by April Zyon
“So it is someone I know?”
“It is. It’s also someone you will have to get your Boss’s approval on before you kill. Think with your head and not your heart, boy, because if you don’t you will be killed and then you will never find Emily. There is also an address and a key with all of the proof you need to back up the kill order on this person. He’s been playing the whole family for the last five years. Money, it’s a powerful motivator, but so too are drugs.”
“This is only the name of who took her, not where she is?”
The woman smiled and shook her head. “Oh, Tony, my dear sweet boy. She’s hunting him, too. Your Emily is a lot more than what she appears. If you haven’t figured that out yet, then you need your eyes checked. I knew it the moment I met her. You see, you might need Gregorio’s permission, but she doesn’t. Emily is everything you think she is, but she is so very much more. She has a lot to discuss with you, but you need to listen to her as well. Now” —The woman knocked back the tequila— “I have to go. Be good to her or you will lose her forever. Listen to her, be patient with her or she will never be found again. Trust me, I know this. I know you have no reason to believe me, but I know what I’m talking about. I nearly lost my Mike because he wouldn’t listen to me, but then your daddy brought him back to me and made him listen. That’s why I owed your daddy so much, boy.”
There was a scuffle behind Tony and he turned around to find out who was fighting. When he turned back around to ask the woman what the fuck she was talking about she was gone. Like a fucking magician, she was gone. All that was left of her was the envelope under his fingertips.
“Fuck.” He growled and looked down at it as if it would bite him.
He walked out of the bar, shoving the envelope deep into his jeans pocket and headed toward his home. He didn’t feel in control enough to open it anywhere close to his friends, hell anywhere near people. He needed to get home and find the courage to learn who it was that had betrayed him.
Chapter Ten
Emily watched the woman talking to Tony and wondered what she had given to him. From this angle, she couldn’t read their lips, but whatever it was had Tony seriously pissed off if the way he stormed off was any indication. Whoever the woman was, she was good. She was trained and efficient. She was able to slip away from Tony in a moment of a scuffle and slide between the large bodies of men as if she had been doing it all her life. Very interesting.
Emily turned back to Jack, one of the men who rode with Snake, and giggled like a school girl at some idiot thing he said. God, she hated this type of wet work, where she had to ferret out where the target would be next. Right now, Snake was being very low key, which was unlike him. Typically, she could have walked into the strip club, The Red Tent, at any given night when the bikers were in town, and there he would be. Not tonight, though, and not any night for the last week. It was vexing and starting to raise her hackles in a way that had her thinking perhaps she was blown.
“I will be right back, sugar.” She did just as the woman had done, slipped away from the men without even a look back over her shoulder. She needed to step back and rethink her plans. She was too close to this and knew it. She needed another set of eyes on things, as much as she fucking hated to say that.
Slipping into her car, she pulled out her phone and dialed up Lucifer. “Lucifer, I need a new set of eyes. My target has gone to ground, and I haven’t been able to ferret him out. I’m not getting leads. Seems no one has eyes on him. I’m too close and know that now. Have anyone in the area?”
She heard her son in the background and smiled. God, she loved that boy and the sooner she could get the target acquired and terminated the better. “No one yet. Jester will be free in three days. I will send him then.”
“Thanks, Lucifer.” Emily then added, “Give TJ a hug for me. I miss him already.”
“He misses you too, girl. I wish I had someone closer, but I don’t. If something loosens up I will let you know, but with this being off books I only trust The Horsemen.”
“Me too, Lucifer, me too.” They had been her rocks in recovery and even though she still had miles to go emotionally and mentally, they were there for her and she knew it. “Let me know if you work your magic and find my target for me as well.”
“You know I will, Angel.”
“Sleep well,” Emily said and ended the call. “Fuck.” She grumbled and banged her head against the headrest several times. She couldn’t give in to the tears, not here, not where she could be discovered at any time. Pulling her big girl panties up, she turned on the car and headed off toward her rented condo, the one she tormented herself with that faced the backyard of Tony’s home. Yes, she truly was a masochist.
Once she parked in the garage of her rental, she pulled off all vestiges of her disguise and then pulled her hair back in a tight braid. She slipped on a black skull cap and black spandex suit. She wanted to know what the woman slipped to Tony that had upset him so much so tonight. She knew she was taking a chance she shouldn’t. Tonight, she was going to spy on her former lover.
****
She was set up on his roof, hidden in the shadows looking in his windows as easily as a man would go and take a piss. This sort of thing came as naturally to her as walking. It was nothing to break into people’s homes. She simply sat on the roof and watched Tony through the window to his bedroom now. If Tony knew how vulnerable his home was from the roof he would have had the trees cut back years ago, however he didn’t know it. The roofline of the two-story home was relatively flat except for where his master suite was. He had a huge dormer with several windows, windows that were currently open. Because of the flatness and expanse of the roofline she was able to sit in the shadows of the large tree she had scaled and watch him through the screen in the windows.
He sat on his bed, his head in his hands as he cried. She had never seen him cry. A man like him should never cry. He was too powerful, too full of life, too, everything. That’s when he started talking. At first, she thought he had seen her, but then she realized he was talking to himself. “I failed you.” His voice was pitched so full of emotion it hurt Emily to hear him.
She realized she could hear him only because he had the windows of the bedroom open, the screens in place. She noticed the breeze making the curtains flutter as he spoke with his heart practically bleeding out through his voice. “I failed you and I failed our kid. I listened to the fucking lies. Jesus, I lost the best things I ever could have had before I ever had them because of lies.”
She felt her hot tears forming and falling down her cheeks, but she didn’t have the strength to stop them. She listened like a voyeuristic lunatic. When she realized he was talking to a wall, she shifted to look at what he was looking at. She nearly fell off the roof when she saw it. Fucking hell, how did he get the pictures of her when she was taken? When she was in the hospital? She was going to kill someone other than Snake, or at the very least beat one of the overbearing, overprotective sons of bitches that she called her brothers.
“I don’t know how to right this fucking wrong, but Jesus, Emily, I need you back. I’m falling the fuck apart. I’m sitting here holding a letter that will tell me who it was that lied to me and I’m too much of a coward to open it.” He walked to the wall and stroked his fingers over a picture that he must touch a lot, because it looked like a lot of the shine had worn from it. “I wonder what you had, a boy or a girl. I wonder how you both are, and if you still hate me. Please be okay.” It was his guttural plea that did her in.
Emily knew better. She knew an assassin should never blow their cover. She knew they should never reveal themselves, but what did the idiot sentimental in her do? All of the above. “A son.” She called through the window. “He’s doing very well. I named him after you.”
She saw him pause and look around. Hell, she even saw him go for his weapon but then stop when he saw her in the window.
“He looks just like you except he has my hair and eyes. Go figure.” And then
Emily was inside of Tony’s bedroom after pushing out the screen in the window, standing there in spandex and looking at the man she had loved for far too long. “And you really don’t want to open that because it will break your heart. You should instead let me take care of it.”
Chapter Eleven
He had to be having a nervous breakdown or something because there was no way that his Emily was there before him. No way that she was telling him he had a son. “A son?” He croaked instead of saying something else. “We have a son?”
“Yes, Antonio Maximillian Bruno, or TJ to everyone else.” She had bowed her head to him. She was dressed so differently than he had ever seen her dressed before. She was in skintight spandex and was wearing a skullcap. She had night vision goggles and if he wasn’t mistaken, and he wasn’t, she had a bevy of the best fucking weapons on her delectable body that he had ever seen.
“You look different.” He still hadn’t moved. He was afraid if he did she would evaporate like a puff of smoke, like a dream.
“I hadn’t planned on showing myself, just seeing what the woman gave you tonight.”
“You were at The Red Tent?” He hadn’t seen her, and he would have fucking noticed Emily. Her hair alone would have been a giveaway.
“I was. I’m looking for the person who stole me from your life, who ordered that to be done to me. I’m looking for the person who has been selling out your family for the last five years,” Emily said simply. “And if I don’t want to be seen, I’m not seen. I can hide right beside you and you would never know it. In fact, I was right beside you, several times. I was the giggling blonde that Jack brought in tonight.”
This time he did move. His jealousy wouldn’t let him stay still. Tony grabbed her and pushed her up against the wall. “Are you fucking him, too?”
He saw the anger flickering in her eyes, and the hurt. “You are the only man I’ve ever fucked Tony, as you damn well know, so I’m going to let that slide. I don’t have to screw a man to have him thinking that he’s the shit. Someone like Jack, all he needs is an ego stroke.”
“And me, what was I to you? What doors did I open for you, Emily?” Now Tony felt angry, used, and pissed off.
“My car door, the front door, restaurant doors. You were never about a job, Tony. You…” She shook her head and god damn the woman she had real fucking hurt and tears in her eyes. He had really hurt her with his accusations. “You were something else. You were the other half of my soul. I tried to tell you that when I was rescued from the Rock, but you made it clear I wasn’t wanted then. Just now, when I was outside, I thought maybe I was wrong, but I guess I wasn’t.”
Tony shook her. He couldn’t help himself. “God damn you, Emily. Not wanted? Not fucking wanted? Are you insane? For twenty-five months, I’ve been out of my god damn mind. I’ve nearly turned into my fucking father, into a damn drunk because of missing you. I’ve never told a woman I loved her, just you, and then I lose you after we had the perfect night together. Then a couple weeks after that some punk kid comes to me telling me that you’re gonna have my kid. He said you needed cash fast or you were gonna get rid of it.” He paused and let her go so he could put some distance between them. “Then suddenly you call me exactly a month after that and want to talk about having something real between us?”
“Well, now that part makes sense. Likely one of the men who held me captive wanted to make some extra cash. He probably thought he could blackmail you. You can believe me or not, Tony. I’m here for a job.” He saw her stiffen her spine and brush at her face to get rid of her tears. He could practically see the armor going up and around her heart. “You will never see me again once this job is done. Hell, once I’m out of this room you will never see me again. I shouldn’t have come in here. I should have left you to your memories.”
“No, fuck that.” Tony was back up in her face again because he wasn’t going to lose her a second time. Losing her once nearly crippled him, a second time he might as well eat one of his own bullets. Tony had her hands in his and pressed her against the wall with her hands up and over her head. “No more fucking half-truths, no more assumptions, no more of that shit. I want everything, Emily. That morning you were going to tell me something. Let’s pretend it’s that night. Tell me.”
She looked up at him and he saw the uncertainty in her eyes but the longing as well. Well that was good, because he was in fucking need as well. He needed the truth; he needed everything. “Tell me, baby. I’ve ached for so long for you. I’ve been half a fucking man without you so please, tell me.”
He watched her carefully and saw the moment when she decided to tell him everything. “Can we sit? It’s a long story.”
“We will lay on the bed. I’m not letting you go far from me and sitting is too far right now.” Tony was feeling too possessive, too territorial about her right now and he had to touch every inch of her body he could and that meant laying front to front on the bed with her. He would listen to her; he wouldn’t judge, but he would listen. Something he was told to do by Riker, and he wanted to know what that relationship was, too.
“Okay. I can deal with that.”
****
Emily let Tony lead her to the bed, a bed they had both shared for so many weeks. She let him take the skullcap from her head and didn’t argue when he relieved her of her phone, weapons, and shoes. She was surprised they kept their clothes on, but figured it was for the best that they did, so they could talk and not get lost in each other.
“My father was an assassin just as his father was and his father back for generations.” She began telling her story after he hauled her up close to his chest. She tilted her face up so she could look into his eyes and watched him watching her. “When my mother and brother were killed, he went into uber protective mode but also began to train me as his heir. I am not as innocent as you might think I am. I have killed many people in my life.”
“So have I.” Tony brushed a stray curl out of her face, one of the blasted things had come free of its braid and she found herself leaning into his touch, but she had more to tell him.
“That was part of what I was going to tell you that morning. I was also going to tell you I was pregnant. That much was true as well. I had just found out that morning, I was over the moon, and when I was attacked in the kitchen I fought them tooth and nail. From what I was told, I killed three of the attackers in the scuffle.”
“Good, I wish you had killed more,” Tony said with an easy smile as he pulled her closer to him.
She couldn’t believe he was taking this as well as he was. “I just can’t believe that they did such a good clean up job.” She admitted this aloud for the first time. “The second team that came in, they were good. They had some training. They weren’t as disciplined as they should be, but they were good.”
“I can’t believe you had a baby without me,” Tony said in awe, his hands moving over her braid as he spoke. “We will talk more about our son later, too.” He tugged at her braid lightly, a move that made her panties wet. Fuck she had missed him.
“I work only on the contracts I want to work on, but I do still work jobs. I am who I am, and I hope you can accept that. I travel the globe and I kill very bad men for a living, Tony. That’s who the real Emily Maximillian is. Can you love this person?”
Her answer was him leaning in and kissing her. The kiss was passionate and filled with more than two years’ worth of pent up want and need. It was a release for both of them, mixed signals, stolen moments, and time from their son. She fisted her hands against the back of his head and held him as tightly to her body as she could get him.
When they parted, she was panting and she licked her lips. “I will never bring trouble to our home however. I want you to know that. You and our son are the most important things in my life.”
“Even if you did, I would stand at your side and take the trouble on with you, head on. I wouldn’t back down from a fight. I’m not that kind of man. I’m never letting you go again. You need to
know that, Emily. I want to keep you forever.”
“And I want to let you.” Emily admitted this honestly and stroked his cheek. “Let me finish this job. Don’t open that envelope. Don’t get your heart broken.”
“I have to know who is hurting my family, Em.” Tony argued with her. “I have to know who took you away from me, and I have to know who has been hurting the family that took me in and gave me a home. You want to give them a clean kill, but I want fucking revenge. You want to kill from the shadows, but I want to do it right in the daylight and make a god damn example. I want people to know that you don’t fuck with my family and live to tell the tale. I should know and I must have proof so that Gregorio will sanction the killing. If they are high enough in the organization, then he needs to know anyway.”
“They are and I do work from the shadows. I was going to give them a clean death.” Emily wasn’t going to dispute any of that. “But I was going to ensure that they knew just why they were dying first. I was then going to ship their body to Gregorio along with all of the proof needed to ensure that he and the other one he’s working with pay for the crimes they’ve committed against your family.” Emily didn’t like this, she didn’t like being the one to tell Tony that two of his closest friends were dealing behind their backs. “Do you want to talk about this tonight or tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow. Tonight, I need you, Emily. Tonight I have to have you.” Tony’s voice was guttural, needful and it twisted Emily up inside.
“I have to call and check in or Lucifer will send the Horsemen for me. Since I was taken they don’t play around with my check in times. I have to make a phone call.”
“I will call Gregorio and let him know I’m dealing with personal issues and ask him to tell everyone to keep the fuck away from me until I come talk to him personally.” Tony stroked her cheek again, touching her almost as if he was afraid she would disappear on him. “Don’t leave the room. I need you in sight of me, Emily.”
