Driving Reign

by TG Wolff

  “Your truck is gone. What’s the plan?” Smitty asked, pulling on the black knit cap. They each wore riot gear bought at sales, borrowed from friends, or retired from duty.

  “It’s simple,” Yablonski said. “We just go in, scare the living hell out of the cock sucker encroaching on Cruz’s territory, and get out. Ten minutes, fifteen tops. You good, Cruzie?”

  Good? Naw, he hadn’t been good for hours. Days. “Let’s do this.”

  Yablonski led the way wearing a vest and a riot shield that covered everything but his red-wire beard. Cruz followed his friend, his hair hanging free from under his helmet because he was past giving a fuck. Czerski came next, his round belly barely protected by the too-small vest. Smitty was the caboose, his slim build swimming in the double-XL vest emblazoned with Las Vegas Body Inspector on the back.

  Yablonski’s fist pounded on the front door. “District SWAT. Open the door.”

  “District SWAT? What the hell is that?” Smitty muttered under his breath. “If that’s the best you can do, step aside and let a pro on point.”

  “You think you and your skinny bones can do better? Have at it.”

  Smitty planted his fist on the door half dozen time. “District SWAT. Open this door, now!”

  “How the fuck was that any better?” Yablonski bitched. “You said the same thing I did.”

  “I had to, couldn’t change who we were after you laid out that lame ass lie.”

  “Shut up,” Czerski snapped. “Someone’s coming. Think ugly.”

  The door was opened by a man who was talking over his shoulder. “Smoked, jerked, naked, I’ll take them any way I can get it.”

  Fuck that. Cruz plowed through the man, taking him back halfway across the room. “On the floor. Now!”

  Yablonski, Smitty, and Czerski echoed. He saw his team spread out across the living room in his peripheral vision. A woman screamed. A glass broke. A man swore. One voice soared above them all.

  “Jesus De La Cruz, what in the hell are you doing?”

  Cruz jerked around to find his woman standing in the doorway to the kitchen. She wore an apron covered in sauce and held a wooden spoon she was ready to break on his ass. “Aurora?”

  “Uh oh,” Yablonski whispered. “Abort. Abort.”

  “Freeze, Yablonski, and take off that ridiculous helmet. You, too, Czerski. Oh, and don’t think I don’t see you, Mr. Body Inspector.”

  Smitty froze one foot away from freedom.

  Cruz catalogued the scene. Aurora was fully dressed. There were two women behind her. The house smelled like barbecue. He took off the helmet, tucking it under his arm. “Aurora, what’s going on?”

  “I’m learning to cook, you jackass. It’s your birthday present.” She threw her hands into the air. “Happy fucking birthday.”

  He winced because Aurora didn’t swear. She was more of a rats or a my goodness kind of woman. If the day was really bad, he might get a freaking or a damn. In the bedroom, she might get desperate enough to call him a bastard. But the granddaddy of them all, he could count on one hand the number of times he heard those four letters from her mouth.

  Still, she was learning to cook. For him. “My birthday present? Really? What are you making?”

  “No, this isn’t a social hour.” She pointed the wooden spoon at him. “You just broke into Cookie’s house, assaulted her son, and you think you can stand there and make small talk?”

  “His present?” Yablonski flipped the shield up and stroked his beard. “Does Erin know?”

  “Of course she does, you idiot. She couldn’t tell you because you tell Zeus everything. You complain about women but you two can’t not talk about who’s done what to who, from where, for why.” She paced as she spoke, the wooden spoon moving like a conductor’s baton.

  Yablonski leaned into Cruz. “I don’t think she’s speaking English anymore. You understand her?”

  “Yeah,” he said, speaking out of the side of his mouth. “She’s saying we’re screwed.”

  “How long do you think she’s going to go on like that?”

  “A while. A long while.”

  A door opened out of sight. “More company? I should have gotten both kinds of ice cream.” The distinguished gentlemen with thick gray hair ducked the wayward wooden spoon. “Aurora, here are your keys. What’s the matter?”

  “They are the matter,” she said, spraying the quartet with sauce.

  “Who are they?”

  “My boyfriend and his band of stupid bastards.”

  “Ah. Well, I’m Ryan, Cookie’s husband.” The brave man crossed the Bering Strait. “You must be Zeus?”

  “Cruz.” He accepted the hand and shook it. “Most people call me Cruz. This is Yablonski, Czerski, and Smitty.”

  “Nice to meet all of you. Would you like some ice cream? What are you dressed for? A costume party?”

  “I’m Cookie.” A woman of about fifty snuck by Aurora. She wore an apron and a big smile, as warm and happy as the treat she was named for. “We’ve heard so much about you. You met my son, Josh, and this is his wife, Ericka. Come in, come in.”

  “Go home. Go home,” Aurora roared.

  “Now, Aurora,” Cookie said, sounding like a mother.

  “They busted into your home! How come you aren’t outraged?”

  “We knocked,” Yablonski said.

  Aurora leveled her severest teacher glare at the lot. “What in the world were you thinking? You burst into my friends’ home in riot gear.” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you armed? You better not be armed.”

  The waters were getting dangerous. Cruz crossed the room and dared to catch her by the wrist. “Can we fight about this in private?”

  “No! You were an ass in public, let’s fight about it in public.”

  Ryan leaned in and pointed to a closed door. “You’re welcome to use my office.”

  “Thanks,” Cruz said, pulling an unwilling woman behind him. “I’m sorry. Let me start with that.”

  “Not even close to good enough.” She twisted out of his grip, standing with her back against the closed door, arms crossed under her breasts. “What were you thinking?”

  This wasn’t going to look good. No matter how he tried to spin it, he came off looking the idiot. “You lied to me. You lied about going to your parents’ and going to Cathy’s.”

  “Yes, I lied. How else was I going to surprise you? A surprise isn’t a surprise when you know about it. That doesn’t give you the right to break into someone’s home.”

  He held his hands out low, drawing down the temper he didn’t know she had. “See, now, it looks that way to you, because you knew what you were doing. I, on the other hand, did not know what was going on.”

  “And how did it look to you?” Those green eyes of hers were cutting him no slack.

  He took a deep, deep breath and let it out at a snail’s pace. “Like, maybe, you were stepping out on me.”

  Her jaw fell open. Gravity just had its way with it. “You thought I was cheating on you?” Her voice had gone soft with disbelief.

  “I didn’t want to believe it.” That was the truth. “But you weren’t home and you lied about where you were. Planting the GPS in the truck was the only way I could find out where you were—”

  “You what!” Her hand came up. “You planted a bug in the truck?” She threw her hands up. “Unbelievable.”

  And she turned and walked out.

  “Wait,” he said, giving chase. “We’re not done arguing.”

  “Yes, we are. Yablonski, Czerski, Smitty, get out.”

  The three sat on chairs at the bar, turning in unison like overgrown children. “But, there’s ice cream,” Yablonski said, holding out his brightly colored bowl as evidence.

  She snatched it from his hands. “You don’t deserve sprinkles!”

  “Aw, Aurora, don’t be that way.” Yablonski used his battered face to maximum potential.

  “Fine. You st
ay. I’m going.” She shoved the ice cream back at him, stalked through the living room, grabbing her coat off a chair as she headed for the door. “Overgrown juvenile delinquents.”

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Cruz chased after her, knowing he had to get to his truck before her. “You’re not leaving without me.” Seeing the keys in her hand, he raced up and snatched them away.

  “Give me those.” She stalked after him, staring him down.

  He hurried to the driveway, leading her where he wanted her. “Get in the truck. We’ll finish fighting at home.”

  “You idiot! You paranoid ass!” She looked magnificent in the light of a winter’s moon. Strong, defiant, beautiful. “Give me one good reason why I should go anywhere with you!”

  “I love you.” The words were knee-jerk and cliché, but they were also true.

  She snorted, spun on her heel and stomped back toward the house. “You’re ridiculous.”

  He caught her arm and spun her, captured her face and kissed her. It might have been cliché, too, but it stopped her campaign and her argument. His gloved hand wrapped around her shortened tail of hair and pulled her head back until he had all of her mouth. He expected her to bite, risked the blood loss to sneak past her guard. One degree at a time, she melted. When her lips moved under his, when she began to kiss him back, then he was home.

  “You’re still an ass,” she said against his mouth.

  Chapter Twelve

  Saturday morning came late. Nice thing about winter days was the sun took its time getting up and even when it did rise, it was somewhere beyond the thick cloud cover that made this part of the country perfect for munitions manufacturing during WWII. Spy on the Great Lakes and all you were going to see was gray.

  The clock said 9:45 a.m. Cruz blinked twice and tried again—9:46 a.m. He looked down at the warm body curled into his side. Aurora was fast asleep, her face hidden by the halo of curls.

  He spent hours apologizing. He apologized in the living room. He apologized in the bathtub. He apologized while the frozen pizza baked in an oven half as hot as his woman.

  They’d had some good nights, but last night hit a new high. He had the mental image of an old-fashioned strong man game, lines delineating sexual heat. Tomatillo. Sweet pepper. Jalapeño. Pepperoncini. Ghost pepper. Last night.

  His grin grew because they were that hot. They hadn’t just rung the bell, they’d blown it off the freaking rails.

  Who knew her temper could run that hot? He would seriously have to consider the merits of pissing her off weekly, just for the pleasure of making it up to her. He was young enough. He could take it.

  A chime from the first floor signaled a text coming in. Curiosity got him, as did the call of nature, so he left the warmth of his bed and his lover.

  The two-word text was from Yablonski. Call me

  “Your wish is my command.” His call was answered on the first ring.

  “Catherine Williams called me this morning.”

  “Not possible. Aurora wasn’t that pissed and she doesn’t stay mad. She can’t do it. Plus, I kept her all kinds of busy, no way she called her mother.”

  “Not about that, Cruzie, about Sasha, my snitch. Catherine was notified Cleveland police asked the FBI to look into my role in her death. Do you understand what that means? They think I killed her.”

  “No.” The reaction was instant, in defense of his friend. “Again, not possible. There is probably some policy, bet it was written in invisible ink. Someone is just checking the box.”

  “Catherine wants me to come to her house, after lunch. This isn’t a joke.”

  Cruz refused to consider Yablonski, master of all things cool, was worried. He definitely wasn’t apprehensive or anxious because if the chief smart ass was either of those things, it meant his friend was in trouble. “No, it’s not, but Catherine will make a joke out of them, just like she did when Internal Affairs was drooling down my neck. She’s good, Yablonski. A grand an hour good. And she’s got a mean streak.” He smiled, pushing it into his voice. “Might even be wider than yours.”

  Yablonski snorted. “Now you’re just trying to piss me off.”

  By the time the call was finished, Aurora was moving around overhead. She had to be hungry; he was starving. Pulling out a frying pan, he got busy on two Saturday morning specials.

  Hours later, Cruz sat at Catherine and Addison’s kitchen table, while father and daughter debated the merits of copper as an investment and a sculpture medium. He sipped his coffee, unable to contribute to either part of the nerd conversation.

  He had chosen his seat strategically, making sure his face was the first Yablonski saw when he stepped in the house. The lack of invitation didn’t make Cruz think twice about showing up and the look of relief on Yablonski’s face showed just how apprehensive the experienced narcotics detective was.

  “You’re late,” Cruz called out from the kitchen. “Don’t worry, I drank your coffee.”

  “How do you sleep with all that caffeine in your system?”

  “Like a baby.”

  Yablonski had brought Erin, who looked ready to slice and dice anyone who slandered her man. Aurora hugged Erin, like they always do, and an emotion passed over Erin’s face that said she wasn’t as calm and collected as she let on. This was good. Aurora would smooth Erin over while he helped her mother put the smack down on the FBI.

  Catherine refilled her cup, leaving it on the counter as she tied her hair into a twisty knot on the top of her head. Goodbye to the suburban mother and housewife. Hello to the defense attorney known as The Assassin.

  Yablonski had given her the nickname the summer before, not to her face, but word got around, as it did with cops. A nameplate for her desk had mysteriously arrived, after the lawsuit against Cruz for more zeros than he would see in his lifetime was dismissed.

  She picked up her coffee and glanced over shoulder. “Let’s go, Matthew. We have a lot of work to do.”

  Yablonski heaved a sigh and followed. Erin stood, worry tightening her features. Cruz signaled Aurora before he rose and joined the parade.

  Catherine’s office was in the front corner of the house. In other homes, it might be the playroom or a small parlor. In the Williamses’ home, it was the war room. A space made for strategizing, game planning, and plotting the utter destruction of the opposing counsel. Yablonski fell into the leather chair at the six-person table. Cruz walked toward—

  “Where do you think you’re going?” The hand on his chest stopped him.

  “In. I’m his, you know, his wing man. He doesn’t have to do this alone.” Cruz walked toward—

  “Uh uh.” The stiff arm didn’t give. “He’s not alone. He’s got me. The Assassin.”

  He dodged left, then right but the arm stayed planted. “Come on, Catherine. You know I can help.”

  “You may be called as a witness. I don’t want any questions about his integrity or yours.” She backed him out the door.

  He wasn’t giving in that easily. “Why would I be called as a witness? I wasn’t there.”

  “Because I’m considering calling you. Now go back to the kitchen and have a nice conversation with my daughter and husband.” She pushed until he took a step backward.

  “Be reasonable.” He lowered his voice. “They’re debating if it’s better to buy copper on futures or buy it in bulk and turn it into statues.”

  The façade of the killer lawyer slipped, a smirk curling her lips. “Tell them it’s better to turn it into cups to keep your coffee hot. It’ll drive them both crazy.” When he reluctantly turned away, she grabbed his arm. “I’ll take care of your friend. Trust me.”

  “I do.” In a move that always seemed to throw her off, he kissed her cheek. “Thank you.”

  Two long, long hours later, Yablonski shuffled into the living room.

  Cruz leapt to his feet. “What happened? Did Catherine figure out a strategy to castrate them? Did you tell her about the water truck
? Did—”

  “Stop, Cruzie, my freaking head’s going to explode if I have to think for one more minute.” He rubbed the meat of his palm to his forehead but it didn’t erase the lines.

  Erin abandoned the home decorating magazines Aurora used to distract her, fitting herself under Yablonski’s shoulder. “How about we go home, binge watch stupid movies, and not have a single thought?”

  He pulled her tight. “Damn, I love you.”

  Sunday had everyone coming to his house. The family would be extended, including Yablonski and Erin. Aurora helped him in the kitchen, preparing a layered potato dish she’d picked out in a cookbook. Cruz had discovered his love of cooking living with his sister. Having his lover next to him added to the fun. “Maybe you should take your clothes off,” he suggested. “To keep them from getting messy.”

  Her gaze slid to his. “You didn’t really think that would work, did you?”

  He went for innocent. “I’m just thinking of you. I have an apron here.” He pulled a small one from a drawer that tied around the waist.

  “There’s no top.”

  “Really? No top? Huh.”

  She shook her head, focusing on the next potato on the cutting board. A minute later she faced him, her fist on a cocked hip. “Is that really a thing men fantasize about? Women cooking naked?”

  “Men fantasize about women doing anything naked. Everything naked.” He flashed a toothy grin. “That’s how we’re built.”

  “Yeah, well, I need to concentrate if I’m going to do this without cutting myself or burning my hair. You can’t keep touching me. Besides, I’m still mad at you about last night.”

  “You forgave me, remember? Burning your hair? You had Mari come over to cut your hair?”

  “I had to. There was a huge chunk missing. Sooner or later, you would have noticed. And if you’re forgiven for that stupid stunt, it certainly isn’t forgotten.”

  By the time the family descended on their home, the potatoes were in the oven, the roast was resting, and Aurora was fully dressed. Nothing was perfect, he thought.

  Mari and Tony were first with the girls and enough giggling for a circus tent. Tony claimed the most comfortable chair and the remote control, his standard operating procedure. The girls begged Aurora to do their makeup and dragged her upstairs. Mari found little needed doing and opted to catch up with her brother. “You good? You look tired.”