Enforce (The Force Duet Book 2)

by M. Malone

  Nonna rewarded him with a sweet smile. “I told you to call me Nonna.”

  Ryan nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Dylan appeared then carrying an aluminum pan, and Ryan followed him to the kitchen. As soon as the men were out of hearing range, Nonna looked at the girls sternly.

  “I expect you two to be careful. And watchful. I wouldn’t help you if I didn’t believe you would be.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” JJ replied instinctively. No matter how old they got, Nonna DeMarco would always be the boss of them. “What is the plan, if you guys don’t mind me asking?”

  Lucia leaned forward. “Nonna brought the cake to distract Ryan. Now that we’re all in the same place, Dylan will leave since he was technically supposed to be off duty tonight. Once he’s gone, we’ll trick Ryan into going into the panic room and then lock him in there.”

  JJ winced. “Damn, he’s going to get in so much trouble.”

  Lucia looked uncomfortable, too. “I know. But I won’t let Noah fire him. I don’t care what I have to do.”

  Nonna raised her eyebrows. “That’s enough about that, young lady.”

  They all chuckled together.

  “Ok, so we just have to wait for Dylan and Ryan to come up with the idea of Dylan going home on their own. They aren’t going to do it if we suggest it.”

  Nonna smiled slyly. “Don’t worry about that. I took care of it.”

  “What do you mean you took care of it?” Lucia asked suspiciously.

  They all froze at the sound of footsteps. Dylan and Ryan appeared. Ryan was holding a paper bowl filled with tiramisu and eating it noisily.

  “Well, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll take off. Nonna fed me a really big dinner and I’m exhausted. Since she’s planning to spend the night here so the girls can watch movies, we both don’t need to be here, right?”

  Ryan nodded, never taking his eyes off his cake. “Go on. You were supposed to be off anyway. Noah won’t care. Matthias upgraded the security here, so once I turn the external alarms on, this place is safer than the Pentagon.”

  Dylan waved at them. “I’ll see you ladies tomorrow then.”

  “Good night, dear!” Nonna called out. When she finally looked at Lucia and JJ and saw the looks on their faces, she huffed. “What? I may be old but I know how to knock a man out. His stomach. I stuffed that boy so full of gnocchi it’ll be a wonder if he doesn’t fall asleep before he makes it down the stairwell.”

  JJ was impressed. “Way to go, Nonna!”

  Lucia glanced behind them. “One down, one to go.”

  To make their story more believable, they moved into the living room and turned on their Netflix show. Nonna bounced the baby on her lap and after an hour, JJ thought she’d lose her mind. What were they doing? Ryan had shown no sign of relaxing, she’d seen him upright typing on one of Matthias’s spare computers when she’d gone to the bathroom.

  Then Nonna stood and handed the baby to Lucia. “Young man! Yoo-hoo!”

  JJ and Lucia exchanged confused looks but didn’t move from their perch on the couch. Whatever Nonna was up to, they definitely weren’t getting in her way.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Ryan appeared in the doorway to the room.

  “I need your help carrying out the surprise present I brought for my granddaughter.” Nonna marched down the hall, Ryan following.

  Lucia leaned over. “She had Dylan bring in some big box when they came. But I’m not sure what that has to do with her plan.”

  A few moments later, there was a loud “Hey!” and then the sound of something crashing.

  “What was that?” Lucia gasped. They both stood and rushed down the hallway toward Noah and Lucia’s room.

  JJ gaped at the scene. Nonna stood next to the panic room holding one of Lucia’s fancy stilettos. A loud bang on the other side of the panic room door startled them all. Ryan’s words were muffled, but it was easy to tell he was cursing up a storm in there.

  “Oh, he is really upset with me,” Nonna murmured.

  “How did you get him in there?” Lucia asked

  Nonna looked satisfied with herself. “I asked him to lift that big box. While his back was turned, I opened the panic room and then pushed him in. I disabled the lock pad with this!” she held up Lucia’s shoe.

  Suddenly she narrowed her eyes at them. “Now, before you go anywhere, you girls are taking weapons, right?”

  JJ glanced behind her to see the keypad to the panic room was cracked. She looked back to Nonna with new eyes. “Wow. Remind me to never get on your bad side.”

  Nonna ambled over and patted her cheek. “There’s no bad side for you, cara. You’re family.”

  chapter 16

  It took forever to get there.

  At least that was how it seemed to Jonas. Noah took lead as usual, so he, Matthias and Oskar rode along. Rafe was right behind them, driving a second Jeep in case they should need alternate transportation out of there.

  He didn’t like to think of anything going wrong but after years of tactical training, it was second nature to prepare for the worst. Because no matter what, they were going home.

  “Okay, so once we’re there, Rafe goes in first. We’ll hang back while he scouts. Once we have confirmation that Chamaeleon is there, we go in hot. This shit ends tonight,” Noah growled.

  Matthias spoke up from the back. “All indications point to him crashing with an old friend in the Bronx. He tried to cover his tracks but several people in the neighborhood were able to ID him.”

  Jonas blew out a breath. “Good. This shit needs to end. Then we can go home.”

  Once they got closer, Rafe’s Jeep split off and went down a different street. Noah pulled around until he found a quiet street where they could park. Once he cut the engine, it was still as a tomb.

  “Well, hell. Somebody say something,” Oskar finally drawled.

  Noah cracked a smile. “You’d think I employed a bunch of kids. Shut the hell up so we can focus.”

  Oskar held up his hands. “Just trying to lighten the mood a bit.”

  Another few minutes went by in silence before Noah's phone beeped. "Yeah. What do you mean?"

  Jonas rubbed his forehead, calling on all his strength not to snatch the phone from Noah's hand.

  "No one's there?" Noah turned in his seat to stare at Matthias incredulously.

  The kid paled slightly. "But I was so sure." He pulled out a laptop from somewhere and started typing frantically. "No, no, no. This morning when I checked there was a lease on file at this building for Ernest Fairway."

  Jonas squinted, trying to remember. "Ernest is the guy David met while overseas, right?"

  Matthias continued typing like a man possessed. "Yes. But now I see nothing in the landlord's system to indicate Fairway ever lived here at all."

  Jonas slammed a fist into the dash. "Motherfucker! He's slipped right under our noses again. I promised JJ we'd get this sonofabitch. I promised her she'd be safe."

  Noah's voice was soft, the kind you'd use to approach a wounded animal. "And you will. Jonas, listen to me. You will keep her safe. We all will."

  Oskar's big beefy hand landed on Jonas's shoulder. "You know we've got your back."

  He did know that. But at the moment that was poor consolation since the man terrorizing his woman was still out there and apparently about five steps ahead of them all the time. How the hell was he supposed to keep JJ safe when he wasn’t entirely sure he could outsmart someone like David West? The dude was obsessed and diabolical, a bad combination. Not to mention, he had unlimited time to carry out his plans. None of them knew how long he’d been plotting this.

  All they knew for sure was that West was obsessed with Rafe’s life. And that ultimate obsession had also encompassed JJ. If he’d gone through the trouble to leave clues to lead them here, there must have been a reason.

  “I need to call JJ. Make sure she’s okay.” He pulled his phone out and dialed her number. Every ring that went unanswered only ratcheted his fear h
igher.

  “Nothing?” Noah asked. His brow furrowed and he pulled out his own phone.

  Jonas watched as he finally hung up. “Lucia didn’t answer either?”

  “No. But they’re probably just watching television and can’t hear the phone. You know how Lucia likes to talk through every movie. Send Delaney a text. I’m sure they’re fine.”

  Jonas blew out a breath. “Okay, first let’s figure out where we went wrong tonight. Because I really don’t want to go home with nothing.”

  Matthias saluted him. “On it. This might not be the right place, but we’ll figure it out. He can’t hide forever.”

  Jonas wasn’t worried about Chamaeleon hiding forever because that didn’t fit in with his goal. He was worried about him hiding long enough for JJ to relax her guard.

  And then taking her away.

  JJ peered over the steering wheel and tried to follow the directions Lucia called out.

  “No, left here. And then down this street and one more right.”

  It was dark and there weren’t that many streetlights. Her churning stomach combined with the absolute certainty that this was a really bad idea made it pretty difficult to navigate.

  “This is it!” Lucia put her phone in her lap. “This is Rafe’s old house.”

  JJ didn’t park at the house, but instead kept driving and then circled around. They parked farther down the street. The house was an adorable little rambler. Exactly the kind of place that David had always talked about owning.

  “Maybe we should call the guys,” she finally said.

  “Oh they already called,” Lucia admitted.

  “Wait, what? When?”

  “While you were driving. I hit ‘ignore’ on both of our phones.”

  JJ shook her head. “I’m surprised they haven’t sent out a search party for us.” Then she winced. “They probably think we’re okay since Ryan was with us.”

  Lucia sighed. “I do feel really bad about that part. But we had to do this. I’m not about to sit back while some psycho torments my best friend. And the guys didn’t even listen when you told them about David wanting to live in Connecticut.”

  JJ knew she was right. If they’d left it up to the guys, they’d likely have missed any chance of nailing David before he moved to a new location. But they had to be careful about this. They’d just sneak up and take a look, enough to get hard proof he was there. Then they’d run like hell and call in the guys.

  She was a strong, independent woman. But that didn’t mean she was willing to put herself in danger to prove it. The guys had way more experience with this kind of thing. She and Lucia could restrict themselves to the surveillance portion of the security business.

  “Okay, did you bring the binoculars?”

  “Yes! I did. These are some new, heat sensing type binoculars that Noah was really excited about. I also grabbed this!” Lucia held up the gun she’d taken from the weapons room.

  JJ held up a hand. “Okay, let’s save that for hopefully never. This is not going to be some kind of female James Bond-Charlie’s Angels situation. We are going to spy on him, but I don’t plan on getting anywhere close to David ever again.”

  “Of course. I just brought it because… well, you never know. Rafe taught me that.” Lucia put the gun back and handed JJ one of the heat sensing binoculars.

  She trained it on the house down the street. Nothing.

  “Are they supposed to light up or do something?”

  Lucia put her pair to her face. “I’m not sure. I hate to say it, but we probably need to be closer.”

  JJ gulped. “Okay, let’s get out. Leave the car open so we can run back and jump inside quickly if we need to. But we’ll walk up the street and see if we can detect anyone inside. If no one is there, we might be doing all of this for nothing.”

  Lucia took off her seatbelt. “I don’t think it’s for nothing. At least we’re checking out a valid lead. If he’s not here, it gives Matthias one less place to focus on.”

  They left the car unlocked and closed the doors as quietly as possible. It was a bright night, the moon shining directly overhead, making up for the lack of streetlights. The house in question only had one light on up front, and there were no cars in the driveway.

  “What if he drives up while we’re walking by?” Lucia whispered.

  JJ had just had a similar thought. “Keep an eye out behind us. If you see anyone driving up, we can knock on one of these other doors and pretend we’re lost or something.”

  Luckily no one drove up or down the street as they were walking. JJ raised her binoculars and pointed them at the house. She pulled the binoculars down with a frown. “Are these supposed to do something? I don’t see anything.”

  Lucia shrugged. “I think you’re supposed to see things change color when they detect heat.”

  “Well, if that’s true then no one is here. I don’t see anything.”

  “Oh, dang. I really want to get some proof so we can get the guys to take this seriously. I wasn’t expecting to actually see him or anything, but a sign would be nice,” Lucia complained.

  JJ couldn’t help but laugh at that. “A sign that says “super secret psycho man’s hideout?”

  “Yes. Exactly like that,” Lucia added.

  JJ wasn’t sure what came over her but before she knew it she was marching toward the house. No one was there, she’d already seen that. So it wasn’t that big of a deal to get closer and look inside. Maybe they’d see something that could prove David was there if they took a quick look. But she was tired of waiting and worrying about when he’d pop up. This might be her only chance to outsmart him.

  “JJ, what are you doing?” Lucia whispered frantically as she followed JJ around to the back of the house.

  “He used to always say he’d hide his keys under a planter,” JJ muttered. Then just like she’d conjured it, she saw it. A huge planter right by the back door. She lifted it and took out the small silver key underneath.

  “You aren’t going–”

  “Inside. Yes, I am,” JJ stated before Lucia could even finish. “For once we’re ahead in this twisted game, and I’m not going to let this opportunity pass me by. You can wait in the car if you want.”

  Lucia punched her arm. “I’m not leaving you. I’ll keep a lookout while you search the place. Plus, I brought this. Just in case, remember?” She held up the gun.

  JJ blew out a breath. “Okay, let’s do this.”

  She opened the back door with the key and then paused, listening. It was quiet and still. They moved through the house quickly, not wasting any time. Lucia posted herself by the back window while JJ searched the front room. There were piles of mail on the side table addressed to Charlie Townsend. Another alias? Then she lifted the cushions of the couch to see if he’d hidden anything there.

  A soft sound behind her made JJ freeze in place. But when she turned, nothing was there.

  “Lucia!” she hissed into the shadows.

  Then one of the shadows moved and formed a familiar shape.

  “David,” she breathed.

  chapter 17

  “Jesus, Ryan, what the hell is up?"

  "What the hell is up is that I’ve been calling you the last two hours. Reception in here sucks.”

  Jonas sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sorry we went radio silent. "What's up? Is everyone okay?"

  "No, everyone is not okay. The girls, they fucking locked me in the panic room."

  Jonas shook his head. "Wait a sec, let me conference Rafe in.”

  After pushing a few buttons, Rafe answered with a grumbled “What?”

  Jonas put the phone on speaker so everyone in the car could hear. “Okay, Delaney repeat that."

  "They locked me in the panic room. Lucia, and JJ. And Nonna. Fucking old lady helped."

  Next to him, Noah sat up straight. "What did Nonna do? Where the hell is Isabella?"

  Ryan’s exasperation was clear on the other end of the line. "That's what I'm trying t
o tell you. Lucia had the old woman come over to spend time with the baby. Since they were all in one place, Dylan went home. Next thing I know, Nonna asked me to carry something in your room for her. I went in to help her, and before I knew it, she’d shoved me in the panic room and did something to the lock so I can’t reset it. I'm locked in here. Fucking battery's dying to boot."

  Jonas stared at the phone and then lifted his gaze to Noah. "You know, I wish I could say I was surprised, but I’m sure this was Lucia and JJ’s idea."

  Noah chuckled. "You might be surprised. Nonna is a pistol. Hey Rafe, any idea what your grandmother is up too?”

  Rafe’s voice grumbled over the line. "No idea. But we need to find those girls. Isabella is safe. Nonna would never risk her safety. So we just have to find the girls."

  Oskar shook Matthias awake. The kid jerked, and his right hand immediately went to palm one of his blades. "Easy, kid. Need your hacking skills not your slicing skills."

  Matthias blinked for several seconds as if trying to orient himself before he nodded. "Yep, on it." He pulled out his laptop. "What am I looking for?"

  "You're looking for Lucia and JJ."

  Matthias frowned. "I was out for all of five minutes. What the hell happened to them now?"

  Jonas shook his head. "I don't think something happened to them, I think they happened to Delaney. For some reason they wanted out of the penthouse. So they locked him in the panic room."

  A slow grin spread over Matthias's lips. "No shit?"

  Noah chuckled even as he made a left turn. "No shit. Can you track down the girls? I just hope both of them haven't forgotten everything I've ever said about safety and have left their damn phones on."

  "Even if they have, Lucia has likely forgotten about the tracker you stuck in her purse. So we can find them that way."

  Jonas blinked his eyes in amazement. "Noah, you're still tracking Lucia even after she found out last year?"

  Noah didn’t look the slightest bit sheepish. "Well, I wasn't. And then that idiot took my baby. So I turned the tracking back on."