Nautier and Wilder

by Lora Leigh

  It was a good life.

  Unless those gems weren’t in his possession when the owners came looking for them.

  Resignation burned a hole in his gut.

  Fuck. He was going to have to go after a Mackay.

  He wasn’t frightened of the Mackays, but he was definitely on guard against them.

  So much so that he would have gladly let the disappearance of those stones go, unless the Mackay girl tried to sell them. He would have washed his hands of them if the men arriving soon to collect them would have been willing to do the same. Or if perhaps they would have taken the task of collecting them from Kentucky.

  That wouldn’t happen, though. At least, not until they wiped every last trace of the Genoa family from existence.

  Yes, this definitely had the potential to be very, very dangerous. And that potential was growing by the minute.

  SIX

  Andre Genoa stared at the hotel from the driver’s seat of the dark gray van with a growing sense of fury as he disconnected the call he’d just taken.

  Son of a bitch. He didn’t need this, not right now. Not at this point in the game.

  “Marcel says she’s just called for a bellhop, Dennis,” he told the man he’d chosen to retrieve the jewels. “You’ll go up. When she answers the door, load her belongings. Maneuver her cart into the elevator first, where Marcel will be waiting for you. He’ll block her while the doors close. Take the cart to the room service elevator and out the back entrance. I’ll be waiting for you there. We’ll just take everything, then go through it later.”

  Dennis was the less violent of the two men, and the one known to be the most protective of his daughter and wife. He was Andre’s best bet in ensuring Piper Mackay wasn’t harmed.

  “Got it, boss.” Nodding his head, Dennis opened the door and slid from the front passenger seat.

  As the door closed behind Dennis’s bulky form, Nate Ryan, his best friend and partner, moved into the seat, his gray eyes narrowed against the lights of the vehicles moving along the busy street as Andre pulled out of the parking space and headed toward the hotel’s back entrance.

  “This doesn’t feel good, Andre,” Nate murmured as they turned down the small street used for deliveries. “It doesn’t feel good at all. Who chose Marcel to head to the hotel ahead of us?”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Andre murmured. “Rudy didn’t say anything about sending extra men in.”

  He hoped it was just indigestion, but something warned him this task was a hell of a lot more dangerous than the Mexican food they’d eaten earlier.

  Marcel tended to give him indigestion, though. The man was a self-important moron. His arrogance had only grown in the past year, after Rudy and Boris Cheslav had chosen him as an emissary between the two families. Marcel had saved Boris’s ass a few years back when he’d learned that a relative of the family working an important drug buy was actually a DEA plant. Boris had immediately moved the other man into the upper level of his organization.

  When Boris had approached Rudy with the request to handle the jewels coming into the city, he’d revealed the fact that Marcel, Rudy’s third cousin, was actually one of his men, and would be their contact during the transaction. Which meant Andre couldn’t get rid of him, as much as he would love to.

  Marcel was fucking untouchable until the agreement Rudy had made with the Russian family was completed. If the other man disappeared, then the suspicious, highly paranoid Russian might just slip the leash his own son had on him, and strike out at the Genoa family. They couldn’t risk that.

  Pulling the van into place, Andre glared at the back entrance of the hotel, willing Dennis to hurry, to complete the theft of the girl’s belongings quickly.

  “A fucking Mackay,” Nate sighed beside him then. “What are the chances?”

  What were the chances. For a man that didn’t believe in coincidence, he was suddenly being given supposed proof that they existed.

  “The chances are pretty much fucking nil,” he growled. “After we get back, find out why she’s here, and start tying up loose ends. I want to know every fucking move she’s made, everyone she’s talked to, and every breath she’s taken since she made the decision to come to the city alone. Dawg Mackay is too fucking paranoid to let one of his sister’s travel here without a baby-sitter. And Timothy Cranston would die and go to hell before he’d let one of them travel anywhere alone without a shadow.” He turned and glared at Nate. “I haven’t found her shadow yet. That means, she doesn’t have one.”

  Nate’s expression hardened. “Someone playing with us again?”

  “That’s what my gut’s telling me.” Andre made the realization in a flash. “Someone’s definitely playing with us, and I want to know why.”

  * * *

  The planner Jed had scrawled his number in lay on the table next to the door, where Piper had thrown it after having to force herself not to call him. Again.

  She wanted to call him.

  She wanted to rail about the decision to travel to New York alone, and she wanted to curse Eldon Vessante to the pits of hell, and she needed someone to listen to her. Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of anyone she could call whom she could trust to keep the details to themselves.

  Even Amy, the friend whose sister had given her a ride to the train station, couldn’t be totally trusted. If Amy even suspected Piper might be harmed, or had been, then she would call Dawg in a New York minute.

  Amy might not know Dawg. She may not have a very high opinion of him after some of the stories Piper had told her about his protectiveness, but Amy had become a good friend over the past few years. She returned to Somerset each summer just to see Piper’s new designs, and over the course of those visits, they had become close.

  Besides, Amy also trusted her sister, Gypsy, and Gypsy was a female version of the Mackay men. Pure military, tough, and suspicious. She would convince Amy to call the Mackays, if she didn’t just call Natches herself.

  The only bright spot in the night was that she had been able to get a ticket on a train departing in two hours. It would put her in Louisville five hours later, and from there the price for a rental car home wouldn’t give away the fact that she had been in New York City.

  Dawg would have pups if he ever found out she had traveled there alone. He was so damned protective and controlling of his sisters’ lives that he had even fully vetted their roommates at college. She and her sisters had become so disgusted over the choices he had given them that they had opted to just share an apartment together.

  Piper hated it.

  She hated having to look over her shoulder at every party she went to and every event she attended. Even worse was how often her dates and potential lovers looked over their shoulders.

  The few men Piper had actually considered sleeping with had run so damned fast once they’d realized who she was related to that there hadn’t been a chance of finding out whether they were as compatible as she had thought they might be.

  The men who hadn’t run had been far too much like the male Mackays for her to even consider, once she realized the traits they shared with her family members. She was terrified of ending up with a man just like Dawg, or worse yet, a man who reported to him.

  That would be so humiliating.

  She couldn’t imagine anything worse than being in a relationship where she couldn’t trust her lover to have more loyalty to her than he had fear of her brother.

  Would Jed really fear Dawg, though?

  She couldn’t imagine that happening, but she could imagine him reporting to Dawg simply because he believed her brother would have the right to know what she was doing, when, and where.

  She glanced to the planner again as she finished packing her duffel bag with the items she’d bought before leaving for the meeting wit
h the bastard who had tricked her into coming to New York. She’d literally upended her purse to get all the little packages of stones and colored glass into the duffel, and stuffed all the fabric and notions in after them.

  It would serve Eldon right if she did tell Dawg exactly what he had done. Dawg and her cousins would be in New York City so fast no one would dare realize they were gone. And they would beat the skinny, rat-faced little pervert to a pulp.

  The thought of it was immensely satisfying, but she knew she could never do it.

  Shaking her head at the pleasurable image and heading across the room to collect her planner, she was brought up short by a knock on the door.

  The bellhop was quick. She had called the front desk and asked them to give her an hour before sending him up, but she didn’t mind leaving a little earlier than she had planned. It would give her a few extra minutes to settle onto the train and feel a little sorrier for herself.

  Mockery curled her lips. If there was one thing she didn’t do well, it was feel sorry for herself.

  Dawg wasn’t really a prison warden, though in the past year, she admitted, there were often times she accused him of being one.

  Checking the peephole quickly, she saw a large form dressed in the familiar hotel jacket and quickly opened the door.

  For the second time that night, her world went to hell.

  She had seen Eldon’s attack coming; she wasn’t expecting this one.

  The second the door parted from the frame it slammed inward with such force Piper found herself thrown back into the room, where she crashed into the room service cart delivered earlier.

  Dishes and food were suddenly flung across the floor as the cart took her weight, and Piper let out a piercing scream.

  Don’t be quiet, Dawg had always advised her and her sisters. There was nothing an attacker hated worse than having attention called to his actions.

  And evidently it was the truth.

  “Shut up, bitch.” Enraged, the apelike figure dived for her as Piper fought to scramble away, using every breath she had to scream her lungs out.

  A heavy fist caught her shoulder, causing her face to slam into the side of the dresser.

  For a moment, her senses were rattled, light flashing before her eyes and exploding in vibrant color as she fought back the dizzying darkness gathering beyond the lights.

  A hand attached to her upper arm with bruising force, jerking her from the floor as a hoarse demand was growled in her ear.

  “Where is it?”

  Where was what?

  She screamed again, struggling against him as she tried with every blow to bury her fist or a foot into his balls.

  Her knee connected, drawing an agonized grunt a second before she was thrown into the wall hard enough to send her bouncing to the bed.

  Voices were raised, outraged, cursing.

  Piper was struggling to make sense of it as the sudden explosion of a weapon discharging shocked her senses into an abrupt return to reality.

  Every bone and muscle in her body hurt.

  Dizziness assailed her, washing through her and weakening her as she struggled to lift herself from the bed.

  Was she shot?

  Oh, God, Dawg would kill her if she managed to get shot while escaping to New York. She would hear all kinds of “I told you so”s. Her sisters would of course blame her for the additional security that would follow. . . . Who the hell were those men rushing into her room?

  Oh, God, they were big. . . .

  There were too many of them. . . .

  Too big, and too many.

  Darkness rushed over her, drawing her into a pit of icy nothingness. The complete lack of sensory information was like being buried alive.

  She was aware, yet she wasn’t.

  There, yet she wasn’t.

  And one question haunted her through it all: Exactly what was it her attacker had been demanding?

  Where are they, you little cunt?

  Where was what?

  Who?

  “Lady? Lady you okay? Someone call an ambulance; she’s hurt. She’s hurt—”

  She’s hurt.

  Who was hurt?

  Oh, yeah—it was her.

  She was hurt.

  Then the darkness deepened; that nowhere place grew, sucked her in, and enfolded her until nothing and no one else could penetrate.

  * * *

  Jed came awake instantly, before the first, faint vibrating tremor of the phone against the wood nightstand eased away. The second vibration didn’t have the chance to begin before he flipped the cell phone open and brought it to his ear.

  “Booker,” he answered.

  “Jed Booker?” the male voice asked, faintly quizzical, highly uncomfortable, and not yet fully mature.

  “It is.”

  “My name is Bret. Bret Jordan. You don’t know me, but I found your name in this lady’s journal—”

  “Piper.” He was out of the bed instantly and dressing. “What happened?”

  “Well, me and my friends were staying at this hotel in New York City when the lady in the room next to us started screaming. When we ran to her room this guy was beating the crap out of her. He got away with her purse, but her day planner was still lying on a table and it had your name in it. If you know her, the doctors really need some info.”

  “Where is she?” Jed growled the single word, having dressed as the kid made his explanation.

  He was given the name and address quickly as he jerked his boots on his feet, grabbed his weapon and keys, and headed for the door.

  “Look, are you family or something?” he was asked then. “They really need to treat her, but she’s unconscious—”

  “Comatose or unconscious?” Jed was in the pickup he kept parked at the inn for those times when he needed something besides the Harley.

  This was one of those times.

  There was a moment’s mumbled conversation. “Man, the nurse won’t tell me. She says family—”

  “I’m her brother,” he lied instantly. “Her only family. Now, is she comatose or unconscious?”

  “Here’s the nurse.”

  The nurse was, fortunately, more informative.

  Identifying himself as her brother to the nurse, he waited what seemed like an eternity as she found the doctor. Pulling from the inn’s parking lot, he drove at the legal speed limit until far enough from the inn to avoid drawing Timothy’s attention, then hit the gas and increased his speed.

  Until he hit the highway he wouldn’t be safe from detection, just from being stopped for speeding. Sheriff Mayes’s deputies would immediately report the truck speeding if they saw it, just as any Somerset cop would report directly to Chief of Police Alex Jansen.

  As he got to the city limits, the doctor finally, thankfully, took the phone.

  Piper was stable, thank God. He wouldn’t have to call Dawg after all. She was currently severely bruised, concussed, and unconscious, but in stable condition. The hospital needed permission to treat her, though, the doctor explained.

  Jed lied once again and told them he was her brother, gave the doctor permission to treat Piper, then asked her to put the young man who called him on the phone once again.

  “You didn’t give the nurse the planner to call—why?” he asked instantly, suspiciously.

  “I don’t know.” Jed could almost see the uncomfortable shrug he imagined the young man made. “We were the ones who rescued her; I guess we kind of feel responsible for her until someone else gets here. You know? And that dude that attacked her tried to shoot us as he ran out of the room. The police around here are nuts, too. They didn’t even bat an eyelash, so no one’s watching to make sure the guy doesn’t come after
her again.”

  “I’ll be there in approximately three hours,” Jed told him. “Can you wait?”

  “We’ll be here until you get to her,” Bret promised. “But if you could get here faster, it would be good. I heard the nurse say someone else already called the hospital and asked about the lady attacked at the hotel, so whoever attacked her could be planning to come back.”

  “How many are with you?”

  “Just me, my best friend, Matt, and his girlfriend, Olivia,” Bret told him. “We’ll wait on you. No one’s going to bother her while we’re here.”

  “Thank you.” Jed wasn’t reassured, but he had to admit he was damned glad to know she wasn’t alone.

  “Well, if it was my sister, I’d want someone to wait on me,” the boy admitted. “Drive careful. We’ll be here.”

  Careful?

  Jed hit the interstate and pushed his foot on the gas as he disconnected the call, then made another.

  “Control,” a well-modulated feminine voice answered.

  “This is Agent Booker,” he stated before quickly giving his control number. “I’m en route to agency airfield in Louisville, Kentucky. Advise all law enforcement to allow disposition and advise agency pilot to have transport ready. Destination New York City.”

  “We have you on satellite, Agent Booker,” Control advised him. “All law enforcement will be advised and turned away. Proceed with caution to airfield Delta-Bravo-Tahoe, where a pilot will be advised to be waiting in hangar six-four-zero.”

  “Understood,” he responded. “Agent Booker out.”

  No doubt Timothy would question him once he was given the report of Jed’s midnight race to New York City, but that could be days away, possibly weeks, until Timothy called and requested agent maneuver reports. Though that was something he rarely did.

  The landscape sped by; the roads, luckily, weren’t busy in the hours after midnight until four in the morning or later. It gave him the space needed to travel safely at the speed needed to reach the airport just outside Louisville and to still the sudden, unheard-of terror piercing his heart.