by Cindy Skaggs
She glanced at Mick. “What time is the meet?”
“Seven.”
The kitchen clock said five. “Two hours. Is that enough time?”
“Yes.” Blake gave Mick a knowing look. “Send Dez a message.”
“Dez? What does that woman have to do with this?” Vicki pushed away from Blake and returned to Manny’s side. “You said she wasn’t an agent.”
“I didn’t say she wasn’t a cop,” Blake explained.
“For a cop, you have a serious issue with the truth.”
“The undercover world is gray, Victoria.”
“I know that.” Much like the criminal world, the undercover world didn’t follow normal rules. Still, she’d been jealous of Dez, and Blake had intentionally let her believe the worst. She folded the blanket and laid it over the back of the couch. “But you’re—”
“You’re picking a fight to avoid the rest of the conversation, darlin’. As much as I enjoy a good argument, we don’t have time. What were you saying about Sully’s baby?”
“My mother was pregnant when she died.”
“Sully’s baby,” Blake surmised. He glanced at Eddie. “Did you know?”
Eddie frowned. “I knew it wasn’t the boss’s kid.” He sent an apologetic glance at Vicki. “Sorry, but when you’re around all the time, you hear things.”
“I didn’t know it was Sully’s until a few minutes ago,” she said. “Manny, did you always know?”
He shrugged his skeletal shoulders. “Patrick was the only man Maria ever loved. It didn’t take a genius to realize where she’d strayed, but she made me promise never to tell the father. She wanted the baby raised in a normal family.”
That much she did remember. The baby had been born premature, and Maria had sent Manny to fix everything. He arranged for a stillborn baby. How, she never wanted to know. Together Vicki and Manny had found a home for her mother’s newborn child, because it was Maria’s last wish. She’d returned to Colorado and fallen into Blake’s arms. It took a week before she’d even speak again.
Her throat was raw after relating the story. The explosion in her brain was like living it the first time. The grief. The anger. The fear of failure. She hadn’t wanted to leave her mother alone, but Maria was already dead. The baby would live. She swore on her mother’s deathbed. It’s why Vicki never wanted a family, why she broke from Blake. Maria had died to keep her baby away from the Calvettis. Manny had joined her father’s organization so he could stay around to protect Vicki, and to ensure no one ever found out about the baby.
No one knew. No one was supposed to know, but somehow, Nick had discovered the truth. Maybe he’d only guessed, but he had approached Patrick Sullivan, promising to tell him where the boy was. Patrick Sullivan had a houseful of girls. He needed an heir. He saw Maria’s baby as his future. The poor boy deserved better.
“I don’t think you wanted to remember.”
She nodded at Manny, her throat too tight for words.
“The baby was an albatross on your neck. Forgetting simplified your life.”
The trip to the now-dead hypnotist had eased some old pain, even as it set her up for the current troubles.
“Someone tell me what you’re talking about,” Blake said, joining her on the couch.
Between hiccups, she told him the whole sordid story. “The truth didn’t die with Nick. Sully knew about the boy, and I knew sooner or later he’d come after me for the information. The only way to protect the brother I’ve never met was to literally forget everything I knew.”
Mick paced like a wild beast. “Hard to fucking believe.”
“Eddie, how many bugs did you find?” Blake asked.
“Six.”
“Give the man credit. He’s persistent. We have to assume his request to meet is directly related to the sudden death of every bug in the place.”
“He asked you to bring Vicki,” Mick said.
“Not a fucking chance,” Blake said.
“Oh, I’m going,” she said at the same moment.
“This isn’t about money and drugs. If he’s fixated on the kid, he’ll torture you just like he did the hypnotist in Fort Collins.”
She blanched. She wished she hadn’t read the graphic description of the woman’s murder. Sully had been relentless in pursuit of his biological child. When she realized that Sully would use her to get to the boy—after Nick’s death—she’d started to plan. Forgetting was the only way to make sure no one knew where the boy was hidden, but now she remembered, and her knowledge put him at risk.
“I’ll stay put if—” She glanced around the room. Two semiretired mobsters, a cop, and a mountain with no known loyalties. This is what her life boiled down to, and somehow, it was better than family.
“What?” Blake asked.
She wanted the boy where no one could ever find him. She wanted to make it ironclad. “Find the boy, get him and his family into a protection program. If you do that, I’ll stay out of the way.”
“You’re not asking much.”
“If you can’t deliver—”
“Hold on,” Blake said, his voice frustrated. He ran a hand through his hair before looking at Mick. “I can’t leave. We have to assume Sully will have a tail on me.”
Mick nodded. “I can get out, get to Dez.”
“Let’s do it,” Blake said. “What’s the boy’s name?”
“Nathan,” Vicki answered. Her brother’s name was Nathan. Tears threatened. Just saying his name, acknowledging her brother, brought her to her knees.
Blake wanted to know where he was, who he was with. She sat on the couch next to Manny, trembling at the risk she was taking. It wasn’t just her life. It was her brother’s. She’d risked everything to keep him outside the life of organized crime.
Keeping him safe was her mother’s last wish. Vicki hoped it wouldn’t be hers.
Chapter Sixteen
A surveillance net covered the restaurant so tightly it picked up the sounds of a metal spatula against the grill in the kitchen. Task force members loitered within seconds of entering the room at the first sign of trouble. Meanwhile, Dez was on her way to Nathan with a team from WITSEC, the Federal Witness Protection Program. Victoria was back at the club with Eddie. The plan was falling together, but even knowing he had backup, Blake felt naked walking into the meeting with Sully. No weapons. He and Mick had been frisked before they entered. Mick stood across the room, his face a mask of indifference.
Blake sat across the table from Sully, but refused breakfast. He wanted to get it done.
Sully tapped cigar ashes into an empty coffee cup. “I told you to bring the girl.”
“And I said to meet at my club. Guess we’re both doomed to disappointment.”
…
Nervous energy pushed Vicki to pace across the apartment. Poor lighting added to the sense of doom clogging her pores. The sun didn’t filter into the room, blocked by Manny’s black trench coat. A little superstitious, she’d been afraid to remove it after his sniper comments. Manny had disappeared when Blake and Mick were making plans. One minute he’d been sitting on the couch, and the next, he was simply gone. She hadn’t heard the door open. His part was done once she’d recaptured her memories, and being around cops had to make the older man twitchy. So he did what Manny did best. He vanished.
Shortly after, Blake had pulled her aside, made her promise to stay in the apartment, no matter what happened. No matter what she heard or feared. Hadn’t that been a lovely battle. He promised to text as soon as Nathan was safe, which seemed a fair trade until she was alone in the blasted apartment feeling as useful as yesterday’s newspaper.
Vicki spun a bracelet around her wrist. Following orders didn’t sit well on her shoulders. They had asked her to play it safe while others risked their lives for what was essentially her problem. Nathan was family. She’d never met the boy, never allowed herself to check on him, even if he was local. Part of her hadn’t been able to let him go to a family a safe distance awa
y. But she had stayed away so that no one would ever suspect a link between her and her mother’s last-born child.
She should have insisted on participating with the group going after Nathan, but that would have meant buddying up to Dez, and Vicki was absolutely certain she wasn’t a big enough person to keep her mouth shut around the other woman. Jealousy was a living, breathing thing whenever she thought about Dez and Blake sharing an apartment and God knew what else. It brought out claws she didn’t know she had tucked into her psyche. She could have gone a lifetime without embracing her inner bitch.
And it was Blake’s fault. She dropped to the couch and kicked her boots on the coffee table. The knife she kept tucked into her sock rubbed her calf, oddly comforting. The emotions running through her heart were new. Blake was bossy and dictatorial, sexy as hell, and he had those eyes that bored into her soul. No man knew her the way he did, no one accepted her as completely for who she was, and he’d never once said he felt anything beyond a passing fancy, which didn’t dull her feelings as it should have.
Did she want more than the here and now? A big house in the suburbs with two point three kids and a sloppy dog? No. Commitment wasn’t her thing, but the past few weeks with him had been strangely peaceful. Sharing space, sharing a bed, a life, she realized, where hers had always been solitary. A piece of her heart flexed with want. Somehow her emotions had gotten involved.
Love? Not smart. Her feet tapped against the coffee table. When she recognized the nervous tic, she stilled. Denial wouldn’t change her feelings. She loved him. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He was a cop. He was short term. He had to be.
Eddie stood guard outside the door. The silence was so absolute, she heard him shift from one side of the hall to the other. At least he was safe here at the club. Why they thought she needed protection was beyond her. Blake was meeting with Sully while Dez was going to Nathan. Vicki was completely unnecessary at this point. Cheery thought, that. When Blake busted Sully, it was over. This little interlude would fade. He’d go work another case and she would return to her quaint little Victorian. The hitch in her breath was sadness with a healthy dose of regret for what might have been.
Did she wait around for the good-bye speech?
Not her style. It was time to take control of her life, and that meant leaving Blake before he gave her all the valid reasons why they could never work long term. A flaming fist threatened to burn the heart from her chest at the thought, but if she couldn’t have Blake, she still had her pride.
She rose and went to the bedroom they shared. The space was tidy, with the bed she made and all the clothes stored neatly in the closet. She packed with efficiency born of experience. Toiletries, check. Clothes, check. She paused after packing her last skirt. Blake’s clothes hung next to her empty hangars. Suit pants and jackets, dress shirts and ties. She fingered the worn silk of the gray shirt he’d worn the first day she’d seen him, and without questioning, she packed it at the top of her bag. One shirt. For the memories.
…
“Vicki Calvetti has something I want,” Sully insisted. “You want a piece of the action, you bring her to the table.”
Blake shook his head, forcing his features to remain passive. “Victoria isn’t coming within twenty yards of you.”
Sully pursed his lips. The man had a serious poker face. “I thought you might say that.”
A jolt of warning shot straight to his gut. “You’ll have to relay your questions through me.”
“You’re not in a position to barter.”
“She has what you want. That puts me in the position.”
Sully glanced down at the phone next to his coffee cup. He nodded at the incoming text. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
Fucker. The mention of her pet was sick. Sully had as much as admitted he was behind the mutilation. Blake schooled his features, but anger roared through his veins. Sully was playing him. Delaying. He thought he had what he wanted. Why? “You sent Trenton to get her, didn’t you?”
Sully gave no physical indication. “I always get what I want.”
The warning became a screaming alarm in his brain. How far would Sully go to find his biological son? Could Eddie keep Trenton away from Victoria? Blake jumped up, grabbed Mick, and headed into the blinding winter sun.
…
Vicki set her purse on the small dining room table and the suitcase on a chair. Sadness ate at her as she took a last glance around the apartment they’d shared. They ate together on the little table. Flirted and fought in equal measure. The bedroom with its ugly carpeting and uglier bedspread had been the only place she’d fully shared herself with a man.
A hint of nostalgia tugged, and she pushed that shit into a tidy cubby where she could bury it later. Blake had helped her find her memory. Even now he was ensuring Nathan was safe, but Blake had a job to do, and she was no longer an asset. She rolled her shoulders to relieve the tension. It was time.
First, she had to convince Eddie he could protect her just as well at her house. A light rap at the door drew her from her melancholy. She peeked out the peephole and froze. Eddie stood with Trenton behind him, a gun to Eddie’s head.
“Open or I’ll put a bullet in your bodyguard.”
“It’s my job to take a bullet, Miss Vicki.”
“Don’t ‘Miss Vicki’ me, Eddie.” She smacked the door. The immediate sting vibrating up her arm only ramped up her temper.
“I’ll get in one way or another,” Trenton said, his voice muted by the door. “Question is, before or after the old man gets it.”
She stomped her feet on the ugly carpet, silently cursing. She couldn’t let Eddie die. She’d have to trust that the team was getting Nathan. All she had to do was delay long enough for them to get the boy out. She dug through her purse for the kubotan before opening the door. Trenton pushed Eddie ahead of him, closed the door.
Her phone rang, drawing her attention to the bag she’d packed.
“Leave it,” Trenton ordered.
…
Blake paced outside his truck. The team kept Sully under surveillance, but the bastard had stayed right where they’d left him. Blake called both Eddie and Victoria, but neither had answered. Had she stayed put? Was she still at the club or had Trenton gotten to her? “No answer.” He shot a glance at Mick, who was texting as fast as his big fingers would move.
“Dez is under attack.”
“Fuck me running.” He kicked a tin can across the parking lot. “Sully has an inside man.”
“Or your woman leaked it.”
The only thing that would cause Victoria to betray Nathan was imminent death. “Either way, I can’t be two places at once.” Victoria would want him to protect the boy, but Blake couldn’t leave her hanging. He punched the side of his truck; the searing pain helped center him. “The entire task force is watching Sully sit his ass in this restaurant. No way to lay this at his feet.” Sully had the perfect alibi. Three different agencies could verify he was nowhere near Nathan or Victoria. He’d walk, while two good women were at risk.
“Go get your woman. I’ll make sure Dez is safe.”
“You sure?” Blake asked. It meant delaying their revenge. It meant losing Sully.
Mick nodded.
He punched the side of the truck again, felt the skin on his knuckles split. “You’ll have to go deep. Take Dez and the kid somewhere Sully would never think to look. Until we find the leak, she can’t come in.”
“I got this,” Mick said. “I’ll make contact when we’re safe.”
…
“Can’t say it’s a pleasure to see you again,” Vicki said, her sarcasm at the ready. “What is it you want?”
“You to squirm.”
She clasped the kubotan in one hand while motioning him forward with the other. “Come and get it, big boy.”
He pressed the gun to Eddie’s temple. “Drop the weapon.”
“Afraid of little old me?”
He shoved Eddie into the room, firing
immediately. The bullet hit Eddie in the back of his thick thigh. He dropped, hitting the coffee table and rolling.
“Eddie,” she screamed.
Trenton grabbed the kubotan and struck her across the face. “That’s for the groin shot last time.”
She spun, the shock dulling her reaction. She landed with a loud oomph on top of Eddie. “The window,” Eddie muttered.
“What?”
“Open the window,” he whispered.
Trenton kicked him in the leg, effectively silencing him. A pool of blood started to ooze onto the carpet. “The next one goes into his brain.”
She stood, placing herself between Trenton and Eddie. “What is it you want?”
“Where’s your brother?”
“Dead. You know that.” The muscles around her eye and cheek throbbed with each beat of her heart. If she lived, she’d have one heck of a shiner.
“Your other brother.”
Did Trenton work for Sully? How many people knew about Nathan? “What are you talking about? Nick’s my only brother.”
“We know you got your memory back. Heard you on the surveillance tapes.” Trenton tucked his gun into the holster. “But lie to me. I’d love to beat the information out of you.”
She shoved hair out of her eyes to hide the flutter of her racing pulse. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He moved fast for a big man, striking her opposite cheek. The impact jarred her bones and set her teeth to ache. The sound of flesh against flesh turned her stomach, and then the pain hit, bringing tears to her eyes. No way. This prick was not going to make her cry. “Is that really necessary?”
“No, but it’s fun.”
She considered herself strong, but she wasn’t practiced in the art of being a punching bag. How much could she take before she gave the information he wanted? She tottered on her feet, stumbled, nearly toppling over Eddie’s body. Eddie definitely couldn’t take another shot.
Trenton glanced at his phone before dropping it into a pocket. “Looks like we don’t need you after all.”
Talk about bad news. “What does that mean?”
“We know who he is. We know where he is. And you, little bitch, are expendable.”
