The only hope I have is that one of these assholes let something slip upstairs. The main floor of the house is bugged, but no one’s ever been able to get into the basement, and though I tried to ask how long it would take to get to the campus as we walked through the parlor, all I got was a swift elbow in the ribs. Seems Ricci knows about the bugs and just doesn’t give a shit.
Sylvio turns from the front passenger seat and fixes me with a hard stare. “You ready, kid?”
My heart hammers against my chest. “Yeah. You sure the daughter won’t be with him?”
“Don’t matter if she is,” Robbie pipes up from beside me. “If she gets caught in the crossfire, so be it. Boss doesn’t care.”
“Well, I do.” Straightening my shoulders, I punch him in the arm. “She doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Ryan’s business. I’m not killing a woman just because she’s in the wrong place at the wrong damn time.”
Sylvio pulls out his pistol and aims it at my head. “This is your test, Aiden. You mess this up because of a chick, and Ricci will not only kill you, he’ll make you wish you were dead for weeks before he finally tells me to put a bullet in your brain. You had your fun with her at the club last night, but that’s over now. This is business, and if you want a place in this family, you’ll do your fucking job.”
Shit. He knows Dahlia was at Whips and Chains. Inwardly, I roll my eyes. Of course he knows. She had to give her credit card to get in the door.
I nod, clamping my lips together so I don’t say something I’ll regret. Or pull out my gun and shoot Sylvio between the eyes. I’d be dead seconds after him.
Wes pulls over to the side of a residential street a few blocks from the Berkeley campus, and we sit, the car idling, while Sylvio keeps an eye out for Mickey Ryan’s town car.
We don’t have long to wait. Less than ten minutes later, he grunts, “It’s go time,” and Wes floors it. The SUV lurches forward, careens around a corner on two wheels, and then sideswipes the town car, forcing it into another parked car along the curb.
Throwing open the door, my gun drawn, I race around the back of the SUV. A shot whizzes by my ear, and I drop and roll, coming up only inches from the town car’s back door. My fingers are around the handle when another shot slams into me from behind, just above my knee. It burns, and my leg won’t hold me any longer, but I still manage to wrench the door open.
Mickey Ryan, a ruddy-faced Irish giant, points a gun at my head, and I mouth, “FBI.” He falters, just for a moment, until the opposite door opens.
“Get out of there,” another man with an Irish accent shouts from behind Mickey. I don’t know which one of them fires, but it feels like someone hit me in the head with a rock, an odd plinking sound reverberating inside my skull, and the world starts to move in slow motion.
Sylvio’s voice is close but muffled as he grunts, “Shit. The kid’s going down!”
More gunfire explodes around me, but these shots sound like they’re underwater. I have to make it look like I tried. Or I’m dead. Or maybe I’m dead anyway.
I raise my gun and aim for Mickey’s shoulder. But my vision shimmers as he moves across the back seat, and when I squeeze the trigger, my shot lands too high, and all I see is red.
The scent of blood is thick in my nose, and the world is spinning, and when agony overtakes my left shoulder, I stop fighting to stay upright.
The sky is angry. Cloudless, patches of blue and crimson floating as I struggle to breathe through the pain. Sylvio’s face swims over me, but I can’t hear what he’s saying—or can’t understand it. There are sounds all around me, but none of them make sense.
I should sleep. Yeah. That sounds good. I’ll sleep a while. After that, I’ll figure out what the hell he’s yelling about.
4
Three Years Later
Dahlia
Sunlight streams through my window, and I open one eye. It takes me a few minutes to remember where I am. My new apartment. A fresh start. Except, nothing will erase the stain of my memories. Of being mugged right outside my old condo. Of having nothing to offer the assholes except my mostly-empty wallet and cell phone. Their hands on me. Over my mouth. Warning me not to scream.
The fear I’m going to end up dead. Or raped. Carousing voices moving closer. My attackers panicking, dragging me deeper into the darkness, and when I manage to kick one of them in the knee, pain exploding across my cheek. My feeble whimper. Then…falling. The scent of rotting food. The echo of the dumpster lid slamming.
I must have hit my head, because time seemed to slow, then stop. The stench was awful, but the darkness...it was the darkness that terrified me. I couldn’t get out. The lid wouldn’t budge no matter how many times I pushed on it, even tried to jump and throw myself against it.
Hours...hours and hours in the dark, pounding until my hands were bloody and my voice was gone. As the sun came up, someone taking out their trash finally heard me.
I reach over and gingerly lift my new phone off the nightstand. The cuts on my hands are healing, but the bruises were bone deep, and they still ache.
Scrolling through my email, I find a message from the detective in charge of my case. Two more women were mugged in the past week—one of them raped as well. He thinks it’s the same guys, but of course, there’s no way to know for sure. I never saw their faces. And they’re still out there.
Tears burn my eyes. I loved my condo. But after I got out of the hospital, I couldn’t get close to the building without panicking. So now, I’m here. Across town. Boxes in every room, packed up by professional movers so I wouldn’t have to set foot in the place that had been my home ever since I moved to Seattle.
The next message is from my bank. The word OVERDRAFT is all I can see through the haze of my shame.
My phone screen locks, the date flashing in my periphery, and I swallow my sob. It’s the anniversary of my father’s death. How could I have forgotten? The day I graduated college, he was ambushed and executed. And what’s worse? I never got to say goodbye. Because he’d sent me to the ceremony in a separate car, as if he knew his darkness was coming for him.
I was so angry at him for sending me away, I didn’t utter a word as he’d ushered me into the limo. “You’re so beautiful, Dahlia,” he’d said, then leaned in and kissed my cheek. “And I’m so very proud of you.”
“If you were that proud of me, you’d let me stay,” I’d retorted, and the hurt on his face…I’ll never forget it.
“This is for the best, Dahlia Rose. End of discussion.”
I can still hear the limo door slam. Feel the tears burning my eyes as the driver ferried me to UC Berkeley from our home in Marin County. And once we arrived? I forgot all about my father in the excitement of seeing my friends, of walking the stage, and receiving my diploma.
Until two hours later when I came home to find the FBI in our house, and heard the news that my father had been shot multiple times, then dragged into a black SUV and taken away.
Pulling the covers back over my head and throwing my phone onto the floor, I let myself cry. How did my life go from perfect to...this...in so short a time?
Growing up, I had everything. Of course, my father did terrible things to provide for me. The past three years, I’ve done just fine all on my own. A decent job, a comfortable condo, a couple of friends. But now, I’m out of money, and I don’t even know if I’m going to be able to return to my job teaching community college after winter break.
I have to do something. Change something. I just don’t know what.
San Francisco looks, feels, and smells exactly the same as it did three years ago. I’m the one who’s different. A new look. A new life.
One I don’t want.
I haven’t set foot in this town since my father’s body—or what was left of it—was discovered a week after my graduation. It took his dental records to ID him. We never had a funeral. Too risky. When the most influential mob boss in the city is murdered, apparently shoving it under the rug and never speaki
ng of it again is the standard protocol. At least that’s what his second-in-command—Noah—told me when he put me on a plane to Seattle with my new identity.
The cemetery is deserted this time of the morning—just after nine. Anyone passing by would see a woman bundled up in a long, gray coat, a mix of green and purple curls cascading down her back, walking slowly past Mickey Ryan’s headstone, as if she can’t quite remember where she’s going.
The last time I was here, my hair was shorter and dark brown. I had thirty extra pounds on me. And I was…proud. I walked with my back straight, my shoulders firm.
Since the attack…I spend more time with my arms wrapped around myself than I want to admit. Always looking over my shoulder. Always scared.
My father’s grave is overgrown with weeds, and tears burn my eyes. He wasn’t the best man. Hell, he wasn’t even a good man. But he loved me, and I loved him. Idolized him.
I check in every direction, making sure no one’s around to see me stop and drop to one knee. Brushing off the headstone, I run my fingers over the etched lettering. Not even an epigraph. Just his name and the dates marking the start and end of his life. Sixty-two years, six months, and four days. Longer than Mom. Her stone is older. More weathered. Almost hidden by the tall grasses. Iris Lily Ryan. Every woman in our family is named for a flower. I used to hate my name. My real name. Dahlia. So formal. So…strict. But now that I can’t use it anymore…I miss it.
I shouldn’t have come here. With a sniffle, I tug my coat tighter around me as I rise and hurry to the taxi waiting for me outside the gates. “The Hotel Montrose,” I say with a sniffle. I know I should leave. Go back to Seattle and try to reclaim a piece of my life. But I can’t. Not yet.
Whips and Chains hasn’t changed in three years. Only I have. The corset and lace skirt I wore the last time I was here? They’re so loose on me now, they fell off when I tried them on back at my hotel. That required a trip to one of San Francisco’s more…refined sex shops, and the results? I’m stunned.
The bodysuit is deep purple, the same color as my hair, with a cutout for my pussy and a heart-shaped opening that frames my cleavage nicely. The stilettos are old, but the mask I wear? I’m not stupid—I could still be recognized—it’s silver and black, curving over my eyes and almost to my ears. My lips are painted the same color as the bodysuit, and fake lashes peek out from the mask, lush and sparkling.
I chose a black lace skirt that falls to my knees in five separate panels. Just enough coverage for my bare mound, and the way it swishes brings air ghosting across my clit when I move just so.
“Name?” A bulky man dressed all in black with a golden D emblazoned across his shirt stares up at me from the desk in the reception room.
“Deanna Reynolds, sir,” I say softly as I hold out my ID and credit card.
“Have you been here before, sub?” Scribbling down my information, he swipes my card through the reader.
“Yes, sir. But not for several years.”
“Status?”
“Unattached sub, sir.” I still remember the protocol, though I never ventured anywhere like this in Seattle. It’s one of those things you never forget, I think.
“Read over the rules. We have some new ones since you were here last. Once you sign, you can go in.” He hands back my driver’s license and card, then holds out his hand. I offer him my wrist, and he tightens the white cuff with the RFID chip around it. “Welcome back, Deanna.”
“Thank you, sir.” With a nod and a little curtsey, I move to the side, scan the new policies and procedures for the club, and sign my name. Nothing much has changed. The club serves alcohol now on Friday nights, but there’s a two drink maximum. Also, a new global safe word.
If a club member makes you uncomfortable and does not respond to your safe word, ask the bartender or any of the staff Doms for a Pink Flamingo. They’ll provide any assistance you need.
I hand the signed document back to the bouncer, and he waves me inside.
The moment I pass through the door, I feel…like I’m home. Back where I belong, even though I only had one single scene here the night before everything changed.
At the bar, I wait to be acknowledged—as a sub, I’m only supposed to talk to the staff Doms if I’m in trouble or if they speak to me first.
“What would you like, darlin’?” the bartender asks.
“Sparkling water, please, sir. And may I ask a question?”
“You may.” He pulls a glass from under the counter and fills it for me, then waits for me to slide my wrist over the scanner.
“The last time I was here, I scened with a Master A. But it’s been a long time. I don’t suppose he still works here? Sir?” I quickly lower my gaze to my hands cupped around my glass.
“He comes in once in a while. But I haven’t seen him in weeks. Talk to Master G in the ropes room. You can tell him I sent you to him. His work isn’t as intricate as Master A’s, but he’s a good Dom, and he’ll take care of you, darlin’.”
I nod my thanks and hide my disappointment behind the mask. I don’t want Master G. I want the feeling I had the last time I was here. The feeling of being totally and completely owned—and maybe even cared for a little.
Still, I head for the ropes room. Perhaps Master G will be able to give me a fraction of that sensation. Or maybe this was just another in a long string of mistakes in my life that I’ll regret.
5
Dahlia
Sandpaper is less gritty than my eyes this morning. I ran from the ropes room not more than ten minutes after Master G started binding my arms. It…wasn’t right. He wasn’t right. Sleeping didn’t happen. Much. Every time I nodded off, I dreamed of Master A. His voice. The way I felt when I was with him. Safe. Protected. Cared for.
I’ve dreamed of him so often over the past three years. An unhealthy amount, probably. And every time I pulled out my vibrator? It was his voice in my head. His hands on me.
After paying my fare, I step from the cab. The San Francisco Federal Trust building looms ten stories tall in front of me, casting a shadow over the entire street. Dipping my hand into my pocket, I finger the safe deposit box key my father left in my room the day he died. Wrapped in a red box with silver ribbon, it was his last gift to me. The note inside—one I never let the FBI see—told me that what was inside would allow me to live my life without limits.
In other words, whatever’s in that safe deposit box is worth a hell of a lot of money.
Three years ago, I swore I’d never come back here. Never open the box and touch my legacy. Mickey Ryan was the head of the San Francisco Irish Mob. A killer. An arms dealer. He ran gambling halls all over town, and those who couldn’t pay? I found out how many of them he killed or maimed when the FBI spread his file out in front of me and asked me if there was anywhere he’d go if he wanted to hide.
Of course, all that was before they found his body.
I can do this. Walk inside that bank, hand over my real ID, and see my father’s final gift.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m alone in an examination room, my finger gliding along the number embossed on the metal container on the table. Mickey paid for an upgraded box inside the bank’s vault, and so I have the room all to myself—all part of the service, apparently. Just like the cup of coffee at my elbow, offered to me by a suited man who barely spoke above a whisper once we passed through the security door at the bank’s rear wall.
My hand shakes as I slide the key into the lock, and I squeeze my eyes shut. You can do this, Dahlia. You need the money.
Moving—and my overnight hospital stay—wiped out my savings and maxed out my single credit card. If I don’t do this, I’ll be homeless in under three months.
I blow out a breath and lift the lid.
“Oh, my God.” There has to be at least a million dollars in the box, along with six jewelry boxes. Velvet. Black, red, and pink. I’ve never seen this much money in one place. But…what the hell am I supposed to do with it? For all I know, it could be m
arked. Stolen. Traceable.
The first velvet box tumbles from my fingers before I get my emotions under control. Trying again, I open it, and gasp. A fat ruby, easily the size of my thumbnail, hangs from a platinum chain. There’s a small card underneath it.
This is the Crimson Dahlia Ruby. Known for its exceptional color and clarity, it was once worn by Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Days Queen of England and Ireland.
On the back, my father’s handwriting.
Dahlia, I started collecting these when you were born. They were all acquired legally, and they will ensure you will want for nothing. Please know that I am only sending you away to keep you safe. You are the light of my life and the center of my world, and one day I hope you will understand the depth of my love for you. Love, Dad.
Each box contains a different jewel—sapphire, emerald, diamond, opal, topaz, and ruby. Pulling out my phone, I open my browser and do a quick search for the Crimson Dahlia. Scanning the first article, I slap my hand over my mouth. It’s worth at least four hundred thousand dollars. I don’t even bother reading the notes on the other jewels. They all have names. Histories. Any one of them will erase my debt and give me enough cushion to figure out how to heal…on my own terms.
Trembling fingers hover over the cash. But I don’t touch. Not yet. Instead, I lift the ruby pendant from its box, unclasp the chain, and secure it around my neck, tucking the jewel under my sweater. I need to do more research, and then make an appointment at Sotheby’s.
I guess I’m staying in San Francisco another few days.
Aiden
The wind whips around me as I huddle against the wall, clutching my phone. The black coat, black hat, and black scarf pulled up around my mouth should keep me well-hidden this time of night, but still, I press a little further back into the shadows.
Leave Me Breathless: The Black Rose Collection Page 72
