Dare to Love Again

by Maddie Taylor

  Leads were coming in, money trails were popping up, and by evening he and his team had connected the dots, including narrowing down Hernandez’s whereabouts to one of four possible locations. The detectives were making headway, but they also had other homicides they were working where Keiran and his men did not. Their snail’s pace wasn’t fast enough for him, not with Esme’s life in danger. He assembled the team at the office gave them their assignments, expecting to have this wrapped up, with the asshole terrorizing Esme turned over to the police by morning.

  Before he headed out, he stopped in once more to check on her.

  Haunted green eyes met his when he sat down on the couch beside her. She was still pale, and even though she’d slept the entire afternoon, looked like she hadn’t shut her eyes in a week.

  Taking her hand, encouraged when her much smaller fingers curled reflexively around his own, he lifted them to his lips for a kiss, then leaned forward and placed another on her forehead.

  “Esme, darlin’, I’ve got to go, but Val is here, and Thomas is upstairs if you need him. I have guards posted to keep you safe until I return. And when I do, this nightmare will be over. I promise.”

  Her grip tightened painfully as she clung to him. “Stay with me, Finn. Let the police handle it.”

  “We’ve got leads to check, Esme. They’re strong. This can be wrapped up tonight.”

  “No,” she exclaimed, her other hand coming to his chest, her nails digging in and biting into his skin even through his shirt. “You won’t come back.”

  “I will, baby. We’ll get him and put him away where he can’t hurt you again.”

  “No,” she repeated, climbing into his lap and wrapping her arms in a choke hold around his neck.

  “Hush, darlin’, trust me.” But she wasn’t hearing him, keeping up a steady chant of no’s and don’t go’s. He looked to Val for help over her shoulder.

  She moved close, tears in her eyes as she spoke low, and explained, “She’s in shock. In her sleep, she kept talking about blood, death, and Andrew.”

  “Her husband.”

  “Yes. He died in her arms, and now her boss. I think she needs sedation, maybe hospitalization.”

  “She stays here, where she’s safe. Call Thomas down here,” he demanded. “Maybe there’s something he can give her until this is over.”

  “I’ll get him,” Eric said from the doorway.

  “Master Thomas? From the club?” Val clarified, turning to her husband in confusion. “What can he do?”

  “He’s a doctor, love,” he told her before disappearing into the hall.

  “No doctors, no hospitals,” Esme cried in his ear. “If we stay here he won’t find us.”

  He could feel her body trembling, and her voice wasn’t her own, more of a frightened child stuck in a night terror. But today, Esme’s had been all too real.

  When Thomas arrived, Keiran tried to put her down, so he could examine her. But she shouted, “No!” and climbed up his body like a tree, her arms and legs wrapping him up tight.

  It broke his heart, but he held her still while the doctor exposed her hip for an injection. “What is it?” he inquired as he looked on.

  “Lorazepam, a mild sedative. It should take effect in a few minutes and she’ll sleep for a few hours.”

  As Thomas predicted, her body stopped shaking and the death grip she had on him relaxed very quickly. In about ten minutes, he eased her down on the couch and covered her with a blanket Val handed him. Her eyes were open, though getting heavy, but the lingering fear he saw stabbed at him like a knife in the gut.

  “Close your eyes and rest, baby,” he urged softly while stroking her hair back from her face. He continued to do so until he could no longer see her beautiful green gaze and her lashes lay in a dark fan against her pale cheek. He waited another few minutes, giving the medication time to knock her out, before he moved. Seeing her like this strengthened his conviction to have Hernandez behind bars tonight, or out of her life in other more permanent ways.

  Thinking her asleep, he shifted to stand, but her hand shot out to his, her grip still surprisingly strong. She looked drugged but sounded lucid when she demanded, “Promise you’ll come back to me.”

  “I promise, a stór,” he stated firmly while bending to press a kiss to her lips. “Sleep and heal, baby.”

  She nodded but had one last thing to say. “If you don’t come back, and I lose another man I love, so help me God, Keiran Finnegan, I won’t mourn because I’ll never forgive you.” She said nothing more and her eyes drifted shut.

  “A vow of love and a threat all in one. Your woman has a way with words, my friend.”

  He rose and strode to the door, brushing against Eric as he moved through. “Come on. Let’s end this, so I can keep my promise, my woman, and her love.”

  Chapter 18

  “I want to go home.”

  Val glanced up from the note pad she’d been doodling on while trying to pass the time. “We’re on lockdown, Esme. We don’t know Carlos’ motivation yet—revenge against Keiran, the club, you, all of it, or maybe the connection is merely Gerald Reinhart. Whatever it turns out to be, we’re safer here until they have him in custody. Besides, it’s Keiran’s orders, honey.”

  “I did this to him.”

  “Who? Gerald?” Her wavy blond hair bounced around her shoulders as she emphatically shook her head. “You didn’t make Carlos pull the trigger.”

  “No, Finn.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Everyone I love, my parents, Andrew, Pax, and now Finn, they all wind up dead.”

  “I come back to check on my patient, to see if she needs more medication, and what do I find? A submissive in need of a spanking.”

  Val and Esme both gasped at this comment from Thomas as he walked in the door, black bag in hand—a doctor’s bag, not a Dom’s. He set it down on Finn’s desk then stood over her chair, glowering down at her, arms crossed over his broad chest.

  “Ryan Paxton isn’t dead; he’s on a mission, you know that. And Finnegan is going to be fine. He’s not good at his job, Esme, he’s the best, and when he tracks down Carlos, the two-bit, H-pushing, scum of the earth, motherfucker, won’t know what hit him.”

  “H?” Val asked.

  “As in heroine, Hernandez is a drug boss. Or he was until we busted his crew. They were small scale but making inroads into the LA drug market.”

  “Is organized crime everywhere?” Esme asked bitterly.

  “I wish I could say no, girl, but I can’t. But back to the bullshit you were spewing when I walked in. Your parents were killed by a drunk driver, which has nothing to do with you.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “I read your file,” he replied.

  “But I didn’t put that in my Decadence application. I kept the personal to a minimum.”

  His glower deepened. “Yes, which is why we had to run another check while you were sleeping this afternoon, a very thorough one.”

  Not herself, and living dangerously because of it, Esme glowered back at the surly Dom. “That’s just perfect. I suppose everyone at Rossi knows my blood type and when I started my period as a teen.”

  “O positive and age fourteen,” he stated matter of factly. “That is a little old these days. You were a late bloomer.”

  She gaped at him and that he’d spouted off private medical information—accurately—as though he were her doctor for real.

  “Is there nothing you Rossi men don’t know about me?”

  “Highly doubtful. Jonas Mitchell ran background on you, my lovely, and he doesn’t miss much.”

  “Did he discover I’m cursed and it spreads to the people around me who I care about?”

  “There’s that BS again. The only curse any of us has is being human. We’re finite, girl. No one is guaranteed to see tomorrow, so we must live today to the fullest.”

  “You sound like Finn,” she grumbled.

  “That’s because he, like me, is a w
ise man. You say you’re cursed because you’ve lost people you loved, but you’re looking at things wrong. You were given not only one man to love in your lifetime, but with Keiran, life or fate or destiny, whatever you call it, has given you the chance to have two. In my book, that’s what you call lucky, not cursed.”

  Not knowing how to reply to that, she didn’t, and Thomas went on.

  “Your parents could have been drunks, drug addicts, or physically abusive, but instead were good, hardworking people who loved you a lot. Don’t deny it because that’s in your file too. Is that part of your curse? Some people would give anything to have a year of that kind of family, but you got, what, twenty?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “Mmm-hmm, now I see how it works.” And he wasn’t done, pressing his point further. “Your husband must have been a real asshole.”

  “I get your point.”

  “Do you? You had five happy years with him, not long, but would you erase it because of how it ended, or go back and do it over again?”

  She didn’t answer, her head dropping into her hands. She’d give anything to replay every minute of every day she had with Andrew.

  “That’s what I thought. And now you’ve got another chance at something special. You’re not cursed, Esmerelda Spade. You’re blessed.”

  “You’re thinking is skewed by grief,” Val offered gently, “but if you look at it from Thomas’ perspective, you’ve had more years filled with happiness and love than not. Can any of us ask for more than that?”

  “But what if I lose Finn too?”

  “It could happen,” Thomas answered, earning a severe look from Val. The Dom’s response was to arc a brow at her sharply, then go on just as bluntly. “Don’t expect me to blow sunshine up the girl’s ass. Death comes every day, but so does life, about every eight seconds. And each of those babies born will live seventy-eight years on average in the US, some a lot longer. Not trying with Finn because you’re afraid he won’t make the averages is like betting against the house. That’s fucked up logic.”

  “Thomas!” Val exclaimed.

  “Am I wrong?”

  “No, but she’s fragile right now, you could go a little easier.”

  “Fragile, my ass,” the painfully direct doctor shot back. “Submissives are some of the strongest people I know. They have to be to put up with the shit we Doms dish out.”

  Val’s blue eyes narrowed on the man. “What kind of doctor are you, anyway?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “We call Thomas Jack, sometimes, baby. Jack of all trades because he does it all. He takes a rotation as a trauma physician at County, does an annual stint with doctors without borders, serves as our house doctor at the club whenever we call, and because he got his MD on the GI bill, he likes to relive his youth by moonlighting for us at Rossi.” This came from Eric who was standing in the doorway watching, a grin on his face. Finn stood alongside him, his serious expression suggesting he didn’t find the conversation amusing like his friend did.

  Esme looked at him, standing tall, and strong, and seemingly in one piece. To be sure, she ran her eyes over his beautiful body searching for proof he wasn’t.

  “Thank you, God,” she uttered in a barely audible prayer.

  “Come here, Esme.”

  She stood to do as he ordered but froze when another man appeared behind him.

  “Pax?” She blinked, not believing her dear friend whom she’d missed and worried about for what seemed like forever was at Rossi. “What are you doing here?”

  He came forward, his arms open, and she went into them happily.

  “Sweetheart,” he murmured against her hair. “I’m sorry I left you so abruptly, and to such a shit storm.”

  Her head fell back, to ask how he’d heard, but his hand came up to touch her bruised cheek, his face growing dark with anger. “Carlos did this?”

  “Yes, but its fine.” She hugged him tight. “I’m glad you’re back safe. Are you done with your mission?”

  “It wrapped up today, thanks to your man and his team.”

  She glanced at Finn who still stood in the doorway looking on.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Finnegan here keeps closing my cases for me. Martin Lopez and his drug family are out of business because of him, which was case number one. Their leader was never identified, which made finding him case number two for me, which Rossi handled as well.”

  She stared up at him blankly.

  “It was Carlos Hernandez, sweetheart.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  He shook his head. “Imagine my shock when I learned our prime suspect had joined the same club as me. I was getting ready to go undercover and couldn’t risk him seeing me. We built a solid case against him, and were only days away from making an arrest, but we wanted the money too. When Finn tipped us off today about how he was spiraling out of control, we couldn’t wait any longer. Too bad by the time we got to the scene, we’d missed the big finish. The Rossi men had everything locked down and tied with a nice neat bow.”

  Eric slapped him on the shoulder. “Which proves you should stop fooling around with the Feds who are always a day late and a dollar short and come to work for us.” He became serious when he turned to her, and his hand cupped the side of her head in an affectionate, big brother style gesture. “You’re safe now, little one. He won’t bother you again—ever.”

  He spoke with finality, but she asked to be certain. “You mean, he’s—?”

  “Dead,” Pax answered succinctly.

  “Good riddance to bad rubbish my mother always said. Who took him out?” Thomas asked.

  “He did it himself,” Eric supplied, on the move again, crossing the room to Val.

  Thomas grunted. “Knew he was a weak bastard; most bullies are. What happened that he took the coward’s way out?”

  “He was holed up at a family home in Walnut Park, the owner one Martina Lopez Castillo,” Finn answered. Largely silent, he hadn’t moved, his eyes fixed on Esme still in Pax’s arms.

  They were merely friends, never more so, and she loved him like family, but she could feel the intensity of Finn’s gaze from across the room. She stepped back. Pax, who must have sensed it too, let her go, a smile, tipping his lips.

  “Esme—” Finn started.

  “Let me guess,” Thomas spoke over him, trying to get the full story, since he’d missed out on the action while keeping tabs on her. “Carlos is related to Martin’s mama somehow.” “You’d be right. Carlos Castillo Hernandez is her nephew,” Eric supplied.

  “It’s so confusing when everyone has three names,” Val observed.

  “In Mexico, it’s tradition to take both parents’ surnames,” Esme explained to her. “I learned that only recently at work.”

  “You’re right, lass. Castillo was his father’s family and Hernandez his mother’s, which is reverse to our way of thinking,” Finn told her. “That’s why we didn’t make the connection right away, and it didn’t help he dropped the Castillo when he moved to the states. If I’d had that intel, I would have linked him immediately to Lopez and Roger Cassell aka Rogelio Castillo our client back in San Antonio.” He held out his hand to her, and repeated, “Come here, Esme,” just as Eric bit out an emphatic curse. “I can’t fucking believe he slipped through our screening process. And I’m shocked he was the brains of the operation.”

  “I don’t see how, he looked crazed today,” Esme declared, a tremor passing through her as she recalled his cold eyes bright with madness. “I’m surprised he held it together until now.”

  “We didn’t find any mental health history while we were searching today. Carlos did well for himself, went to college, got out of the neighborhood, then he made some bad investments, the wife left him, and his child support payments for four kids were more than he wanted to pay. He reverted to the family business, recruited Martin as his lieutenant who was already dealing but on a limited scale. Seems Carlos majored in supply chain manageme
nt, and it paid off, until Martin got cocky, got sloppy and was taken down. Left on his own, without his crew to protect him and Martin to hide behind, Carlos’ ass was swinging in the wind for weeks, and it was just a matter of time before he snapped.”

  “Depression left untreated could explain a psychotic break,” Val observed. “And suicide is often the result.”

  “Or, he was scared shitless, facing a long stint in LA County for a host of drug related crimes, add to that the murder of Gerald Reinhart in cold blood in front of a witness, who slipped between his fingers. He was cornered and offed himself in his aunt’s house rather than do the time and face his La Eme brethren.” Thomas grimaced in distaste. “Couldn’t take it like a man, because he wasn’t much of one.”

  She shivered at the graphic and violent nature of the conversation. Everything was still fresh, and it was like rubbing salt in a wound.

  “Esme, baby,” Finn repeated softly. “Come here.”

  She’d heard him the previous times but was distracted by the story. Now, she looked at him and asked her own question, one no one had answered. “How did Gerald get mixed up with him?”

  He exhaled heavily and moved toward her instead, stopping at the end of the small seating area where she spent most of her day while on lock down.

  “Remember me telling you about the Rossi client linked to Lopez?”

  She nodded.

  “They shared an attorney, who was implicated. When the drug deals, dirty money, and cover ups came to light, his license was suspended, and the family had to go shopping for a new fixer. In walks Gerald Reinhart. Cocky, brash, and in financial straits after his partner retired and billable hours declined, and with two alimony payments to make after a second divorce. He was looking for easy money, fast.”

  “But we were doing free business, mostly pro bono work.”

  “And on retainer for the Brotherhood which paid the bills. Unfortunately, this meant when they said jump he had to, no questions asked.”

  “You mean I’ve been making a living off of drug money?” Her shiver increased to a full body shudder. “That’s makes me feel dirty.”