To Wolfe’s surprise, Constantin’s expression softened into something sympathetic. “Sebastian has never had a boyfriend either, and to my knowledge all the dates he’s been on were… work-related.” He said that part with a scowl, and just the thought of Sebastian going out with some skeevy guy on his father’s orders made Wolfe’s blood boil. “He is… fond of you. Fonder than I have seen him become of anyone else. Do not misuse that fondness.”
Wolfe smiled into his coffee. “Or you’ll kill me?”
Constantin patted him on the shoulder. “Perhaps you are not as dumb as you look after all.”
~***~
Scarlett stood in front of the full-length mirror in Caitlin and Ryan’s suite and smoothed down her skirt, then grabbed the hairspray to tame a flyway from her braided bun. She and Frogger had elected to pair their emerald dresses with beige pumps, and even their makeup matched—red lips, a little eyeliner and mascara, and a touch of blush.
If she shifted her gaze, she could see the reflection of Melissa and Lottie putting the finishing touches on Caitlin’s hair, fitting the veil into her elaborate crown of curls. Maureen and Angela had been adamant that no security personnel would be in the room while the women got ready, but Peter was hovering out in the hallway and no doubt had Keane following Christopher around like a guard dog. There was a knock at the door, followed by Peter sticking his head inside.
When he caught sight of Scarlett, something that was almost a smile passed over his face. “Are we almost ready, ladies? You look beautiful, Scarlett. Just like your mother.”
Since she intended to follow the bride downstairs so they could assemble with the rest of the wedding party, Scarlett froze in a half-turn toward Caitlin. Peter never brought up his late wife… unless he wanted something from his daughter and couldn’t think of another way to get it. It was the worst kind of manipulation, and exactly the reason why Scarlett didn’t trust him further than she could throw him—and right now she was thinking about throwing him all the fucking way back to New York.
She spun around and took three quick steps toward her father, putting her hand flat on Peter’s chest, shoving until his back hit the door of the room across the hall. “You don’t get to talk about her,” she hissed, acrylic nails digging into his skin through the material of his dress shirt. “I’m done with your bullshit, old man. Tell me what you want, right now, or I’m going to put your head through this goddamn door.”
Peter didn’t beat around the bush, less out of concern for his head and more for his designer suit: “I want you to move back home and work for me.”
Anger flared through Scarlett. “Are you kidding me? I begged you for a job after I left the NYPD, and you said—”
“Things were different then,” Peter said, his tone infuriatingly placating. “You had a lot of your mother’s impulses—” read: she travelled alone because he was always busy and cheated on him for the same reason “—but I can see you’re different now, in a good way.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “That, and… Marshall Raider. He’s out of prison.”
Hearing the name of her mother’s murderer made Scarlett reel back in shock, yanking herself out of her father’s grasp. Instead of falling on her ass, she was caught by Diana and Frogger. Her heart pounded in her chest so hard she thought it was trying to escape her body, and she stared at Peter, struck not for the first time by how calm he always was when he discussed her mother’s death. As if it had been something inconvenient like a scheduling conflict and not a life-altering trauma.
“Stay the fuck away from me,” Scarlett choked out. “I’m not gonna move, I’m not gonna work for you, and I certainly don’t need you to protect me from Marshall Raider or anybody else.” She pushed past him, adding over her shoulder: “It’s not like you were able to protect Mom.”
She held her head high as she walked away and knew without looking back that her friends were following her. She didn’t give a damn if her father did or not.
~***~
The ceremony was beautiful and went off without a hitch. After Caitlin and Ryan were officially married and the wedding party posed for pictures—taken by Frankie, who was a closet photography nut—they all moved to the hotel’s ballroom for the reception. For Sebastian it was akin to just about every party or gala he’d ever been to… except everyone was happy.
It didn’t take him long to find Wolfe once the crowd spread out between the dance floor and the buffet. He stood near the gift table, watching as Caitlin danced with her father for a song before Ryan cut in, mouth curved in a faint smile. Sebastian didn’t miss the edge of sadness to it, and wondered not for the first time how different Wolfe’s life—and consequently the lives of many people in the room—would’ve been altered had he decided against joining the military.
When Wolfe saw Sebastian that sadness melted away, replaced by an affection that left Sebastian feeling breathless. He even sounded a bit winded when he spoke: “You were an excellent best man. I would give you five stars on Yelp.”
Wolfe ducked his head and chuckled, hands in the pockets of his dress pants. “Well, your piano playing was pretty incredible.”
Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “Are you referring to when Caitlin walked down the aisle… or this morning, when you and Constantin were spying on me?”
“You, uh… you noticed that?” A faint blush colored Wolfe’s cheeks, making the freckles on his skin stand out. “He gave me the shovel talk, in case you’re interested.”
“I would expect nothing less,” Sebastian said wryly, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “In case you hadn’t noticed, he is a tiny bit overprotective.” He noticed some hotel employees rolling out the wedding cake and nodded toward it. “I hope you’re in the mood for marbled vanilla and chocolate cake with a light buttercream frosting and fresh raspberries.”
Wolfe looked perplexed for a second before he smiled again. “That’s right—Caitlin had you come to the cake tasting.” He paused. “Wait, did she give you the shovel talk?”
“No.” Sebastian smiled back. “Jake did that.”
“Of course he did.” Wolfe offered Sebastian his hand to hold. “Can I buy you a drink at the free bar?”
Sebastian twined their fingers together and grinned so hard his face hurt. “I’d love that.”
~***~
Scarlett waited until Wolfe and Sebastian were done being adorable near the bar before she approached Kevin, thumping his shoulder lightly as she sat down next to him. “What, you didn’t order me a tequila sunrise too?”
“Didn’t know you were coming over here,” Kevin replied, giving her a small but genuine smile. “The ceremony was beautiful—I was surprised by the lack of bloodshed.”
She knew Kevin well enough by now to realize that was a joke and laughed accordingly. “I almost broke my father’s nose before the ceremony. Does that count?”
Kevin rolled his eyes. “What did he do now?”
Scarlett waited to speak again until she had a drink—whiskey, neat. She downed half of it in one slug, then said, “My mom was murdered when I was eleven years old. It’s not something I talk about for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that it still fucking hurts every time I think about it. She was killed by a guy named Marshall Raider, a nutcase with a thing for blondes. He stalked her for weeks without my father or his thugs noticing and snatched her when she was walking home from work.” A faint smile tugged at her lips. “Mom liked to do that instead of sitting in Manhattan traffic for an hour each way. And that was way more information than you probably wanted—”
A hand touched hers, a light press of fingers that made her look at Kevin. Instead of the sympathy or pity she expected to see, he watched her with a… a soft expression. “I’m so sorry about your mom,” he murmured, setting his hand on the bar top, palm-up in invitation. “I can’t imagine how horrible that was. And I can’t say that I’ll understand how you feel, but I’m willing to listen. If you want.”
Scarlett looked at him for several second
s before lifting her hand and placing it on top of his. “I’d like that.” She paused. “After this.” And then she kissed him.
When they broke apart, Kevin stared for a moment before he grinned. “I guess this is a real date after all.”
~***~
The asset clambered from tree to tree with a silenced Remington Modular Sniper Rifle, and each time she looked through her sights a man in a suit outside the Mount Washington Hotel fell like a domino in the fading sunlight. Despite the fact that she was producing the result desired by her handler, the asset thought there was something missing. The gun was good, it was fine… but wasn’t it supposed to be bigger? Less something she could prop on her shoulder and fire at will, and more something that needed to be stood on a flat surface?
She shook her head to clear it and dropped out of a sturdy oak, crawling on her belly into some bushes with the rifle slung over her back. The asset watched for signs of movement or reinforcements, but she had killed all of the private security personnel stationed around the main doors and the courtyard entrance to the ballroom by being patient and waiting for each one to be alone. Using the growing shadows to her advantage, the asset snatched a keycard from the jacket pocket of one of the dead men before using it to gain access to a side entrance which led to a corridor.
She knew from her careful study of the building’s schematics that the second door on the left was a maintenance closet that contained the electrical breaker box for the entire hotel. Just flipping the main switch would blackout the ballroom and be enough to cause panic and chaos…
But as always, her handler had grander designs.
~***~
Frankie never felt more like himself than when he was looking through the viewfinder on a camera. It was a hobby he’d kept private until Caitlin had announced her engagement to the family at Sunday dinner and Maureen had suggested they get some photos taken. All the Sullivans had immediately turned to Kevin, fully expecting the soulful librarian to have a friend who liked to take pictures. Instead, much as Frankie had outed Jake to their entire school, Kevin had simply pointed at Frankie and said, “He has a camera with four different lenses.”
And so Frankie found himself not only taking his sister’s engagement photos, but her wedding ones too. Not a bad gig all things considered, and he’d already given out six business cards to various members of the extended family for everything from First Communion to prom. Did he need a sideline when he was already a BPD officer? Probably not, but his old man was right when he said it was always good to keep his options open.
He’d snapped candid shots of almost everybody by this point of the reception, after the cake was cut and people were on their second or third (or fourth or fifth, if you were a Murphy in from County Tipperary) alcoholic beverage. The band—which consisted of Lacey Stahl, her father Samuel, Kevin, and one of the waiters who happened to play bass—were currently playing a cover of Paramore’s “Still Into You” and the dance floor was churning with people, mostly teenagers.
Frankie spotted a familiar head of red hair and drifted in Jake’s direction, watching from behind a pillar like a freaky stalker as he talked to Detective Kamienski and Christopher’s campaign manager, Nikki. The way Jake gestured with his hands as he spoke hadn’t changed despite the injuries inflicted by the Mass Art Murderer, and without conscious thought Frankie raised the camera and snapped off a few pictures.
He’d intended to get photos of the three of them, but when he glanced at the camera screen he realized the pictures were portraits of Jake right as he’d laughed, which Frankie could always anticipate from the way his mouth flattened out. What the hell did that mean? Before Frankie could figure it out (the butterflies in his stomach gave him a very scary idea), the ragtag group on stage finished their song and Lacey tapped her microphone to get everyone’s attention. It mostly worked—two-thirds of the room turned in her direction, while the rest were too shitfaced to do much besides swear at the feedback.
“Hey everybody,” she said, taking a sip off of a water bottle, “there’s someone who was supposed to be here tonight and couldn’t make it… or at least that’s what you thought until now.” She pointed toward the ballroom doors. “All the way from Greece, let’s give a warm and not-slurred welcome to Josh Wolfe!”
Frankie almost dropped his camera when the eldest Wolfe sibling walked in, smiling bashfully in the face of cheers. Since he’d been working with Doctors Without Borders for almost four months it was no surprise that he was as tan as a saddle, which looked great with his gray suit and black shirt. When he clapped Wolfe on the shoulder and leaned in to hug him their resemblance was striking, save for the kinder tilt to Wolfe’s brow and his broader build. He went to Caitlin and Ryan next, hugging her and shaking his hand, and then bent down to kiss his mother on the cheek.
Movement in his viewfinder caught Frankie’s attention—Jake all but ran in the direction of the bathrooms like his ass was on fire. Frowning, Frankie put down his camera on the gift table (his family was many things, but thieves were not one) and started to walk after him, wondering what the problem was. Why hadn’t he gone over to greet his brother along with everybody else? Was it because Josh had left for his volunteer mission on the same night that Jake was tortured by the Mass Art Murderer?
Before he could make the connection regarding that particular coincidence, a gunshot cracked through the ballroom. Frankie dove for Jake’s ankles without conscious thought, tackling him out of harm’s way. They hit the floor hard and Frankie scrambled to cover Jake’s shaking body with his own, wishing he’d worn his gun to the wedding despite a strict no-guns rule with an exception for Peter and his men; at the last family reunion some Sullivan cousins got drunk and one of them ended up in the ER with a gunshot wound to the foot.
There was a cry of pain from somewhere in the crowd amid the panicked screaming and diving for cover… and then the power went out, plunging the ballroom and the rest of the hotel into darkness.
~***~
Chapter Twenty
Ears ringing from a combination of the gunshot and the screech of dropped instruments, Wolfe pushed himself up from where he’d knocked Sebastian and a Murphy relative to the floor and started scanning the room as red emergency lights flared to life near the exits. Through the glass doors leading out to the courtyard he saw the bodies of Peter’s guards sprawled on the ground; they would’ve been impossible to spot with the glare from the lights, but now that they were enveloped by near-darkness it was easy. What wasn’t easy was discerning who had been shot, since there it was absolute calamity as three hundred people were either in the midst of taking cover or trying to get outside.
Wolfe stuck his index finger and his thumb in his mouth and whistled. “HEY!” he yelled in his sergeant’s voice, and everyone froze. “The exterior doors locked automatically when the power failed—and you don’t want to leave the building anyway, not until we know what the threat is. Now, who’s hurt?”
“I… I think that’s me,” Patrick said, raising a shaky hand from near the punch bowls. He was bleeding sluggishly from a wound to his thigh, and Maureen was already wrapping her shawl around it. “Shot came from near the main doors.”
Josh went over to check on Patrick along with Caitlin and some of her friends from work, so Wolfe was sure he’d be fine. He grabbed Diana by the elbow, and he knew she must’ve looked at building schematics before she ever agreed to stay in the hotel. “What’s the most fortified room in this place?”
“Probably the security room behind the front desk,” Diana replied. If there was one thing Wolfe admired about her, it was that she was excellent in a crisis. “Everybody, pay attention! We need a few people to carry Patrick, and you all need to follow Detectives Kamienski and Hale—they’ll take you somewhere safe.”
“I’ll go too,” volunteered a tall black-haired man that Wolfe belatedly recognized as Scarlett’s ex, Keane. “Come on, everyone, let’s keep things calm and civilized.”
“We’ll call the local
police,” Kamienski said to Wolfe, “but I wouldn’t expect them for at least twenty minutes, not in the dark with the roads we had to use to get here.”
The three men started herding guests and employees alike toward the doors at the end of the ballroom opposite from where the shot had been fired, and soon only a handful of people were left in the dilapidated space. Streamers hung halfheartedly from the ceiling, and pieces of balloons were scattered on the ground, popped by trampling feet. Overturned tables were everywhere, along with food on the walls and ceiling.
Wolfe stood in the shadows furthest from the wall of windows and surveyed who he was working with: his father, Constantin, Scarlett, Sebastian, Diana, Flynn, Lottie, Peter, Frankie, and… Jake? “Whoa, whoa, what are you doing here?” he asked, both hands landing on Jake’s shoulders. “Why didn’t you go with the others?”
Jake looked pale and shaky, and Wolfe couldn’t tell if it was from the shooting or something else. “I… I just couldn’t, Jimmy, okay? Let me help, if I can.”
“Somebody needs to check the breaker box,” Scarlett said, pulling off her high heels and ripping her bridesmaid’s dress so she could run. “Maybe you and Frankie could do that?”
“Sure, no problem,” Frankie agreed, an expression on his face that Wolfe couldn’t quite decipher. He put a hand on Jake’s shoulder when Wolfe’s slipped off and steered him toward the doors. “C’mon, Jakey, let’s see if we can get the lights back on.”
Peter’s in-ear communicator crackled and Wolfe was half-aware of him speaking into it, but didn’t pay attention until Peter tapped him on the shoulder. “Wolfe, Aiden Parker’s here,” he said, and held out the comm like a weird olive branch. “He took a comm off one of my guys, and he wants to talk to you.”
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