“But I will!” she said. She was crying now. “I will!”
By the time Trevor arrived at her side, he easily grabbed the tiny gun from her. He held her by her small arms, and stared frowningly into her eyes. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked her. There was a sincere need to know, and Carly saw it.
But she couldn’t verbalize what she felt. She couldn’t put into words the flashes of pain that had haunted her most of her life. She just broke down.
Trevor pulled her into his arms and held her. Feeling his arms around her with love rather than aggression gave her courage. And after several moments of nothing, she spoke. “I never did it,” she admitted to Trevor, “without being forced to.”
Trevor couldn’t believe his ears. He pulled back and looked at her. The anguish on her face broke his heart. “You mean raped?” he asked.
Carly nodded her head. “When you put your hand over my mouth, it brought back so many memories. I thought . . . I thought you. . . I thought. . .” She looked at him. “Not even my family knows,” she said.
Trevor felt a swell of emotion that almost did him in. And he pulled her back into his arms. Good Lord, he thought. This poor girl! No wonder he always felt as if she was imprisoned somehow, and wouldn’t walk free even though the doors were open, and she could.
He lifted her naked body into his arms. “Don’t you worry, my sweet Carly,” he said to her. “Nobody will ever force you again.”
He carried her to his bed, pulled back the covers, and put her to bed. He was going to sleep in a different room. He was going to give her space, and peace.
But when he was about to move away, Carly took his hand, and pulled him back. “Don’t leave me,” she said so heartfelt that he felt her pain to the roots of his hair. He sat her pistol on his nightstand, and got in bed with her. And pulled her into his arms.
For the first time in his life, he held a woman in bed without fucking her. For the first time in his life, he held a woman in his bed and actually hoped, not that she would be gone by morning, but that he could hold her forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Charles and Mick entered Trevor Reese’s home on the backside of the large estate. They had silencers on their guns, and had to kill four bodyguards before they made it inside. But they made it in.
Charles, a developer, had obtained the home’s blueprints, and had studied them carefully, and led the way across the downstairs. They had night scopes on their weapons, just in case they ran into any dark corners, and cameras, in case they had anyone attempt to ambush from behind, as they checked room by room and made their way up the stairs. Mick took the lead up the stairs. This was nowhere near his first rodeo, and he was prepared for the unexpected.
Upstairs, in the master bedroom, Carly was still in Trevor’s arms, the room was dark, and she was fast asleep. Trevor’s eyes were closed too, but he was thinking about Carly. He knew she was Sinatra’s niece when he hired her to run his PR department. That was the main reason she got the job. For leverage in the future if he needed it.
But that was before he worked with Carly. And got to know the kind of person she truly was. Over time, he found that he actually liked her. He liked her work ethic and her intelligence and her strength of purpose. And just as her heart caused him to change his mind about keeping all women at bay and take a chance on her of all people, her spirit and decency caused him to change his mind about using her as some pawn in the very serious war he was soon to undertake with her Uncle Mick. Trevor actually cared for Carly. It was not love in any traditional sense, as he was convinced he could not love anybody, and he was not going to pretend that was what he was feeling right now. But as he held this beautiful, naked, fragile woman in his arms, he was equally convinced that Carly could take him closer to love than he ever thought possible. Even that was a heady realization for a man like Trevor.
Then he heard a squeak, as if someone was walking up his stairs. It was so slight that it was barely registerable. But he heard it and opened his eyes. What kept him alive all these years was his instinct. And his instincts were telling him to act. Even on that flimsy sound, act. And he did. He pressed the button on his side table, and alerted his in-house guards.
Downstairs, in the basement, his guards saw the flashing red light. It was big and prominent and could not be missed. And within seconds the contingent, some four men strong, were armed with silencers on their guns too, and were running up to the main floor of the Reese estate. They ran across the downstairs, and then up the stairs toward the master bedroom where the alarm had been sounded.
They saw two men just as they were about to enter the master bedroom. And they began firing. But not before Mick and Charles, their cameras already detecting trouble from behind, had already turned and was firing on them.
And while Mick and Charles were in a gun battle with his advancing army of men, Trevor had already jumped out of bed onto the other side of his nightstand, and had already secured his loaded gun, and Carly’s tiny pistol too, just in case. He was ready for them.
Mick and Charles took out the four men easily, without either one of them getting hit, but they knew the real action was in the bedroom, where Trevor Reese could be found. And they knew he was undoubtedly armed and ready. Their goal had been to take him alive, to make sure they weren’t taking out an undercover FBI operative, but they had been met with too much resistance to fulfill that goal. Now, they knew, they were in a fight for their lives.
Trevor began firing at the intruders, unaware of who they were, as soon as they entered his bedroom. The Sinatras took cover, and began firing back.
But Trevor’s weapon was the only one that did not contain a silencer. Carly heard the gunfire as soon as he began firing, and she quickly woke up and lifted up in bed. When Trevor saw her, and saw that she was at risk for harm, his heart slammed against his chest. “Nooo!” he cried and jumped over the nightstand, diving onto Carly and knocking her back down onto the bed. But as he did, Mick took a shot that landed, and Trevor crashed down like dead weight on top of Carly.
When they didn’t hear anymore gunfire from in front of them or behind them, Mick and Charles stood erect. But then they heard a different sound. The sound of a woman crying. Mick looked at Charles, and Charles, with Mick covering him, hurried to the bed. When he moved Trevor’s lifeless body aside, he realized somebody with the voice of a woman was beneath him. Charles quickly turned on the nightstand lamp. When he saw that it was Carly lying in that bed, crying, his heart fell through his shoe. He had no idea she had come to Boston!
When Carly looked up and saw that her father was standing there, she was shocked too. But for a different reason. She was terrified for Trevor.
“You killed him!” she cried. “You killed him!”
Charles and Mick had taken Carly from the Reese estate, kicking and screaming, as they got away before Trevor’s front gate men, not to mention the Boston police, could surround them. But as Mick drove to the Boston airstrip, with Charles in the backseat with Carly in case she tried to make a run for it, they were worried. The kind of security they encountered at Reese’s home was more than Mafia. No mobster needed that many levels of security where there were men on guard in the basement too. Was he Fed undercover? Was he Fed outright?
“Have you ever seen anything like it?” Charles asked.
“No,” Mick admitted. “Not quite that vast.”
“Who is this guy?” Charles asked. “What’s going on with him?”
“Nothing is going on with him,” Carly said angrily. “You broke into his home. You fired on him. You killed him!” Tears reappeared in her eyes.
“He was firing on us,” Charles said. “He was no saint, Carly.”
“Neither are you,” Carly said. “Or Uncle Mick.” Then she thought about what she had done to Ethan Campbell. “Or me!” she blared.
“You didn’t know the whole story,” Charles said. “You didn’t know what he was up to.”
Carly looked at her fathe
r. “What was he up to? You don’t know either!”
“I know,” Mick said, “that he has a vendetta against me.”
“Why?” Carly asked.
Mick hesitated, but he knew she deserved the truth. “I killed his father,” he said.
Carly’s heart dropped. “What?” she asked.
“He probably hired you,” Mick continued, “as what we call in my world a just in case.”
But Carly was shaking her head. “Trevor isn’t like that. Wasn’t like that,” she corrected herself, and her tears returned.
“You don’t know what he was like,” Charles said. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Trevor. I’m talking about the man I knew.”
“That man wanted to kill your uncle, Carly!” Charles yelled.
“My uncle killed his father, Dad!” Carly yelled back. “What’s the damn difference?”
Charles saw a hard edge to Carly he had never seen before. Even Mick looked through the rearview at her. Was this change all because of Trevor Reese? Or was it deeper than that, and a long time coming? Was Carly, her father wondered, finally coming out of her protective shell?
A cell phone began to ring. Carly knew it was her dial tone, but she didn’t even think she had her purse. But while Charles put clothes on Carly back at Reese’s house, Mick found her purse when he double checked the room to make sure they were leaving no evidence behind. It was lying on the passenger seat beside him now. He picked it up and tossed it to Carly. “It’s yours,” he said.
Carly didn’t want to be bothered, but she reached into her purse, pulled out her cell phone, and answered. “Yes?”
“Carly,” a voice, a very faint but familiar voice, said.
Carly’s heart began to pound. “Trevor?” she asked.
Mick almost wrecked the car when he heard that name. He looked through the rearview at her. Charles was already staring at her.
“You’re alive?” Carly asked excitedly.
But Trevor’s faint voice had a question of his own. “Are you okay?”
“Yes!” Carly said, with joy in her voice.
“Are you safe?”
“I’m with my father. Yes,” she said.
“Good,” he said. “Good.”
“Where are you?” Carly asked.
“On my way to Baptist,” Trevor said. Baptist, Carly knew, was a hospital in town.
“Are you okay?” Trevor asked her again.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m with my father. I’m safe.”
“Good,” he said again. And then the call went dead.
“Trevor?” Carly said into the phone. “Trevor?” She was panicking now. “Oh my God. Please, Trevor!”
Charles removed the phone from her hand and checked it. “He hung up, babe,” he said.
Carly looked at her father. “Turn the car around,” she said. “Turn the car around!”
“Don’t talk crazy, Carly,” Charles said. “We’re heading for Uncle Mick’s plane and getting the hell out of this town.”
“Not with me you aren’t,” Carly said firmly. “You either turn this car around, or I’ll get out and walk to that hospital.”
“It could be a set up,” Mick said, although he suspected that it wasn’t.
“It’s no setup,” Carly said. “He’s alive, and I have to see him!”
Charles knew he had to stop sugarcoating this situation with his daughter. “Trevor Reese is most likely a mob boss, Carly,” he said.
“You mean like Uncle Mick?” Carly asked.
Mick smiled.
“Or worse,” Charles said. “He could be a federal agent undercover. Under deep cover as a mobster.”
Carly gave herself a chance to compose herself. She looked at her father. “I know I’m acting irrationally, Dad,” she said. “I know I’m not behaving in my normal way. But when I decided to leave Jericho earlier today, I decided because I was tired.” Her voice broke when she said that word. Mick looked through his rearview.
“Tired of what?” Charles asked her.
“Tired of going through life without living. Tired of never taking any risks. Tired of living the way other people want me to live. I’m tired, Dad.”
Charles’s heart swelled with pain. “But sweetheart,” he said, “this man isn’t the antidote to your need to live. He’s the poison. You won’t be taking a risk on love if you hook up with him. You’ll be taking a risk with your life.”
Carly held firm. “But if it isn’t much of a life anyway, just an existence, it’s a risk worth taking. What do I have to lose?”
Charles felt torn. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t hand his baby over to a man who very well might be using her to get to Mick. But as with many things in his life, the question answered itself when Mick’s cell phone began to ring.
Mick pulled it out and answered it as he drove. He wasn’t accustomed to being the driver of the group, but he knew Charles had the most influence of any man alive over Carly. “This is Sinatra,” he said.
As Mick listened to his phone call, Carly listened to her heart. And she was being told, as clear as crystal, that her heart belonged with Trevor. They were in early days still. She understood that. And he very well might not want her like that. But he saved her life. He took a bullet to save her life. And even as he fought for his own life, he phoned to make sure she was okay. He might be everything and more that her father and uncle declared that he was, and she understood that. But she saw him as her chance to live. She saw him as her chance to dare to do what she wanted to do for a change. She saw him as a man she could grow to love deeply.
When Mick ended the call, he seemed perplexed. Even Carly saw it. Charles saw it especially. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
Mick exhaled. “It’s not him,” he said.
Charles frowned. “It’s not who?”
“Trevor Reese.”
“What about Trevor?” Carly asked.
“That was one of my men,” Mick said. “He said there had been a mistake.”
“What kind of mistake?” Charles asked.
“When I ordered them to crosscheck any of the men I had to take out, and to crosscheck them with the name Reese, they did that. When they saw Reese, they assumed that was the guy. But it was James Reese, not Trevor Reese.”
Charles frowned. Carly didn’t understand either. “What do you mean?” Charles asked. “Make it plain, Mick.”
“The guy I iced,” Mick said, “wasn’t Trevor’s father. There’s no connection. I have no connection with Trevor Reese. At least, not that connection.”
Carly was ecstatic. Charles was still confused. “Then why did he want that woman to spy on my family?” he asked.
Mick said three words he hated to say. “I don’t know,” he said.
And as the car pulled into the airstrip where Mick’s private plane was waiting, Charles didn’t know either. But he knew he had a decision to make. He stared at his daughter. This was crazy on every level. How could he even think it? But somehow he knew he had to let her go. She was a grown woman. She had to live her life for herself. He had to allow her that opportunity.
Mick knew it too. That was why, when he stopped the car, he handed the keys to Charles. Charles handed the keys to Carly.
“Live your life,” Charles said to his beloved daughter. “But when you find that it’s too much for you to handle alone, you’d better call me.”
“And me,” Mick added.
Carly smiled. And hugged her father. “You know I will,” she said.
But they weren’t that trusting. Mick ordered the group of men he had waiting in an SUV at the airstrip in case he needed to call in backup, to follow her to that hospital. “Blanket her,” he ordered. And they took off too.
But what faced Mick and Charles weren’t so cut and dry. When they thought it was a past connection, it was easier to swallow. But now they didn’t even have that to hang their hats upon. All they knew was that Trevor Reese was up to something, an
d it involved the Sinatra family. What they didn’t know, and this was a big lack of knowledge, was what that something was.
“We’ll find out,” Mick reassured his brother. “I can promise you that.”
“And they got the name wrong?” Charles asked, still astounded by this turn of events.
Mick nodded with a flash of anger in his eyes. “Yup.”
“That’s some incompetent shit there,” Charles said.
“I know,” Mick acknowledged.
Charles gave him a hard look. “But it’s not worth killing anybody over. They messed up. That’s all.”
“Their fuck up almost cost us our lives,” Mick reminded him. “Their fuck up almost cost Carly hers too. That failure will not go unpunished.”
Charles hated to hear about more carnage. But he understood. Mick’s very survival depended on his strength. He touched his younger brother on the arm, as they headed for the plane.
By the time Carly made it to the hospital, Trevor was in the emergency room, surrounded by heavy guard. When she saw him, her heart leaped with joy and she hurried toward him. But his guards stopped her.
“Trevor!” she cried. “He wants to see me,” she said, although she wasn’t certain of that. “Trevor!”
When Trevor heard her voice over all of the noises around him, his heart went still. Was he delusional? But he heard it again. “Trevor,” he heard. And he was certain now.
He looked in the direction of the sound, and saw Carly attempting to go around his guards. “Let her through!” he ordered in a voice so faint his men didn’t hear him. “Let her through!” he said again, and they heard it that time.
The men stepped aside, and Carly ran to Trevor.
Trevor was in tremendous pain, and was already hooked up to an I-V, but he still had enough strength within him to pull Carly into his arms. “Carly,” he said. “Carly.”
Big Daddy Sinatra: Carly's Cry Page 19
