by Kim Baldwin
“There will be no more fuck-ups if I am there to see to it personally.” He made sure his voice conveyed only a hint of the rage and frustration he felt at so many missed attempts on Blayne Keller’s life. “And I must admit, I will not mind seeing her face when justice is served.”
*
An hour or so after retreating upstairs, Blayne was headed back down. She’d had a good cry, and then spent a restless half hour tossing and turning, and finally gave it up. She now had the sudden urge for some warm milk, like her mother had made for her as a child. She wondered whether her craving was more psychological than physical in origin. All she knew, all she could think about, was that she would soon never again see the woman who had finally captured her heart. And there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
She felt wretched. Lost. Empty inside. And sad to the very core of her being.
It was an old house, and a couple of steps in the middle of the staircase creaked as she descended. She winced as she hit each one, praying the noise wouldn’t wake Alexi. The house was dark, but there was enough ambient light coming in through the living room picture windows that when she reached the bottom step and turned toward the kitchen she could see a silhouette in the big chair beside the couch.
Her heart jump-started in alarm, but then she heard the clink of ice in a glass from that direction and realized it was Alexi. She could not see her face, but she could feel her intense scrutiny.
Alexi could not look away. Blayne was wearing a snug tank top and French cut panties that left almost nothing to the imagination. She had paused right where a shaft of light from the streetlamp outside could cast her breasts and hips and thighs with seductive shadows that invited closer inspection.
Alexi stifled a moan of pleasure at the sight and downed a long gulp of whiskey. She had been doing nothing but imagining Blayne in something similar, or less, for the last hour. She had fantasized about kissing her. Sweetly. Hungrily. Torturing herself. And her imaginings had been so vivid that it was too much…just too much…to see her only a few yards away, looking like that.
Alexi could not help herself. She was drawn inexorably to Blayne because it was no longer about wanting to kiss her. She had to go to her. It was an act of desperation. The only thing she knew to do to stop the hurting. She deposited her glass on the table beside her elbow and got to her feet, approaching her slowly, without a word.
As Alexi came closer, Blayne could see that she was still wearing her jeans and black T-shirt, but it was not until she stood facing her, with only a foot or so between their bodies, that her expression took shape in the darkness. An expression that she suspected mirrored her own. Hungry. Driven. Her eyes heavy lidded with unmasked desire. The muscles in her chiseled jaw clenching and unclenching as though she was wrestling to contain a wellspring of feeling. She was staring at Blayne’s mouth, and her rapid breathing seemed unnaturally loud.
Blayne glanced down at Alexi’s hands. They were clenched into fists at her sides.
This is all that she can do. As far as she can go. But she needs more, and so do I.
As their eyes met again, Blayne brought her right hand up slowly, afraid that any sudden movement would spook Alexi away, like a sudden noise would make a deer bolt for the woods.
She touched her fingertips to Alexi’s lips. Tentatively at first. Lightly traced the outline of the mouth she had stared at for hours and dreamed of for days. Then she pressed softly against the fullness of that ripe lower lip, and when she felt the softness give, and part, ever so slightly, she insinuated her thumb fractionally and heard Alexi’s sharp intake of breath.
Alexi’s fists gentled as they rose to cup Blayne’s face. Her heart clenched at the first touch of that soft skin beneath her hands and the face before her blurred in a shimmer of unexpected tears.
She blinked them away and pulled Blayne’s face to hers, and kissed her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Blayne knew when Alexi’s hands found her face that she was about to be kissed, and her whole body reacted to the realization. Her skin felt flushed, her knees went weak, and an electrifying jolt of arousal shot through her, culminating in her groin. Time seemed to stand still for a moment as they stared into each other’s eyes. Expectant. Anxious. Nervous as hell. She could see everything in Alexi’s eyes that she herself was feeling.
So when Alexi finally leaned forward and brought their mouths together, it felt as though a long simmering thirst was finally being quenched. All she could think and feel and know was finally. And soft. So soft. Alexi’s lips were far softer even than she had imagined, when she had lost herself in daydreams of this moment.
Alexi skimmed her lips lightly over Blayne’s, barely touching at all, an exquisitely gentle introduction of their mouths to each other. Seductive. Elusive. A minute of that, then her fingertips urged their faces closer as she brought their mouths more firmly into contact.
She kissed Blayne slowly, languidly, taking her time. She nipped lightly at her lower lip and teased her with the tip of her tongue, urging her lips apart, then retreating whenever Blayne complied.
Blayne felt a pressure building within her, a maddening pressure to be closer, to let go of the passion that consumed her, but she allowed Alexi to set the pace and depth and type of contact. Her blood was roaring in her ears and she was a breath away from begging by the time Alexi slipped one hand possessively around the back of her neck, and wrapped the other around her waist.
As Alexi brought their bodies forcefully together, her tongue thrust into Blayne’s mouth to wetly claim her, and the sudden overload of sensations sent a shudder through Blayne’s body that rocked them both.
Blayne moaned into their enjoined mouths as Alexi’s hand descended to cup her ass. She wrapped her arms around Alexi, and felt more than heard her answer—a deep groan from the back of her throat. The primal sound fueled her arousal even higher and she would have sagged at the knees if Alexi hadn’t walked her suddenly back against the wall.
Pinned there, she cried out softly as Alexi continued to kiss her—hard, and wet, their tongues battling for domination. The hand that had been on her ass stroked slowly up her side and beneath her tank top to lightly caress the swell of her breast. She surrendered to the thrill of the touch, opening her legs to invite Alexi’s thigh between them, an offer immediately accepted with a thrust of her hips and another low groan.
She clutched Alexi tighter, fingernails raking over her back just shy of drawing blood. Her body was on fire. She moved her pelvis against Alexi’s thigh and nipped at her lower lip hard enough to leave a bruise. That elicited another unintelligible answering sound of pleasure and a teasing play of fingertips along her painfully erect nipple.
The only thought that made it through her haze of physical rapture was the realization that she could possibly come like this, probably would come like this. But just as the knowledge struck her, the loud slam of a car door snapped her back to awareness, and an instant later, she found herself standing alone.
Alexi was already peering carefully out the front window.
Blayne remained where she was, heart pounding, trying to clear her head. Christ. She was so damn turned on she couldn’t see straight. But when Alexi returned to her side, it was immediately obvious that she had regained more control of her body and emotions than Blayne had. Her half-lidded look had been replaced by the much more familiar visage of the alert U.S. Marshal in charge of keeping her alive.
With a sudden sickening clarity, she knew why Alexi had been resisting her with such determination. There is no way I could be making rational decisions right now, much less take responsibility for someone else’s life.
“It was nothing. A neighbor girl, coming home from a date,” Alexi told her. Before she could say anything, Alexi put a hand gently, lovingly to her lips. Ending their moment the way it had begun. “But I must not forget again, even for a moment, what I am here for. Please go upstairs.”
Blayne knew she could not object. She sighed a
nd with a reluctant nod of acquiescence, went up to her room.
*
Vittorio arrived at the safe house a little before two a.m. All the homes in the neighborhood were dark, the only illumination provided by the rare streetlights, one of which was almost directly in front of their destination. They parked behind a dark sedan halfway down the block, and the driver of the sedan got out and joined them.
“I think the one you want is upstairs,” he said. “She came to the window on this side of this house before the light went out. Not sure about the other, a tasty-lookin’ broad with dark hair. The house has been dark ninety minutes or so.”
Vittorio dismissed him with a nod of satisfaction. “Your work is done. Go home.”
He pulled out his gun and screwed on a silencer. His bodyguard did the same.
“You take downstairs. I’ll go up,” Vittorio said.
They headed toward the safe house, keeping in the shadows. Vittorio could always depend on his man’s expertise at quick and quiet forced entry. Tonight was no exception. They got in through the back door, and there was enough light to make out they were in the kitchen. After a moment’s pause to listen, they advanced, bodyguard in the lead, to the door to the living room. They paused there again to briefly listen, then Vittorio gestured his man toward the front bedroom, while he crossed silently to the stairs and began to climb.
Still several steps from the top he froze at a sudden and unexpected noise from the tread beneath his feet. He listened for a moment, then continued upward, cringing when another did the same.
Blayne’s heart picked up when she recognized the creak of the stair. Alexi’s awake too. And coming up to see me. But even as the thought hit her, she realized that something was amiss. That second creak was much too slow. Her heart became a loud jackhammer.
She had taken note of the two noisy stairs soon after they had arrived. They reminded her of the steps that had led from the family pub back home, up to their apartment. Four in a row, so noisy she could never sneak in after curfew. It’s not her. It’s someone else, and they’re sneaking up. A cold stab of fear went through her when a dark silhouette, too big and bulky to be Alexi, materialized in her doorway.
Vittorio paused. He could just barely make out the dark shape in the bed. He raised his gun to fire, and just as he did, the figure sat up. It startled him so much that he hesitated for an instant before he pulled the trigger. As the gun went off, the figure rolled to the side and landed with a loud thud on the floor.
*
Alexi was suspended in the nether world between sleep and wakefulness, tucked into the crook of the couch, when a sound penetrated her consciousness. Something heavy had hit the floor upstairs. Her heart went into her throat. Blayne. She scrambled up, automatically reaching for her guns. The .357 Magnum she tucked into the back of her jeans. The Beretta she gripped tightly in her right hand. She listened intently for a split second as she got her bearings, then she bolted up the stairs.
As she neared the top, she spotted the dark silhouette of a man in Blayne’s room, roughly framed by the doorway. Just as she caught sight of him, he raised his arm.
Vittorio took a step to his right to get a better shot. As he moved, he heard the loud report of a shot, fired close behind him, and felt the searing sting of a bullet as it pierced his right shoulder. Fuck. The gun in his hand clattered to the floor.
He bent to retrieve it, ignoring the pain, both hands groping in the darkness beside the end of the bed. Alexi saw the silhouette double over, but not go down, so she tightened her trigger finger to fire again.
Blayne saw the flash of Alexi’s gun as it went off, then, behind the slim silhouette that had fired it, she saw a hulking shadow coming up the stairs. “Alexi! Behind you!”
At Blayne’s screamed warning, Alexi wheeled and fired. She caught Cinzano’s man on the stairway just as he depressed the trigger of his weapon. His bullet missed her head by inches.
The bodyguard cartwheeled backward, tumbling back down the stairs, spewing brain matter and blood in a wide arc along the opposite wall until he landed in a heap at the bottom.
Cinzano found his gun just as Blayne shouted her warning, and in the time it took Alexi to kill his bodyguard, he had closed the distance to Blayne. Crouching, Alexi kept her gun trained on the large dark silhouette as she moved into the room. The man was slightly hunched over, and Blayne, she was certain—was sitting up at his feet.
“I have my gun to her head,” he said. “Turn on the light.”
When Alexi hit the light switch, she found Vittorio Cinzano standing over Blayne, one of his hands tightly gripping her hair. With the other, he held his gun to her temple.
Blayne was breathing so hard she was nearly hyperventilating, and her eyes were wide in shock and fear.
Alexi and the man she hated stared at each other. Neither showed any outward sign of recognition or surprise but for a quickly masked widening of Cinzano’s eyes.
“So. Nikolos. We meet again.” Vittorio’s level voice belied his shock. “But you have your clothes on this time. What’s the matter, won’t fuck them unless they’re married to the mob?” He yanked on Blayne’s hair to pull her face his way, and glanced down at her. “But if you ask me, I think this one is worth fucking.”
Alexi kept her Beretta trained on Cinzano’s head. The muscles in her jaw and cheeks were tight with fury. “Let her go, Cinzano, or I’ll—”
“Or what?” he barked. “I can have her brain on the wall before you finish that threat.”
“Don’t make it worse for yourself.” Alexi lined up his temple through her sights and pictured his brain instead defiling the room. “If you shoot her, I will either kill you or testify against you and make sure you rot in jail. You are a dead man one way or the other.”
The sounds of sirens could be heard in the distance.
“I’m not going to shoot her just yet,” Cinzano said. “She’s my ticket out of here.”
He jerked Blayne’s hair again and she cried out in pain. “You’ve caused me a lot of trouble, bitch. But no more.”
“Listen. Take me instead,” Alexi said. “I’m much more valuable to you than she is.”
Cinzano smiled. “Is she worth that much to you? Then apparently there is more to this after all. Maybe you have fucked her! In that case, I’ll take you both. Now, put the gun down or I’ll blow her head off!” He shoved the end of his weapon hard against Blayne’s temple. “We’re getting out of here.”
Blayne’s cold fear turned to abject terror when she saw Alexi slowly place her gun on the floor. “Alexi! No!” she screamed, and jerked hard against Cinzano’s hand, trying to free herself.
His attention was broken at that moment because his captive was suddenly making a ruckus and he could barely keep hold of her short hair. His wounded shoulder hurt like a son of a bitch, but he was not about to let it show. He didn’t notice Nikolos reach behind her with her other hand, to retrieve her revolver. Not in time.
Her bullet pierced his right hand and then continued on into his stomach. He dropped his gun and crashed backward against the wall.
Alexi kicked the gun away and scrambled forward, grabbing Blayne’s arm to pull her out of Cinzano’s reach, all the while keeping her gun on him.
The sirens were getting louder.
“Are you all right?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Yes. Yes, I’m okay,” Blayne’s voice was tight and breathy. She was shaking and her heart was pounding, but it was beginning to sink in that they were safe.
Cinzano groaned. His eyes were open and he was still moving, his good hand clutching weakly at the hole in his stomach.
Alexi made sure his gun well out of reach then pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, and hit the speed dial she had programmed with Dombrowski’s number. As she waited for him to answer, she said, “Why don’t you get dressed, Blayne. There will be people all over this place within five minutes.”
It didn’t take even that long. The police arrived i
n two, and the FBI and paramedics were not far behind. Cinzano, still alive, was taken to the nearest hospital. Alexi and Blayne were immediately separated, and taken by Chicago P.D. squad cars downtown for their statements.
As she rode to the station, Alexi reflected on what was to come. She had finally gotten the opportunity to bring Sofia’s killer to justice, which was the main reason she had agreed to take on a case involving the Salvatore family. But she felt little satisfaction at the moment. Somewhere along the way, her priorities had changed, and the case had become all about Blayne.
Alexi knew it right away, but it would be several more hours before Blayne learned that they might never see each other again.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The police station they took Blayne to this time was nicer than the one she spent most of a day in after Aldo Martinelli’s murder. Newer, with padded chairs in the interview rooms, and radically better coffee. And now she knew something of what to expect, the experience wasn’t quite so harrowing.
She was questioned for two hours by Chicago P.D. Detectives, and two hours more by FBI special agents she had never met before. Then Agent Dombrowski came to see her, with a large bag of cheeseburgers and fries and all sorts of news. He told her that Theodore Lang was missing, taken in his sleep from his bed. It was all over the T.V. and radio. The mob was suspected in his disappearance. Vittorio Cinzano would survive and face several new charges, many involving the attempts on her life, so she would now be testifying in several trials.
In other words, he said, it was more vital than ever that she enter WITSEC. She would remain under guard by U.S. Marshals in Chicago until the preliminary hearings. Then, like he’d said before, she would go through her orientation and be relocated with the Cluzets, coming back for the trials as needed.
