Connelly Crime Family Trilogy

by Winters, KB

  But still, she wasn’t here. Yet, I corrected myself mentally. She’d be here. And when she got here, she’d be all smiles once I let her know her father’s debt was officially cleared. She would get that wide, contagious smile on her face, the one that made her look like the sexy girl next door and lean toward me without ever moving forward. Hesitant, because she was as confused by this thing going on between us as I was.

  Or maybe I was doing exactly what I accused her of doing this morning, dreaming with stars in my eyes? There was a good chance she was late because she didn’t want to be here. I didn’t believe that though. The way she looked at me, before, during and after sex, spoke of a connection that went beyond the bedroom. That was probably why I’d been such a dick to her earlier.

  And now I was paying the price for my behavior.

  But I waited impatiently, so sure she wouldn’t flake on me tonight. But as another hour passed, my anger turned to worry. Fear. Layla was a woman of her word, of that much I was absolutely fucking certain. Which meant something was wrong.

  I picked up the phone and punched in her number, not sure if hearing her voice would leave me relieved or angry. I was saved from that particular answer when the call rang and then straight to voicemail.

  “Goddammit!”

  Where the fuck was she?

  Fuck this. I wouldn’t wait one more fucking minute to get to the bottom of this. Either Layla was playing games with me or she was in trouble. Neither option sat well with me, so I grabbed my keys and wallet. If Layla wouldn’t come to me, then I’d go to her.

  I spent the drive over to her apartment thinking about what I would say to her. If she was home and not deathly ill then I knew my temper would take over but even as I got closer to her place, I knew something wasn’t right.

  Being raised by Patrick Connelly, I knew how important it was not to ignore gut feelings. Hell, they’d saved my life at least a dozen times over the years, maybe more. Shae and Rourke too. Everything inside me screamed that something was wrong. But when I pulled up to her apartment and saw the lights from outside along with the flickering blue light of the television, I knew that the something wrong was me.

  And soon, it would be her too.

  I killed the engine and locked the car from my key fob as I walked toward the entrance of Layla’s apartment. Heart in my chest, I recognized the feeling as anxiety and brushed it off. I didn’t get anxious over women, no matter how good the sex. Or how sweet the woman, my subconscious taunted me but I ignored that bastard as well. I was on a mission to get what I wanted.

  What I was owed, goddammit.

  Just as I stepped up to the front door of the lobby and the digital keypad a young couple stepped out, so engrossed with each other they didn’t realize I’d slipped in without permission, which was another fact weighing on me as I bypassed the elevator and took the stairs two at a time up to Layla’s floor.

  It was mostly quiet as I approached her apartment, the low sounds of a television sounded behind me and up ahead the low strains of rock music played. Everything seemed normal. Typical even, and I began to relax. Everything was fine. Layla had probably overslept or she was running behind schedule. That was it.

  That was the lie I told myself, anyway.

  But when I stood on the cheerful welcome mat in front of her door, a lump lodged in my throat and the whiskey in my gut burned like kerosene.

  The door was open just enough for a sliver of light to shine through and I was immediately on alert. It was a damn good thing I didn’t go anywhere without at least one piece on me. I slid it out of the holster and nudged the door open with my foot. Leading with my gun, I stepped inside Layla’s apartment. It was a complete and total mess.

  Pillows and cushions that should have been on the sofa were strewn across the floor and the coffee table was on its side, which left a broken vase with hundreds of little marbles scattered like hail. Glass was everywhere. Whatever had gone down, Layla had put up a fight. Mugs and ashtrays were smashed, along with photo frames, statuettes and even a few porcelain angels were smashed all over the floor. Small droplets of blood had sprayed everything and I bit out a string of fucking expletives.

  “Layla! Layla, are you in here?”

  There was no answer. If she were here, there would be flashing blue and red lights outside. Layla’s blue eyes would be blazing anger the same way they had when she found me pounding her old man’s face.

  Shit! Layla was in trouble. Sliding my phone from my back pocket, I dialed her number again as I walked around her place, hoping to hear it ring or vibrate somewhere inside. The phone rang in my ear but Layla’s apartment remained as silent as ever.

  When the voicemail kicked in, I ended the call and dialed the number again. The phone continued to ring with no answer, so I searched Layla’s apartment until I found her spare key in a junk drawer in the kitchen. I’d have a talk with her about that but not until I could be sure she was safe. Before I left, I turned off the TV and the lights, sweeping one final glance around the place before locking the door behind me.

  Wherever Layla was, I had to fucking find her.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Layla

  Waking up in a strange, dark room was not my idea of a good time, especially when I’d planned to spend the night screaming the name of a hot mobster. But in general, I didn’t like waking up with no fucking clue where I was, how I got there, and most of all, who brought me. Oh, and I was tied to a fucking chair.

  Luckily a flashing light just outside one of the curtains told me I was at some kind of cheap motel. Based on the stench in the room and the flashing neon lights, it was probably the kind that charged rooms by the hour.

  “Hello? Hello?”

  Why in the hell did I speak out loud? The room was completely dark, and other than the TV blasting from the rooms on either side of me, there were no other sounds. Was I alone? I thought of the big, sweaty son of a bitch who pushed his way into my apartment. Was the angry hulk standing behind me, watching and waiting for his opportunity to strike? Or was he just an errand boy and someone worse awaited me? I wondered if Eamon had something to do with this.

  Luckily no one answered my call.

  I needed to move quickly and quietly, first by figuring out how in the hell to free my hands. I squeezed my eyes shut, tugged as hard as I could, ignoring the pain in my arms as they strained behind me, and waited for the cold metal bite of handcuffs. But it never came. Instead I felt hard plastic dig into my wrists as I jerked to get free.

  “Dammit,” I hissed. Zip ties. I might not have been the smartest girl on the block, but I knew when zip ties were involved, it was likely a serial killer was around, which meant I was in big damn trouble. I let out a low breath.

  Okay think, Layla, think.

  I had to find a way out of here. My head throbbed like the world’s worst hangover. I blotted that out and squeezed my eyes shut tight until I saw bursts of color like a pain-filled fireworks display. Then slowly, the pain subsided and I snapped my eyes open to focus on the dark room.

  By the flashing light outside the window, I could see a chair exactly like mine, a table with a cell phone, and when I twisted just so, I saw behind me at least one bed. I assumed the room had a bathroom, but I couldn’t see it. My chair was positioned in the center of the room so all I could see clearly without turning myself into a pretzel was the window and the door.

  No doubt trouble waited for me on the other side of the door, but if I could just get to the window, maybe I could escape. I closed my eyes and held my breath, listening for sounds of movement inside and outside the room, anything that said someone was about to hurt me. I heard nothing. Somehow, I managed to get to my feet and stand hunched over with the chair strapped to me. I walked two steps before a wave of pain was back, dizziness crashed over me, and I had to stop. The chair and I slammed back onto the floor, the impact hitting me like a wrecking ball.

  I remembered getting hit, but I didn’t know what he’d used. A hammer
? The butt of a gun? Whatever it was, it made my head throb like a jackhammer. Making all that worse, I couldn’t seem to stand more than a few seconds before my legs turned to limp noodles.

  Okay Layla, get up and do this.

  I sucked in several deep breaths and let them out slowly before I stood up again and moved another few feet toward the window before I collapsed to the floor again. As soon as my ass hit the seat, the doorknob turned and seconds later the thug appeared in the doorway.

  “Fuck,” I whispered.

  The big fat ginger grinned. “Unfortunately that’s not on the menu. Yet. But you are a pretty little thing.”

  I bit back a shudder. This guy had already shown a love of violence.

  I snarled, “Why am I here?”

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out that one of the two men in my life right now had to be involved somehow. If I could get my hands on Eamon or Dad right now!

  “Don’t worry Layla,” he grunted. “I have no plans to hurt you.”

  He stepped inside the room and walked over to my chair. Up close, I could smell the sweat, beer and stale cigarette stench coming from him. He traced a finger down my jawline, and I thought I would gag, recoiling out of his reach.

  “You already hurt me or is beating up on women some kind of sick foreplay to you?”

  He shrugged and took a step back, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He popped one in his mouth in that practiced way of a lifelong smoker.

  “You had to be difficult.”

  “Right. And when strangers come up to your door blowing stinky smoke in your face, you just let them in, right?”

  This guy was full of shit but everything about him said low-level gangster. I’d seen enough movies to spot one and this guy was nowhere near as polished as Eamon, which meant he wasn’t on the same level. At least I assumed so. Then again, I was new to the mobster world and maybe the movies had gotten it wrong all these years.

  “Doesn’t matter.” He lit the cigarette and took a long satisfying pull before blowing all the smoke in my face.

  “Asshole.”

  “You’re here now,” he said, like I hadn’t said a word. “You won’t get hurt as long as you behave.”

  I could just imagine what he meant by behave.

  “What the fuck is going on? Tell me why I’m here!”

  “You’ve got fire. I can see why he likes you.”

  “He? He who? Who the fuck is he?” I wanted to know but I was as terrified as I was curious, and terror won out. “Are you going to kill me?”

  He smiled behind his scruff. “Not if I don’t have to.”

  Which wasn’t exactly a definitive answer, was it? I could only glare at the jerk who seemed to be having a lot of fun at my expense.

  “What does that mean?” I wished I didn’t sound so scared. I knew that put me at a disadvantage.

  “You’re leverage and that’s all you need to know. Now be a good girl and I won’t have to hurt you. No matter how much I might want to.”

  This time, the thug ignored my attempts to outrun the brush of his hand down my cheek, his smelly hand making me retch.

  A phone rang and the ringtone sounded oddly familiar. The guy lifted a phone off of the table and held it up to give me a good look at it.

  “Hey,” I said, more outraged now than scared. “That’s my phone!”

  He grunted again, this time into the phone. “Hello?”

  His face tugged into a smile that shaved about ten years from his haggard face. He laughed just a little too loud and too fake.

  “It’s good to hear from you too, Connelly.”

  Connelly? Eamon? That answered the question to which man was responsible for my current dilemma. This night really hadn’t gone how I planned.

  No, not at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Eamon

  I tried her phone one last time and finally someone picked up.

  But it wasn’t Layla.

  I fucking knew that voice. And it pissed me off that he was the one answering Layla’s phone.

  “What are you doing with Layla’s phone? What the fuck do you want, Rico?”

  He gave me a deep chuckle that made me want to pound his face, and next, the fucker gave me click of his tongue.

  “Where are your manners, Connelly? None of this is personal, you know that. It’s just business.”

  Yeah, I knew it. But assholes like Rico took great pleasure in their work, which always made it personal.

  “You got my attention,” I said, anger boiling in my veins.

  Not even Rico was good enough to break through my fortress of security, and even if he did, he’d be dead before he ever got close enough to me to make a move.

  “Good. Because my client wanted me to make sure you were paying attention.”

  Another deep chuckle sounded, and my jaws clenched with the effort of holding back my words.

  “Right. Who exactly is this client?”

  Though I could probably guess who was behind this, hearing it straight from a professional hit man would be all the evidence I needed to fuck up the lives of everyone involved. Including Rico.

  “We both know who. Don’t be cute,” Rico grumbled.

  “That’s a gift of genetics and I can’t help it.”

  I knew that would get under his skin because he was damn sensitive about his ugly mug.

  “I might know who your client is, but if you don’t confirm, I might be afraid of the wrong people.”

  That pulled another laugh from him. “The Milano family.”

  The name came out on a frustrated groan.

  “And what do they want with Layla? She has nothing to do with either their business or mine.”

  “Maybe not, but she is involved with you and that’s a damn sight better than being in the business.”

  A simple enough conclusion to draw, one that meant they were watching me. Watching both of us.

  “Explain.”

  “You two are sweet together. Really, you are.” His sigh came heavy down the line. “I saw you two this morning and that slow, lingering kiss. A couple in love if I ever saw one.”

  “You’re wrong, Rico. What you saw was me saying goodbye to a piece of ass. Nothing more.”

  The words turned sour on my tongue but I had to say them. I had to make Rico think Layla didn’t mean anything to me. “You’ve got bad intel.”

  “Is that right?”

  Rico’s gruff voice sounded amused but I wasn’t fooled. He looked like a sloppy bastard and smelled even worse, but nobody did contract wet work like Rico.

  “Yep.”

  “Then why are you calling her?”

  I laughed. “Because we had plans tonight. Naked plans and I was in the mood to get my dick wet, something you wouldn’t know about since you haven’t seen your dick since the nineties.”

  Rico laughed. “If she ain’t yours then I guess I’ll stick my dick in her.”

  “Get away from me you stinky bastard!” I heard Layla’s voice ring out in the distance. “No, don’t touch me!”

  As hard as it was, I said nothing. Any clue, any inkling that Layla was more than a quick fuck and she’d be everything Rico and the Milano family hoped for.

  Rico came back on the line with a laugh. “She’s feisty, Connelly. I can see why you like her.”

  “Are we done?”

  “Yeah, we’re done,” he said easily. Too easily.

  Layla’s screams grew more terrified. “Get your greasy paws off me!” I had to close my mind to what he was doing to her or I wouldn’t be able to get control of this situation. I had to stay focused.

  “Just listen to this,” he snarled into the phone, “and then we’re done.”

  I closed my eyes as Layla yelled and fought with Rico, the sounds getting louder as he moved closer to her. A loud smack sounded and another cry from Layla. “Ow!” That was it, one short sharp scream followed by small continuous whimpering.

  I gripped the phone so hard I
thought it might break, but it was the only thing keeping me from threatening to rip that asshole limb from limb. If I said one word, if I gave him any indication that Layla was more than a fuck buddy, he’d do more than smack her around. Those Milano fuckers would guarantee it.

  “None of that means a damn thing to me if you don’t tell me what you expect of me.”

  “That’s easy. Meet me tonight. The Kinky Elephant. Eleven o’clock.”

  The call ended abruptly and as bad as I wanted to throw the phone across Layla’s parking lot, I held my temper.

  “Goddammit!” I screamed into the night.

  I knew exactly what I had to do, and I needed my family at my side.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Layla

  There were times in people’s lives when they looked around and wondered how in the hell they ended up where they were. I was having one of those moments as I sat and listened to Eamon tell the greasy pig just how little I meant to him. The answer was very fucking little. So little, it might as well be nothing at all.

  And Eamon was my only hope.

  Yeah, I wondered how I got here when just last week I thought the mob was something that used to happen back in the nineties. I thought they only existed for the sake of the bad guys you love to hate on every crime drama show that aired during primetime. But now, I knew the truth. The mob wasn’t just real, they were alive and well in Rocket, Nevada. What were the odds?

  And I was somehow caught in the middle of a mob war. Or at least I assumed the Milanos the greasy ginger had mentioned were also a mob family because, why the hell not? Just fuck my life right now.

  “He called you a piece of ass. Pretty cold if you ask me.”

  “Yeah, well I didn’t ask, did I?”

  And I didn’t want to hear his fucking views on the world.

  “Still, if some chick I was clearly into said that about me, I’d be pretty pissed off.”