Finn leaned back in his chair and sighed loudly. For the first time, Riley saw the dark circles under their leader’s eyes. He’d known the toll of this soon-to-be war was weighing heavily on him, but it wasn't until now he realized just how much.
“Braden,” Finn said finally. “Braden has been sending me messages about Ennis and his operation.”
Riley raised a brow. He was more than a little surprised. When Braden had left with Ennis, he had been certain that his loyalties had always fallen in line with the older brother.
Braden wasn’t as loud-mouthed as some, but he’d not exactly hidden his concern over Finn’s leadership of the Kelly family.
“I don’t understand,” Riley said, rubbing his neck. “Braden has never exactly been a fan of yours. And he’s not like Conor, he didn’t have a good reason for leaving.”
Conor twitched. Riley shrugged.
The other man had gone against Finn only to get the money his sister needed for medical care, but in the end, he’d made the right choice and returned to Finn.
Riley couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t have made the same choice in a similar situation, so he didn’t hold it against the man, but he saw no reason to pretend it never happened. Secret bullshit is what got men killed in their line of work.
“How do you know Ennis isn’t playing you through Braden?” Riley asked. “That seems like the sort of shit that Ennis might pull, and you know it.”
Finn chuckled. He ran a hand over his forehead and sat up to stare at the men.
“When he came to me, I was surprised myself,” Finn said. “He and Ennis go way back together. But Braden was never comfortable with the direction that my father and Ennis were trying to take the family.” He waved a hand. “And if Ennis is trying to play me through Braden, he’s doing a shitty job, as Braden’s information has already let us stall out a few moves by Ennis.”
Riley nodded. None of them had been comfortable with the path Finn’s father and Ennis were taking.
They may have been violent. They may have been criminals, but they still had their own sense of honor and certain lines they didn’t want to cross. Certain lines that would truly make them irredeemable.
Human trafficking was the last thing any of them wanted to get into, and it seemed like that was what Finn’s father and Ennis wanted. The idea sickened him.
Riley had been relieved when Finn offered them a way out, a way to make money that didn’t require him to help slavers.
In the end, he figured he shouldn’t be all that surprised that Braden wanted a way out as well. He and Riley were in a similar line of work after all. Even in Finn’s father’s day, the truly sadistic sorts didn’t fit in with the Kelly family.
“And Braden is absolutely sure there’s no movement from Ennis?” Noel asked.
Finn shook his head. “Ennis has been struggling since Conor left,” he said and glanced over to Conor.
Conor frowned and shifted in his seat in irritation, probably not pleased to have his former betrayal brought up twice. There was something else that wasn’t being said, but Riley wasn’t about to interject when Finn was being more upfront than he ever had before.
“I just don’t get it,” Riley said. “If it’s not Ennis, then it has to be the Russians, but it just doesn’t make sense. No one else would have a reason to do it. If it’s a smaller gang or organization, why go after me or my woman?”
They turned when Anna stepped into the room. Riley frowned. She was supposed to be asleep.
She held her phone in her hand. “It’s the police,” she said softly and glanced over to where Riley sat. “The detective that’s handling my apartment case says we need to come in. He says they picked up the person that’s responsible for what happened to my apartment.”
Riley raised a brow in surprise. Now the enemy was sloppy enough to get picked up by the police? He couldn’t help but be insulted at this point. The fucker probably got caught speeding or with a broken taillight and had some warrants pop up.
“And just who might that be?” Finn asked, his face a mask of grim curiosity.
Anna swallowed and sighed. “Jason.”
Chapter Fifteen
Anna twisted her hands as she walked beside Riley and behind Finn into the police station. Nothing like being escorted by a couple of mobsters into a police building to set a person right at ease. If it didn’t involve her ex-husband, she might have found the entire situation grimly amusing.
Nearly every eye in the room turned to follow them. Several of the officers scowled as they passed by. Of course every officer on the force recognized Finn Kelly and one of his main men.
She was surprised they didn’t swarm and try and arrest the men for something, anything. Even if Finn was cleaning up the Kelly family’s act and trying to go legit, he’d still been involved in a lot of shady dealings throughout the years, and she was sure the police wouldn’t forget that for decades, if ever.
She heard the police mumble more than a few rude things as they passed and was glad when Riley reached down to take her hand. She wasn’t sure if it was for his own benefit or hers, but it didn’t matter. The comfort was there.
An older man in a suit and blue tie stepped forward and gave her a reserved smile as he eyed the two men standing next to her. Something passed over his face: not disdain or anger, but rather caution.
It made sense. Even if he didn’t trust or like the Kellys, antagonizing them pointlessly wouldn’t be helpful.
“I’m Detective Johansen,” he said. “Thank you for coming down on such short notice at this time of night.” He ushered them down the hall and stopped at a desk where a very large black man sat.
He wore a uniform, but not a police uniform, instead a gray security guard’s uniform. His huge body dwarfed everything around him, including the not-so-small Finn and Riley.
Anna recognized the man and gave him a small smile. He was the guard who had let her into Jason’s apartment building.
He looked over at her and gave a small nod. She nodded back but still wasn’t quite certain what was going on. She hoped he wasn’t involved with Jason’s plans.
“I’m sure the chief would be annoyed that I’m admitting this…” the detective said. He chuckled and then nodded toward the security guard. “But it was actually Mr. Parker here that cracked the whole thing open.”
Anna turned to guard and stared at him.
“Why don’t you explain, Mr. Parker,” the detective said.
“Mr. Clark had been acting real strange the last few weeks,” Parker began. “It started just before you came over, and it might have been why you stood out in my mind,” he explained. “I mean, I see a lot of people coming and going in that building, and most don’t give me the time of day, so it’s not exactly like I’m normally paying attention to their moods.”
Anna didn’t really follow but nodded.
“I didn’t really think much of it until I saw on the news about your place,” the man said and nodded apologetically to her. “I’d just gotten off the night shift when he came in real late wearing all black. He was carrying a big box of stuff. He was all sketchy… acting and looking like the Devil was on his heels.”
“Something like that,” Riley mumbled. “Not quite the Devil, but close.”
Anna turned to frown at him. She hated to hear him talk like that.
“I mean that guy is all about his nice suits and nice hair and being with it,” Parker said. “So, it seemed weird that he’d be all messed up and dressed like he’s a bad extra from some security company commercial.”
Anna, Finn, and Riley all exchanged glances before the man continued.
“Tonight when he pulled in the garage, I noticed the bullet holes on the side of his car, and when he stepped out, he was again wearing all black, with blood dripping down his leg as he came in.” He shrugged. “You don’t have to be an FBI agent to figure out he was up to no good.”
Anna raised a brow to Riley. He’d never mentioned that he shot the person.
She noticed he wouldn’t meet her eye and knew he didn’t plan on taking blame publicly for that one.
On one level she was disappointed, but when she thought about it, it might have given the police a reason to arrest him, and it didn’t seem fair that he’d spend any time in jail for trying to protect her from an intruder skulking about his house in the middle of the night.
Riley stepped forward and shook the man’s hand.
“Thank you for coming forward with this,” he said. “Who knows how long this all would have continued?”
The detective cleared his throat, and they turned to look at him.
“When the police arrived on the scene of Mr. Clark’s apartment, they found a number of photos inside,” the detective said and raised a brow to Riley.
Anna frowned. She’d never thought about the fact that Jason had her followed before or that he might have more. She just assumed that he was trying to use it against her to make her feel bad. It never occurred to her that he’d gone over the deep end with crazy stalker antics and staged shootings.
“There are a number of things that he seems to have collected from your apartment during the earlier break-in, Miss Jones,” the detective said. “All the evidence from your apartment has been photographed, and you should be able to take it home with you today.”
Anna nodded.
“All the photos have to be held as evidence,” the detective said. “We’ll probably need to hold on to them for a while.”
Anna shook her head. “I don’t care. I have no desire to take those.”
“Understandable.” He nodded once. “I’m sorry you had to go through all of this. If it’s any comfort, we have a mountain of evidence. He’s not going to be able to skate away with some slick lawyer bullshit.”
She nodded. She wasn’t sure if that made her more comfortable or not. All she had wanted was for Jason to leave her alone.
An inkling of pity rose in her, but it wouldn’t grow. In the end, even this scheme had been another way he had tried to control her. He just couldn’t take that she would willingly walk away from him and so had terrorized her and put her in danger to make a point. Given that he’d shot at the storage unit, he could have even injured or killed her.
Anna shook hands with the detective. “Thank you for contacting me and handling this so quickly.”
She let out a sigh of relief at confirming that the Russians were not behind it all. However disturbing Jason’s actions had been, he was just one jealous and controlling man, not a dangerous criminal syndicate who needed to kill people to take control of the area.
Apparently, the fact that the Russians were on the move was totally incidental.
Finn cleared his throat, and all eyes turned to him. He’d been so quiet that she’d almost forgotten he was there.
She watched as Finn handed the security guard a business card.
“Call me if you’re interested in better pay,” he said. “We could use guys like you.”
The detective raised a brow. It probably wasn’t often that he saw a crime boss try and recruit new help right in front of him.
He shot the detective a grin. “For completely aboveboard and legal work, I can assure you. My new clubs can always use more security, especially men who can spot trouble and do the right thing.”
Parker took the card and nodded once.
“Let’s get going,” Riley said.
He placed an arm over Anna’s shoulder. She leaned into his warmth as they headed toward the front together to get the things that Jason had stolen from her. She was still having trouble wrapping her mind around the whole thing. The Russian Mafia almost would have made more sense.
“Let’s go home and put this whole thing behind us,” he said.
Anna nodded.
Finn leaned in from the other side. “You know I could still have him taken care of for you,” he said with a grin.
A nearby patrolman glared at Finn.
Anna laughed loudly, drawing the attention of several other policemen nearby. It was one for the books. Recruiting new members while inside a police station and offering to rub out someone as well.
She was fairly certain if she didn’t get them out of there soon, she’d have to bail them out.
Chapter Sixteen
Anna didn’t think she’d been happier in her entire life. Everything had been going so amazingly since Jason was arrested. Sure, she was going to have to go to court to testify when it came time, and sure that scared the living hell out of her, but it wasn’t something she had to worry about quite yet.
For now, he was rotting in jail, his bail denied by a judge rather unsympathetic to his complicated explanations for his bizarre behavior. The irony of her lawyer ex-husband actually seeming less trustworthy and stable than mobsters before a court of law wasn’t lost on Anna.
In the end, it all amounted to the same thing. For the first time in years, she was truly free.
It had been a quiet two weeks since their trip to the police station. She’d been spending most of her nights with Riley. She had grown accustomed to getting off work and heading over to his house. It wouldn’t be too much to even call it their little routine.
They ate dinner together every night, and he spent hours afterward showing her every way that she was important to him, especially physically. Just the thought of it made her knees weak.
She’d never understood the idea of someone worshipping someone’s body, but with Riley, she finally understood.
He definitely got off during their sex, sure, but he always made it his first duty to please her and understand her needs, and he continued to prove he even knew some of what she wanted better than she herself did.
Without the threat of the Russians or her crazy ex, their time together had been amazing. No worries about random ambushes, no concerns that a hitman was sneaking around Riley’s house at night. It could have been any other normal relationship.
Even things at work had been going very well. With her notes back, Anna was able to set up the gala with very little trouble, and even when there had been some last-minute issues with the wait staff, she was able to resolve them fairly quickly.
It might be going too far to call the whole thing easy, but it ended up far less stressful than she anticipated, or maybe Riley was just pushing all the stress out of her with their daily lovemaking sessions.
Now tonight was the culmination of her planning.
She smiled at the guests as they moved around the grand ballroom, the very same one they had used for Claire’s wedding. It was a beautiful space and the perfect venue for impressing influential people.
Anna looked over to where Riley stood. She almost snickered. He stood just a hair’s breadth away from the veranda they had slipped out on their first night there just weeks before, the day she finally let herself connect with the man.
He winked at her from across the room, and she blushed before shooting him a playful glare. Riley totally knew what he was doing by standing there.
All evening he had been trying to convince her to slip out somewhere and let him have his way with her. He didn’t seem to fully want to accept that this might have been a party, but it was still a work event, and she couldn’t just go wander off to explore his tonsils. Well, not so early anyway.
She’d been half-tempted when he started whispering all the dirty things he wanted to do. Lord, that man had a way with words that made her tingle. Of course, he was just as good at using his tongue for other things
Yes, things had been going very well indeed.
She grinned over at Riley. Conor was now standing next to him. Both looked very handsome in their tuxedos.
Riley nodded to the door and again raised a hopeful brow. She shook her head and laughed when he scowled at her like a petulant child. The man was insatiable.
She couldn’t claim to be any better, given the warmth in her center. It still amazed her that even with just a small gesture, he could still make her heart flutter in her chest wildly and othe
r, lower parts throb.
Anna watched as Claire made her way around the room. She had a smile plastered on her face as she introduced herself to the various wealthy people who presented themselves in front of her. Although Claire did not love schmoozing, it was a requirement of politics, and in the end, something she would have to get used to.
“Lovely place.”
Anna turned and grinned at Maxwell. He was the only man there that could possibly get away with the patches on his coat and not wearing a tuxedo.
“It really is,” she said and sighed.
As silly as it was to think about at this juncture, Anna couldn’t help but want her own reception to be there as well.
A flush filled her face as she realized just who she pictured there beside her. Her head told her it was way too early to even begin to think about marriage, but her heart told her head to shut up.
“And you look lovely tonight in red,” Maxwell said.
Another blush spread across her face. She’d been a bit more daring than normal. The dip in her dress was deep down the front, and the sides showed a bit more side boob than she was used to. It certainly wasn’t the most scandalous outfit in the room by far, but she still took pride in trying something a bit flashier.
As a plus, Riley seemed to like it. Well, more than like it really, and there was just something about having his attention that made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.
A waiter came over and tapped her lightly on the arm. He leaned in so his words would only reach her ears.
“Ma’am, someone is sick in the back,” he said quietly.
Anna groaned. There’d been a rash of illness going around, and she’d been hit already by nearly a dozen of the wait staff cancelling on them at the last moment.
She found Claire again on the other side of the room. As long as someone was making their way around the room, the situation should be fine if she stepped out to make sure the situation was well in hand.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Maxwell. “I’ve got to handle this.”
Riley: #4 (Kelly Clan) Page 8
