by Brenda Novak
“You can’t get what you want by informing on The Crew?”
“No. I won’t give up any member of The Crew.”
“You still feel certain…loyalties?”
“I honor my word. It’s that simple.”
“How do you know you won’t find friends—people you won’t want to rat out—in the Hells Fury?”
“Because I don’t need a friend. What I need is a fresh start.”
“So you’re working against the Hells Fury instead as…some kind of compromise?”
“Exactly. From the way they’re growing, and the control they’re exerting, they’re just as big a threat as The Crew. And I haven’t given them my word—on anything. They’re fair game.”
So…he’d be a fraudulent gang member—a “buster”—when it came to the Hells Fury. But that was just as dangerous as snitching on his own gang. Maybe more dangerous because he’d be locked up with the men on whom he was informing and they’d feel very little loyalty to one so new.
Peyton cringed at the memory of what the Hells Fury had done to Edward Garraza, the last brother they’d suspected of turning “traitor.” A corrections officer had found him in the laundry with his toes and fingers cut off and his eyes plucked out.
“That can be hazardous to your health,” she said.
His eyebrows slid up. “Since when did anybody care about that?”
He knew the score. That was partly what bothered her about Virgil Skinner. Keen intelligence showed in his eyes, in his bearing. At a minimum, he was smarter than the average gang member, many of whom had little or no education. He’d likely been swept up by events he couldn’t control, and they’d carried him fourteen years down a path he never would’ve chosen. Which hardly seemed fair. No more so than being forced to make the sacrifice he was now making as a result.
Peyton climbed carefully to her feet. Her ankle hurt, but she hadn’t twisted it so badly that she couldn’t stand. It would be fine in a few days. “Why were you incarcerated in a federal institution?”
“Because I was prosecuted federally.” He grimaced. “Tougher sentencing laws. Otherwise, maybe I would’ve met you sooner, since I’m from L.A.”
The return address on the letter from his sister had indicated Colorado Springs. “But your sister’s in Colorado?”
“That’s right. She left L.A. to be able to visit me on a regular basis.”
“She sounds nice. I hope the government’s putting her in the Witness Protection Program immediately.” Because he was right. If he left The Crew, they’d put out a hit and “torpedo”—send someone to shoot—his loved ones. The fact that they were watching Laurel so overtly meant they were trying to scare her—and keep Virgil mindful of his allegiances and his duty to support them in their criminal activities. Those could include murdering someone, charging taxes for drug deals going down on what they considered their turf or robbing a bank.
“They’re going to move her soon. Now I just need to do my part.”
Which wouldn’t be easy and it might even be impossible. “Blood in, blood out,” she murmured. No wonder he’d reacted the way he had when she’d said that before. He knew the meaning of those words far better than she could’ve imagined.
A bitter smile curved his lips. “Blood in, blood out.”
Peyton felt such sadness for the dreams his sister had expressed in her letter. We’re going to live the most boring, safest lives in the whole world, she’d written, and just the opposite was true.
“Do you think your mother had anything to do with the murder of her husband?”
“I’d bet my life on it.”
That explained why he hadn’t opened her letters. “A pretty unequivocal response. What makes you think—”
“And that’s all I’ll say on the subject,” he interrupted.
Peyton could see why he might not be eager to discuss it. She didn’t need to know any more, anyway. She’d already figured out what she deemed important.
After their little tussle, her hair was too messy to walk outside and risk running into Michelle. Pulling out the elastic, she shook it loose so she could redo it. “You’re not the luckiest man in the world, are you?”
He leaned against the wall and watched her from beneath half-lowered eyelids. “No. But I haven’t done myself any favors, either.”
At least he accepted responsibility for his actions.
“So where do we go from here?” he asked. “Are you planning to march over to Wallace’s room and try to blow up this deal? Because you won’t succeed. The department isn’t going to back off. They have me right where they want me, and they’re going to take full advantage of it.”
The more she complained and raised hell, the less chance Skinner would have of keeping a lid on what he was doing. She felt it was safer to say nothing. For now, anyway.
“No. I’m not even going to tell him I know.” She limped into the bathroom, tossed the bloody cloth in the sink and examined the cut on her neck in the mirror. “Whether or not you tell him is up to you, since you’re the one putting your life on the line. But I want you to understand one thing.”
When he came to the doorway, he blocked it and she instantly felt trapped. “What’s that?”
Her injury was just a nick, nothing serious. “Fischer has put me in charge of this operation, so…you’d better play nice.”
“Which means…?”
“No games. You trust me, tell me everything as soon as you possibly can, and I’ll work to protect you.”
“Why’d Fischer put you in charge?”
Using her fingers to groom her long hair into some semblance of order, she created another knot at her nape. “It’s what he does when he encounters anything too…volatile.”
“You got stuck with the assignment no one else wanted.”
“Basically.”
“I feel sorry for you.”
Sarcasm. “I won’t apologize for caring about my job.” Taking another look at the cut on her neck, she dabbed at the fresh blood. “Just know that, for the time being, I’m the only friend you’ve got.”
His gaze slid down her body. Either he’d noticed she was favoring her ankle and wondering if she was seriously hurt, or he was trying to intimidate her by reminding her that she was, after all, no match for his strength. “How friendly do we want to be?”
She rolled her eyes at the suggestiveness in his voice. Then she turned on the faucet and dampened a clean washcloth so she could remove the blood from her suit before it stained. “You nearly slit my throat. That’s hardly an aphrodisiac.”
“You broke into my motel room. There are people who might see that as…somewhat Freudian.”
“Which gives you an excuse to come on to me?”
He lifted his large hands. “Hey, I’m just playing my part, right? Isn’t that what you’d expect from a guy who’s been without a woman for fourteen years?”
She studied him in the mirror. “‘Without a woman’ doesn’t necessarily mean you haven’t been sexually active.”
“I’ve never had sex with a man, if that’s what you’re implying. But you’re not going to bed with me, so what does it matter?”
After hanging the cloth on the towel bar, she turned to face him. “If you knew that already, why’d you ask?” she said, but she could guess easily enough. He wasn’t used to being around a woman, let alone working with one, not since he’d been incarcerated, and this was his way of establishing some boundaries between them. After more than a decade of being forced to adhere to strict rules governing every interaction, he was probably uncomfortable with so much freedom. She understood the psychology, but still found the behavior fascinating.
“I asked so you could quit pretending,” he replied.
“Excuse me? Pretending what?”
“To look at me like a human being. I’m garbage, right? A beautiful woman like you, someone with a normal life and so much…promise, has no interest in gutter trash like me. I’m nothing to you.”
“Fo
rtunately, I don’t know exactly what you’ve done. And I don’t want to know. Since we’ll be working together, I’d rather not let that form the basis of my opinion.”
“Hiding from my history won’t change who and what I am.”
He was the one pointing that out? That said a lot about him, evoked a certain amount of respect, however grudging. “What’s the problem, Simeon? Afraid I’ll expect you to act like an honorable man?”
“Honorable?” He chuckled under his breath. “I’m not worried about that. Just making a few things clear.”
“Well, there’s no need to draw such a solid line between us.”
“Because you’re not likely to forget who and what I am?”
“Because you’re not interested in me in the first place.”
He leaned his shoulder against the door frame. “Why do you say that?”
“You don’t like authority figures.”
Reaching around her, he grabbed the cloth. Then his chest came within an inch of her breasts as he wiped the cut on her neck. She could tell he expected her to flinch. He was trying to prove she wasn’t really willing to treat him like any other man, despite her words.
But she didn’t jerk away, and that seemed to surprise him. Judging by the expression on his face, it also piqued his interest.
“Tell me how I’m not interested in you again?” he murmured.
“Stop testing me. I work with convicts every day. I won’t spook just because you stand close.”
Strong emotion flashed in his eyes as he took hold of her arm. “Maybe you should be more frightened than you are,” he said from between gritted teeth. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
If he wanted to hurt her, he would’ve done it when he held the knife. So why was he dead set on displaying himself in the worst possible light? To make sure she wouldn’t give him a chance to prove he could be so much better?
She wanted to ask, but didn’t. She knew she’d be stupid to tempt him into revealing how terrible he could be. Besides, she preferred to keep her distance. He made her uneasy. But not because she feared him. Just the opposite, in fact. She saw something decent and worthy in him regardless of all he’d been through, all he’d said and done—which was dangerous in its own right. Feeling empathy or anything else for a man caught in this type of no-win situation could only lead to heartbreak.
“Next time you proposition someone, you might show some tenderness,” she said, and stared at his fingers, which were still wrapped tightly around her arm.
“Some women like it rough,” he said, but he let go simply because she’d indicated she wanted him to, and that made her smile. He was what she thought he was—essentially a good man.
“You can’t always play it safe,” she responded.
“Play it safe?” he echoed.
She removed her high heels so she could walk without stressing her ankle and squeezed past him. “Someday you might actually want to feel something that goes beyond the physical.”
He didn’t follow her. “That won’t be any day soon.”
Considering what he had to face in the coming weeks, that day might never come. But she didn’t see any reason to state the obvious. “Get some sleep,” she said, but then she spotted the groceries and remembered that he’d used them to prop open the door.
Hesitating, she turned back. “How’d you figure out I was here before you even entered the room?”
“I pay attention to detail,” he said, and this time when his gaze dropped to her legs, she got the impression he wanted her to know he was enjoying the view.
4
Peyton Adams had done much more than break into his motel room; she’d blindsided him. The raw, jagged emotions she inspired—desire, regret, frustration, sadness and hope—slammed into one another as if there wasn’t room inside Virgil to hold them all. There probably wasn’t, not with the hate, anger and resentment already simmering in his heart.
You can’t always play it safe…. Someday you might actually want to feel something that goes beyond the physical, she’d said. But she didn’t understand. After what he’d been through, it would be a relief to limit his experiences to tangible, concrete exchanges.
Anything more than that fed the yearning he felt for all the comforts and experiences a normal man would crave, and that was his greatest enemy. Anything more brought up the “what could have beens” and the “if onlys” and the “whys” that burned in his gut. Anything more made his existence unbearable.
The only way to survive in his world, at least without going mad, was to stop wanting. Wanting made him weak.
Dropping onto the bed, he covered his eyes with one arm while trying to regain the calm, cool, decisive control that had taken him this far. Getting out of prison after so long and facing all the changes that required had been a lot harder than he’d anticipated. The opportunity to finally touch, taste, feel, smell and see the outside world had made him greedy. He wanted to grab what he could, experience as much real living as possible before it was too late. And finding a beautiful woman in his room, especially one who knew what he was and didn’t seem to be afraid, only heightened that desperate urge.
But he wouldn’t think about Peyton anymore. It didn’t matter how pretty she was. Who was she to him? No one. Just a woman—a woman he’d be a fool to even like. He couldn’t afford distractions, hopes or disappointments. Only if he managed to do the impossible would his sister and her children have a chance at the life they deserved, and he wanted that for Laurel, Mia and Jake more than all the things he wanted for himself.
Lifting his arm, he eyed the phone, wishing he could call Laurel. He knew she had to be upset, even frantic with worry, and that made him agitated, too. But Wallace was right. He couldn’t put her mind at ease. Not yet. When she’d arrived at the prison to get him, she would’ve been told that someone else had picked him up and that was all she could know until Wallace had her safely tucked away, with a new identity, somewhere else in the country.
Just a few more days, he told himself. As soon as Wallace called to say she was in protective custody, he’d explain.
The relief he felt then would have to carry him through the months ahead….
The Ford Fusion was back. Laurel spotted it in the pale yellow light of the streetlamp near her neighbor’s house, and the nagging anxiety she’d experienced so often of late began to churn in her stomach. The acidic burn suggested her ulcer was coming back. The doctor had warned her that could happen. He’d insisted she relax, calm down. But how could she calm down when her brother was missing? When she was being watched, even followed, by two men she’d never seen before? She had children to protect.
Were these strangers somehow involved in Virgil’s disappearance? She’d thought that collecting her brother from prison would be the easiest part of the past fourteen years. But it hadn’t gone as planned. When she’d arrived, he’d already left, and no one seemed to know where he was.
Had he slipped away because he knew these men would be waiting for him? Were they waiting for him? What else could they want? They’d started coming by around the time she’d first learned he’d be exonerated.
If only she’d hear from him.
Fearing he might be dead, she struggled to hold back the tears that seemed to burn behind her eyes all the time now. She and Virgil had been through too much for his life to end so soon. They deserved the chance to recover what they could of the years they’d lost.
Forever conscious of the car across the street, she returned her attention to the window. She needed to call the police again. Yesterday they’d sent out a patrol unit. The officer had run the men off and warned them not to return, yet here they were. They didn’t frighten easily.
Maybe they’d be arrested this time.
She’d just pulled her cell phone out of her pocket when a noise from behind caused her to whirl around. A man of about twenty-seven stood in her living room. He’d shaved his head, although a small patch of hair grew from his chin. He wore
baggy jeans and an overlarge T-shirt that hung on his muscular body and even his face was tattooed. His physical appearance was frightening enough; the gun he held in his right hand made him downright terrifying.
“Throw your phone over here.” He motioned with the muzzle.
If she did as he asked, she wouldn’t be able to summon help. But if she didn’t, he’d kill her and the noise would wake Mia and Jake.
She imagined them stumbling from their beds to find her dead on the floor, and tossed it away, hoping she’d be able to placate him. “Who are you?” she whispered.
Only five foot nine or so, the intruder seemed almost as wide as he did tall. A gold tooth flashed when he talked, but his eyes had no sparkle. They reminded her of shark eyes—dark, flat and dull. “I’ll ask the questions. Where is he?”
Her heart pushed the blood through her body at a dizzying pace. “Who?”
“Skin.”
She prayed he’d keep his voice down. “Who’s Skin? I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“Virgil Skinner. You know that name, don’t you?”
That he believed Virgil to be alive gave her a glimmer of hope. It meant this man, whoever he was, hadn’t killed him, and neither had those people outside on the street—whoever they were.
“Where is he?” he demanded again.
“I have no clue.”
“He better not be dropping the flag.”
She didn’t know how to respond to that, wasn’t even sure what it meant. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t want to jack you up. I’ll blow you away if I have to, though, so you might want to work with me.”
He was high or drunk or both. She could tell by the way he kept twitching. His eyes darted between her and the door as if he expected the cops to come charging through at any moment.
Assuming he’d fire before he left, she covered her mouth to stifle the sound of her fear. “I’m trying,” she whispered through her fingers. “I just…don’t understand.”
“That’s why, if I have to kill you, I’m going to carve Skin’s eyes out and serve them to him on a platter. Tell him that.”
