by Emilia Finn
Clearing my throat, I chug the second half of his juice and turn back to pour another for him. He’s the one lacking in all vitamins and minerals right now, still on the verge of passing out.
He needs juice, and I need a cold shower.
Setting the bottle aside, I extend the glass in offer. “I got bread, too. I’ll make you some toast.”
He sits up and accepts the juice with a cursory sniff. “Are you hungry?”
“No.” I pick up the bag with bread and butter, and turn in search of a toaster. “Not hungry.”
Swallowing the juice much slower than I did, he nods and watches me move about, but as I pass by, he sets the glass on the bedside table and throws an arm out. Snagging me around the hips, he pulls me between his legs and looks up into my eyes. “Did you sleep last night?”
When the backs of my eyes itch, I shake my head and look at the ceiling to combat the treacherous tears. “No. I’ll sleep later.”
“And you’re not hungry?”
“No.” Memories continue to batter at my brain. Blue lips. Heaving chest. Seizures.
“Do you have to pee?”
I lower my eyes and meet his. “No.”
“Alright.” Snapping the button on my jeans, he yanks them down my hips before I can form a response. Or hit him. Or shoot him. He taps my thigh and helps me step out of the denim, then stands and peels my top up and tosses it aside. “Sleep with me, beautiful.”
“Kane…”
“Real sleep.” Chuckling, he hooks me around the waist and pulls me to the bed. Helping me between the sheets, he climbs in behind me so our naked legs tangle and his belly touches my back. Before pulling the covers over us, he moves up onto his elbow and studies my healing ribs. “These look good. You’re out of the woods. Did you put cream on them yet?”
I shake my head.
With a crooked grin, he drops a kiss on the flesh just below my bra. “Sleep now, baby. We’ll dress our wounds later.”
“We can’t sleep, Kane. We’ve gotta–”
“Can’t fight a war if we’re weak. Gotta be strong. That means sleep when we’re tired, and eat when we’re hungry. You aren’t hungry. I’m not hungry. So we sleep.” Tucking me under his arm, he curves his legs around mine and rests his palm between my breasts. “Sleep, baby. You saved my life. Your debt is repaid.”
20
Jess
Monday
Like the weekend never happened, like I wasn’t assaulted on Friday and Kane wasn’t nearly murdered on Saturday; like we didn’t sleep all of Sunday and take turns chugging orange juice like our lives depended on it, I walk into my office at nine on the dot Monday morning, after driving Kane back to his truck at the club – or more accurately, four blocks from the club.
He refuses to let me get closer, and because he’s as stubborn as I am, he called my cell while he walked the rest of the way and didn’t hang up again until I walked through my own front door to have a shower and get dressed for work.
After Abel had him beaten up on Friday and drugged on Saturday, it boggles my mind that Kane’s going back to work today.
Gotta work, Blondie. Gotta stick to the plan.
I just don’t get it. His world and mine are so unbelievably different, so far removed from each other, it gives me whiplash. Not only doesn’t my boss want to harm me, but she actively tries to make my life better. When my former boss decided it was time to retire and live the fishin’ life, Jules came along in fancy heels and big city money and took over; she didn’t have to keep me on as staff – I was a law student, a paralegal, and nothing more. She didn’t even know Alex yet, had no clue that he was basically family to me, but she kept me on based only on my experience and work ethic.
She could’ve dumped us all and brought in her fancy city staff. She could’ve dropped me down to receptionist and coffee clerk, but instead, the defense attorney ate humble pie and asked me to teach her what I knew of family law.
In exchange, she’s supporting me well above the industry standard salary for people in my position and pays all of my law school tuition.
Jules gives me time off for classes and exams without batting an eye, and in exchange for the first year where I worked twenty-three hours a day to bring her up to speed in family law, she teaches me what she knows from her career as a criminal defense attorney.
Whenever anyone asks why she would want to defend a criminal, whenever Alex – who’s so personally offended by criminals – would ask what’s going on in her head, she would simply reply with the same verbiage she has a million times before.
The deck is so stacked against a defendant, that she believes everyone, no matter the charges they stand against, deserves skilled and enthusiastic representation. Because what if they’re not who the law claims they are? What if they’re innocent?
What if they’re Kane?
Kane is someone I know to be a criminal, but I wholeheartedly believe he’s not a bad person.
I can’t be objective about him, and I can’t represent him. Hell, I can’t represent Jules and Alex either, who have flipped sides and now intend to prosecute.
I can’t walk away, either.
I refuse.
But no matter my choices and or how much I upset my boss, even if I decided to fuck Kane on the judge’s bench during session, she still wouldn’t have me harmed.
I don’t know why he’s gone back today. He refuses to talk to me about that part of his life. Instead, he’d rather touch his dick and send me crazy.
He’d rather treat me with kiddie gloves and leave me in the dark.
He’d rather hoard me and keep me locked up in his apartment during our down time, and when we aren’t down, he’d rather pat my ass and pretend that ignorance is a legal defense.
It’s not.
“Jess?” As I pass through reception and into the hall, Jules pokes her head through the boardroom doorway and snags my coat sleeve. “Come in here, can you? Bring the Hayes and Bishop files.”
Like she could read my mind and now knows everything I’ve been doing this past week, anxiety seeps into my bones as I approach the boardroom with my handbag clutched against my healing ribs.
I already have the files; no need to go to my office.
Stepping into the one-way glass room – we can see out, but no one can see in – I stop at the serious faces that surround me.
Alex sits at the head of the table – not Jules’ husband today, but the formidable chief of police. And his best friend and senior deputy, Oz Franks, sits to his left.
A man I don’t recognize sits beside Oz, but the purpose in his eyes says everything I need to know.
“Um…” I squeeze my hands tight around the strap of my bag. “What’s going on?”
“We wanna talk about Hayes.” Jules nods to a spare chair beside her. “This is Special Agent Nick Banks, and he’s here to discuss Abel Hayes.”
“Okay…” Pulling out the chair beside Jules, I pray no one can see the way my heart slams against my chest. “I’ve got the Hayes file here. What did I miss?”
“We got a tip that Hayes has a job coming up,” the special agent, Nick Banks, speaks with confidence. “We’ve been liaising with Chief Turner on the Infernos case, but we got an anonymous tip late last night that there was a handover coming up.”
“A handover?”
“Cocaine,” he adds. Accepting the file I offer with shaking hands, he lays it out on the ten-person oak table and nods at the image of Abel that slides out.
I haven’t handed Kane’s file over yet; it sits in my purse and burns a hole in the leather.
“We got the tip and coordinates. The cargo’s already been moved from the ship, now they’re being loaded onto trucks. We know where they’re coming in from, and when I spoke to border patrol, they confirmed the exact shipping containers that hold our delivery.”
“Cocaine?” I swear, they must be able to smell my nerves. “The drug? If they knew what ship it was on, why didn’t border patrol stop them?”
“Because the shipment belongs to Hayes,” Alex says. “If we stop them three thousand miles away, Abel’s clean. They have to come here first.”
Alex’s sharp answers and sharper eyes dig into me. He’s not my big brother right now. He’s the chief, and I’m a minion.
Even Oz, the guy who always has a joke, watches on seriously with his long fingers steepled under his chin.
“So we have eyes on the containers,” Special Agent Banks confirms. “Three shipping containers, to be exact.”
“Three?” My eyes flip back to the file. “How much is he bringing in?”
“Our tip suggested more than two tons.”
“Tons?” My heart simply stops in shock. “Tons?” I look to Jules. “As in, two of your truck’s worth?”
“Around five-thousand pounds,” Alex inserts. “That’s what we were told, anyway. So now we have to–”
“Wait. Who told you? Who gave you the tip?” Does Kane know there’s a tipster? Will he be there for that shipment? Who the fuck is snitching from within Abel’s business?
“An anonymous caller,” Banks says. “We don’t know who they are, but we have to investigate it. We’ve been watching that club for a long time and I’m not passing up this opportunity to flatten them.”
“When?” My eyes flip around the room, to Jules, to Alex, to Oz, even though he’s yet to say a word. “When’s the container due in?”
“Saturday. Three in the morning under the cover of dark.”
“Saturday? Six days away?”
“Yes, ma’am. We think we’re ready. Teams are scrambling, and our men are trained and familiar with their roles. Positions and timing will be important, because if we mess this up, Hayes will spook and go underground; the trail will go cold and we’ll have wasted a whole year. Bishop is his second-in-charge, and you’ve been studying his file exclusively for half a year; we need you to give us what you have on him.”
“Rarely do men like Hayes carry out their own work,” Oz says. “In fact, he probably won’t even be at the drop. But Bishop will be there, Flynn will be there, and that’s his top two. If we take them, we disable Hayes’ chessboard.”
With shaking hands and a thrumming heart, I fist my cell under the table and pray I don’t blurt anything incriminating. “I’ve been studying Bishop. I haven’t looked at Flynn much.”
“Alright.” Banks nods. “You have the floor. What have you got on Bishop?”
“Um…” Crap. Fuck. Holy hell. “Well…”
Jules’ eyes narrow. “She’s been unwell this week.” Her eyes go to Banks. “Jess is my best. That’s why I gave her Bishop, but she’s been unwell.”
“You have my sympathies, Miss Lenaghan, but I have less than a week to get ready. Tell me what you know, then you can go home and zone out.”
“I don’t think Bishop is as high in the chain as we thought.” Clearing my throat, I look down to the file in my lap. “I’ve been watching. I’ve been to the club twice in the last week.”
“Jessica!” Just like that, Alex transforms back to brother and protector. “What the hell are you thinking? That place is dangerous! What if we raided while you were there? What if someone got it in their head they could touch you? The people that frequent that place take ‘no’ as a friendly suggestion. Not a fucking command!”
I know, X. I know firsthand. “I’m obviously safe, Chief. I’m right here.” Because of the very man you’re hunting. “I went in with hopes to get a closer look. I saw Bishop. I saw him fight.” Not terribly illegal. “He wasn’t looking all that powerful. He was being beaten to hell in a boxing ring, then dumped outside like trash.”
Narrowed eyes, Banks furiously scribbles notes. “You’re positive? Everything I know about that club puts Bishop as top dog. Flynn was up there, then Bishop came in to the picture, worked his way up.” Looking away from his notes, his eyes meet mine. “I’m not saying you’re lying, but maybe you’re confused?”
“I’m not confused. I saw it with my own eyes. Jules assigned me to the man we thought was Hayes’ second, but I’m not so sure anymore. Maybe we need to look closer at Flynn. What have you got on him?”
Am I as obvious as I feel?
“We have about as much on him as we have on Bishop.” Jules shuffles folders on the oak table and pulls one out. Sliding it over the smooth tabletop, she stops it in front of me. “We were looking at him for a while, but then Bishop turned up and set their place alight. No pun intended.” Her lips twitch at her lame joke. “New, young, hotshot, Bishop became a class favorite, and Flynn became a soldier.”
“Is Flynn pissed?” I flip the folder open to a face I vaguely recognize. “I imagine he’d be pissed if he was top of the food chain, then a younger guy comes in and shakes it up.”
“We don’t know if he’s pissed,” Banks snaps. “It’s not like he leaves his diary out for us to read.”
As one, Jules and I tip our heads to the side at his attitude, but Alex and Oz’s hands drop to their hips. It’s hard to be a professional, to be objective, when four of the five people in the room celebrate Christmas and birthdays together.
I might be a grown adult. I might be tiptoeing toward thirty, and Alex and Oz might both be married with kids, but I’m their kid sister, and Special Agent Fuckface is bordering on disrespect.
Sometimes, their archaic and overprotective ways are annoying, but times like right now, I don’t even mind. Let them step up for me; I still have stitches I can’t tell them about, I’m both rested from our lazy Sunday but mentally exhausted from everything else, and on top of that, I’m very seriously considering tipping off a criminal and telling him to leave town before this Saturday.
“Watch your tone, Agent.” Jules, of course, the leader of our pack, is the one who steps up. And Alex lets her, because she’s badass and can run an empire. “This is my building. My office. My staff. And my information. If you want to continue a cordial working relationship, you’ll speak to her the same way you speak to the chief. If you’d rather do this on your own, don’t let me stop you. Door’s that way, don’t let it hit your ass on the way out. We aren’t the city ‘round here, so you don’t even have to stop in reception to get your parking validated.”
“If you think you can withhold information, Miss Jones, then you have another thing coming.” He sits forward and points. “We have seniority on the Hayes case. We have jurisdiction.”
“I won’t withhold a thing, Nick. I’ll just stop looking into it. I’ll pull my staff back, and I’m sure the local police have idiot teens climbing gantry cranes to deal with. Our girl has been inside that club twice this week.” She pops a brow and runs with my tidbit of information. “How many times have you been in? Sounds like maintaining a local relationship is in your best interests. Not ours. We have cornhole to play, and moonshine to make. We have better things to do than to listen to you disrespect my staff. So… if you want to get on with your day, you’re welcome. Conversely, if you want to apologize to Jess, we can continue.”
An hour after Nick’s false apology, Jules’ sneaky wink, and Alex and Oz’s twitching lips hidden by their hands, Special Agent McDouche leaves with a promise to call back in a few hours with more questions.
“Cornhole?” Oz tosses a ball of scrunched paper at Jules’ head. “Woman, you’re the most city person I know. Do you even know what cornhole is?”
“Sure I do. I went to your wedding, didn’t I?”
21
Kane
A Big Job
I step into Abel’s office a few hours after Jess walked into hers – I watched, I waited – and stop just inside the threshold to study the men that stand around waiting for me.
Sitting at his desk, the man in power, relaxes back with a foot folded over his knee and his hands steepled beneath his chin.
He expected me to die two nights ago.
He never expected me to come back here.
Somehow, Jess created a chink in my armor, and helped reinforce it at the same time
. With her protection, I’m still immortal.
Flynn stands on Abel’s right, with his arms folded and his gold tooth winking, as he watches me with unconcealed hatred.
It’s not my fault I’m better in every way, he wouldn’t have been demoted if he was the best. I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to do a job and do it well.
To stay alive.
And as of right now, to get out before they find Jess.
“Abel… You called me up here?”
“I did.” Arrogance drips from his tongue and sends my blood cooler. “It’s almost time.”
“The shipment?”
He just nods – short, sharp, and straight to the point. “I want you on the lead. I won’t be on site this weekend. Unexpected family obligations.” He waves his hand like I can’t see through his bullshit. “So I need you to spearhead. You need to be at Paddy’s for the handover, then you need to get the packages to the warehouse.”
“On Saturday?”
“Early. You can take Friday to sleep. Be fresh. Don’t fuck this up. Your life depends on it.”
“How much is coming in? Who’ll be with me?”
“Five-thousand pounds.”
Fuck me. “Of the same stuff we tried the other night?” I look at my boots as though expecting to find the dead girl still lying with her eyes open. “That’s enough coke to kill every teen in the country.”
He shrugs. “You said it was good. You didn’t die. Jay checked-in, which means he didn’t die either.”
“What about your blonde?”
He shrugs. “Collateral damage. She was smaller than you guys, so now we know our dosages. This shipment’s worth seventy-six million dollars to me, Bishop. You get it to my warehouse, free and clear, you get a hundred G’s to spend on that pretty girl of yours.”
And there it is – the threat without saying the words.