by Jayne Rylon
“Oh, hey, Ellie,” Mason said. “No, the other way around.”
“Fuck,” Lucas groaned.
Ellie bit her lip and glanced up at him. Though she didn’t ask for details, he explained anyway, “E, he means that the job is a lot bigger than what you scored.”
“Yep,” Razor chimed in from the Men in Blue’s side of things. They were probably gathered at one of the guys’ houses. Their ladies too. “The cash you smuggled out for them—”
“Don’t say it like I did it on purpose.” She frowned. “I would never do something like that. Just because you’re a cop doesn’t mean you can talk to me like that.”
“Ow!” Razor must have gotten slapped upside the head by one of the older guys. A common occurrence for the recent rookie. “Sorry, Ellie. I was just joking.”
“Not funny,” Lucas growled. Mason backed him up from the other end of the line.
“Anyway.” Matt—one of Jambrea’s men—got them refocused. “The cash you have seems like it was a test. For a bigger operation. Kind of like they were trying to show that whoever is looking to join in with the head honchos running the heist has the skills to get the job done.”
“This is bad.” Lucas pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Why?” Ellie tipped her head.
“Because they’re not going to let it go,” Mason answered. “They can’t afford to. It’s not only about the cash. It’s their reputation, which surprisingly means a lot to a criminal.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Ellie threw up her hands.
Lucas thought she looked adorable, and it kind of turned him on when she cursed. The combination of her classy looks and trashy mouth did it for him. Besides, the motion did awesome things to her boobs.
But he was more concerned than ever now. “Do you know who they were targeting with their show?”
There were only a few organizations in this region that could pull off something like that. Unfortunately, they were also the best at evading the cops. They had plenty of experience. It was possible Lucas could use some of his government resources for additional support if it was someone who operated across state lines.
“Not exactly.” Clint—Jambrea’s other guy—spoke slowly enough to make Lucas wary.
“What’s that mean?”
“We don’t know who it is,” JRad admitted. “We believe the local goons who tried to step up had instructions for a drop. If they made it there, they would have been considered for the real job.”
Lucas felt something icy and sick go through his guts. “No. Fuck no!”
“It might be the only way to shut it down,” Tyler said.
“You’re talking in code again.” Ellie chewed on one of her nails, which didn’t have much to lose before she’d start bleeding.
“I’m pretty sure these assholes were going to be crazy enough to suggest that you and I take this pile of money to some badass motherfuckers and do some snooping around for them.” Lucas clung to Ellie as if he could protect her from the entire world with his arms alone.
“It’s one plan,” Razor confirmed.
“A shitty one.” Lucas wouldn’t do it. No way would he put Ellie in danger. “Think of something else.”
“Wait,” Ellie interjected.
“E, no.” Lucas tried to shush her with his fingers over her plump lips, but she nipped his hand. “Ow!”
Someone on the other end of the line chuckled.
“What good would it do for Lucas and me to hand over this money?” she asked.
Lucas closed his eyes, already knowing where they were headed.
“If we can set them up and bust the main heist, we could take down a lot of high-level guys operating in this part of the country,” JRad explained. “It would be a huge win.”
“How can we not do it if we have the opportunity to make a difference in the world?” Ellie spoke exclusively to Lucas. She stared into his eyes. “You built your whole career doing exactly this. Why would you ask me to be any less honorable than you have been?”
“It was my job. You didn’t sign on for this.” He took her hand in his and squeezed gently. “You’re also not trained. Shit happens.”
He lifted his leg as if it weren’t obvious, laying directly between them. “Even for trained professionals, stuff can go bad quick. I’d never let you do this.”
And that was the worst possible thing he could have said. Even Razor made an audible grunt from the other side of the line before mumbling something that sounded like “you blew it, dude”.
“What I do with my life is not your decision to make, Lucas.” Ellie dared him to tell her otherwise.
Even he wasn’t that stupid. He could try it, and they’d be over before they’d really even got started.
“Look, I spent too long at the hands of evil people to turn a blind eye when I could do something to stop these guys. This isn’t the only horrible thing they’re going to do in their lives. I could be keeping someone else down the road from going through something like I did.”
He wished she were wrong, but she wasn’t.
“If I can help, I want to do it,” she told him, and the Men in Blue heard.
“Thank you, Ellie,” Mason said.
“So where’s the handoff?” Lucas asked. If he was prepared enough, he could skew the odds far in their favor. He had equipment. He had friends. He had knowledge and experience. He hated that there was any risk at all, but he could minimize it.
“Well, that’s the part we need some help with.” JRad picked up the thread of conversation.
It reminded Lucas of his old team, the way they thought so much the same, like they were using a single hive mind. He figured most guys who spent so much time together, a lot of it with their lives entrusted to their partners, ended up the same way.
It made him miss his team. He’d distanced himself from them when he couldn’t bear to see the pity and anguish in their stares anymore. But maybe it was time he started reconnecting, showing them that there was more to life than their war games.
Attuned to him already, Ellie noticed the change in his bearing and snuggled closer.
He hugged her tight. Maybe she could be his new partner in life.
“It seems like there’s someone working this from inside the casino,” Tyler said. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. No one miscounts that kind of dough. So we think it was a test. They were only going to get the coordinates if they were able to snag the money.”
“It’s in the bag.” Lucas groaned, then stared across the room to where it lay on top of his dresser.
If Ellie weren’t next to him, he’d hustle over there to snag it in some combination of his hop-crawl-scramble method of getting around. He wasn’t quite ready to put on that show for her, though, and his leg would take a minute to don.
“Dig around, we’ll wait,” Mason instructed.
Without him asking, Ellie crawled off the bed—flashing her perfect ass at him in the process—then retrieved the sack.
“It’s not obvious, whatever it is.” He talked mostly to himself. “I sorted through here twice. There were no neon signs or a note that said ‘meet us here at high noon’, or even a business card or anything like that.”
Ellie reached into the bag then paused. “Can I touch it?”
“Go ahead.” He nodded but didn’t add what he was thinking. They already know who you are, E. Because that thought alone was enough to send shivers down his spine.
Lucas had the skills to take her and run. They could live a comfortable life somewhere overseas and never be found. A tiny, remote island all to themselves sounded ideal. But he knew without asking that she would never leave Ryan or the support network of friends that had become her second family.
Shit.
While he was daydreaming about running away for the first time in his life, Ellie w
as flipping through the cash. She picked it up, shook it, smelled it. Stared at it in awe. It was a life-changing amount of money for someone with no job and a lot of medical bills piling up.
Lucas made a mental note to see about getting her a reward for helping the authorities.
She deserved it.
Hell, she deserved everything good in life.
“Is it normal for some of these to be highlighted?” she asked after a while.
“No,” every one of the Men in Blue plus Lucas said in unison.
“Wow, did you guys practice that?” She smiled, completely at odds with how Lucas felt. He’d hoped maybe they wouldn’t make the connection and she’d be out of the mess by default.
“Tell me what you see,” JRad ordered, his Dom side peeking out.
Ellie shivered then responded quickly, making Lucas’s eyes narrow. Was she in to that? Or was it a learned response from Morselli’s dungeon?
Efficiently, Ellie reported back, “It’s in the serial numbers. Different characters all over. Numbers too.”
Lucas sat by, letting her take charge as she read them off to JRad, who plugged them into one of his crazy software programs.
Within minutes, he had a short list of possible addresses.
While Ellie and Lucas listened, the Men in Blue eliminated them one by one from the records.
Until they hit on a name that had the hairs on Lucas’s arm standing up.
“Lucky’s Bar at 777 Clover Boulevard.” Razor snorted. “It’s got to be that one. There’s a special event listed on their website at seven o’clock tonight, with no information other than the time.”
“I wouldn’t say this was very fortunate for us at all.” Lucas shook his head. “Does Ryan know you’re sending her in there?”
“Hell fucking no,” Razor nearly shouted, as if Lucas were crazy.
“Don’t tell him, either,” Ellie insisted. “He’ll only worry and there’s nothing he can do. I’m going.”
Lucas crumpled the sack in his hand, staring at her and measuring her resolve.
“Don’t look at me like that either.” She shoved him hard, but he didn’t budge from her side. “I’m not going to change my mind.”
“She’ll be okay with you to protect her. These guys are crooks, not murderers, mostly. They’ll need her for the job, Lucas. Getting rid of her doesn’t make any sense.” Mason’s logic might have been soothing if they were dealing with something slightly less important to him than his woman’s safety.
Wow.
Where had that thought come from?
He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t deny to himself that it felt right.
Whether she knew it or not, she was destined to be his. And he was hers.
“I don’t know.”
Lucas doubted himself. It was a foreign experience. One he hated. But the stakes had never been so high before. His own life meant nothing compared to hers. If something happened to her, he was as good as dead himself because he’d never recover from the guilt.
“Maybe one of you should cover her. I’m still getting used to things. What if she needs me and I trip or something? I’m not sure—”
“We can’t risk them recognizing us,” JRad said gently. He knew the toll it could take when your partner was at risk. Lily had been in Morselli’s dungeon too. She’d nearly lost her life there. “If I had to pick any man not on the force to watch over Lily, it would be you. And I have to say that first part because they have guns, and they’re right here.”
Matt, Clint, Razor, Mason and Tyler laughed.
“Not you of a year ago either,” JRad kept going. “You right now. You’re ready for this. You’ve been working hard, getting yourself back up to speed. Hell, you hiked almost four miles through rough terrain wearing completely the wrong prosthetic foot for the job and managed to tough it out. You’re the best man for this job.”
“You’re the only man I’d trust.” Ellie leaned up to kiss him on the cheek.
It might have been a maneuver intended to soften him to her. If so, it only worked on certain parts of him, like his heart. Below the belt, not so much.
“You kept me safe the other day. We make a good team,” she continued when he didn’t immediately agree. “Otherwise, it’ll be me alone. And that’s way worse.”
It was. And he knew she’d do it too.
“Fine. Fuck,” he snarled. “We’ll be there. Tonight. At seven. We’ll tell them we’re on to their game and that we want in. Ellie’s proven she can be the mule. I’ll tell them we want a cut for not turning them in.”
“Act less threatening than you really are.” Razor tried to be helpful. “You’re kind of scary when you’re in agent mode.”
“The kid’s right.” Mason backed Razor up. “Grab equipment from your stash. Maybe set something up with JRad later so we can listen in or watch. That would be even better. We’ll be ready with backup in case something happens. But when you’re on-site, face-to-face, make sure you tone it down. Remember to act casual. These losers aren’t in the same league as the baddies you’re used to. You’re just a street-smart, greedy punk. Not a hero.”
Lucas figured there was a specific reason Mason had chosen that word. It implied sacrifice. They didn’t want him doing anything stupid.
Well, too fucking bad. This whole plan was the dumbest thing he’d done in his life.
And if went sour, everyone would pay.
Missing a leg or not, he would hunt down every last person who dared to harm a hair on Ellie’s head if she wasn’t at home, waiting for him, to stop him from going vigilante.
“Got it,” he told the Men in Blue.
“Good. So maybe you want to get back to resting up for tonight, then? We won’t keep you.” Mason’s smarmy tone made it clear he knew what they’d been up to in order to induce such fantastic sleep. He must have been moving as he talked since his speech was uneven. “Say hello to Lucas and Ellie, everyone!”
Just before the connection was severed, a chorus of “hello”, “miss you”, “stay safe” and “love you” poured through the speaker.
When it was just the two of them again, Lucas realized there was a sheen of tears in Ellie’s eyes.
“Are you scared? We can call them back. Tell them we’re out.”
“No. I’m grateful and so lucky to have people like them in my life.” She crawled into his lap and wrapped her arms and legs around him. “People like you. I would never disappoint them by doing less than the right thing.”
How could he not find that type of spirit attractive?
Hint: He couldn’t.
Lucas buried his fingers in Ellie’s hair and drew her to him for a kiss that wiped his mind of everything but her and how incredible she made him feel, simply by being near her.
If doubt still niggled the back of his brain, somewhere deep in the instinctual zone he’d perfected during his career, he silenced it. There would be plenty of time for running the odds later.
Please let them come through this unscathed.
Chapter Eleven
It gave Lucas hives when things went too easy. This was definitely one of those times.
Even after making a stop at the mall so Ellie could pick up some appropriate clothes to replace the too-baggy T-shirt and shorts he’d loaned her, he hadn’t been able to delay them significantly.
At precisely seven o’clock that evening, he strolled through the front door of Lucky’s Bar with Ellie on his arm. She hadn’t taken any of the opportunities he’d given her to turn around. In fact, she’d implied that if he didn’t stop asking her, she’d torture him by playing with herself and not allowing him to touch her when they got home.
He didn’t intend to piss her off that much since he had big plans for tonight.
That was, if they didn’t get wiped out by the fuckwads they were meeting.
; Before Lucas had even made it all the way into the dimly lit, smoky interior of Lucky’s, he knew who they were aiming for. The thugs were too inconspicuous to be natural. It was like a debadged tan sedan with mud slung just over the license plates. Trying too hard to blend.
Lucas steered Ellie by her elbow toward the pair of men. The taller of the two wore a too-new baseball cap and the other had on a pair of ridiculously dark sunglasses.
Lucas did his absolute best to mask his limp. Fuck, they were sitting on either side of the booth, so he and E would have to split up to join them.
He hated this more and more by the second.
“Last chance,” he murmured to her.
“Keep going,” she responded with a low rumble completely incongruent with the lovely smile on her face.
“Gentlemen,” he said as he approached the table. The two guys who’d noticed them the instant they entered acted pleasantly surprised, as if they had run into old friends out for drinks.
“Have a seat, please.” The Yankees fan motioned. Lucas gave Ellie’s hand one final squeeze then ushered her into the seat with the obvious second-in-command.
“I think we have something of yours,” Lucas said as if he were talking about a Tupperware container the guy had left at his house during their last potluck, or something as trivial as that. He plopped the sack on the table. Of course, the real bills had been replaced by high-quality counterfeits he’d cooked up while stashing the originals in the boathouse. He’d included a tracker for fun too.
The fake bills and transponder were all top-of-the-line, international-quality spy shit. Nothing these guys would be able to detect either. JRad had nearly come in his pants when he’d seen the gizmo up close. This way, they’d have an idea of where these losers were hanging out, so the Men in Blue could bring down the entire network of conmen and robbers.
“I’m surprised to see you found it.” Sunglasses shook his head. “I would have thought it would be with someone else. Those three guys we know.”
Lucas thought about the two corpses the Men in Blue had cleaned out of Ellie’s house. He bet the third sucker wasn’t doing much better right about now.
