by Lexi Blake
There were only three of them. Jake could take a nap, but before Alex could take everyone out, he needed to figure out where Sean was.
“Someone killed Kris?”
Shit. Chazz didn’t know. He wasn’t that great an actor. Evans wasn’t keeping him in the loop. “Yeah, she took a bullet to the chest. She’s dead.”
Let him think that. Maybe Evans would be pissed that his girl got caught in the crossfire.
He wants you alive.
Kristen’s face haunted him. Likely would for a long time. She’d seemed almost happy to have sacrificed for her lover.
Had Evans kept her out of the loop, too? Why else would she have disrupted his plans?
“Fuck. Mikey didn’t order me to do that.” Chazz nodded toward the back of the club. “But some of our friends alerted us to your presence here, McKay. Mikey would love to have a talk with you.”
“Since he has my wife, I’d like to talk to him as well.”
Again Chazz frowned, and Alex felt his gut tighten. “I don’t know nothing about that either. I just got a call from the big guy and he’s figured out that you’re not who you said you were. I’m just going to keep you and your boy in there on ice until Mikey decides what to do with you. Bring him into the kitchens. We’ll keep him with the other.”
Alex followed along, making an inventory of the weapons on his body. He’d get his SIG back, but there was a semi in his right boot and a knife in his left. Jake’s car was loaded down with ordinance under a false bottom in the trunk.
One of the very likely soon-to-be dead bouncer/meathead musclemen gave him a shove through the double doors of the kitchen. Three more of Chazz’s bouncers were inside. They’d been ready and waiting apparently. Someone had tipped them off. He caught sight of Sean, making a careful but quick study of the kitchens. The line of stainless steel ovens and burner units were to his left, with two big refrigeration units on his right. The expo station sat between them. Someone had sent the rest of the staff home it looked like. They were alone in the big kitchen with nothing but the security staff.
Where was the kid? Alex looked at the bouncers but none of them was Jesse Murdoch.
“Hey, I’ve had a morning, brother.” Sean sat at the back of the kitchen near a large prep space. The chair that held him was against a counter. It looked like he’d been jumped while he was working. His knife set was rolled out and there were piles of herbs and onions on the counter, precisely cut and portioned out. Sean sported a nice shiner and a couple of bruises. Why? How many assholes had they sent at him?
“I can see that. You look like you got taken down by a baseball team.” They often used sports references to gain information. He couldn’t just come out and ask Sean how many men were lurking around.
“More like an offensive line just before the snap,” Sean shot back.
Seven then. Seven offensive players had to be on the line of scrimmage in football. Alex quickly counted. Six men were in the room with them and Massive Asshole had fled, likely into the waiting arms of Jake, who would be asking him the same types of questions.
Easy breezy.
“I should have known you would fuck this up,” Alex told Sean. “You got tied up.”
Sean’s blue eyes closed briefly as though he couldn’t stand the embarrassment. “Lost my best paring knife, too. It’s been a shitty day. I’m ready to end it. I know everything I need to know.”
Nice. This was why he loved working with Sean. They communicated so well together. He quickly decoded the information Sean had imparted with a few bland sentences. Sean had managed to keep his three-inch blade and had already worked through the bindings. He was ready to go when Alex was.
“Get another chair for the new asshole,” Chazz ordered. “We’ve got to keep him here until the boss tells us where to take him. It shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours.”
One of the bouncers walked out to do his boss’s bidding.
“Their timetable moved up. Chazz got a phone call an hour ago,” Sean said.
So that’s why he’d allowed himself to be captured. With only seven untrained guys, there was no way Sean had been taken down in a fight.
“I didn’t ask you to talk.” Chazz took a long breath, and his eyes narrowed. “You know now that I have your friend here, I don’t know that I need you anymore. I took you down because I thought I might need leverage if he showed up. Mikey said nothing about keeping you around. It might feel good to work one of you over. I got some issues to work out. He’s probably going to close this club down now. We’re going to have to move and all because you two are fuckwad cops.”
“Is that what he said? And how did your boss find out?” Alex slightly shook his head, giving Sean the no-go sign. He brought two fingers up to his chest, scratching a little. Two minutes to go. He had a few things to discover before they got to the part where Chazz cried a lot and likely crapped his pants.
“That’s none of your fucking business,” Chazz shot back.
“I’m not a cop.”
Chazz snorted. “Really? And why should I believe you?”
“I used to be a cop, a fed actually. I used to work with the man who I believe is supplying your boss with information,” Alex explained.
Sean’s eyes went wide, but he stayed silent.
Alex stared at Chazz. “The question now is whether it’s your boss or my former partner who took my wife.”
Sean’s whole body went tense.
“And who killed Kris,” Alex announced.
Sean’s face went red. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Chazz shook his head. “I told you I didn’t order that hit, but if the boss did, then the bitch needed killing.”
“Alex,” Sean hissed his name.
The thing with Kristen was going to kill him until he had an answer. He hoped she lived. “Yeah, go, but I need that idiot.”
Sean moved with the grace of a natural predator. One minute he appeared to be all kinds of tied up, and the next he was on his feet, a knife in his hand. He tossed it through the air and reached back, grabbing two more off the counter. Before anyone could move, Sean had placed knives in three of their captors, two to the chest and a third seemed to have severed the bouncer’s jugular. He went down clutching at the thing, pulling it out, sending blood across the floor.
Alex shoved his elbow into the man on his right’s xiphoid process and just kept going, focusing the force of the punch through the man’s chest with the intent of sending the delicate bone at the end of the sternum directly into his opponent’s heart.
The man who had been holding him dropped to the floor.
Alex turned to Chazz, who had backed up to the row of ovens. He held up his gun, but he couldn’t mask the way his hand shook.
“Back up or I end this now,” Chazz said. “I got more guys coming.”
“He doesn’t,” Sean said. “He sent everyone away after he got that phone call. That was when his little goon squad hit.”
Alex casually reached down and pulled his semiautomatic from his boot. Chazz kept staring between the two of them as if trying to decide which viper to shoot first. “And you decided to play with them?”
Sean shrugged, flipping over a large knife. He held it in his hand, tossing it casually and catching it again. “I thought I should play along. Is Kris really dead?”
“I don’t know. I had to flee the scene. Adam was with her.”
“I didn’t kill her,” Chazz said. “I didn’t order a hit on anyone. Fuck, I don’t make the rules here. I just keep my head down and do my time.”
“Like you did in prison. Is that where Evans recruited you? He must have told you about me and yet you don’t seem to remember my name.”
“It’s McKay. What does that have to do with anything?” Chazz asked.
“Alexander McKay. I was the SAC in charge of his case. I arrested him.”
“Shit. He did your wife.”
Alex fired, putting a bullet through Chazz’s hand. Suddenly having a
hole in his palm made it difficult for him to hold onto his weapon. It dropped to the floor as Chazz screamed and held his hand against his chest.
“You will speak of my wife with respect,” Alex explained. “And you’re going to help me find her.”
Sean held up his really large knife. “Do you know what this is?”
Chazz had tears running down his face. “It’s a knife.”
Sean shook his head. “Oh no. This is a work of art. This is a seven-inch ceramic sushi knife. I’ve been playing around with it. The ceramic is just a step below diamonds on the hardness scale. This knife was made to debone a fish and make delicate, beautiful cuts. It’s a little like me. It’s very precise, but it can do some serious damage. Would you like me to filet you, Chazz?”
Chazz had gone sheet white. “I don’t know nothing. Mike was supposed to come in a couple of days and spend some time at the farm, but then this morning he calls me and says I fucked up. He says that I let you in and I shouldn’t have, and the only way to make up for it is to keep you here for him if you came in. He said he had someone smarter than me handling it, but this was the backup plan. I guess he thought you would come here if whoever was supposed to kill you failed. I’m supposed to put you all in lockdown.”
Farm? He hadn’t heard anything about a damn farm, but he had other questions for now. “Who exactly?”
Chazz’s voice shook. He kept staring at the bodies around him. “You and the chef here and your women. I didn’t know he was talking about your wife. I should have because he got that tone in his voice when he said ‘women.’ He always told me he shouldn’t have let her go, but he made a deal, you see.”
Oh now they were getting somewhere. “He made a deal?”
“Yeah. I don’t know with who. I think it was the same guy who got him out of prison. That’s all I fucking know. He won’t tell me where to pick him up. He just shows up on the doorstep with his bodyguards. I don’t know where he stays neither.”
The doors behind them knocked open and Jake strode in pushing the sixth man in front of him. “You lost one. And Adam called. Serena had a sudden pain and needed to lie down. The cops told him he could come in later and make his statement. He pulled from CCTVs all over the coast. He got a shot of someone driving your rental. It was ditched before he crossed the toll road, so he had to have had another vehicle waiting. Does the name Murdoch mean anything to you? And should I cap this guy or put him on ice?”
He would kill the little fucker. “Shove him in the freezer. We don’t need more bodies to hide. Chazz, you are going to tell me absolutely everything you know about Jesse Murdoch, starting with where he lives.”
He forced the panic down, forced himself to be strong.
Eve needed him.
* * * *
Jesse bit back a cry. His lungs fucking ached. Goddamn bulletproof vest wasn’t bulletproof enough. He’d put it on this morning because he had a protocol when it came to an operation.
And it was damn good, too, since he’d been shot by his own fucking boss.
He’d passed out from the shot. At point-blank range, the bullet might not have reached his heart, but it had damn straight knocked the wind out of him.
He had to find Master A…Alex McKay. He had to find the man he’d tried to kill.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck. He’d killed Kris and he hadn’t had to. He’d fucked up again and he wasn’t even sure why.
There was a loud bang as the door to his loft burst open.
Shit. They’d come back to finish the job. God, he couldn’t breathe. The vest was too tight. He could feel something wet against his skin. Damn it. The round had been too close. Despite the Kevlar, he’d been hit. How far had the bullet gone in? How much time did he have left?
He’d wanted to do good. He let his head slip back down to the floor, the cool wood making him shiver. He’d just wanted to make his dad proud.
He’d tried by joining up. After Pawpaw died and the ranch had gone under, he’d just wanted to be able to hold his head up.
He thought about that gold star that sat on the mantle. His pawpaw had placed it there after his dad died.
That’s what your daddy was. He was a star. Now people will tell you that stars are actors and singers, but they’re wrong. Real stars are the people who set aside their own lives to do good. Like your daddy.
Twenty-seven years and he was still chasing his father’s legacy. Still falling short.
Did his father know? God, he hoped there was some form of heaven and his father knew he’d never betrayed his country. He’d been stalwart. It was why they’d targeted him. He hadn’t broken. He’d never given them anything past his name and rank and serial number, even when they’d shoved a hot poker into his chest. Even when he thought they would cut his cock off.
But they’d still found a way to break him. They’d taken his name. God, they had taken his name and his honor.
But no one got his soul.
“There’s the little fucker. Shit.”
He didn’t have to look for McKay. McKay had found him.
“Is he dead?”
He could pretend. He could lie here and no one would know. And that would be cowardly. And he wasn’t a fucking coward. He forced his head up. “He took her.”
A shout exploded from his chest as he was turned over. McKay stared down at him and he would almost swear there were flames shooting out of his eyes. “Who? You tell me who the fuck you’ve been working for.”
He forced the words out of his throat. God, he needed out of the vest. “Feds.”
“Be more specific.”
“SAC Petty. He contacted me a few months back and offered me an undercover job.” At the time, Jesse had been fucking high on the offer. It was a way to get back in, back into the good guy’s camp. He’d jumped at it. He’d been a fucking idiot.
“The feds don’t go outside the house for undercover,” a new voice said.
McKay hadn’t come alone. Jesse forced himself to look around. There were two men with McKay. Sean Reilly, though who knew what his real name was, and a dark-haired man with a fierce frown.
“He’s lying,” Sean said. “Why would he lie about that?”
“Because he knows damn well I’ll kill him when he tells me the truth,” McKay pronounced.
Death. It was where he was heading anyway. He thought about it. He thought about it a lot. In his worst moments, he’d thought about eating his gun and calling it a day. He’d never really done anything worthwhile. He’d been such a burden his mom had left. She’d loved his dad, but she couldn’t bring herself to love him, too. His pawpaw had to work to feed him when all he’d wanted to do was fish, but he couldn’t afford to raise a kid on social security.
His dad hadn’t even known him.
“Go ahead. Do it.” In the end, he couldn’t pull the trigger. But McKay could.
Alex McKay stopped, his brow furrowing. Funny word, furrowing. He laughed a little. Nothing left to do except laugh at how spectacularly meaningless his existence had been.
“Did you try to kill me?” McKay asked.
A simple answer. “Oh, yes.”
“Why did you take my wife?”
Not so simple. “Couldn’t hurt her. She was innocent. Wanted to save her from you. She told me off, though. Not as weak as I thought. It was a mistake. Everything’s a mistake. Didn’t mean to kill Kris. Just you.”
McKay growled and let him drop, his head hitting the floor. God, everything ached. When would it stop?
“What reason did Petty give for killing me?” McKay asked, staring down at him like he was a bug who might still get stepped on.
There was no reason to hide anything now. He’d been played. He had no idea if McKay was a good guy or a bad guy. It simply no longer mattered. “He didn’t have to give me a reason. He was in charge.”
The chef got to one knee, blue eyes looking through Jesse. “What was your mission, soldier?”
“He’s not…” McKay began.
Sean shook hi
s head and McKay quieted. “What was your mission?”
Finally, a question he could answer. Every word made his chest ache, but he forced himself to speak. “I was supposed to infiltrate Evans’s organization. My superior believed that St. Augustine was the most vulnerable of the eight clubs. He liked smaller cities. Said the law enforcement was lighter in smaller cities. I was supposed to get close to Chazz so I could report back on the group’s activities. I figured out early on that they were trying to get an infrastructure in place to move drugs. They were also laundering money for cartels. I got word a couple of days ago that Evans was coming in. I called it in to my superior.”
“Let me guess,” McKay said. “He told you to wait and watch.”
“Yeah. I was surprised. I thought bringing him in was the whole point.”
McKay frowned. “And you never thought to look into the case yourself? You would have known my name if you had looked into the case. I was the original arresting officer.”
“Hey, give him a break,” Sean said.
“Why the fuck should I? As to that, why the hell are you treating him with kid gloves?”
“Because I was in the Army for years, man. You did your time and ran. Me and Jake know what it’s like,” Sean replied.
“You don’t ask questions,” the man who must be named Jake added. “You follow orders. It’s possible that he thought he was doing the right thing. Petty took advantage of his training. He knew this kid wouldn’t delve too deep. He would just follow orders.”
God, that made him sound like an idiot, but it was true.
“Why you?” McKay asked. “There must be hundreds of ex-soldiers without jobs out there. Why pick you?”
Shame filled him. “Because Evans has ties to jihadists.”
“And they all think you turned.” McKay ran a hand over his head. “Fuck it, Petty always was smart. Where is my wife?”
He fucking wished he knew. “I told you he took her.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.” He searched his memory. He’d heard Petty say something to her as he’d fallen to the ground. “He said he had a debt to pay and she would do. Something about it hanging over his head for a long time. He was working with Evans, wasn’t he?”
