He washed up, making a bloody mess in the mud room just off the kitchen that Ninette would no doubt raise hell about, then pacified Zeke who showed up halfway through the process—no doubt thanks to Trevor ratting him out—while his brother bandaged up the worst of the damage. Fifteen minutes later, he prowled into the kitchen behind Zeke.
And there she was.
Quiet just like Trevor had said and still sporting pajamas and no makeup, but watchful. Both of her elbows were braced on the kitchen table while she nursed the cup of coffee between her hands and took in the chaos around her.
All of two heartbeats was all he got to soak it in. To see for himself the alertness behind her beautiful brown eyes. Then the whole damned room registered his arrival and the chatter stopped.
Gia’s gaze shifted to him then down to his bandaged hands. She was on her feet a second later, the coffee abandoned in favor of seeing up close what he’d done and a whole lot of pissed-off in her tone. “What the hell did you do?” She gripped the wrist with the most bandages, lifted his hand up for a better look, then scowled back at Jace. “I thought you said he was working out. Not maiming a razor-lined fence.”
Oh, yeah. His woman was back. Maybe not at full strength yet, but over the hump and at least ready to kick his ass. “I’m fine.” He twisted his wrist out of her hold, cupped the side of her neck and pulled her in close, hugging her tight with his other arm low on her waist.
Finally.
He kissed the top of her head and filled his lungs with her scent. Let the press of her lush body flush against his wipe away the last of his tension.
“He might be fine,” Trevor said, pulling the majority of the attention away from him and Gia, “but the heavy bag looks like Freddy Krueger started a workout routine.”
Just like that, the chaos was back in motion. Ninette, Sylvie and Viv vying with all of his brothers for space at the island where an insane amount of sandwich meats and toppings were splayed out, or for a seat at the table.
Taking advantage of everyone minding their own business for the moment, he dipped his head to murmur in her ear. “You hungry?”
She glanced back at the island and wrinkled her nose, then seemed to reconsider. “Not really, but I should probably eat.”
“Skip the sandwich then and go right to dessert,” Sylvie said without turning around. She layered a slice of roast beef on the bottom half of a hoagie roll then waggled her finger toward one side of the sink. “Pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting are in the white plastic tub.”
Gia perked up and eyed the container over one shoulder.
“So much for thinking we had a private moment.” Beckett kissed Gia’s temple, turned her in the direction Sylvie had pointed and smacked her butt. “If you’re gonna get one, get me one, too.”
In the end, she only ate half of the seriously sweet treat, but she took a few bites of Beckett’s second sandwich and snacked on a handful of chips, too, so he called it a win. Everyone was mostly done and shuttling back and forth to the dishwasher with empty plates and glasses when Jace reclined against his seat next to Viv, wrapped one arm around the back of her chair and proceeded to shock the shit out of Beckett.
“You know the eight of us meet pretty often,” he said to Gia. “Brainstorm business deals, go over P&Ls and investments, see what shaky areas need bolstered.”
Beckett shoved his plate a few inches back and shifted in his chair, braced to either intervene or haul Gia out of the kitchen. Wherever his brother was headed was anyone’s guess, but he wasn’t about to let anyone shove her back into the mental cave she’d lingered in since Georgia.
Gia’s mouth quirked in a softer version of her usual sassy smile. “I have a feeling shaky areas doesn’t always mean shoring up financial weak spots.”
At the sink, Sylvie shook her head and Ninette outright snickered. The rest of the guys got a chuckle out of it, too, but Jace just aimed that evil shit-eating grin at her, his after-lunch toothpick anchored at the corner. “There might have been an occasion or two where we’ve talked about things we wouldn’t want repeated outside of family, yeah.”
Whether Gia consciously homed in on his mounting tension, or it was just a byproduct of their deepening relationship he couldn’t say, but she leaned into his torso a little and smoothed her hand over his thigh. “I take it that’s why you’re all here on a Tuesday when normal people are at work?”
Axel kicked back in his chair and braced one booted foot on the rung of Danny’s empty chair next to him. “No fun in being normal, lass. Thought we’d got that through your beautiful stubborn head.” He lifted his Dark Island Reserve—a Scottish ale he’d had a hell of a time getting his hands on in Texas but had finally talked Trevor into hauling back on one of his overseas gigs—and met Jace’s stare across the table. “Get on with it, already. You know our stance. It’s her ass on the line and she’s one of us.”
Son of a bitch.
No way was Jace about to do what Beckett’s gut insisted was about to happen, but the calm steady stares of his brothers around the table said otherwise. Said they’d not only had their own rally without him and had stacked hands in advance, but were ready to get down to business. Serious business given the hard edge in their eyes.
Jace studied Gia for another beat, nodded as though some internal thought had echoed Axel’s admonishment to get on with things, then leaned into Viv and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Gotta get to work.”
Viv rolled her eyes and playfully shoved him away with a hand at his chest. “Yeah, yeah. Innocent spouse and plausible deniability. Blah, blah, blah.” She stood and shared one of those beleaguered spousal looks with Gia. “You know, for all his rebellious exterior, his hidden legal persona can sure ruin my fun sometimes.”
“How do you think I feel?” Ninette draped her kitchen towel on the dishwasher handle and scowled at Jace as she headed toward the arched kitchen exit. “Killjoy.”
Sylvie was right behind her, but had her focus on Gia. “We’ll keep the telly down low. See if ye can’t get ’em riled up enough to talk loud enough we can hear.”
Vivienne scoffed and trailed them out the door. “Screw that. Darya and I are tag-teaming her afterward for the full scoop.” She smiled huge over her shoulder and wiggled her fingers at the lot of them. “You’ve got your ways, we’ve got ours. Have fun, boys!”
With the women gone and the men all watching Gia, a weird silence settled on the kitchen.
One by one, she scrutinized them, her mouth slightly parted. “You want to talk about what happened.”
Knox huffed out a chuckle, but there was steel behind it. Sharp, deadly steel. “Someone fucked with one of our own. If you think for a second we’ve waited until now to start talking, you haven’t learned how deep this family runs.”
Gia glanced at Beckett, then back at the opening where the women had disappeared through. “And you’re trusting me, but not them?”
Surprisingly it was Ivan who answered, his long dreds falling over his big shoulders as he leaned into the table and covered one fisted hand with the other. “Jace is your attorney. You don’t have to say shit about what you say or hear from him and neither does he.”
She scanned the table. “What about the rest of you?”
Danny chuckled. “We’ll lie through our teeth and swear you don’t know a thing.”
“For God’s sake, you guys.” Zeke jerked his chin toward Gia and pushed back on the hind legs of his chair. “Stop draggin’ it out and yank the Band-Aid off.”
Axel’s low laugh was a mix of genuine mirth and pure danger. The kind of sound that left you wondering if you were about to get a hug or a knife in the gut. “What we’re sayin’ is, we’re gonna take care of things whether you want it or not.”
Gia’s back got ruler-straight. “You don’t—”
Axel raised his hand and cut her off. “Yes, we fucking do get t
o.” He paused and lowered his voice. “But we also know who you are and get it’s your career we’re messing with. So, we’re breakin’ our rules and givin’ you the choice. Are you plannin’ things with us, or bein’ that stubborn lass we first met and tryin’ to do things on your own while we do ours?”
In that second, Beckett wasn’t sure what he loved seeing more—his brothers circled up and showing their consolidated support, or the dawning comprehension in Gia’s face. He squeezed her shoulder and fought the need to pick her up and settle her in his lap where he could hold her while the truth took up roots.
She glanced at him, let her gaze linger on each man, then cleared her throat. It took a few times of her opening and closing her mouth before she finally opted for a quip in lieu of what was probably a whole lot of sappy she couldn’t find the right words for. “I’m stubborn, not stupid. Nine minds are better than one.”
Trevor beamed one of those smiles generally reserved for when Levi did something that made his chest puff out and his stride lengthen. “Atta girl.”
Jace’s expression wasn’t too far off from Trevor’s, but his gaze sobered a little as it slid to Beckett. “I’m assuming you’re good with this?”
Good with it? Hell, he couldn’t have orchestrated a better approach. In one action, they’d not only taken him out of what could’ve been a serious tight spot in his relationship, but shown Gia how much she mattered to all of them. “Golden.”
Axel nodded and zeroed in on Knox. “Alright then. Tell us what you’ve got.”
Knox locked eyes with Beckett for all of a second as if verifying for himself he was good with moving forward, then dove in. “I spent the last few days combing router logs from the time we hit the hotel to the time we left. I’ve narrowed down the device ID that sent the email. It’s a smartphone. A knockoff brand and probably a burner, sold in Dallas about a month ago.”
“Any chance you tracked the purchase back to Brantley Davis?” The confidence in Gia’s voice was more choked back than normal. Hesitant in a way that spoke volumes about what she was really asking.
Knox knew what she was hoping, too, cushioned the blow the best he could. “No.”
“I was on Brantley the whole time your event was going down,” Ivan added, though he was far more matter-of-fact with the info. “From the time the wheels went up on Trevor’s G6, to the time you landed, he was either working, passed out cold, or gaming his brains out.”
“When Danny and Beckett swept his place, we set up a direct line to his network and loaded a remote access Trojan that let us infiltrate his mobile devices,” Knox said. “Outside of cash transactions, there’s not a single thing Brantley’s done in the last month we didn’t have an electronic eye on.”
“And the cash transactions, we covered with manpower,” Beckett added.
Knox leaned into the table and crossed his forearms in front of him, his gaze rooted solidly on Gia. “Whoever sent the email had to have close proximity to the hotel and access to the private IP I set up for our team. Brantley had none of those things.”
Everyone waited, patiently letting her work her way to the real question. She splayed her hand on Beckett’s thigh, the unsteady contact slicking against the loose track pants he’d worked out in. “Could you trace the device ID to Judd?”
“Via the purchase, no. Whoever bought it paid cash.”
“But you think it was him?” A little bit of a question from Gia, but a whole lot more of a demand to hurry up and get to the point.
Knox straightened and cleared his throat. If the discomfort in his posture didn’t warn Beckett he was about to hear something that would piss him off, the way his brother suspiciously avoided eye contact would have cinched it. “Beckett told me he was worried Judd might be up to something, so when we got home, I hacked back into the shooting range’s networks and ran their access logs. I crossed member entries to the days when the camera footage blanked out to see if Judd happened to have been there.”
Beckett’s gut got tight and that creepy crawling sensation that promised a shitload of trouble was right around the corner scampered across his shoulders.
“Both days tie out,” Knox said. “He had access.”
“How long have you known?” Beckett asked before Gia could get a word in edgewise.
Regret was stamped all over Knox’s face when he slid his attention to Beckett. “You gotta know I wanted to make sure of things before I told you.”
“When?”
“Yesterday morning.”
Dead silence.
Over a full day his brother had known and hadn’t ponied up the intel. And while he understood the action on a logical level, the side of him that could have been plotting Judd’s murder for the last twenty-four hours was pissed as hell.
Gia sat motionless beside him, a little of the numbness she’d kept wrapped around her like a shield since climbing on board the plane to fly home circling all over again.
“What else?” Beckett demanded. If Knox wanted to be sure of something that meant there had been a whole lot of digging in places other people wouldn’t dare to go, and he didn’t quit until he dredged up the good stuff.
Per usual, he didn’t disappoint. “I started tracing the money trail on the wire transaction Homeland Security found and the creation of the overseas account before we left Georgia. The guy I traced it to is a hacker for hire. Works out of Baton Rouge. Interestingly enough, your dad defended him on a charge based out of Atlanta about three years ago. If your dad had him as a past client and Judd’s as tight with Reggie as he lets on, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to assume that’s where Judd made the contact. There were also two fifty-thousand-dollar withdrawals from Judd’s trust account—one about three days after you got the gig in Atlanta and another last Monday.”
Axel hooked an elbow around one corner of his chair back, lifted his ale and muttered, “Bloody well got an idea where this is headed.”
“I didn’t want anything getting back to us,” Knox said, “and Sergei’s been yankin’ my chain for a chance to repay Gia for helping Darya with her thing with Ruslan, so I called the favor in and had his boys pay the guy a visit.”
“Is that guy still breathin’?” Jace asked.
Knox chuckled. “Sergei only gets bloodthirsty when people don’t see things his way.” He refocused on Gia and gave it to her straight. “The hacker couldn’t give a name because he never had one to work with, but the number he used to communicate from ties to the burner phone’s device ID.”
“So, all we’ve got to do is get in Judd’s place and see if we can find the phone,” Zeke said.
“We don’t even have to get inside,” Knox said. “We can use a pineapple to search for the device ID. If he uses it within range of our device, we’ll confirm it’s him without him even knowing.”
“A pineapple?” Trevor said.
“A wireless portable router,” Beckett said. “Knox can narrow it to look for specific IDs and use it like a homing device.”
“But we’re talking about a burner phone,” Gia said. “The whole damned point behind them is that they’re disposable. If he’s smart he ditched it before he left Atlanta.”
“I’ve seen the wanker and I’m not convinced he’s all that smart.” Axel narrowed his gaze on Gia. “You’re giving up the ghost before it’s time to say grace, lass. If it’s a stone left unturned, then we’ll by God give it a kick.”
“How the hell are you going to do that?” she said with a little of her usual kick. “Even if he’s still got it, he’d be an idiot to leave it on.”
“Easy. We just give him an incentive to turn it on,” Knox said with far too much excitement lighting his face. “And I’ve got some bait I don’t think Judd will be able to pass up.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“This is a shit plan,” Beckett grumbled to the windshield. Cramped spaces made hi
m itchy on a good day, but with Gia gearing up to put Knox’s fucked-up idea in motion and no space in the service van to do more than fidget in the driver’s seat, he was ready to claw off his own skin. “We’ve got no guarantee Judd’s gonna keep his head when she shows and his condo’s only got one access point. I’m not liking that setup.”
“Relax, Beckett.” Stationed at the back of the van, Gia handed her purse over to Knox so he could attach the audio device that would allow them to listen to her conversation with Judd. In the parking garage’s shadows, it was harder to see the strain the last five days had left on her face, but there was worry in her eyes nonetheless. Or maybe it was fear. She’d already been tried and convicted by her father without so much as a chance to tell her side of the story. Processing the highly probable fact that a man she’d considered a close friend her whole life had set her up and nearly committed murder to do it couldn’t be comfortable.
“Your guys have been tracking Judd for two days and he’s been as steady as a rock,” she said. “Even if Judd’s behind all this, what’s his incentive to bite? He’s already accomplished what he set out to do. My license is suspended until the trial is over and my career is screwed no matter what happens.”
True, but he still doesn’t have you.
He could try and point it out again, but she wouldn’t buy it. No matter how many times he’d tried to explain that Judd’s actions were likely grounded more in his inability to land an intimate relationship with her than bruises to his career-based ego, Gia wouldn’t listen. Couldn’t fathom how much deeper a blow it would be to a man—especially one like Judd—with repeated failed overtures the likes of which he’d made. Even with their parents’ blessings and an inordinate amount of matchmaking he couldn’t get a first date on the board.
So, yeah. She didn’t get it at all.
“I’m not gonna argue about it being a shit plan, though,” Gia said. “It’s bad enough we’re counting on Judd keeping the burner, but this ploy to bring Haven into the mix rubs me wrong.”
Knox pulled up a screen on one of the two monitors affixed to the van’s side wall and checked the audio readings. As mobile command stations went, the van wasn’t glamorous, but was loaded for bear with every possible gadget needed, including the portable router to lock in on the device ID they were after. “It’s just a story, Gia. He’s not gonna have time to act on anything you say anyway.” He glanced at his buddy from the Department of Justice next to him. “Ain’t that right, Ted?”
Stand & Deliver Page 27
