“You think you can anticipate other people’s moves flawlessly. But you can’t. My not pressing that necklace earlier, when I had Trace and Theo in the same vicinity, should’ve given you your first clue. I do not act impulsively. Like you, I predict, I analyze, I plan. But unlike you, I’ve been taught a lesson. To keep in mind human variables.”
“Yes?” Gordon closed one eye, aimed. Theo reacted by stepping in front of me, yelling at his father to put down the gun. “What variable am I missing besides adding Theodore to the mix. This bullet is strong enough to go through the two of you, my son. Choose wisely.”
“Father, we need to go,” Trace said. His eyes had gone wide, his gaze pinging among the homes we were in the middle of, the too-quiet nature of this city environment where there should be honks, sirens—at the very least, dogs barking. Babies crying.
“Always have a Plan Z,” I said, loud enough to be heard behind Theo’s large form.
Gordon quieted. I could only assume he was clicking off the safety.
“I’m sorry, Theo,” I murmured. He cocked an ear to me, but had no time to do anything else, because I yelled, “Now!”
“Father!” Trace boomed.
He was too late. A blast came from behind us and Gordon’s thigh bloomed red. He cried out, buckled to his knees, and dropped his gun. Theo acted first, rushing to his father and bending over him, but not to staunch the bleeding. It was to grab the weapon.
Trace collapsed over Gordon, crying out and grabbing whatever he could to stop his father from bleeding out.
I reached for Theo, to drag him out of the way, but he shook me off, and the look he gave me…
Oh, the look.
I wouldn’t forget it for the rest of my life.
“Don’t finish the job,” I said, but wasn’t sure if he could hear me. If I clawed at his back, he wouldn’t react. If I slapped his face, his jaw wouldn’t move. All Theo could see was his father, lying on his back in the middle of the road, and Trace, leaning over him, screaming in his face not to die.
“It’s not worth it,” I tried again. Gently, I laid my fingers on the crook of his elbow. “They’re coming. You know that gunshot wasn’t from—”
A swarm of black enveloped us, men and women in SWAT gear grabbing at our arms, our shoulders, slamming us to the ground facedown. Theo had his feet swiped out from under and he crashed down beside me, his cheekbone cracking against the concrete as they wrestled the gun out of his limp fingers.
Our hands were cuffed behind our backs at the same time.
“Theo, listen to me—” I tried.
He closed his eyes, acquiescing to everything else but me. My lips trembled, forming the words please and only, but not voicing them, since platitudes meant nothing to Theo.
Theodore Saxon was done with Scarlet Rhodes.
29 Miranda Rights
I hadn’t chewed on my cuticles since elementary school.
At a table like this, actually, with a powerful person oozing authority on the other side, elbows propped, glasses on, mouth screwed up in rebuke.
Last time it was the school principal. This time it was an FBI agent in an interrogation room.
“Let me tell you, you have quite the resume,” this man said as he fanned through a file-folder. A peek at the margin and I saw my name in bold, black sharpie. SCARLETT RHODES.
They’d spelled my name wrong.
I focused on that wayward T like it was a lifeline. Anything to stop myself from traveling back, thinking of Theo and his expression before I was torn away from him. Right about the time cracks began to form in my heart, fissures opening, breaking, allowing the rest of the darkness to creep in.
“You gave us quite a few days’ work,” this man continued. At my blank expression, he added, “Quentin Sawyer. I’m head of the Metro Gang task force in charge of the Saxon case.”
It was hard to think of the Saxon crime family as a gang, but I supposed that was what Congress had the budget to classify them as. Quentin Sawyer was one head over Chenko, not quite the boss, but close enough. I’d guess that having three Saxons in custody was a big boon, requiring his presence and therefore ensuring his name would be on all the paperwork going forward. And up.
“Your cooperation will be noted,” Sawyer continued. His dark cap of hair was thickly waved back, with black-framed glasses, more hipster than nerd, resting on his straight, Roman nose. I pinned him in his forties. “Especially during this last day and your help leading us to the Saxon brothers. Gordon Saxon especially.”
“Kai was integral to that,” I said. It was the first time I’d spoken since my cheek scraped across pavement, and it sounded just as rough.
“Duly noted,” Sawyer said with a half-smile. He was glad I’d spoken. “But his status in the FBI is none of your concern right now. What should concern you is how we’re going to handle your current situation.”
I inclined my head, arms crossed. “And?”
“And,” he repeated, except with more syllables, “we’re thankful for what you’ve done. Without you, I doubt we’d have any Saxon, never mind three.”
“My importance to you is written out in marker right there.” I pointed to my incorrectly spelled name on the folder, as much as I could while shackled. “So forgive me if I’m reluctant to trust what you say.”
Sawyer frowned. “Your history doesn’t show problems with authority figures. Not until—”
“College. I’m aware. Got ahold of my one-semester transcript, did you?”
“We have everything, Scarlet. I know more about you than your mother does.”
Sad, but true.
He reached to his right, picking up a Sharpie, the sound of the lid popping off the only noise in this small, concrete-lined room. In a big, pungent X, he crossed out the second T.
“Despite what this shows, you’re very important to us. For a long time, you’ve been our only viable link within the Saxon crime family. You’ve accomplished more than a lot of our undercovers were able to.”
“Because I broke the rules.”
“Yes,” he nodded. “You did have that advantage.”
I lifted my hands, the clinks of the handcuffs ringing against the metal table I’d been attached to. “Is this your thanks? Because I’m ready to be booked, put in a holding cell. I’d like my lawyer now. I’ll wait for them there.”
Sawyer leaned back, nothing short of amused. “Time with the Saxons has really done wonders with your personality.”
“You don’t know me.”
“You’re a fugitive. You aided and abetted two of the most wanted men in New York City.”
“I boarded that plane with Theo because your team gave up on this mission. The paperwork, the barriers, lack of warrants, the red tape. It was made near-impossible to wrangle Theo, never mind Trace, and bring them to your federal wishes when I couldn’t step foot in a poker room without calculating tax deductions on a log sheet first.”
“Oh, you mean the law?”
“Yes, that. It was a cockblock in the most literal sense.”
“And so you became your own, unauthorized agent and entered into an international underworld where you had no experience, no backup, and not only could have ruined what was a years-long investigation acquiring plenty of useful information, despite your opinion otherwise, you could have also ended up dead.”
“Haven’t you figured that out? I’m dead inside already.”
Sawyer widened his eyelids like he was preparing for a roll. “You’re a bit old for teen angst.”
“Don’t belittle what you’ve now been given in a big, red bow. Not only do you have Trace and Theo”—my voice broke slightly on his name—“in custody, you also have Gordon Saxon.”
“All thanks to you?” Sawyer arched a brow.
“You certainly wouldn’t have gotten them by following the law to the goddamned letter.”
Sawyer steepled his fingers over my file. “You’ve gotten yourself in quite a lot of trouble, and now you’ve just admitted
to willingly breaking the law.”
“I was given a tracker system made by the FBI that—turns out—was a pretty little IUD, made by an agent of yours who was likely a mole for Gordon Saxon. Not to mention, my antics have exposed not one, but at least two weaknesses in the FBI pointing to leaks and more than likely the reason why Gordon has been able to stay out of your radar and continue his illegal activities without you guys able to do shit about it. And if that isn’t enough.” I steepled my own fingers as much as I could, considering my barriers, “I’ve asked for a lawyer and you’ve continued to question me, meaning anything I say after that request is inadmissible.”
One of Sawyer’s cheeks ticked like he was grinding his molars together.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m teen angsty and smart.”
The metal door, painted a dull green, behind Sawyer opened with the bang, and a large figure overtook the doorway, his belt jangling when he moved into the light of the room.
Shit.
I fell back in my chair, hoping to dislodge the chill along my spine, that incessant numbness of fear that constantly occurred when his name was mentioned, never mind his presence.
“I see you’re your usual pleasant self,” Chenko said to me as he approached. He meandered over to Sawyer’s chair and rested an arm on the back for balance. To his credit, Sawyer seemed displeased.
Staring Chenko down wasn’t the greatest weapon, but it was all I possessed. One was never supposed to show fear when confronted by something bigger, badder, no matter how overweight and bulbous. Chenko made his hunt clear two years ago, and had been circling me ever since. If this was the moment he bit into my throat, so be it, but it didn’t mean I’d go limp in his jaws.
“Being a gentleman to her doesn’t work,” Chenko said out the side of his lips. “She prefers the bad boys, don’t you honey? The ones who like it rough.”
I remained tight-lipped.
“Leave her to me,” Chenko continued. “I’ll get the information you need out of her.”
“I don’t believe that is wise,” Sawyer replied, and for the barest moment my eyes cut to him in surprise.
“Not all of us are unseemly,” Sawyer said to me. Chenko responded with a frown, but as he continued to stand and Sawyer remained seated, he seemed to take authority from physical position, because he said, “You wanted her here, I got her, boss. You wanted her arrested a week ago, and I convinced you to leave her long enough to lead us to our guys. And she did. I was right. I implore you not to forget that.”
My eyelids flickered, the only sign I was thinking. Chenko was aware of my location the entire time I was in London—of course he was. He was Gordon’s guy, meaning he was receiving information at the same time he funneled it. What game Gordon was playing remained unclear, but if Chenko knew my location, if he knew everything I was up to the minute I boarded a Saxon charter plane … oh, God.
Chenko knew about Bo.
The gleam when he regarded me told me he knew exactly what went on in that London apartment.
“I won’t forget your role in this,” Sawyer said to Chenko. My attention flicked over to him, but for once, could not read what was going on in his features. Sawyer was schooled, professional, not an ounce of anger or competition on his face. As if he dealt with Chenko on a daily basis and was used to his puffery.
Could Sawyer be one of Gordon’s men, too? No, he was much too professional, play-by-the-rules, kind of person. Unless this was duplicity at its finest. Be the person everyone expects you to be, and no one would suspect the devil’s playground underneath.
I could trust no one.
“Then allow me to leave you with a piece of advice,” Chenko said, bursting through my paranoia. “In order to get this girl to do anything, she requires incentive. Allow me to show you?”
Sawyer studied me, tapping his pen against my file. My stony silence must have given him the answer he needed, because he said, “By all means.”
Chenko leaned on the table, his hands as anchoring fists to his meaty, stumpy arms. His balding head reflected the bulb of light above us. He was small, paunchy, more red-faced than flawless, but he was not to be ignored.
“Guess who we have in the interrogation room next door?” Chenko said. His teeth, just as stubby as the rest of them, were a sickly yellow. I remembered studying this exact grin while prone on a hospital gurney.
“Theo,” I said, sounding throaty. “Theo Saxon. I know.”
The grin widened. “Try again, sweetheart.”
Concern peppered my brow, but I smoothed it immediately under Chenko’s joyous study. Could it be Kai? Was he in as deep trouble as I was? Did he get himself—
My gaze screwed into Chenko’s.
“That’s right, sweetheart, think it through.”
Remember the hospital room, he was saying, and his threat then. What it caused me to do. How it forced me to act in the interim. How it brought me to this very interrogation room, Theo cuffed and behind bars in another.
“Verily,” I choked out. “You have Verily.”
Chenko pumped the air with over-enthusiasm. “Brilliant deduction!”
“She has nothing to do with this. Any of this,” I said, but pebbles clogged my voice. “Just as she didn’t back then.”
“Back then?” Sawyer asked but was ignored by Chenko.
“I beg to differ, Miss Rhodes. Verily was seen at Kai’s apartment a mere hour before the whole hoopla that was this afternoon.”
“To convince me to stay safe!” I cried. “Not to help with the Saxons. She has no idea—she’s an innocent victim in all of this!”
“Not since she met you,” Chenko purred. “Seems you have a knack for getting innocent people in trouble.”
“Leave her out of this.” I turned to Sawyer. “We’re not even friends anymore. She heard I was back in town and was worried about me, wanted to try one more time to get me out of this … what did you call it? Situation? I was in. Please, let her go. Please.”
Sawyer remained unexpressive. Instead, he reopened my file, reading through with his pen running down the page. “I believe there’s enough probable cause to keep her.”
I tried standing but was hampered by the cuffs. In doing so, I appeared weaker than I was, wanted to be, and plopped down hard, staring at nothing but this man in front of me, Sawyer, who followed the law more than his gut.
“Look at the facts,” I said. “Verily hasn’t been involved in years. I’ve made no contact with her, not for months. Not since I started working for the FBI. You don’t have probable cause, you barely have reasonable doubt”—I was throwing out all the law terms I could think of—“you can’t keep using her against me like this.”
Sawyer raised eyes his from the paper. “We’ve used her against you before?”
“No matter what you think,” Chenko cut in. “We are following the law here, and that is leading us to what Verily knows. Like I said, if I have to arrest her, I will.”
…If I have to plant evidence against her, I will. You understand, Scarlet? If you don’t do what I want, what I ask of you, I won’t make your life hell, I’ll make everyone you love’s lives an utter fire pit. I’ll start with Verily and end with your dad. I’ll make them all complicit with the Saxon crime family. I’ll fill their bank accounts with extorted funds, I’ll leave a drug trail a mile long. Get it? I. Will. Win.
Chenko learned from Gordon Saxon, and the same way the patriarch exacted his demands, Chenko outsourced his. I’d been his pawn these years, giving him cuts of the money I won, providing information I knew wasn’t going to the FBI in order to reign in Trace, undercutting police work and making Chenko richer. Kai didn’t know, Theo had no idea, and nor, it would seem, did Chenko’s superiors have any clue just how dirty their agent was.
But two years was exhausting. Living two lives was soul-depleting. I studied the table underneath my hands, scratches and scrapes in the metal from all the suspects, the innocents, the arrested before me, and I couldn’t handle it anymo
re.
I looked first to Sawyer, silently begging him to see Chenko for what he was, then held Chenko’s stare when I said, “I want my lawyer. Now.”
30 A Good Ol’ Switcharoo
The FBI didn’t press charges.
I employed the services of Louise Cognomi, a shark bite of an attorney that demanded I call her “Lou” whom I retained about a year ago, when my poker rooms were getting sketchy and Chenko was demanding more and more money.
She was half the height of Sawyer and argued on my behalf, stating in detail the amount of assistance I’d given the FBI (ever since signing her retainer, she’d kept thorough logs of my activities I provided her), and given the amount of danger I’d put myself in to get to the FBI’s main goal—capturing the Saxons—which was completed, therefore there was no point to charging me as a fugitive, considering I’d done their bidding, kept none of the cash I won in boatloads for them (that they knew of), and wasn’t paid anything for my services. Besides that, there were bigger fish to focus on, primarily, Gordon Saxon, and what charges could stick.
When it was clear he was going to get no further information out of me, Sawyer cut me loose, a steaming Chenko beside him.
I’d pay for this, I knew, as my cuffs were unlocked and I stepped out of the Federal Plaza building and into a small, stone courtyard until I reached Broadway to hail a cab. Worse, Verily might. Theo would.
Lou used her services and also argued Verily out of the interrogation room, who wasn’t a suspect, wasn’t under arrest, and was free to leave despite the cops’ intimation otherwise. Verily was home safe, protected from the reach of the law, but not from the arms of Chenko.
I had to figure out some sort of protection for her. Needed to find out what was happening with Theo. I’d asked Lou to represent Theo, since she had famously represented Charlotte Miller a few years ago, and many others since. Surely, she could do something for Theo who was in just as dire straits.
But he had his own representation, she said with a cool, classic, eyes-to-the-ceiling approach. “These mafia types, they have honchos on retainers. This isn’t Sax’s first rodeo and it won’t be his last. Better to leave it to the stiffs who know him best.”
WIN THE GAME Page 24
