by Piper Stone
Yet the kiss continued as I thrust my tongue inside, drinking in her sweet essence. She felt so damn good in my arms as I pressed my cock into her stomach, grinding back and forth. Everything about this was so wrong, forbidden in every possible way, but I could see being with her. I could see owning her.
I could see destroying her.
As the reality settled back in once again, I slowly broke the kiss just as we both heard the sound of footsteps thumping on the deck.
“Yo, Crockett. You got a minute?” Dylan called out. I could tell by the edge in his voice that he had something to say I wasn’t going to like.
We both turned our head as Kelly continued to cling to me. While there was a sheen of lust in his eyes, there was also a hint of anger that I hadn’t noticed in him before.
“Why don’t you go inside,” I told her.
“What about the glass?” she asked.
I glared down at it, an unwanted pang shifting into my heart. “It’s just a glass. I’ll toss it into the fire.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, backing away.
“Don’t be. Accidents happen.”
Kelly half smiled before lowering her head and moving toward the deck. As she passed by Dylan, he didn’t bother looking in her direction.
He took careful steps down the stairs, shoving his hands into his pockets as he headed in my direction.
“Did one of you receive a call?” I asked as I knelt down, pulling the stem into the light. Waiting around for a call when the buyer was ready was worse than watching paint dry. While Hawk had been given a timeframe of a week to ten days to allow Domingo to finally begin to realize his party favors were missing for good, there was no selected date.
He hissed, shaking his head. “You know better than that.”
“Then what is going on?”
“I did some snooping last night and this morning. Wade mentioned what Kelly had said to him last night.”
“Yeah, so what? She told me more about this asshole. He’s one fuck of a man,” I stated, annoyed that he was beating around the bush.
“Did she confide in you his name?”
“No. But she will when she learns to trust us.”
Snorting, Dylan coughed and slapped his chest. “First of all, why the hell would she trust us? We’ve been kind of rough on her, especially if she just ran from an abusive relationship.”
“Get to the damn point, Dylan. You know how I feel about games. They piss me off.”
“Fine, but what I found should infuriate the fuck out of you. When Wade mentioned the guy is from Georgia, Atlanta to be exact, I figured if she wasn’t lying then the wedding would be big social news. You know how all the rich boys like to keep up with the Joneses.”
I let out a long hiss. “Fine. I assume that means you learned his name.”
“Maybe. While there is no mention of the bride to be’s name or a photograph, there was a paragraph on a wedding that was supposed to occur yesterday.” He hesitated, his eyes darting back and forth across mine. “Did you ever hear of Michael Capatelli?”
“Should I?” Although I was forced to admit that the name did ring a bell, but from where? A case? Someone my granddad knew when he was practicing law in Atlanta? I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“Some big business guru with some very powerful friends.”
I sighed, thankful it would seem she told me the truth. “She just mentioned he invested capital in various firms. That’s not why you came out here. It’s interesting, but only adds credence to her story. Get the fuck on with it.”
“You haven’t been around the block as long as Wade and I have. While you might buy her story, the more we think about it, the more convenient it is.”
I had my hand wrapped around his throat in a split second, prepared to throw a punch. “Fuck you.”
“Whoa!” Dylan threw up his arms, his expression incredulous. “Calm the fuck down, Crockett. Maybe she doesn’t know she’s being used.”
“What in God’s name are you trying to say? You better talk now or you’re not going to be able to for one hell of a long time.”
“I’m saying that if my memory serves me and you know I’m pretty damn good at the reconnaissance shit, then we have a problem. That’s why I was hired for this operation. Now, let. Me. Talk.”
I released my hold, even as the adrenaline continued to flow, creating twitches in my hand. “So talk.”
“I could be wrong and have no way of confirming the information from here, but Mr. Capatelli was investigated five years ago for his involvement with a shipment of some nasty party favors coming out of Miami. Heard shit about it after that, which means that the case was likely shoved under a big rock.”
As I’d said to myself before, coincidences were nothing more than bloodshed waiting to happen. I shifted my gaze toward the cabin, able to see her peering out from the kitchen window. A cold chill shifted down my spine. However, I refused to jump to any conclusions. “You think she knew exactly where she was going, purposely running off the road, knowing we’d somehow be on that dark and lonely road at that time of night? Think about what you’re saying.”
“Crockett. I think it’s possible that she had some good luck in the fact that happened. What I honestly believe is that you would have had a knock on the door if she hadn’t run off the road.”
I bristled again, glaring at him. “That’s insane.”
“What’s insane is that she was involved with a powerful man that just might be the previous buyer of certain items that we just might know the location of. Since you know those items are worth millions of dollars, my guess is that this man might use resourceful methods of attempting to get his hands on it.”
I closed the distance, curling my upper lip. “That would mean someone within our beloved organization tipped off not only this asshole, but potentially Domingo as well. Somehow, I think our doors would have been blown in before this. Don’t you?”
Dylan didn’t back down. “Not if Mr. Capatelli thinks he’s being double-crossed.”
I heard what he was saying. I finally let out a deep breath, the hot air blowing across his face. “Too many conjectures, Dylan. That doesn’t fly with me. This lady needs help. That is something we can tell. No one is that damn good of an actress.”
“Shit. You like this girl,” he said, a smile curling on his lip. “You really like her. This isn’t just about some wild kinky event.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” The last thing I needed was either one of them thinking I was soft.
He laughed softly to himself. “I think I do. She reminds you of Vanessa, doesn’t she?”
One person had known my story. One. I reacted, the hard punch catching him in the jaw. He went down with a hard thud, his hand landing on a portion of the broken glass.
“Goddamn it,” he huffed. “What the hell is the matter with you?”
I took a step back, pacing the ground. “No one talks about her. No one. I don’t care how the fuck you found out, you never speak of her again. Get it?”
Dylan rose to his feet, shaking his hand as the blood trickled down his fingers. “I’m sorry, man. I don’t know anything but her name and that she was someone special in your life. You’re a damn loner and have been since the day you walked into the club. I have no room to judge you on anything, but I will continue to warn you that she may not be who she portrays herself as. I have my own reasons not to trust easily.”
“Duly noted. We need to find out who Michael Capatelli is definitively. How the hell are we supposed to do that?”
“Hawk may know. If I’m right about any of this, some adjustments might need to be made.”
“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.” I shifted my gaze once again toward the window. She knew more than she was willing to share with any of us. “First things first. She’s going to tell us the truth as she knows it.”
I didn’t wait for him before storming toward the house. When he snagged my arm, I snarled, unable to take my eyes
off his hand. It hadn’t been the first time nor would it be the last I flew off the handle. Still, my past was nobody’s damn business.
“Listen to me. You can’t tell her what we’re doing. Not until we know the truth. Just trust me on this. Find out what you can, but you’re not going to get a damn thing from her if you demand anything. We can all tell she’s scared. She has every right to be. What I do know for certain is that Mr. Capatelli is worth almost a billion dollars, at least according to some reports I found. He also keeps an entourage of well-trained men as security, or so a glossy article in Business Weekly mentions. He’s considered shrewd, ruthless, and by some reports, highly dangerous. Do you get what I’m saying?”
“I get it,” I snapped.
“I left the reports on my laptop. Show them to her. Embellish what you’ve learned to try and get her to talk, but under no circumstances tell her a damn thing about why we’re here.”
While Dylan had no right to tell me what to do, he was right. I needed to know the truth. One way or the other, I was going to get it.
* * *
“What happened between you and Dylan?” Kelly asked as I led her up the stairs.
“Nothing that matters.”
“The cut is pretty bad. He should have stitches. I did what I could with the limited medical supplies you have.”
“He’ll live.”
She sighed. “Is that some biker code? It doesn’t matter how much your buddy is bleeding, as long as he’s not dead he’ll be just fine?”
The tension between us was as bad as it had been before. She obviously continued to harbor anger, perhaps from seeing the hard punch I’d given Dylan. What the hell did she care?
Shit. Maybe she did. That would serve me right.
“I’m not holding him hostage here, Kelly. If he needs to go get stitches and he wants to take that risk, then by all means he can.”
“Oh, he can just choose to get shot at or worse? Is that what you mean?”
I stopped short in the hallway, backing her against the wall, slapping my hands against it on either side of her. “While you may think this is some kind of a joke, a game that you are enjoying playing, the deal and the danger all four of us are entrenched in is very real. If you think otherwise for a single second, then you’re going to die. Do you hear me?” I could tell instantly I’d frightened her.
She twisted her mouth, nodding only once.
I backed away, turning away from her. Shit. Shit. Shit. I was beginning to feel unhinged. “Look, you can’t understand.”
“You just think I can’t, Crockett.”
Maybe she was right, but I also had no intention of telling her the truth.
I held my tongue as I led her into Dylan’s room, noticing his computer on top of the desk. I’d given him the master bedroom and realized I hadn’t been inside for one hell of a long time. I moved toward it, pressing the spacebar, Michael’s picture popping up immediately. My blood pressure began to rise almost immediately. The guy was sophisticated, his suit worth more than my Harley. A moment of recognition shifted into my mind, but he was much older, ten years having gone by. Fuck. The asshole was more than just dangerous. He was a freaking murderer.
I turned to face her. “I need the truth, Kelly, and I won’t accept any less. I’m damn good at knowing when people lie to me. If you do, I’m going to give you the kind of punishment you won’t forget for one hell of a long time. This is important.”
“What is it?”
When I stepped away, her eyes drifted immediately toward the photograph. I’d seen more than my share of liars in my time. I could read their faces with near one hundred percent accuracy, just something that I’d learned early on in my former profession. What I witnessed in her eyes was the same absolute horror I’d seen the night before. There was no going back, no further shifting of blame on her shoulders. She had been used, but in a completely different manner than Dylan understood.
“Is that the man who kept you locked in a room for five months?” My tone couldn’t be anything else but demanding. “Is that the man who threatened to kill you?”
As her body began to shake, she eased onto the bed, folding her hands together. “Yes. That’s Michael Capatelli, my fiancé.”
“What is in Virginia that’s so important to you?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You mean you won’t. If what I’ve learned about this man is true, he is very dangerous. You have every right to be terrified of him. That means all three of us could be risking our lives by honoring the deal we made with you. I think I deserve to know.”
She dropped her head into her hands, every part of her still shaking. When she looked me in the eyes, I could see a combination of continued fear as well as determination in hers. “I want to tell you, Crockett. I really do, but I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the only leverage I have on him and the most important thing in my entire world. Please understand. Please. My life doesn’t matter but getting there does.”
Whatever hold Michael had on her was just as much a noose as the ones wrapped around our necks. Whether or not the asshole had anything to do with Domingo Salizare, he would learn what happened to men who dared to lay a hand on a woman.
Retaliation would be sweet.
Chapter Nine
Kelly
Terror.
Crockett had wanted me paralyzed with fear in order to keep me from asking questions. While that may be some method he’d used successfully with his biker buddies, or maybe in his past, that shit wasn’t going to fly with me.
Even though the sight of Michael’s picture made the ordeal I’d gone through that much more real. Crockett’s reaction had also stripped away the last remaining concept of finding a hero. The deal he’d made with me had simply been because I’d stumbled on something treacherous that involved Michael. The three men couldn’t afford to let me go. They didn’t give a shit about me.
I shook my head, biting back several curse words. What good would it do to fall into the fury building in my system? They’d pretend to care while making another contract with Michael at the right time. I had to deal with that and move on, waiting until it was presumed safe to get the hell out of this state.
My heart ached, my head even more.
I’d heard some people say that Virginia was for lovers. I knew the song ‘Sweet Virginia Breeze’ well. I only hoped the beautiful state was still a safe haven for my sister. I’d risked her life more than once in order to protect mine. While I wasn’t entirely certain how the rugged bikers had found out Michael’s name, at least I didn’t have to lie about who he was any longer. Maybe now they understood my life was in danger.
And so were theirs.
I knew from the very second Crockett has shown me Michael’s picture that all three men believed my connection to the great Capatelli empire directly interfered with whatever ‘mission’ they were on. When he’d grilled me for five minutes, I’d been thrown by his venom, although his behavior in the hallway indicated a newly invoked fear within him as well.
“Did Michael ever mention Macon to you?”
“Who is Michael working with?”
“What do you know about what Michael is involved in?”
He’d peppered me with questions, one coming after the other, leaving me numb inside. I had no real answers to any of them. What little I’d been told about Michael’s profession had been very early in the twisted relationship, the man only admitting to salvaging companies from the brink of disaster. At that point, I’d thought his work was admirable. The darkness of a sick realization had settled in much later. Whatever Michael was involved in certainly had ties to a nefarious source or two.
Or five.
Crockett’s last comment had left me feeling empty.
“As I told you before, if you lie to me, I will know and I will have no recourse but to... set you free.” He’d left me alone in the room to stare at the photograph, the glorious article depicting
all the marvelous things Michael had done in his life. And all with a buxom blonde as the arm candy for the night. I’d spent ten minutes searching the web for additional details about the asshole myself until Dylan had found me, cursing Crockett for leaving me alone.
It was obvious that my relationship with Michael had been a significant discussion between the three of them.
Why? What in God’s name did they think I was in this regard, some kind of pawn?
I stood on the back deck, watching as the sun began to set. The string of colors was incredible, the vibrant hues speaking of hope and endurance. A new dawn. I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever get out of my personal darkness.
The horrible pain in Crockett’s eyes meant I’d been right about the cabin, the dishes, and the woman. I’d not only touched a nerve in the man, I’d yanked it completely out of his body. What else was he hiding? Why would he bother to offer to have this quiet place of reverence soiled in any manner? That was a direct conflict with the possibility he had some connection to Michael.
I studied the last remnants of the bonfire, smirking. It had felt damn good to burn the ugly dress. While I hadn’t been allowed to see the price tag or pick out my own wedding frock, the finest store in all of Atlanta had provided not only the fitting in my prison room but the final product. Their prices? Starting at fifteen thousand dollars. Chump change to a man like Michael.
What the hell was he really into with a profession that he’d never discussed? Racketeering? Money laundering? I realized anything was possible even though I’d never been allowed into the inner sanctum of Michael’s life. What I did know is that Crockett had left only minutes after showing me my ex-fiancé’s picture, saying nothing other than he’d be back. I’d stood at the front window, watching as he drove out on his Harley, the leather jacket he’d selected only adding to his ruthless and oh-so sexy look.
Why was I so attracted to him? Why did I hunger for the man in ways I’d never experienced?
I’d spent less than a full day with these men and while we seemed kindred spirits in several ways, I knew almost nothing about them. It struck me as odd that we’d eaten breakfast surrounding a table, carrying on a normal conversation about music and even politics, everything that friends would discuss over a meal.
