by Holly Hart
I walk the block to check for unexpected security, passing a woman in pajamas walking her purse-sized dog.
I work through what I know of the man. Besides a predilection for showmanship – as tonight’s events have shown – I now know Garibaldi’s single once more. I’m not surprised. I can’t imagine any woman would want to end up with a man like him. But it makes my life easier – no civilian to catch a stray bullet if it all goes to shit.
I roll my shoulders, loosening up as best I can. It’s not as easy as it was a decade ago. I guess that makes sense. I was younger then. Now I’m just more scarred and less flexible.
But, nevertheless, age has its benefits.
I’m a smarter man than I was a decade ago. More cunning, and more skillful. Garibaldi is about to find out that there’s a reason smart people don’t tangle with Harlan fucking Wolfe.
And seriously, I think one last time. What the hell kind of name is that?
I circle the building one last time, and position myself in the shadows behind a parked black Range Rover. The car’s entirely unsuited for New York’s cramped parking spaces, but it does a hell of a job of concealing my presence.
I eyeball Garibaldi’s house. It’s covered with decades-old ivy, but I’m no fool. There’s no way that plant will bear my weight.
Nope. I’m going to have to do this old-school. get down and dirty.
Decision made, I move fast.
It’s the only way to act. It’s the only way to stop second-guessing your actions. That’s the quickest path to a Special Forces operator getting himself killed in the field. Bullets move fast, so you’ve got to think faster.
I walk nonchalantly up the small path that leads to the front of Garibaldi’s house. I use the cover of darkness where I can, but mostly don’t bother. It’s late enough that most of the world’s asleep. He’s got an alarm unit mounted strategically on the front of the building, but it doesn’t worry me.
I fully expect to be in and out before anyone even picks up on my entry. Move fast, strike hard. That’s my motto, the same as it’s been ever since the day I joined the SEALs.
I try the front door, but as I expected, it’s locked up tight. I wish I’d had the foresight to have had my assistant provide me with a lock picking kit, but no such luck. So I take the next easiest option, the window to the right of the front door.
I click my flashlight on, and a dim red beam plays out across the panes – red because it’s hard to see from afar, and because it doesn’t ruin my night vision.
“You got cocky in your old age, huh?” I mutter. As far as I can tell there’s no alarm sensor on the freshly painted French windows.
For once, tonight, my luck might just be good.
I scan the neighborhood, searching for a nosy dog walker, or anyone peeping out of a nearby window. It’s always the elderly you have to worry about on nights like this. They can’t sleep, and they’ve got nothing better to do than stare out of the window into the darkness.
Hell – I’ve been there myself. Regrets, I’ve had a few. I’ve had more than my fair share of long, dark nights of the soul. I guess as you get older, the regrets pile up, and the doubts deepen.
“Quit bellyaching, Harlan,” I mutter, or at least think loudly enough to chide myself. I glance around one last time, and then act.
I grab my pistol, reverse it so I’m holding it by the barrel, and then tap it hard against the nearest glass pane. It cracks, then splinters. I wince as the shattered glass tinkles against the floor.
I freeze, barely daring to breathe. I force myself to stop and listen out for any sign of danger.
One, Mississippi.
Two, Mississippi.
Three, Mississippi.
Four, Mississippi.
Five, Mississippi…
I relax. As far as I can tell, no one noticed my act of vandalism. If they did, they don’t appear to care. It’s either that, or the police are already on their way.
But if they are, there’s nothing I can do about it.
I stick my fingers through the hole I’ve created in the glass window, and start to tug away at the huge shards of glass that still guard the frame like fence spikes. I pull them away one after another, and toss them into a flower bed, where they land silently.
One by one, the jagged glass teeth disappear, until I’m left with just enough space for a man’s body to fit through. My body, to be precise. I smooth out the last of the glass with the butt of my pistol – just enough to avoid my carotid artery being sliced in two – and climb through, weapon held at the ready.
My combat vest scrapes against the window frame, and picks up shards of glass that line my front like glittering diamonds. My boots crunch against yet more glass on the floor on the other side. I barely hear the sounds, too focused on whether the alarm’s about to wail, or whether Garibaldi’s going to meet me on the wrong side of the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun…
But I hear nothing dangerous, and see even less – just darkness in the front room of the Brooklyn townhouse. Plus some strange, globe-like white shapes that loom out of the darkness, like the sails of some old time sailing ship.
What the hell?
My forehead wrinkles as I play my pistol around the room. I don’t understand what I’m seeing. Garibaldi’s house is packed up as though he’s preparing to move. Cardboard boxes are stacked haphazardly on top of each other like massive brown building blocks. Faint shadows mark the walls where – no doubt – expensive artwork once hung proud.
Whatever furniture remains is covered by huge white dust sheets – the sails I saw a moment before.
Maybe I’m too late? Maybe he knew I would come?
But that doesn’t make sense. If the mob was backing Garibaldi’s play, then I’d have come across an extremely unfriendly welcoming party. I’ve spent enough time around dangerous men to know how they think. I wouldn’t have made it an inch inside the place before meeting the barrel of a gun.
So what then?
I decide to push forward. It’s my only choice. I’ll have to get my answers from the man himself.
I creep forward, into the darkness. The barrel of my pistol sways right, then left as I clear the room, before finding myself at the foot of a staircase. I breathe deep, mentally preparing myself to climb it.
There’s nothing scarier when clearing a building than storming a flight of stairs – where your enemies can rain fire down on you from both above and below, and you have no escape route – especially when you don’t have your brothers in arms by your side.
“The only easy day was yesterday,” I mutter under my breath, a phrase that carried me through mission after mission when I was still enlisted. But it’s not empty words carrying me through this right now – it’s the terrifying thought of Skye’s broken voice if she ever has to find out her world’s coming crashing down around her.
But I won’t let that happen.
I put my boots on top of the first step, and then I climb. It’s obvious which one Garibaldi’s bedroom is when I reach the top. It’s the only one that’s door is closed. I freeze, anyway, checking each empty room out in turn.
Just in case.
Then I press forward. I hold my breath as my fingers close around his bedroom doorknob. Part of me wants to storm through. To kick his door down and go in all guns blazing. But that is the old Harlan Wolfe talking.
I’m a new man. I’m newly in love. Madly in love.
There’s no way I’m going back to Skye in a body bag, not after all this. I want to spend the next five decades with her, and that’s just warming up. So I take it slow. The latch barely clicks as I twist the knob and push the door open. I don’t breathe. Even my heartbeat seems to slow.
But the man in the bed does breathe. He’s little more than a lump in the sheets, but his snores fill the room like a foghorn. They are easily loud enough to cover any noise I could make.
I inch forward. A floorboard creaks underneath my weight, and I freeze, but the lump in the bed doesn’t
even flinch. I press on. Then I’m by his side.
Gotcha!
“Wake up,” I growl threateningly, pressing the barrel of my pistol to Garibaldi’s temple, while closing my fingers around his throat. “It’s time you and I had a talk…”
Chapter Fifty-Five
Skye
I storm into Harlan’s apartment with the blood pumping so furiously in my veins, the thought crosses my mind, I might suffer an aneurysm.
Harlan’s security guy – a huge, burly man with cauliflower ears and a battle-scarred nose – tries to put a foot in the door behind me. I imagine Harlan somehow sent him instructions not to leave my side.
Well I’m not having it!
“Ma’am, can I help?”
“No you can’t,” I growl. A surge of fury wells up inside me like the geyser, Old Faithful, and I slam Harlan’s front door closed behind me, cutting off the man’s protests.
What the hell does Harlan think he’s doing? I can’t believe he just cut me out like that. I feel like a child all over again, pushed out of the room to let my parents have a sensitive conversation.
It brings back a rush of terrible, painful memories. Suddenly, I’m alone again … alone, just like I was after Mom died and Dad began his long spiral into alcohol and depression. I make a fist, digging my fingernails into the tender flesh of my palm, and count to ten, taking long, deep breaths in and out through my nose.
The pain helps break the negative loop I was sliding into. It’s a trick I learned years ago, one I often prescribe to my patients. It does the trick, but only just.
“What the hell are you doing, you ass?” I mutter.
My stomach is a cauldron of acid – seething and cramping – as I pace up and down the luxuriously carpeted entrance hallway to Harlan’s apartment. I’m barely taking in my surroundings.
Both reactions point to one simple conclusion – I’m experiencing a huge overload of stress. And is it any surprise? Over the last few days, Harlan has done something for me that no other man – no other person – ever has. I’m not talking about the orgasm. That was just … a byproduct of his real gift.
He became my anchor, a pillar of safety. The foundation I haven’t had in so long. He became someone I could trust implicitly, someone I could rely on, someone I could confide in. Hell, for a woman whose job involves talking to people all day, I’ve got remarkably few friends. Fewer still who I share anything important with.
That is until Harlan came along.
He showed me that I wasn’t alone anymore. That it wasn’t my fault that Mom died or that Dad spiraled into self-destruction. That I could trust again give myself over to another person. He offered me a bright, happy future. One in which I could have friends, could love, and become whole again.
And now he’s gone – off God knows where, doing God knows what. I don’t know who this mafia money guy is, but the whole thing sounds dangerous to me. Harlan Wolfe is putting his life, his business – and most importantly, his family – on the line.
My heart flutters, skipping a beat. I don’t know what I would do if Harlan gets hurt while carrying out some misbegotten plan to do … what, exactly?
Protect my honor?
“But you pushed him into it, Skye,” I groan into the enormous empty apartment, grinding my teeth. “It’s your fault if –”
I squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t bring myself to say the words, even in the security of my own head. It feels like tempting fate.
I can’t stop pacing. A surge of nervous energy is flowing through me, adrenaline making my heart beat faster, in no recognizable pattern.
I need to do something. I need to fix this mess of a situation. I need to help Harlan.
But what can I do? Harlan’s gorgeous penthouse apartment might as well be my prison. It’s on the thirtieth floor of some old, converted 19th-century clock tower. There’s no way out other than the way I came in – not unless I want to jump.
A weak, anxious smile teases my lips. I wouldn’t put it past Harlan to have a couple of parachutes packed away in here.
Just in case…
But I can call Harlan. I can tell him that this doesn’t matter to me. I’m a big girl. I can survive having my photos – even those photos – dumped onto the Internet.
Hell, apparently, now I’m worth just shy of three hundred million dollars! If the worst happens, I can buy myself a tower like this and simply lock myself away until all this blows over!
That’s it. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m not letting any harm come to Harlan, I can’t bear it on my conscience. My eyes spring open, and I stride purposefully into the apartment, searching for any form of technology.
I come across Harlan’s study – a magnificent, stone-walled room – one door down. I dart towards the glass desk that sits on the far end of the room, looking out the window onto New York’s jaggedly beautiful skyline.
Thankfully, Harlan has a landline on his desk. Maybe a secure phone, I don’t know. I don’t care. I snatch at it, gratefully.
“Crap,” I groan, bashing the handset against my forehead. “What the hell is his number?”
I’m from the generation that practically grew up with a smart phone in their hands. Okay, not quite – I still remember dial-up Internet and the tune a modem would play. But only just. One thing’s for sure – I sure as heck don’t know how I’m going to get in touch with Harlan.
I sit down at his desk, momentarily beaten. It’s neatly organized, and almost entirely bare – exactly what I’d expect from a former Navy SEAL and a man who plans his life as meticulously as Harlan Wolfe. He hasn’t left a single clue on how to get in touch with him.
I’m stuck.
A vein throbs at my temple, probably spurred on by my dangerously elevated blood pressure. I massage it away, thinking back to how all this started. The events that started this night – the auction, the things that Harlan did to me in that bedroom, the knee-trembling orgasm he coaxed out of me – they all seem so distant now.
I hear a tinkling sound in the background. I don’t recognize what it is at first – it barely breaks through my consciousness. I’m too bound up in worry.
But it returns, stronger this time – a double ring. I look up, and see that the screen of the computer on Harlan’s desk is lighting up. Someone’s calling – it has to be Harlan!
I snatch at the mouse, knocking it on its side in my haste to reestablish contact with the man I’m quickly coming to realize I can’t live without. Maybe it’s love, though it seems too soon, too early.
My eyes are half-blurred with the beginnings of frustrated tears, so I barely see the words written on the screen as I click the green button to accept the video call. An image immediately flashes up on screen.
But it’s not the image I expect.
“Dad?” The little girl says. She’s actually looking away from the camera when her picture flashes up on screen. It actually looks like she’s in a tent, lit by flashlight. “Are you there?”
Oh my God.
My stomach does a backflip. I need to think fast. I quickly wipe the tears out of my eyes with the back of my hand, and run my fingers through my wild hair, doing my best to tame the red mane sprawling over my shoulders.
I must look crazy, but there’s nothing I can do to solve that problem right now.
“Um,” I murmur, racking my brain on how to respond. “You must be Poppy…”
Poppy is looking at the camera. Her forehead wrinkles. “You’re not dad,” she says.
I shake my head. This is so not how I wanted to meet Harlan’s daughter. In fact, I can’t think of a single worst possible way to be introduced to her.
But it is what it is.
I’m going to have to deal with it.
“No,” I say softly, voice catching. “I’m not.”
“Wait, did I–” Poppy taps something on her screen. “Did I call the right number?”
She leans forward, peering into the camera and, I realize, at the picture on her screen. I see
the gears turning over in her mind. “You’re in my dad’s office. Where is he, and, who are you?”
Both of those are very good questions. And they’re questions I have no idea how to answer.
“Yeah,” I mutter, chewing my lip. “I’m in your dad’s office. He’s… out.”
What do I do now? Lie?
In the event, the decision is taken out of my hands. Poppy gasps, and shifts her phone. The camera pans jerkily across her face. I realize she’s made herself a tent out of her bed sheets, perhaps in an attempt to hide what she’s up to.
“You’re her, aren’t you?”
“Who?” I exclaim. “What do you know? Did your dad–”
Poppy shrugs. She’s clearly proud. “Puh-lease! I’m not an idiot. I’m ten – well, almost, anyway. I knew my dad was seeing someone. It’s you, isn’t it!”
I freeze. I don’t know how I’m supposed to respond to this question. I feel paralyzed. What would Harlan want me to say?
Suddenly the fears I had before – about Harlan’s life, and his safety – they seem to fade away into nothingness. Because what could be more important than potentially ruining his relationship with his own daughter?
My heart rate speeds up. Blood pounds in my ears. I feel like if I put one foot out of place, Harlan will never forgive me.
“That’s,” I finally say, wringing my hands underneath the desk – where Poppy can’t see – “Something you need to ask your dad. It’s not my place to say.”
Poppy waves her hand airily, knocking the flashlight lighting her tiny pillow forward. She reaches for it and rights it.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll keep this between us,” she winks.
God, Poppy has so much of her father in her, it’s hard to believe. I feel like this little ten-year-old – nine-year-old – is running rings around me, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
My cheeks are burning. What the heck am I supposed to say to that?
“Promise?” I mutter.
“I told you,” Poppy grins madly. “You don’t need to worry – this is between us. I won’t tell if you don’t. Deal?”
