I’d woken up beside this man only twenty-four hours ago. I knew what he felt like when he was hungry for me, what he looked like in the grip of climax. I might be a mom, but I was also a woman, and now that Brooke was safe, I found myself remembering.
And wanting.
Ross just died. Your life is in chaos. You shouldn’t be thinking about sex!
Why the hell not? Remi and Brooke were the only good things in my life right now.
The thought struck me right between the eyes. Remi was a good thing. He was. I trusted this man with my daughter’s life, with my body. So what did that mean in the long run? Because I couldn’t see myself married and raising a daughter with a man who killed people for a living. I could see myself walking away, knew in some part of my overloaded brain that it was the right thing to do, but just the thought made my heart ache so bad I had no idea how I’d go through with it.
When had it gotten this strong between us? And where did that leave me in the end?
“What are our options?” I asked, reaching for a distraction from the confusion building inside me.
“There are a few,” Remi began.
“Not all of them good,” Eli pointed out. “A full-on assault on the Fiori family, for instance.”
Levi leaned back in his chair across the table from me. “We could certainly try, but the likelihood of catching every member of the family—”
“And anyone associated with them,” Eli put in.
“Is nil.” Remi rubbed at the scruff he hadn’t bothered to shave this morning. He’d scraped that soft-sandpaper beard across my skin the night before last, left behind reddened patches on my neck and breasts still sensitized to his touch. The muscles low in my belly clenched at the memories the simple rasp of his palm over his chin brought forth. “Any vacancy we create will be filled almost immediately, either from within the family or outside it. Not a good option.”
I tapped my finger on the armrest, willing my thoughts away from Remi and back on the task at hand. “Okay, so we can’t kill them all.” No matter how much I wanted that to be the plan. “What other options have we got?”
“We can go with the original plan and hand over the recordings,” Eli suggested.
“I’m not sure that’s a viable option either,” Levi said, rocking in his seat like it was a rocking chair on the front porch. “That’s what they demanded, but the more I think about it, the more I believe they never intended for anyone to walk out of that warehouse alive except Fiori’s men. They wanted the recordings, yes. But they couldn’t guarantee there were no copies. Couldn’t guarantee Leah hadn’t told anyone else about the evidence. They didn’t make it clear to Ross, but this was a scorched-earth tactic from the get-go in my opinion.”
A tactic that had taken the life of the only sibling I had. That had almost taken the life of my six-year-old child. As if watching it on a movie screen, I saw the moment Ross fell to the ground, saw his desperate hands tugging at the ropes to release Brooke before it was too late to save her. Anger rose in a noxious wave, roiling inside me, growing and growing and growing until there wasn’t room to breathe, much less think.
And then a warm hand settled on my thigh. Remi. His palm opened, his long fingers circling my leg, gripping me. Grounding me. His touch centered me when I couldn’t center myself, couldn’t push away the pain. I didn’t look at him, not with so many eyes watching, but I covered his hand with mine, keeping him close.
“So giving the recordings back isn’t a good option. What is?” I asked, voice a rasp in my tight throat.
“What about your father?” Levi asked.
A rough growl escaped Remi’s throat. I shot him a surprised glance.
“What about him?” I asked.
“Can he help us?”
I’d considered that and rejected it after Angelo’s death, not wanting to pit him and Ross against e
ach other. I’d lost the father of my child and my brother all at once; I’d decided I’d rather Dad be safe than at risk because of me. Now... “He’s solid.”
“Are you sure? Ross wasn’t,” Remi pointed out, his voice as rough as the sound that had escaped him. “What are the chances that your father was working both sides as well?”
The words were like a slap in the face. Was Remi blaming me for Ross’s betrayal, for not seeing the truth sooner? I dared to meet those amber eyes, glowing with emotion, and realized the answer was no. He was angry—at Ross, at the situation—but that fierceness in his gaze... He wanted to protect me. Dad was an unknown to him.
I squeezed Remi’s hand beneath mine. “I’m sure. If Dad had been working both sides, it wouldn’t have mattered if he got ahold of the recording; he could make them disappear. Ross was the one who kept me from going to my dad back then.”
The tension in Remi’s body eased the slightest bit. Nothing would reassure him like meeting my father and seeing the truth for himself, but for now, he was choosing to trust me like I’d trusted him.
“Does he have the guts to stand up to the mob?” Levi asked.
“Yes.” I truly believed that. Seven years ago I’d doubted my father’s ability to take down his own son, not his willingness to take on the mob. “Still, even with the evidence we have—and what they’ll hopefully gain once the recordings give them an opening—the cops won’t catch everyone. There will be retaliation; it’s a given. I don’t want that for me or him or the men who work for him, but what other choice do we have?”
Remi and Levi exchanged a look, seeming to communicate without speaking. Did they have some ideas they weren’t laying out on the table yet? Did I want to know what they were?
“Let’s at least start with your dad,” Levi finally said. “He knows all the local players. Between us, we should be able to figure out the next step.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about seeing Dad again, coming back from the dead, so to speak. I’d forced myself to walk away, not look back. To give up any hope of ever returning to the life I’d once known. I doubted the reality would hit me until I was face-to-face with the man who’d raised me, loved me. Could we have that back? Would he blame me for Ross’s death?
I didn’t know. Right now reuniting with my family had to come second to stopping the Fioris. They’d taken the father of my child, my brother, had almost taken my daughter from me. They’d stolen my life. They had to be stopped.
And looking around the table, I knew I trusted these three men to help me do that. As long as I was a part of whatever plan they finally decided on, and Brooke was safe in the end, I would trust them. I knew Remi and his brothers would choose the wisest course. But...
“We’ll be going to DC?”
Remi nodded.
“I won’t leave Brooke behind.” Not right now, when her equilibrium was fragile and her fear could rear its ugly head at any moment. She had to be with me. If that meant traveling, we’d roll with it.
But Remi seemed to have anticipated that as well. “I think we might have a way to take her with us and keep her safe at the same time,” he said. Then to his brothers, “What about bringing in our new friends? They could be strong allies if we let them.”
“Do assassins have allies?” I asked, only partly teasing.
“Not in the business,” Eli said with a wink. My heart lifted the tiniest bit.
“But we can go outside the business,” Remi added. “It’s actually safer that way.”
“Who would you trust?” Remi wouldn’t trust just anyone, not with Brooke’s safety at risk; I truly believed that. And then the pieces began to assemble themselves into a logical answer. “King?”
“His team is the best JCL has.” Levi shifted in his seat, the move clueing me in that he wasn’t as comfortable with outsiders as Remi was. Being the oldest, the one responsible for his family when they’d been on the streets, that didn’t surprise me. “As much as an outside firm is never my first choice, we can’t both handle the mob and keep Brooke safe. Knowing what I know about King’s team, I do believe they can protect her.”
Levi didn’t give his trust easily. I nodded my agreement.
“I’ll get on the arrangements,” Eli said, rising from his seat.
I watched Remi’s brothers as they crossed the room to the bank of computers we’d used the first time Remi had brought me down here, unsure how I felt. Relieved, like someone had taken the burden from my shoulders, broken it into pieces, and scattered it among the four of us so I didn’t have to carry it all on my own. And yet still anxious because we didn’t know what would happen when we got to DC. I turned to Remi—
And realized he was watching me, the same mix of emotions in his gaze. And a message: We’ll figure it out.
I wasn’t alone.
Tears pricked the backs of my eyes.
“Let’s go upstairs, leave these two to the details,” he said. The words had a rough undertone that slid beneath my anxiety and touched a different part of me, a part that had been put on the back burner since we’d gotten out of bed yesterday. A part that surged to the fore with a suddenness that shocked me.
“Upstairs.” I squeezed my thighs together, only then realizing that Remi’s fingers had curled along my inner thigh, so close to the spot that needed him the most. “All right.”
His grin was wicked enough to curl my toes. “Upstairs, lev sheli.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Remi —
Lev sheli. My heart. That’s what Leah was. That and so much more.
I kept her hand in mine as we walked toward the elevator. Abby and Brooke were on the ground floor, and we’d join them there...in a little bit. First, I needed time with Leah, needed to wipe that lost, scared look away, the one I’d caught far too often staring back at me. I needed to take her away, just for a little bit, give her some semblance of peace—if she’d let me.
The doors opened, then closed behind us. I eyed Leah as I pushed the button for the third floor.
“Brooke was with us last night,” I said, watching her eyes widen when she noticed our destination. “She’ll be with us on this trip.” Along with my brothers and the four members of King’s team if we could get them.
Leah frowned. “Does that bother you?”
“Hell no, it doesn’t bother me.” That was part of being a parent, right? Having a kid limit the possibility of sex was a given; that didn’t make your sex life nonexistent. “It just means we have to take advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself.”
I pushed the emergency stop button, bringing the elevator to a halt between floors.
“Oh.”
That one little syllable and my dick went hard as a rock. I grinned. “Oh.”
I didn’t have a lot of room to maneuver, so it took me about two seconds to stalk her across the tiny elevator car. Long enough for Leah’s eyes to go dark, drowsy. To get that sexed-up look I’d had to mostly imagine in the dark the other night. Now there was no hiding the slightest nuance of her expression. There would be no hiding the smallest centimeter of her body either.
I reached for the top button on her shirt. Her skin began to flush and her breath quickened as I flicked the buttons open one by one, revealing inch after inch of creamy, silken skin that made my mouth water with anticipation. The last one undone, I moved to the closure of her jeans, then the zipper. And then I grasped the waist and pulled, going to my knees to remove her pants and give me the access I was dying for.
A loud buzz filled the car. Leah startled, goose bumps jumping across her skin.
“Remi, take whatever you’re doing out of the elevator.”
Levi. Fucking bastard. He knew exactly what I was doing.
“Please tell me there aren’t cameras in here,” Leah whispered.
I laid my palms against her ankles and swept them slowly up her legs, absorbing the heat and feel of her. “No cameras,” I said roughly, then louder. “Piss off, bro!”
“G
et out of the elevator, dickhead.” Eli this time.
I snorted a laugh. “Take the stairs, dickhead.”
Leah choked out a laugh of her own, one that strangled to a stop when my hands slid under her panties to cup her ass. Such a full, firm ass. I leaned forward to place a kiss on the soft pillow of flesh just below her belly button.
“Remi—”
Clenching my fingers around handfuls of flesh, I let my sigh brush across Leah’s mound. “Either piss off or you’ll find the elevator out of commission for a lot longer than I’ll be in here. Got me, bro?”
Leah dug into my hair, pushing deep to scrape her nails along my scalp. I barely held back a moan. Two grumbling voices came through the speakers, muttering threats and complaints and things I stopped paying attention to when Leah shimmied in my grasp, rubbing her ass harder into my hands. Sliding reluctantly away, I skidded across the floor on my knees and clicked off the intercom. “Drop those panties for me, Leah.”
There was nothing choked about her laugh this time. “I bet you’ve made plenty of panties drop in your life, Remi.”
“And yours are the only ones that matter,” I told her honestly. Whether she believed me or not, my cock had never been hard enough to hammer nails with anyone but her. I held my breath and watched as her fingers pushed at the silk wrapped around her hips. It whispered softly as it slid down her skin to her ankles, where she kicked them into the corner along with her jeans. I was between her legs before she could close them again.
“Open for me, lev sheli.” Palms on her inner thighs, I pushed out until the soft folds I hungered for parted.
“Remi.” Leah pulled at my hair again, urging me forward. “God, please.”
“Please what?” I asked, mouth and breath brushing her most private skin.
“Please suck me.”
I stroked my thumbs along the creases between thigh and hip, tugged her lips open even farther. And when that tiny bud poked its head out, ready to play, I sucked it into my mouth and pressed hard with my tongue.
Leah’s knees went weak.
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