“From the very beginning, Brooke has been seen as a pawn. That night...” I swallowed hard. “The men threatened to punch me in the stomach if he didn’t talk. Until then, I think he’d thought he could get us out of this. He gave his life so I could escape with her.” A shaky breath left me. “I’ve only ever wanted to protect her, but my choices keep finding her. Us. Again and again.”
“Not your choices, Leah. His.” Remi’s hands clenched on my skin before easing off. “We’re going to find her. We’re going to stop the nightmares once and for all.”
I rubbed my cheek over the rough hairs on the biceps beneath me. “Thank you.”
Remi drew a deep breath, his chest pressing hard against me. “Sleep. Everything will be all right. I promise.”
And even though I knew I shouldn’t, I was starting to believe it was true. Remi would do everything he could to make it all right.
But then, so had Angelo.
Chapter Nine
Remi —
She’d finally fallen asleep in the early hours of the morning, curled in my arms. I couldn’t seem to forget the warm scent of her, the feel of her, soft and strong all at once. I’d worked out for an hour in the gym, driving my body as hard as I could, desperate to think about anything, anyone else. My mind had basically flipped me the bird and kept on remembering.
Fucking bastard.
A quick, cold shower, then I made my way downstairs to the kitchen. None of us had to eat here. Each suite contained a small galley kitchen and eating area, but we’d been together so long it felt foreign to be apart. Every morning we found ourselves downstairs, gathered around the island. Being a family. Just the way my parents would’ve wanted it.
I wanted it that way too. Leah might not believe me, but I envied her. From the time I was little, all I had wanted was us together—my parents, Levi, Eli, me. Afternoons with milk and cookies, mornings huddled around the kitchen table—hell, even Saturday evenings spent trooping to the temple with yarmulkes on our heads. Being together had meant everything.
And then my uncle ripped us apart. Those first couple of years on the streets, I had held out hope that the three of us could build our own family, that someday we’d have a home again.
Twenty years later, we finally did. But those dreams of after-school snacks and presents under the tree?
There would be no kids in our future. What we did was too dangerous for that. It had hardened us too much.
“Where is my breakfast, bro?”
Eli stood next to the coffee maker, cup in hand, eyes still bleary from sleep. As the youngest he’d been protected in ways Levi and I couldn’t afford for ourselves. Maybe that was why he slept at night.
“Fix it yourself, asshole.” But I was already moving toward the fridge for eggs and bacon.
“I fixed the coffee,” he protested.
“So pour me a cup and I’ll consider making omelets for all of us.” An onion and bell pepper waited in the crisper drawer. I pulled them out, along with the cheese, and started chopping.
Levi and Abby arrived minutes later, Abby taking over the bacon while I assembled omelets. Eli got off his ass long enough to throw some frozen biscuits in the oven. My culinary efforts didn’t quite extend to homemade.
“How’s Leah?” Abby asked quietly, her gaze on the crispy strips she was in charge of.
“Didn’t sleep,” I admitted.
“You don’t look like you got much either.”
Tipping my pan to peek under the eggs, see if they were done, I shrugged. I’d gone months without uninterrupted sleep before. As much as I told myself I shouldn’t store up memories of Leah while she was here, those hours with her in my arms had been worth the fatigue. They were far more than I’d ever expected to have. Certainly far more than I deserved.
One omelet down, I passed the plate to Abby. “Levi, get up here and take over so your woman can eat.”
Abby went to pass Levi with a cheeky grin, but my brother had other ideas. Circling her waist with an arm, he held her in place for a kiss that lasted until Eli began his “gross, get a room before I barf” routine. I could never admit it to anyone, but the open displays of affection made me uncomfortable too. Not in a teenage gross-out kind of way; more like I wanted to squirm, look away, get out of the same room with them, but at the same time I couldn’t stop watching.
I didn’t know why but suspected the instinct was in some way tied to those long-ago feelings I couldn’t quite forget—family, affection.
For fuck’s sake, I needed to get a grip. There were more important things to think about this morning.
I was finishing an omelet for Leah, ready to slip it into the oven to keep, when the phone in my pocket rang. Not my personal phone—that was on the counter where I could see it. This was Leah’s phone, the one I’d swiped from her. The one only her brother had called in the past twenty-four hours.
I was calling for Abby even as I reached into my pocket. “Run get Leah. Hurry!”
Sure enough, the UNKNOWN caller was back. My brothers gathered around the island, all eyes on the screen, waiting for me to answer. Watching my back.
I laid the phone on the island, then clicked answer. The speakerphone filled the room...with silence.
“Hello, Windon,” I said.
If he was surprised that I knew his name, he didn’t let it slip. This man had lived a double life for a long time. It would take a lot to shake him.
My brothers and I were a whole fucking lot.
“Who are you?” he asked, ignoring my greeting.
“I’m not a helpless woman or child, I can tell you that.” I let that sink in a moment. “I’m surprised, honestly. You come here to Atlanta, to my territory, and don’t know who you’re dealing with, who this area belongs to. You should’ve done your homework, cop.”
Like we had. Windon was behind in the knowledge race, and now he knew it.
“Whoever you are, you obviously know my sister well.”
“If you’d prepped, you’d have realized that before you made so many mistakes.”
A harsh laugh filtered through the phone. “I have dealt with men far more dangerous than you, I am sure. Now let me talk to Leah.”
“Not quite yet.” I planted my fists on the counter. “Ever heard of the Assassin?”
A moment’s hesitation. “You’re not the Assassin.”
So that was a yes.
Technically, I wasn’t the assassin; Levi was. Or rather, he was the front man of our little operation. “No?” I asked silkily, letting him know how wrong he was. “Ask around. I think you’ll find that you’re wrong. If you can actually find me, that is.”
“Listen to me, motherfucker,” Windon growled. “This is between me and my sister. Whoever you are, you can fuck the hell off.”
I leaned over the phone, letting menace drip from my words. “That’s where you’re wrong, motherfucker.” I could feel my brother stares, feel them soaking in every word. “You waltzed into my town and messed with my woman, and it’s not going to take me long to find you and make you regret every last breath you’ve ever taken.”
A strangled sound came from the doorway to the kitchen. I didn’t look up, didn’t want to know what Leah felt about my words. She might never believe herself to be mine, but she was. Just because I couldn’t have her didn’t change how I felt.
The pad of bare feet crossing the room came to a stop next to me. I glared down at the phone. “Tell me where Brooke is and maybe I’ll let you walk away with your life.”
I heard Leah inhale, knew she was about to speak. Laying my hand over hers on the island, I squeezed. Wait.
She released her breath silently.
Trust. I swear my chest puffed up. And my brothers saw it, damn it. I could tell by Levi’s wide eyes and Eli’s smirk.
“I think I’ll wait a little while longer,” Windon said, his voice more confident than it should be. “In the meantime I think it might motivate my sister to hear her daughter’s voice. Don’t you thin
k so, Leah?”
Leah’s hand trembled beneath mine. “Yes.”
She reached for the phone, but I held her back with a shake of my head. This should be a private moment and I wished I could give her that, but this might be our only chance to pick up clues. We needed to hear what Brooke said.
Leah’s glare burned into me.
“Mommy?”
Her head whipped around to focus on the phone. “Brooke? Mommy is here, love. I’m right here.”
“I’m ready to come home now. When will you pick me up?”
The little girl’s voice was quiet, careful, much as I imagined Leah’s had been as a child. Her past and her training might have helped hone her skills in a crisis, but her personality tended toward an introverted, quiet one. She’d fight tooth and nail where her daughter was concerned, but otherwise it was wait, see, evaluate. Brooke seemed to be the same.
“I know you want to be home, sweetheart,” Leah was saying. “I want you there too. I’m trying to make it happen, I promise.” She hesitated, fear flashing over her face. “Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you?”
“No. Mommy, Mrs. Lydia hurt her head. Is she okay? She couldn’t come with me.”
Leah dropped her elbows onto the island, her head into her hands. “She’s…” Her fingers dug hard into her hair. “She’s being looked at. Where are you—”
“I think that’s enough,” Windon said, cutting in. “We don’t want to get Brooke too worked up.” The man’s tone turned thoughtful. “She reminds me so much of you, Leah. Always watching, always thinking. You were just like that.”
Leah braced herself on the island. “You shut the fuck up about my daughter, Ross.” Her breath hiccupped. “There were so many other ways you could’ve handled this, a hundred different approaches to take. You took the one that guaranteed I would never forgive you. Ever.” She leaned close to the phone. “Do you remember what they did to Angelo that night? To me? Think about it hard, because I will make sure you suffer much, much worse.”
My chest swelled even more.
“I don’t have to think about it, Leah.” Regret colored the words, but I refused to believe it. Leah was right; he could have handled this another way. “I remember every day, every second. I would’ve helped you then. I can help you now. Just give me the recordings.”
“I can’t give you what I don’t have!”
“Then tell me where they are,” Windon barked. “Tell me and let me get them and this will all go away.”
“Will it?” Leah straightened, and I could see resignation in her eyes. “If you believe that, you’ve drunk more Kool-Aid than I ever thought possible.”
“I’ll tell you what I believe,” Windon said. “Either I bring back those recordings, or I’m dead, Leah. My usefulness is at an end. It’s this or nothing.”
“So you led them right to me and my child? You knew!” she shouted. “You knew they would never let me walk away; I know too much! Or at least that’s what they believe, but you brought them here anyway.”
“I had no choice,” Windon said. “Two days. That’s all I have, all I can give you. In two days you’ll have your daughter back. You know what I need to make that happen.”
Leah started to answer, but I broke in. “Two days, Windon. Be ready.”
Before he could respond, I clicked the call off.
“No!”
I caught Leah around the waist as she lunged for the cell. “He won’t put her back on.”
She struggled against me. “You don’t know that!”
“I do.” I dropped my chin onto the top of her head, wishing I could erase the longing, the pain in her voice. “But he gave us valuable information.”
Leah stilled. “Like what?”
I turned to Eli. “Think you got enough to trace a location?”
Outrage pulled Eli back. “Is that even a question, bro?” Picking up the cell, he jerked his head toward the elevator. “Give me a few and I’ll have what you need.”
Leah stared after him. I stared at her.
Levi cleared his throat. When I glanced his way, he raised an eyebrow.
I nodded in response. “Let’s fix you a plate,” I told Leah. “Then I’ll show you the bat cave.”
Chapter Ten
Leah —
“Bat cave, really?”
Remi threw a grin I could only describe as sheepish over his shoulder as he led me out of the elevator. “What else would we call it?”
“An office?” Did assassins have offices? But as I looked around the massive basement, I knew he was right—this could only be called a bat cave.
Equipment was stacked everywhere, the walls lined with so many screens and monitors that the light paint could barely be seen. It looked like they needed a secretary. Or housemaid. The only thing missing was a massive glass case with the Batman suit in it, which I didn’t see. I did see a corner with a couch and a huge mass of video gaming equipment.
Guess they had to blow off steam somehow.
Eli sat at a station about halfway down the room, eating absently, his gaze locked on the screens in front of him. As we got closer, I realized he was watching traffic footage.
“Find anything?” Remi pulled out a rolling chair next to his brother and gestured for me to sit. After hearing Brooke’s voice, my restlessness had ratcheted up exponentially, but standing meant I was farther from the screens. I sat.
“Thank you.” I shot Remi a grateful smile.
A warm, massive hand landed on my shoulder. Remi gave me a squeeze.
“I managed to triangulate their location,” Eli was saying, either missing the byplay or ignoring it like I wished I could ignore Remi’s touch. “A grocery store parking lot on the west side of town. Too public to be a permanent location.” Eli clicked on an image of a car at the far, isolated end of a megamart lot. When he zoomed in, I could make out Ross’s face, but Brooke was no more than a vague, pale shadow between the driver’s and passenger’s seats.
“Could they be staying somewhere in the area?” I asked, swallowing back my disappointment.
“Unlikely.” Eli pointed to the top screen that showed heavy traffic on I285. “They’re good. They know where the cameras will follow them and where they won’t. They drove around a bit, got off the freeway, and disappeared.”
“Same routine they pulled when they left Leah’s house,” Remi said.
They’d tried to track Ross from my house?
“Yep,” Eli agreed. “Windon and his associate know how to stay out of sight.”
I glanced at the still image showing the car in the parking lot. Ross sat in the passenger’s seat, his arm extended as he held the phone to Brooke’s face. Beside him, in the driver’s seat, sat another man. I couldn’t make out much more than dark clothes and hair. It could be anyone.
“Who is the second man?” I asked.
Eli did some quick clicking, and a mug shot appeared on one of the unused screens. “Name is Joe Southerland. Been in jail multiple times for crimes believed to be tied to the Fiori mob family.”
My heart jumped into my throat. “What kind of crimes?”
Remi squeezed my shoulder again, his thumb drifting to the back of my neck. “You don’t want to know that.”
“He’s obviously loyal to the family,” Eli put in. “Fiori is making sure Ross stays put, is my guess.”
“We know they’re blackmailing him,” Remi said.
I flinched. Much as I hated Ross right now, he was my brother. Older than me, yes, but my childhood had been full of memories of the two of us. Good memories. It was hard to believe the man I knew had become a mob informant and Lord only knew what else. Had he “lost” evidence? Misled investigations? Passed on faulty information? Had he killed for them?
The thought made my stomach cramp.
“The problem is”—Remi straightened, came around Eli’s chair to lean back against the desk—“too much pressure on a guy this far out on a limb and he’s likely to snap.”
I rubbed
at the ache beginning between my eyes. God, please don’t let Ross snap with Brooke in his possession.
“So what’s our plan? What do we do?” I asked.
Remi slid his knuckles back and forth over the stubble on his cheek. “We don’t have a location, no leads at this point. Right now our only option is to meet Windon in two days like he wants.”
“What?” The tripping of my heartbeat pushed me to my feet. “We can’t wait that long!”
“We don’t have an alternative.” The words were implacable, but the sympathy in Remi’s expression told me he had some idea how hard they were to swallow.
Eli swiveled his seat around. “I won’t stop looking, Leah. I have a program running right now, searching all camera feeds for the last two days for that license plate, the make and model of the car, everything. If I get even a whiff, you’ll hear about it.”
“And if we can find her, we’ll go in sooner,” Remi said. “Until then our best bet is to find the recordings.”
That ache shifted to the back of my skull. Why would no one believe me? “I don’t know where they are.”
“You never know what you don’t know till you find it.”
“That makes no sense,” I told Eli. Actually it made perfect sense. I just wanted to be contrary. Why? Because everything in my life was out of my control, I’d failed at the most important job I’d ever had, and Remi was looking at me with that damn sympathy in his eyes again.
“Have a seat, Leah.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’d rather stand.” If I confined myself in a chair again, I might start screaming and never stop.
He didn’t argue. He stared me down. “You can do this, Leah. Have a seat so we can see the intel Eli has pulled.”
I glanced down at Eli’s blond head, studiously down to avoid our fighting. On the screen directly in front of him was what looked like multiple documents, including a mug shot of Angelo when he was much, much younger than when I’d known him.
Biting my lip, I sat in the chair and scooted closer to Eli. “Okay.”
“I’ve got what little was public record,” Eli said, a hint of amusement in his voice before he cleared it. “And some of what wasn’t. Looks like Angelo stayed pretty far under the radar.”
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