by Harley Stone
Emily had nothing. I had Candice, and I was so glad I hadn’t disclosed that bit of information to Emily. She’d have to tell the mayor, and who knew how that asshat would react.
A stunning woman way too dressed up for a restaurant approached our table, eyeing me. “Everything all right, dear?” she asked Emily while eyeing me.
“Yes. Thank you. Abrianna, this is my… this is Link. Link, Mrs. De Lucca owns the restaurant. She’s a good friend who often has my back when I need to meet up with Seattle’s sleaziest. Thank you so much for your help today, Abrianna.”
“My pleasure. You should have told me you were meeting up with the mayor, dear. He blocked my husband on a few building permits recently, and we owe him a great deal of trouble. By the way, the kitchen is boxing up your meals. I figured you’d want them to go since your meeting is over.”
“Thank you.” Emily reached for her purse, but Abrianna held out a hand.
“Don’t worry about that. After his little social faux pas, Mayor Kinlan was all too willing to pay for the meals of you and your companions.” Then she turned to me and said, “This one never ceases to amaze me. She handled the mayor perfectly. That pompous ass needs to be brought down a peg or two if you ask me. Anyway, I wanted to stop by and say goodbye. It was nice to meet you, Link. Please do let me know if you need anything else, Emily.”
Emily thanked her again and Abrianna left.
Once she was gone, I leaned over the table, lowered my voice to a whisper, and asked, “Is she some sort of crime lord?”
Emily shrugged. “I know nothing. And watch what you say. I’m pretty sure she has the whole place bugged.”
Definitely a crime lord.
Emily studied me, taking a sip of her water. “I’m not a rookie, Link. I’ve been doing this a while and I’m big on self-preservation. I’m not going to put myself in danger.”
“I see that now,” I admitted. “And can I tell you how fucking hot it is?”
Now that the danger was gone, other more primal instincts were kicking in. I had all this extra adrenaline to burn and Emily was sitting across from me in a business suit with her hair up in a bun and her glasses on. My dick had taken notice from the second I realized she was okay. Now I was so hard I could barely breathe.
A smile tugged at her lips. “Shh. Bugs.”
“I don’t care. If there weren’t laws against it, I’d fuck you right here on this table. I miss being inside your tight pussy.”
Her cheeks reddened, and she glanced around us. “Shh. People will hear you.”
I wasn’t done, though. Not after what she’d just put me through. “I want to tie you down again. Maybe blindfold you this time. Spank that perfect ass of yours once for every time you’ve backtalked me. Suck on you and lick you until you beg me to fuck you again.”
She arched an eyebrow at me. “I didn’t beg you to fuck me.”
“That’s right. You begged for one of your toys. I still have to punish you for that.”
Her cheeks got even redder. “We shouldn’t talk about that here.”
“Why? I bet it’s making you wet, thinking about how people are listening in. I bet if I put my hand down your panties you’d be soaked for me. I wish I could come over tonight so we could repeat the sex marathon we had last time I stayed over, but I can’t. So, tonight I want you to use one of your toys while you think of me. Then I’ll be over tomorrow so you can tell me all about it before I make you scream my name into your pillow again.”
“You’re not invited to my house.”
But her eyes said otherwise. She licked her lips and her gaze slid down my torso to the table. She wanted to play with me, did she? We’d play.
“Do you think that will stop me?”
Before she could answer, a waiter appeared carrying a bag bulging with containers. Bull took it.
Emily stood, straightening the front of her suit. “Thank you for stopping by, Link, but as you see, your services were not needed.”
“We’ll see if you’re saying that tomorrow night, sweet cheeks.” I adjusted myself and stood. Since there was no way to hide the bulge in my pants, I didn’t even try.
Emily’s gaze drifted down to my crotch. Then she seemed to realize what she’d done because her cheeks flamed and she looked away.
“What’s happening tomorrow night?” Jayson asked, leaning into our conversation.
Emily shot him a dirty look. “Nothing.”
I chuckled. “We’ll see about that.”
*
Thursday evening, I was between interviews for the Copper Penny’s new night manager and looking forward to another night at Emily’s place when Wasp came rushing into my office.
“Hey Prez, we may have a problem,” he said.
I looked up from my notes. “What’s going on?”
“Frog went to go investigate a lead and we lost contact. He was supposed to check in about a half hour ago, and I can’t reach him.”
I stood. “You got Morse tracking his phone?”
“Already done.” Wasp handed me a piece of paper. “Looks like some sort of women’s shelter just north of Pike Place.”
“You assemble a team?”
“What am I, new? Of course I did. Rabbit, Zombie, Brick, and Spade are all waiting for you and me by the bikes.”
I shoved my wallet into my pocket and slipped a beanie over my head. “Who’s staying behind with Candice?”
Most likely the girl would be safe in the station alone, but I’d never let that happen. Especially not with an asshole like Mayor Kinlan out there.
“Shari has been helping the girl adjust. Never figured her for the motherin’ type, but she sure is. Must be the tits.”
“I hope you’re planning on leaving some muscle behind, too.”
“Sage, Buddha, Eagle, Tap, the other two recruits, a couple of the old crew are in there playing pool. She’s covered, Prez.”
“All right. Let’s ride.”
Fifteen minutes later, I stood in front of the Sacred Peace Women’s Shelter with five menacing-looking motherfuckers at my back. We’d found Frog’s bike parked around the side, his helmet hanging from the handlebars. No sign of him or his phone. As we approached the two-story brick building, I glanced behind me and hoped the inhabitants wouldn’t take one peek out the window and call the cops. Gesturing for the team to stay back, I stepped up to the door and knocked.
Nothing.
I knocked again.
Finally, the door cracked open and a thin elderly woman appeared. “No men allowed on these premises,” she croaked before shutting the door in my face.
Knocking again, I called out, “Sorry, ma’am. We don’t mean no trouble. Just lookin’ for one of my men, and this is the last location of his cell phone.”
Silence.
“What are we gonna do, Prez?” Wasp asked.
“We can’t exactly break down the door and go rushing in on a bunch of women. That one reminds me of my grandma,” Rabbit said.
“But what about Frog?” Zombie asked.
While we were still debating about what to do, the door swung open and the biggest, strongest, most terrifying woman I’d ever seen emerged, holding Frog in a fireman’s carry. Her tits were the size of medicine balls, and she had him squeezed so tight to her that his face was buried in them. I had a moment to wonder if he could breathe like that before she unceremoniously dumped him on his ass at my feet.
“Does this belong to you?” she asked in a voice almost as deep as mine.
Searching her neck for an Adam’s apple but not finding one, I replied, “Yes ma’am.”
She grinned, turned, and went back into the house.
“What the fuck was that?” Zombie asked.
The rest of us stared at the door in awe until Frog groaned, leaning on one arm to rub his backside. “Attila the fuckin’ Hun,” he grumbled.
“Attila the Hun was a dude,” I told him.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I know.”
Chuckling,
I helped him up. “What happened?”
“I found out that Sacred Peace picked up a new girl who’s been through some real shit. Figuring it was just another dead end, I called Wasp and asked him for permission to check it out myself. When Wasp gave me the green light, I came here and knocked on the door, but apparently, they have some sort of no dicks policy. I tried to get a closer look through one of the windows and see if there was a girl in there matching the description Havoc gave us, but that beast of a bitch caught me.”
“Did you find out whether or not the girl’s in there?” I asked.
“Nope. She tied me up in the cellar, talking about calling the cops.”
But she hadn’t. Which meant that maybe the girl was there, and they didn’t want to draw the attention of a police force who reported to the mayor.
“I could try to talk to them,” Wasp said, tucking his long blond hair behind his ears. “No house of women has resisted me yet.”
“Chill the fuck out, Casanova,” I said, stopping him in his tracks. “We’ve traumatized the ladies enough for one evening. Time to call in the big guns.”
I pulled out my cell phone and called Emily.
“Is this a booty call?” she asked, her tone full of piss and vinegar as she threw my previous words at me. “Because, I already told you, you’re not invited to my house, and I sure as hell am not coming to yours.”
God, she was a smartass. I smiled despite myself. “I’m not a vampire, babe. You don’t have to invite me in.”
“That sounds a lot like breaking and entering.”
I chuckled. “Funny you should mention that, because we might have a little case of B and E right now. But… we also might have found the girl.”
“As in the girl?”
“Yep. But I’m gonna need your help with this one.”
“Talk,” she said.
Emily
WITH LINK BY my side and Bull at my back, I stood in front of a two-story brick building and listened to a harrowing tale of breaking and entering from a man named Frog.
“It’s not exactly B and E,” Link objected.
Unbelievable.
Hands on my hips, I spun around and glared at him. “He climbed up the trellis to the second floor and went through a window. How is that not breaking and entering?”
“The window wasn’t locked,” all seven men standing in front of me said at once.
“At the most, it was E,” Link added. “Entering. And as far as I know, that’s not against the law.”
I could spout off at least a half-dozen reasons why they were wrong, but there was no point. I wouldn’t change their minds or keep them from doing it again, because they clearly had zero remorse about it. So, I focused on the task at hand. Frog’s criminal activity was as pointless as his story since we still didn’t know whether or not the girl we were looking for was in the shelter.
“If she wasn’t in there, they would have called the cops,” Link said.
He had a point. Of course, they could be engaged in any number of illegal tasks they didn’t want the cops to know about: growing marijuana, laundering money, making meth. Who knew?
With no other way to find out for sure, I marched up to the front door and knocked.
The door cracked open, and a little old lady peeked out at me. “What can I help you with?” she asked, peering over my shoulder to give the guys a spectacular stink eye.
“I’m looking for a young lady I heard might be staying here. She was… assaulted by Mayor Kinlan’s son and we’re concerned about her safety. Can you tell me if she’s here?”
“Hard to tell. Our guests seek shelter from all sorts of fiends, and it’s none of my business what they’ve been through. Yours either.”
She started to shut the door, but I jammed my foot in it, grateful I’d already dressed down before Link had called and was wearing sneakers, not dress shoes.
“Please,” I begged. “Look, if we found her, the mayor can, too. But you know that, don’t you? It’s why you didn’t call the cops when you found Frog snooping around, isn’t it?
She didn’t respond.
Even more hopeful that the girl was here, I kept going, “I assure you, we are the good guys. We want to bring Noah Kinlan to justice. Our friend, Marcus, is the man who ripped Noah off of her and beat him up. Marcus is in jail for helping her, and we’re trying to get him out and put Noah behind bars where he belongs.”
The door opened a little wider. “The man who helped her is in jail?”
“Yes. He beat the snot out of Noah. It’s been all over the news. Don’t you watch television?”
“No cable. No antenna. News is depressing, and the television’s just for movies. Your friend is really in trouble? But he helped. What kind of world do we live in?”
“The kind where the rich and famous get off scot free unless someone is brave enough to take them to court. Marcus Wilson was brave enough, and now he’s facing attempted murder charges because nobody will admit to the fact Noah was raping someone. We need her to testify.”
“And who are you?”
“Emily Stafford.” I slid a business card out of my pocketbook and handed it to her. “Criminal defense attorney.”
The old woman studied my business card, her jaw twisting as she played with her dentures. I averted my eyes.
“Wait here. I’ll see if she wants to talk to you.”
Before I could object, the door closed.
I stood there waiting for at least ten minutes. Then finally, it cracked open again, and the old woman invited me in. Link and Bull tried to follow me inside, but the old lady told them no and shut the door on them.
The door was clearly her best weapon.
The Sacred Peace Women’s Shelter was a comfortable place. Pictures lined the entryway and hall, leading to a living room with crocheted, mismatched armrest covers on worn sofas and chairs, and handmade coasters on mismatched coffee tables. The television was off, and a petite brunette sat in a recliner wearing baggy sweats and a frown. She watched us as we approached.
I stepped forward and offering the girl my hand. “Hi, I’m Emily Stafford.”
“Lily. Lily Perkins.”
Finally, I had a name. Despite her quiet voice, Lily had a firm handshake. Her gaze followed me as I sat on the sofa beside the old woman who had yet to introduce herself.
“The man who helped me… he’s really in jail?” Lily asked.
I nodded. “Marcus Wilson. He was in the Army. Special Forces. He’s a big guy with a heart of gold. You know, he could have walked away when he saw what Noah was doing to you, but he didn’t. I don’t think he physically could have, that’s how nice of a guy he is. How did you get here?”
“Cops, ambulance drivers were all talking about Mayor Kinlan’s son, like he was this incredible person who hadn’t just… Like he hadn’t just raped me. It was weird. I was curled up in the corner and they barely even noticed me. One of the ambulance drivers loaded me onto a stretcher and into their ambulance, but then they went back to… to him. I felt like… like I was nobody, Ms. Stafford.”
“Emily, please,” I corrected her. “And you are somebody. I’m sorry you were treated like that.”
She shrugged. “I don’t have any money. My family is in Georgia, but they don’t give two shits about me. I came here to live with my dad, but he remarried, and his wife is a bitch who hates me, so I was just trying to work and get by.”
“How do you know Noah?” I asked.
“I don’t. I didn’t.” Her eyes glossed over with unshed tears. “I was walking home from work when he jumped me and dragged me back behind some sort of bar. I… I screamed, but he covered my mouth. I tried to fight him, but he’s a lot stronger than he looks.” A single tear fell. She swiped at it angrily. “I’m sorry.”
Noah Kinlan was going to rot in jail. I didn’t care what I had to do to get him there, he would never again wreck someone the way he’d wrecked Lily.
“None of this is your fault,” I assured her. “
You’re not even the first girl he’s attacked. Noah is a predator, and he needs to be dealt with. That’s why I’m here. I swear to you I will do everything in my power to lock this bastard up and throw away the key, but we need your help. What do you say? You want to keep him from doing this to anyone else?”
She studied her hands, then the carpet, then the old woman sitting beside me. Finally, Lily’s gaze turned on me. Something had changed within her. She no longer looked like the scared little girl she had when I’d walked in. There was fire and strength blazing out from her irises that hadn’t been there before. Tucking her hands in her lap, she straightened her back and asked, “What do I have to do?”
*
We moved Lily to the Dead Presidents’ base of operations. She didn’t want to go, but I gave it to her straight and made sure she understood how much danger she’d be in if she stayed. We’d found her, which meant the mayor with his bottomless resources could, too. She broke down and agreed to come with us, but only if I stayed at the station with her.
I drove Lily to the station and got her set up in the room next to a girl named Candice. Wasp, who escorted me and Lily up to her room, introduced me to Candice like I was supposed to know who she was.
Boots wandered into the room and put his head on Lily’s legs, staring up at her adoringly.
“This is Boots,” Candice said, patting down the dog. “He’s pretty much the best guy on the planet.”
Leaving the girls in Boots’ capable paws, I tugged Wasp aside and asked, “Who is Candice?”
His brow furrowed. “The girl from U-Dub that Noah Kinlan roofied and took advantage of.”
“What?!” I ground out. Another of Noah’s victims had been hiding at the station and nobody had told me?
“Uh… You didn’t know?”
“No. Of course not. Why would anyone feel like that’s something the attorney needs to know? It’s not like I have to interview her and prepare her for court and a lawsuit or anything. How long have you guys had her here?”
Wasp had been steadily backing away. He looked from side to side and said, “I don’t think I should answer that question.”
That just pissed me off more. “Why would Link keep her from me?” I asked.
