by Jillian Neal
Dan felt excitement and hope bubble up in his gut. Adderand, the asshole, in the flesh. He was Wretchkinsides’ newest hit-man since Dan had taken out Cascavel. He was just as brutal. Adderand was just under Pendergrath and Pravus on the Interfeci chain, and arresting him would be an extremely crippling blow to the entire organization.
“Keep that on him,” Dan ordered Rainer, gesturing to the gun. Rainer nodded his agreement, though he looked quite exhausted.
Dan returned to his suite and closed the door firmly. He texted Fionna that he was going to unlock the door between their rooms and instructed her to keep quiet.
He worked through the locks, making certain the door never made a sound. Fionna looked terrified. She fell into his arms but didn’t make a single sound.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” Dan rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head.
“For what?”
“He wants to work a plea. Nic put out a hit on him,” he explained in pained whispers.
“Oh, my gosh; he kills his own guys?” She was still clinging to Dan and talking into his chest.
“Yeah.” He needed to get back to Vitrio. “I’m gonna call Vegas Iodex to take him in. Then I’m going to take several of their teams, along with Garrett and Rainer, to the airport to meet the assassin’s plane. The Interfeci rule is that if you don’t make the contracted hit, you kill two other people in the place of the one you missed. I have to stop Adderand before he realizes that I have Vitrio.”
Dan felt abject disgust wash through both him and Fionna. He refused to say anything about the women. He’d take care of them, as well, but he wouldn’t terrify her further.
She shivered against him. He set his shield over her and filled it with soothing heat. “Listen to me, baby. I need to go back out there.” She tried so hard not to cry. It broke his heart. He laced her fingers through his. She drew from him, and he supplied her with love and courage in heavy doses. She knew what he was going to say.
“I won’t be back in time to see the beginning of the challenge, but as soon as I get Adderand in custody, I’ll be there. I swear.” Guilt barbed his veins.
“I don’t care about the challenge. I don’t want you to get hurt. Please, please be okay. Just make someone else do it.”
“Fi, baby, look at me,” Dan cradled her face in both of his hands as she blinked back tears. “I will be fine. I promise you. I’m going to be there to see the Angels win that cup. This is what I do, and I’m pretty good at it.” He hoped for a smile that he didn’t receive.
Trying a different tactic, Dan drew a steadying breath. “Adderand doesn’t have any idea that Vitrio’s turned himself in. He has no idea that we’re coming for him. He won’t have been able to get on a plane with a gun. He’s looking to pick up one while he’s here, but I’ll have him long before that.”
She stepped back and stared up at him, with a terrified look in those eyes that cut him to the quick. “You… you promise me! Promise me you’ll be okay. I can’t make it without you.”
“I will be fine, Fionna. I promise you.”
Her chin trembled, and his heart fractured.
“How about this?” Dan willed his heart to continue beating in rhythm as tears obscured the golden flecks in her sienna eyes. “Let me go get Vitrio locked up, and then meet Adderand’s plane. As soon as I have them both, I’ll be back here to cheer you on. Tonight, after the Angels crush all of the competition, I’ll bring you back up here and we’ll spend the whole night celebrating,” Dan prayed that he could somehow soothe her fears and ease her heartache.
“Promise me.” Her right hand shook as she lifted it up with her pinky extended. It took him a split second to realize what she was doing. He grinned and linked his pinky with hers.
“I promise, sweetheart.” She managed a nod just before she dissolved into a sobbing mess. Dan pulled her to his chest and felt her hot tears drip down his abs. “I promise you,” he vowed again.
She nodded convulsively and tried desperately to regain her composure.
Dan retrieved his phone from his pocket. A second later, he rang Emily’s cell. “It’s Dan. Rainer and I are going to take Vitrio in and we have a few things we’re going to have to do before we can come to the exhibition. Rainer’s going to text you when we’ve got him on the elevator. Once we’re gone, would you come hang out with Fi for me, please?”
“Uh, sure,” Emily’s voice shook. She sounded just as terrified as Fionna. Dan ended the call.
“I’ll call you before you start the challenges, okay?”
Fionna nodded. She was waging war against additional tears. “I love you,” she choked out in a terrified stutter.
“I love you, too, baby; so much.” He grasped her shoulders and brushed a tender kiss on her forehead. “Let me heal you before I go.” He gestured his head towards her crotch.
“I’m okay.” She blocked his hand.
“You sure, Fi? I don’t want you to hurt.”
“I’m not. Please just be okay, and I’ll be fine.”
“I promise,” he vowed once more before he ducked back into his own suite.
War
Dan dressed and then returned to the corridor.
“Where’d you go, man? What the hell?” Vitrio stammered. Dan ordered himself not to feel sorry for the man. He clearly only trusted Dan to keep him alive, but he was still a rat bastard who’d committed unspeakable crimes all for his beloved boss.
“Shut it, Vitrio. I’ll ask the questions and, if I don’t like your answers, I’ll drop you off at the fucking airport and save Adderand the trip.” He pulled his own pistol, and Vitrio’s eyes goggled. “Go get dressed and get back out here,” he ordered Garret and Rainer as he kept aim at Vitrio. They returned two minutes later, both fully dressed and wearing badges. They looked far more official.
“To the lobby,” Dan ordered. Garrett hoisted Vitrio up and they marched him to the elevators. “Text Emily, and tell her we’ve left.” Rainer followed orders with only a quick tensing of his brow.
Dan phoned Roy Stegman. It rang numerous times before his rasping growl answered, “What?”
“Stegman, it’s Vindico.” The man may have been almost forty years his senior, but Dan was the Chief of Elite and would be treated thusly.
“Sorry, Dan. What’s wrong?”
Dan explained what he needed and was assured that Vegas Iodex would be there in minutes.
“We’re going to the precinct. We’ve got to get men out to that warehouse, and I’m hand-selecting the teams for this mission. We’re meeting that plane.”
Garrett and Rainer nodded their understanding.
A few hours later, Dan was pacing in Stegman’s office as they checked in the illegal weapons Vitrio had turned over.
“You know, most boys your age prefer to have women crawling out of the walls, looking for ’em in the middle of the night, but you probably prefer it this way,” Stegman drawled with a hardy laugh before taking a long drag of the fourth cigarette he’d had in the last hour.
Chuckling, Dan shook his head, hardly able to believe what had happened himself. “Nobody’s more surprised that he showed up than I am, trust me, but I suppose that would depend on the woman, wouldn’t it, Roy?”
Stegman gave another hearty laugh. They were waiting on word from the teams that had been dispatched to the rental storage facility that Vitrio had described. Dan had ordered in a specialized rescue team from Carson City, complete with sexual assault counselors, Medios, and trauma units to the area, but Iodex had to take out the guards first, without getting anyone killed.
“Uh oh, now don’t tell me Daniel Vindico, the love ’em and leave ’em king of D.C., finally landed on one he’s trying to keep,” Roy Stegman had been the head of Vegas Iodex for nearly thirty years. He’d been offered appointment in D.C. numerous times and had always turned it down with the signature line, ‘If I have to take off my cowboy hat or give up my spit can, then there ain’t no need me coming to D.C., ‘cause I’m happy as a stud in the pasture of horny h
eifers.’”
He was an outstanding officer and kept Vegas relatively safe. He’d shut down money-laundering set-ups, drug rings, and gun-running operations of Wretchkinsides’, with outstanding precision, for longer than Dan had been alive.
Dan shook his head, still terrified to discuss Fionna with anyone at all. Stegman slapped Dan on the back.
“I knew it,” he coughed uproariously. “I can always tell. Gotta smile that looks like a pig just been slopped. Always tell.” Stegman seated himself at his desk, leaned back in his chair, and propped his feet up.
“Let me see here,” Stegman eased forward in his chair and grabbed two Cokes from his desk. He hand chilled them and handed one to Dan. “Just bought yourself a hunk of them Angels, took off work to come see the exhibition, had Barron out checkin’ the rooms of the Venetian,” Stegman chuckled. “Don’t sound like Dan Vindico to me. Don’t tell me you gone and clipped the wings of one of those heavenly bodies of Summation?”
Dan felt his muscles twitch. He downed some of the Coke. His mouth was suddenly drier than the Mojave, where he currently stood. He fought not to cringe. He didn’t like how quickly Roy had put all of that together, even if he was an outstanding detective and one of the strongest Visium predilects Dan had ever seen. He was the only captain of a state Iodex branch who wasn’t an Ioses predilect.
“Aww, now, come on. You know I’ll take it to the grave. Which one of those fillies keepin’ your sheets warm, Danny boy?” Stegman half-laughed and half-choked.
Dan shook his head. “Think I’ll just keep her between me and my sheets.”
Stegman guffawed over the double entendre. Just then the phone buzzed.
“Well, let’s see if Mr. Vitrio’s gonna sleep with the fishes tonight.”
“Stegman,” he growled.
Dan edged closer, anxious to hear if Vitrio had come through for them. Vitrio had all of the markings and reactions of a dead man walking. Dan knew he wasn’t sending men into an ambush.
“Yeah, I knew there was somethin’ goin’ on out in Swensen, but damn!”
Dan’s eyebrows shot up in intrigue. “You need more men for the recovery, or you got it?” Stegman nodded to whatever the response had been. “Well, I s’pose we better get ready. We’re about to have a showdown at McCarron. Thanks, Paulson,” he offered sincerely before hanging up the phone.
“I knew it. I just couldn’t find it,” Stegman sounded disgusted with himself. “I’ve had guys out there for a week now.”
“Roy, Vitrio said they just stored them there a few days ago,” Dan reminded him.
“My job to snatch ’em up when they make the delivery. Don’t let nothing get a foothold.”
“What’d they find?” He was short on patience.
“’bout two hundred those strikers, dozens and dozens of MAC 10s, M-16s Army grade, 10 cases of grenades, several hundred kilos of cocaine, and twelve women, one dead.”
Dan’s mouth fell open.
“Yeah, I hope you’re keeping that sweet thing safe, Dan, ‘cause sounds to me like Nic Wretchkinsides is going to war.”
Dan swallowed harshly. He felt his blood run cold and his heart stutter as it tried to push the ice through his veins. The air burned through his lungs. His feet moved of their own accord. He marched out of Stegman’s office and slammed the door behind him.
Picking up pace, he rushed by Garrett and Rainer, who were directing the teams as to how Adderand would be taken in, without any bystanders getting hurt.
With every strike of his boot on the tiled floor, he fought back bile and revulsion.
“Dan!” Stegman shouted after him.
Gasping for air that wouldn’t singe his lungs, Dan waved his badge in front of the holding cells in the Vegas precinct. A deadly combination of love and hate swirled violently in his gut as he raced down aisles of cold, gray bars.
He halted in front of Vitrio’s cell, seeing the terror in the man’s eyes. “What the hell is he planning with all of that?” Dan demanded furiously. “Tell me right now!” Dan shouted, never giving Vitrio a chance to answer.
“I don’t know. I swear. He’s been selling some of ’em. You drained him dry, but he’s been stocking up, too.” Vitrio stood but stayed near the back of the cell, too afraid to move closer. “Probably got a big sell or something. He’s after money.”
“That’s it? Just money?”
“Yeah, he’s got several buyers in town and out in Cali. He’s mad as hell, though. Wants to know how the hell you found all those accounts, so watch your back.”
“There anything else I need to know?”
Vitrio seemed to genuinely consider the question. He shook his head. “Nic’s staying in Berlin. Left Marlisa and Lucinda here with her sister, I think. Got several of his mistresses out there with him, licking his wounds. Soap’s in Miami, but he goes back and forth. He’s got Pravus in Costa Rica, running the drugs and women,” Vitrio spewed forth everything Dan already knew.
“What about me? What does he know about me?” Dan shouted angrily.
Vitrio looked confused. “That you want him dead, but everybody knows that. Couple months ago he had Soap trying to find your house, back in the spring. Thinks you bought something way out, bunch of property up in Maryland. Pravus told him you wouldn’t live that far out, but he told him you would. He’s got guys stalking around there. So, if you live there, you may wanna move, but that’s all I know.”
Usually, hearing Pendergrath’s ridiculous, self-assigned nickname of ‘Soap’ made Dan laugh, but he was too angry and too scared.
“You better be telling me everything you know or, so help me, when I finish him off, I’ll come back for you.”
“I am! I swear!” Vitrio willed Dan to believe him, still terrified that Dan would let him go and that he would quite literally walk into his own death.
The Man
Recovering slightly, Dan paced slowly back into the main precinct.
“You okay?” Garrett studied him closely. Rainer shifted on his feet, staring at Dan concernedly. The conversation they’d been having with Stegman stopped short.
Rolling his wrist forward, Dan ignored the question. It was a quarter after seven. The exhibition started at nine.
“Can I use your office?” Dan asked Stegman. The tone let him know that it wasn’t really a request.
“Of course,” Stegman gestured to door. Trying to draw steadying breaths, Dan touched Fionna’s name on the screen of his phone, wishing desperately that he could touch her soft skin instead.
“Hey,” her sweet voice answered on the first ring.
“Hey, baby doll” Dan choked. He swallowed the terror that had cinched his throat. He tried not to sound panicked. He didn’t want to scare her. Pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger, he started to pace. “My girl okay?”
“I’m fine. Are you?”
“Yeah, we’re just getting ready to set up the teams at the airport. I miss you.” He could almost hear her smile.
“I miss you, too. Emily and I are cuddling,” She giggled, hoping to make him laugh.
He offered her a forced chuckle. “Then I wish I was Emily.”
“We’re going to order breakfast here, and then head down to start the challenge, but my first heat isn’t until ten-thirty, so maybe you’ll be back by then,” her voice held notes of frightened desperation.
Dan felt like he was being stabbed brutally. “I’ll try, honey. I swear I’ll try. But you’ll do great even if I’m a little late,” he willed her to believe in herself.
“I hope.”
“I’m going to end him, Fionna. I swear to you,” erupted from Dan’s mouth, without him making the conscious decision to say the words. “So that I can be there, always, and you don’t have to be alone ever again.” He choked back emotion. Her beautiful face swam before his eyes. It was obscured by M-16s and grenades, and kidnapped women, terrified and hungry. He felt sick.
She was silent for a few seconds. Dan heard the bathroom door
in the suite slip closed. “Dan, I know you will. I’ll be fine as long as I know you’re all right. I know I’m not alone.”
The words were like a healing balm, the same salve that he felt when he was in her presence, or lucky enough to be receiving her intoxicating energy.
“I love you so much,” Dan begged her to really feel the depth of his love through the telephone.
“I know you do, and I love you, too. Just please be careful.”
“I will. I promise. Good luck today, sweetheart.”
“Thank you.”
“Tell Emily I said to take care of you.” He was rewarded with another one of her sweet giggles.
“She will.”
As soon as Dan finished talking to Fionna, he phoned his father.
“Daniel, everything all right?” was his father’s greeting.
“Been better, Dad. Listen, Wretchkinsides found Uncle Gus’s old hunting property, so make sure no one goes up there and uses it.”
Governor Vindico sighed, “No one’s been up there in years, son, not since Gus passed. Let ’em look. Used to be some pretty big mountain lions up there; maybe the cats’ll get lucky.”
Dan chuckled at his father’s optimism. “Is Fionna all right, son?” Governor Vindico made no effort to conceal the concern in his voice.
“Yeah, Dad. It’s been kind of a crazy trip, but as soon as I take care of a few things, I’ll be back with her.”
“Do you need me to come out there, Dan? I can be on the next flight.”
“I’m fine, Dad. I need to go.” Dan was suddenly tired of his father’s interference.
“Son, whatever you’re about to go do, please be careful.”
“I will, Dad.” Dan hung up the phone and exited the office. He began going through all of the things that needed to happen before Adderand’s plane landed.
“See here, now, Danny. Believe you got yourself a real officer right here,” Stegman cupped his hand and pounded on Rainer’s shoulder.
“Only kind I hire,” Dan challenged. He felt like arguing anyway.
“Asked Haydenshire who the lucky lady pulling your chain was. He said ‘hey, if Dan didn’t tell you then don’t ask me.’ But Lawson, here, said, ‘I didn’t know he was dating anybody’.” Stegman guffawed.
