Among the Flames (Kisses and Crimes Book 3)

by Natalie E. Wrye

  I squinted at him. “Yeah, except we’re not friends… And Fletcher? His ’donation’ isn’t exactly voluntary.’ The man’s in a coma.”

  “Even more reason for us to steal from him. It’s his damn daughter, and the man’s done more wrong than he’s ever done right. This will be the most chivalrous act he’s ever done.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you would know… Jeff. You’re asking to be shot…or worse. Practically begging for it.”

  He ignored my quip and kept going. “I told you before, Santiago… I never beg. And I only bow at the knee for one reason.” My breath hitched, and Jeff continued. “Truth is, Miss FBI… you wouldn’t be here if you really thought that I was the murderer you’re making me out to be. You know I’m not. Your gut tells you I’m not.”

  I inhaled deeply, not knowing why I needed to hear him say that. Not understanding why I wanted, with everything in me, to believe him. The man was the biggest liar I’d ever fucking known, and here I was, making a deal with him, trying my damnedest to trust a man that couldn’t be trusted.

  But like the comatose Robert Fletcher, I might not have had a choice. Plans were being set in motion all around me, and I had to just hop on for the ride.

  I ran a hand through my hair. “Maybe… but my gut doesn’t know much else. There are too many questions, too many blanks that need to be filled.”

  “I know.” His face was more understanding than I expected it’d be, more serious. “And I don’t blame you for being skeptical. I can’t promise that I will fill in all the blanks, but I can promise you this: I won’t give you anything you can’t handle.” He smirked. “I treat my employees well. You’ll see.”

  “Like Grimm?”

  “Grimm’s not my employee.” His dark straight brows pulled together. “He’s my bitch.”

  I laughed. Unexpectedly. Damn. He always knew how to pull that side out of me. I relaxed by a fraction—just a fraction—as Jeff grinned at me, his deep brown hair falling into his face. His jaw held the slightest bit of stubble and as he reached up to rub it, I felt the familiarity that had drawn me to him in the first place.

  He took a deep breath. “Does this mean you’ll broker the agreement?”

  “Between you and the FBI? Looks like it. Mostly I’ll watch you shoot yourself in the foot. You’re not only robbing one powerful entity… You’re stealing from two.”

  A small smile touched his lips. “I never said it would be easy. But you’re like me… You don’t do easy. We live in a different world than the people we know, Santiago—a dangerous one. It’s not wrong to admit that you like it… That it’s where you feel the most excited. The most alive.”

  His stare shifted to the opening of my robe and back. His cursory glance was like a caress. It made me feel warm. His eyes held fire by the time he looked at my face again, probably finding the heat of my blush, a redness that spread from my neck to breasts.

  I gripped my robe tighter. “That doesn’t mean I’m like you.”

  “I know,” he stated simply. He turned. “I also know that in time you’re going to realize it’s okay to tell me that you want to be.” He started walking down the hall.

  “And you’ll tell me why you want me to be…” I shouted it at his back, but by the time it reached the end of the hall, he was gone…

  Some Unholy War

  GIOVANNI

  Finally, I was alone. Isolated with my thoughts. Unfortunately, they were all centered around Sienna.

  The sixty minute dinner with Mrs. Sandaval had done nothing to soothe them. They were as hot as ever, singeing with the memory of what was… and what could have been. The last time I’d seen her wasn’t at the opera. Although she’d long thought it was… But what could I fucking do? The papers were out.

  Jackson, my temporary boss—a man I’d been hired to steal from, to swindle—was accused, tried and convicted in the court of public opinion. Jeff DeSantos wasn’t too far behind, eventually singled out as his accomplice.

  But Jeff DeSantos didn’t exist, and so Giovanni DeSalt walked clean away, letting the chips fall where they may. And somehow, the walk still wasn’t as clean as I’d hoped it be. The waters were muddied, made murky by the PI Jackson Reed—a man more honorable than most—and his girlfriend Penelope… and her surprisingly spunky and all-the-fucking-way sultry secretary, Sienna.

  The first time I’d met her she was trying to claw my eyes from their sockets. The second time? She’d been even sexier than the no-shit-taking, scrappy little Puerto Rican I met at the bar, showing me a soft side I never would have guessed could come from a woman who’d cursed me out in English and Spanish.

  That talented tongue of hers was all I could think about that night in the opera when I’d invited her. Clad in a plum-colored dress that clung to every silky curve, she was all smiles, laughing with me in a way that was almost musical, going toe-to-toe with me in a way that no woman I’d ever met had.

  Quick-witted with an even quicker mouth, she’d given me back the shit I’d given her… and I’d loved every fucking minute of it.

  I wanted her then. Even knowing who she was…

  But work got in the way. It always did. I had a job to do, one I had to see through. My obligation in the opera that night was bigger than the both of us, and I’d left her high and dry, watching her escape the chaos in the theater only to cut loose, escaping with Grimm at the wheel, as soon as she was safe. I’d stopped by days later, skulking in the shadows like some fucking stalker when she’d headed out of her studio for work, wanting to catch one last glimpse of her before putting her in the past.

  Where she belonged.

  Where people who came across someone like me were better off if they didn’t want catastrophe. Because my only job—the business I was best at—was creating catastrophe.

  It was my mistress.

  I lived, fucked and breathed it every morning before breakfast—slept with it at night. Catastrophe was more of a home to me than normalcy had ever been. If anyone looked close enough—not that they ever did… (not even the women I fucked and fooled), I’m pretty sure they could see the chaos in my eyes. I liked that when Sienna looked at me—or, at Jeff—she didn’t want anything.

  Just a laugh or two…

  Which I was more than happy to give her… as well as something hard and eight and a half inches long…

  I shook my head at myself, trying to shake the icy chill off my freezing ass as well. I turned a cold corner, walking my way to the hotel alone when I realized that the street wasn’t as isolated as I’d hoped.

  A woman, blonde and looking bitterly cold, staggered my way, a sloppy grin on her disheveled face, her arms wrapped around her frail frame. I looked back at her, never slowing.

  Until she shouted.

  “Hey!” she called at my back. “You!”

  I slipped into an alleyway, picking up pace. Fuck. Prostitutes. They frequented this area more than I cared for. Sullen, sad little creatures, they weren’t much human when their pimps were done “breaking them in.”

  I should know.

  I’d fucked up a few pimps in my heyday.

  Rescuing didn’t come easy to me, but there was something—something—about stripping people of power that fucked with me, made me angry, made me feel the need to put my fists on someone.

  I’d done it a few times, when a pale-faced prostitute took a liking to whatever face I was wearing that day. I’d never tasted—I liked my women fucking me of their own free will—but I’d made a sex trafficker or two taste a little blood, a little of the abuse that they bestowed on others.

  Until I was threatened so many times I had to move. Couldn’t have a few loose cannons screwing shit up, nosing their way into who I was or matters that were clearly none of their fucking business.

  And so I’d stopped. Went out of my way to avoid those “women of the night.”

  I could only avoid them for so long. A brave one was bound to step up again, and tonight, Blondie was the one. She practically chased me down t
he street, barreling behind me into the alley. I caught a glimpse of the car idling by. Her pimp, no doubt. She shouted at me, slurring the words.

  “Hey baby… Where ya going? Nothing down there for you. Why don’t you come back here? I’ll show ya a good time.”

  I turned, my patience taking a dive. She was on me before I could take another breath. Shit. She was one of the fast ones. She breathed a gallon of whiskey into my face. I looked hard at her.

  A face that had probably been pretty at one time was smeared with lipstick and mascara. Her ratty fur wrap sat haphazardly around her thin shoulders, and I took them into my hands, shaking her.

  “Look, sweets. Here’s a hint. A guy looks at you and keeps walking…? Lost cause. And it doesn’t get more lost than me. Fucking is my forte. There’s no trick you could turn on me that I haven’t mastered. Spend your time on someone worth it.” I took out a twenty, handing it to her. “Cuz I’m not…”

  My eyes flicked upwards at the waiting dark truck in the street. I turned back around. And that’s when the footsteps started.

  The sounds of soles over melting snow headed towards me with increasing frequency. The crunch felt deafening and when I rotated on my heel, I did so to the vision of a mob of camouflaged men in black running towards me. Boots strapped, ski masks slid into place, they approached me like masked vigilantes, come to avenge some wrong. But when I looked at the prostitute, took in her self-satisfied smile, the smug look on her previously saddened face, I knew I’d been had.

  The men weren’t there to avenge a wrong. They were there to commit one.

  I dropped my shoulder, throwing my fists chin-high. Fuck a “fight-or-flight.” There was only one option as far as I was concerned… and it damned sure wasn’t running in the opposite direction.

  I steeled my jaw, fully prepared to take a hit to it.

  A shot rang out. Nearby.

  It stopped the stomping boy-band in their tracks and they shifted, taking a collective look around the tightened space between the two buildings. A shot rang out again.

  I looked behind the man, stretching my neck… to find Grimm cutting a path through the pack. He held the biggest pistol I’d ever seen in my fucking life, its barrel smoking, its handle blacker than the night. Without saying two words, he approached me. His demeanor was calm, but his grey eyes were hazy, the color of foreboding clouds just before a hailstorm. They were stone-cold, and when he looked at me, I knew he was prepared to kill everyone in that alleyway. Including himself… if that’s what it took to do his job. I’d never been more grateful to see the coldblooded geezer in all my life.

  I nodded in his direction. “Grimm.”

  “Sir…” He turned his back to me, looking at the impending onslaught. “Do we have a problem here?”

  “Not at all.” I motioned towards the guys. “Actually, these gentlemen here seemed eager to take your place. Seems they believed I needed an escort home.”

  “Well, now,” he commented casually. “No need for one, anymore. I’m here, but should any of these fine sir’s need an escort home, I’d be glad to leave one with them.” He looked at the still-smoking pistol. “I’ve got nine to share.”

  The men shifted on their feet, looking from me to Grimm. Eager to advance, they now seemed less enthusiastic about backing off. Several pairs of eyes peeked beneath the masks at each other, and while they waited, so did I. Stares started to converge. Scattered glimpses became one until finally they were all looking in the same direction… at one man.

  I took note of this man, making mental marks on his size and frame, and before Grimm could make another dissatisfied grunt, the man moved. He turned on his feet, leaving his back to us. The mob of miscreants followed with him, mimicking his lead.

  I caught a glimpse of a black tattoo at the man’s wrist, but it was concealed before I could make it out, covered up by a sleeve just as he hopped back in the passenger side of the black truck, his stature stony, his stare just as steely as he kept his eyes on me. Even when the truck disappeared down the street.

  I glanced behind me, but the woman—the prostitute who had propositioned me, had vanished as well. She seemed to evaporate into thin air, her presence blending into the night like the puffs of gun smoke fading from Grimm’s gigantic gun.

  I glanced at him.

  I thought about explaining it to the old man, but I knew there was no use.

  He knew who the men were. He knew, probably even better than I did, what they were capable of. It was easy moving Marco’s party to one of my rented penthouses. My connections accomplished that. But my connections were supposed to send the Gafanellis back—back to New York. How permanent they wanted to make their little visit, I still had no fucking clue, but I definitely knew one thing.

  Sienna had no idea what was coming her way…

  Help Yourself

  GIOVANNI

  I’d gotten myself back into character again. Just in the nick of fucking time.

  Two days had passed. Two days…and not a word from Sienna. Not one update. Nothing at all.

  She would only speak to Jessica and Grimm. My own employees had heard more from the person I’d known for over a year, and though I’d thought to ask about her, I refused. I tried to focus on the task at hand… but all my thoughts kept coming back to her. How she was doing. What she was doing. And, most naggingly, who she was doing it with…

  If only I could keep my mind on delivering that goddamned package where it belonged.

  In a city like DC where cash was king and loyalties constantly lay on the line, there seemed to be nothing new under the sun, but this package? Well, that was the secret weapon no one would see coming—the clincher, the finisher after the ninth inning pitch. And if Sienna and I had a shot in hell in getting to the bottom of those whispers, true and untrue, we were going to have to keep our noses to the ground… and our hands off each other.

  Not that I had put my hands on her. Yet. But Goddammit…

  Did her cold shoulder have to be that fucking frigid?

  I avoided thinking about it, setting up my next appointment as Viktor Erikkson—big banker, con artist extraordinaire. I was running low on time. The real, Sweden-dwelling businessman would be off of vacation and back any minute, and then playtime would be over. The façade would have to end… hopefully, not before I completed the job. The last job I’d ever have to pull… to pay off the debt that’d burdened me for a decade…

  I reflected back on the longest ten years of my life, the debauched decade that had defined me the man Giovanni DeSalt had become…

  I remember that day as if it were yesterday.

  I saw my reflection in the framed mirror above the pastor’s desk.

  Grey eyes shone back at me, and the new copper-colored streaks in my now-shortened hair made me think of a time six months ago, when I looked similar to this.

  When the red streaks in my hair were from whatever scrap I’d been in that day. I was a foreigner without a family, a home. From military base to military base, my dysfunctional family traveled.

  An American by birth, yet stranger by circumstance, it didn’t take me long to realize that I never fit in anywhere, least of all the country in which my birth certificate was signed. But here I was.

  Becoming a man. No longer a boy.

  I’d been fucking Morgan Daniels for a solid month now.

  The memory of that forgotten kid—the inexperienced teen with low spirits and high hopes—beat its way into my brain, and before I knew it, I was pondering all of the decisions that had gotten me to this point, now with my own place, gaining a bit more prestige every damned day that went by as I lied, playing the pastor and his parish as I climbed up the ranks of power.

  I’d used my dark good looks and a depth of knowledge from a lifetime of military brat travel to fool St. Francis De Sales’s faithful flock, and for the first time since I’d been posturing as a pious man of the Cross, I felt pangs of regret. Sharp and sudden.

  I had become someone I didn’t e
ven recognize. And I didn’t fucking like it.

  I don’t know how long I stayed there like that. I was shocked when the pampered princess bumped her ass against my crotch, groaning in a wimpy, whiny voice.

  “What’s wrong? Hurry up, daddy…” She frowned.

  And as I reached for her again, the click of the office door drew my attention. It swung open with one fell swoop, bringing Pastor Stanley in with it.

  The way he looked told me the sight might have just stopped his heart.

  He clutched his chest.

  “Morgan!” he bellowed. He looked at me. “What the—Get the hell away from my daughter!”

  I backed up.

  Red-faced, his neck bulging above his silk tie, Pastor Stanley Daniels rushed me, his hands outstretched as he tried to separate me from his daughter. Too late. I was already out of reach and as Morgan Daniels stood, straightening that skanky silk skirt, he nearly bowled her over, smashing into the side of the desk and his daughter in one clumsy, disconcerted effort.

  But I’d done this dance too many times.

  I’d avoided enough fathers, brothers, bosses to last a lifetime. As Pastor Stanley fumbled with his wide-eyed daughter, I was already fumbling with the keys hanging on the wall, snatching them and going straight for the cabinet.

  I barely had the right key inside when the Pastor reached around my collar, pulling. With a grunt, he slung me away from the file cabinet, the papers across his desk scattering as he sent me sailing across the room.

  My body skimmed the open front door, slamming against the wall. Morgan screamed. Recovering, I staggered on my feet, dick still slinging as I squared my body, balling my fists.