Dirty, Dark, & Dangerous: A Contemporary Romance Boxset

by Luciani, Kristen

  I cock an eyebrow. “Well, then, you know how much confidence I need in this plan. Tell me. I want to know exactly what’s going to happen.”

  “I knew I was smart to partner with someone who’ll keep me on my toes.” He folds his arms and sits back in the chair. “But you really don’t need the details. All you need to know is that in about a week’s time, your bank account will suddenly become very inflated. That’s our cue.”

  “And I’m supposed to then transfer it to the offshore account you gave me?”

  “Exactly. The one in Scarlet’s name. You acting on her behalf is perfectly legal, since you’re her hired representation and have permission from her agent and manager.”

  I nod. “And where will the transfer be coming from?”

  His lips curl into a wicked smile. “Why don’t you suck my dick and I’ll tell you?”

  “If you want me to walk out that door right now, leaving your whole plan dangling like your saggy balls, you will never proposition me again!” I grit my teeth. Fuck, it felt good to say that, even though it was just in my head. So, instead, I give him a wider smile. “Trey, I really have to get to this event.”

  He shakes his head. “How come you’re always blowing me off, but never sucking me off?”

  I give a half-shrug. “You like the chase. And I don’t typically allow myself to be caught. You knew that when you first came to me.”

  “I was hoping you would have changed your mind, maybe given me a taste since I’ve been lining your pockets for the past couple of years.”

  “I just want to know exactly what to expect. This job is different because you’ve involved Scarlet without her knowledge. I’m risking a lot partnering with you, giving you legal access to my systems.”

  “Nobody is watching you, Ari. Except me,” he sneers. “I like what I see, but don’t think your tight little ass is enough to keep me satisfied. I’m a business man, and trust me when I say there are plenty of others like you who would be very happy to have me plundering their systems.”

  “And if anyone leaks our arrangement?”

  “Won’t happen. I’m extremely careful about who I involve and at what point in the process. You don’t need to think about anything other than the plethora of zeroes that will be sitting in your bank account a week from Sunday. Consider it an investment in your future. I mean, let’s face it, how else do you think you would have gotten those overpaid and talentless twits to sign on the dotted line for your firm to represent them?”

  My chest tightens. Yes, he’s financed a hell of a lot for me, but I did the hard work. I laid the foundation for my company. How dare he take all that credit? This sonofabitch is going down, fast, hard, and in flames. “Your help has been so appreciated.” I take a deep breath. “And I see us doing amazing things together in the future.”

  “Oh, yeah. Just wait. We’re gonna own this town, sweetheart.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  JEFF

  “Jesus Christ, Jeff! How many more times do we have to let you dick fuck us in the ass?”

  I let out a sigh. “Kegs, give it a rest. Everything is fine. We’re still on target.”

  He narrows his ice blue eyes at me. I can tell he wants to kick my ass. Not that I’m a psychic or anything, but his clenched fists and murderous glare are pretty telling. “Why do we always end up in this place?”

  “Because you know I get the job done.” I straighten up so we’re eye to eye. “You complain a lot, but who’s the one who took the fall last time? It could have been any of you guys, but I made sure it was me who got pinched.”

  Kegs rubs the back of his neck. “Look, I know you’re on the hook here—“

  “Yeah, I fucking am. I’m the one who’s violating parole right now, the one who’s going to be shipped back to prison if this shit goes sideways, the one who will lose the last chance he has with his son.” I rake a hand through my hair, rage bubbling in my veins. “So don’t make it seem like I’m sitting on my ass, waiting for things to happen.”

  “The timeline is getting tight. When are we getting that bug planted?”

  “I’ll take care of it, just like I always do. Don’t worry. Just be ready.”

  “Jeff…” Kegs collapses against the counter in the stark, otherwise empty, office. “You’ve got to separate yourself from this. I understand why you want to bring that asshole down, but this isn’t about righting wrongs anymore. It started out as a way to give back to the people who’d been victims of fraud. And I wanted to be a part of that because those scumbags deserved to be punished for taking so much from people who worked so hard for their futures. But this has turned into a personal vendetta. And when emotions drive the decision-making, shit goes bad, fast.”

  “I tracked him for years, Kegs. He destroyed everything. I lost everything because of what he did! All of the bullshit companies he’d built and then destroyed, milking them for every single penny, emptying the pension accounts of the people who worked their assess off to secure their own futures. Christ, it makes me sick! Conlon is the reason why we’re here right now; he stole the futures of so many people so he could line his own pockets.” I slam my fists on the counter top. “Personal vendetta? Yeah, it’s fucking personal. And if I get sent back to prison, I want to make sure he’s thrown in the cell next to me. I want to look him in the eye every day, so he knows I’m the one who made sure he didn’t get away with it, that he pays for his crimes.”

  “I get it. I just want to make sure your head’s clear. If it’s not, this bastard will crush us. He’s done it before, and he won’t think twice about doing it again. And this time, you might not have to worry about getting sent back up the river because you could easily end up at the bottom of it.”

  “You guys have put a lot of trust and faith in me over the years. We’re not going to miss this time, even if I have to go after him myself.”

  “He can’t know you’re involved. If he suspects you’re on to him, he’ll change his plan. You know how that slimy asshole operates. He’s got something up his sleeve. The transactions aren’t going to the accounts we’ve been tracking. He must’ve set up many different ones. We’ll be standing around with our dicks in our hands if we can’t get access to the incoming cash before he moves it.”

  “I’ll get to Ollie. Maybe he can do something from his end.” Doubtful, but I keep my mouth closed. Ollie is already a sore spot.

  A knock at the door startles me from my unpleasant walk down memory lane. The knob turns and Remo pops his head inside.

  “Remo, tell me you have something.” I rub the back of my neck to no avail. The crippling knot is still there.

  “I do, but you’re not gonna like it.” He sinks into a chair, his long legs spread out in front of him. “Rand and I were able to fix the feed and backtrack about a week. Ollie fucking fell off the grid, and I’m not sure he’s the mastermind you remember. Maybe working in this town has made him soft.”

  “Get on with it,” I say behind gritted teeth. “What did you find?”

  “Conlon is still planning on stealing the money, but it’s when and where it goes next that we need to worry about. We still don’t know when the wire is coming into his accounts, or where he’s going to route it for laundering.”

  “Well those are two pretty big fucking holes in your story, aren’t they?” I lean against a wall and cover my face with my hands. I got us all into this mess, and now I need to find the way out, so we can do everything we planned and watch that bastard plummet head first into an empty concrete hole with no net to break his fall.

  “Yes, but there’s more.”

  “Don’t make me beg for it, Remo.”

  “We reviewed the feeds for the past week. Whatever we were able to recover, anyway. Guess who’s been there, as recently as this morning?”

  I scrub my hands down my face. “Tell me.”

  “Ariana Carlson. And they looked pretty chummy, too.”

  “Fuuuuck.” Kegs slams a fist into the wall. “This was your br
illiant plan to use a hot piece of ass to get to Conlon. Well, now we’re in, with no information other than the fact that Little Miss Tits and Ass has something going with the Big Bad Wolf.”

  “Do you think she’s involved?” Kegs narrows his eyes at me. Like I fucking know.

  “She said she’d plant the bug for us, for the investigation. But I told her no, that it has to be Scarlet. She didn’t mention that she knew him personally.” I tap my fingers on the countertop.

  “I don’t think she would’ve let that little tidbit drop if she knew you were working against him, dipshit.” Kegs rolls his eyes. “Did you really expect her to bare her soul to you?”

  “So what do we do now? Get her attention with another Photoshopped picture of Scarlet?” Remo points to a laptop sitting on a nearby table. “Somebody better call Rand and tell him to get to work. My photo editing skills are shit.”

  “No, I’ll figure this out.” My mind is spinning, and I’m not sure what to think anymore. Is she fucking Conlon? Is it about keeping her career intact, or something more? Is he an investor for her company? Is she—

  The thoughts keep popping like blisters, but there’s an unwanted heaviness in my chest, one I’m not sure I want to acknowledge.

  I take a deep breath. “What did you guys find out about the money he’s planning to steal?”

  Kegs and Remo exchange a look. My spine stiffens. I’m not going to like the outcome of this conversation, I can tell already. Kegs speaks up. “From what we were able to piece together from the crappy feed, it looks like he’s going after the pension account of Markum Industries. It’s worth hundreds of millions.”

  “Who on Conlon’s team is going to hack that pension system, Kegs?” I clench and unclench my fists, waiting for an answer I know they don’t have.

  “Don’t know, but it sure as hell won’t be Conlon. He’d never get directly involved.”

  “Do you know where the money will go after they steal it? Aren’t we monitoring his offshore accounts?” I clench and unclench my fists. Do we fucking know anything?

  “We’re keeping tabs on the ones we know about, but it’s been awhile. He may have new accounts set up.”

  “Guys, how the hell are we going to get our hands on that money if we don’t have these key details? They’re pretty fucking important to this job, don’t you think?”

  Kegs rakes a hand through his close cropped blond hair. “Jeff, we’re doing the best we can. And remember, we’re doing this for you, putting our necks on the chopping block to finish what you started all those years ago. Give us a break. Maybe if you hadn’t gone to Ollie, we would’ve found someone who knew what the hell he was doing, and we’d already be inside Conlon’s house.”

  “Don’t start that again! You guys are the best, so get it done.” I point to Remo. “Find Rand. He can connect to Conlon’s cell phone through a spy program. We need to know who he’s talking to, and when this is going to happen. We can’t take any chances right now. If the security feed isn’t working, we need another way to get the information.”

  “Sure thing, Jeff.” Remo pulls out his phone and starts stabbing at the keyboard.

  “We need to make our move. He’s not getting away with it this time. We’re taking him down. Just get me the details as soon as possible.” I press my fingers to my temples.

  I need to get to Ariana. What the fuck was she even doing there? She never once indicated they had any kind of relationship. All those bullshit excuses she fed me, ideas to get in front of him…fuck, she had his ear, and Christ only knows what else, the whole time. My chest tightens and I need to punch something. Someone.

  She knows something. I have to find out what it is - if she tipped him off, if they’re working together, if she’s fucking him.

  Yeah, just thinking about that last part makes my stomach turn like a carton full of month-old milk. I grab my keys. “Guys, keep me informed. I’m going to find Ollie.”

  Something tells me if I find him, I’ll find her.

  “Do us all a favor and don’t give him any more tasks,” Kegs calls out as I storm out the door, slamming it shut behind me.

  I walk down the stairs and scroll through the contacts on my phone. I try Ollie first, and no surprise, the call goes directly to voicemail. Same with Ariana. I launch my arm back, ready to hurl the phone at the brick wall, but let sanity wash over me. It may be fleeting, but it prevents me from trashing my sole communication device. What the fuck is going on? How am I going to get ahead of it before everything crumbles around me?

  And how the fuck could she be sleeping with that sonofabitch? I fist my hair. Dammit, this is exactly why I should’ve told her to make that phone call to get her room key last night! Fucking that sweet pussy has scrambled every single one of my carefully-crafted plans. With each passing hour, the future of this job looks bleaker and bleaker. And I know if I fail again, I lose everything.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ARIANA

  Ari, you’re on another planet. Are you coming back soon to join me? Because I really want to meet Jimmy Fallon, and I kind of need you to arrange that. Remember, this little press trip to New York is supposed to be my pre-wedding present!” Eva furrows her brow at me in the mirror as she applies another layer of mascara on her already very thick lashes.

  “Sorry,” I mumble. I’m sprawled on the leather couch in Scarlet’s dressing room backstage at The Tonight Show, and I’ve been listening to Eva gush about Jimmy Fallon for the past twenty minutes. I, on the other hand, can’t seem to think about anything other than every salacious detail from my night with Jeff. Eva’s future father-in-law. What in the hell have I gotten myself into?

  This trip was supposed to clear my head before we put our plans in motion. It got me the hell out of Conlon’s house and onto a plane, far away from all the bullshit. I need time to process everything that’s happened. My back is aching, and my feet are sizzling in these new shoes. It’s been a hell of a day, and in a few hours, we’ll be on another red eye back to Los Angeles. That’s when the real fun begins.

  My iPhone rings and I grab it out of my handbag. I let out a deep sigh as I peer at the screen. “Eva, give me a minute, okay?” I hurry outside the dressing room and mumble into the phone. “Ollie, what’s up?”

  “Jeff’s been calling nonstop.”

  “And? Have you answered?”

  “Nope, I send every call to voicemail.”

  “Do me a favor, return the call and tell him you’ll have the surveillance fixed within a day, that they don’t need Scarlet to get a bug in there. That’ll buy us some time.”

  “Okay, what else?”

  I tug on a strand of my hair and twist it around my pinkie. “I was at Conlon’s place this morning, trying to get the details, but he wouldn’t give me a fucking crumb.”

  “I know. I’ve got ears on you at all times, remember? You know the deal. He’s going to spring the details on you when you’re least prepared. It’s the way he works. Swift action, no trail of evidence left behind.”

  “But our plan is to wait for him to make his move and then arrest him, and unless he tells me when and how, we’re screwed. I can’t let him slip through the cracks again. We’ve been on him for too long.” I clench my fists, ready to hurl them against the door. “I need to get him talking.”

  “Did he want you to suck his dick?”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. “Please don’t ask me that. I’d erased his disgusting advances from my mind.”

  “Ari, Jeff’s crew is at the ready. His guys are tracking Conlon, too. I can only hold them off for so long. If Jeff figures out Conlon’s plan to steal that pension fund, he and his guys are going to get caught in the crossfire.”

  A deep sigh escapes my lips. I’d delegated the recon of Jeff’s scheme to Ollie because I’m in too deep, and this is all hitting way too close to home. I need to keep my attention focused on Conlon because if I so much as blink, we’ll lose our chance to string him up by his saggy balls and hang him in front of a
jury. And using Jeff as a pawn in our op - something I’d thought about too many times to count – would never work because he’s too hotheaded to let someone else call the shots. He wants to take down Conlon his way, and he’d never expose his team to help the FBI, an organization that put him in this situation to begin with. “We need to keep Jeff away from this. If the FBI finds out he’s back on Conlon’s tail, they’ll arrest him on the spot.”

  “And if he finds out you’re leading the undercover team to take down Conlon for the Bureau? How do you think that’s going to go over? Especially after last night?”

  I chomp down on my lower lip. “What do you know about last night?”

  “Pretty much everything, although I stopped listening after a while. Let me guess, that wasn’t part of the plan?”

  “No, it wasn’t.” My eyes wander to the dressing room door, and I pray that Eva is still applying mascara. Shit, I’d forgotten about the little tracking device Ollie embedded in my Apple watch. More drama is the last thing I need right now. “It…it shouldn’t have happened. Please, Ollie, don’t—”

  “I think it’s a big fucking mistake to get mixed up with Jeff Torres, and I really don’t want to hear any more about it, okay? You know how I feel about you, and I know you’re not on the same page. You have the right to fuck whoever you want, but don’t expect me to take the fall for you if shit with this op goes sideways. You’re playing with fire, and someone is going to get her ass singed because of it. Know that.”

  His voice turns cold and hard, but I can hear the hurt lingering just beyond. We’ve been working together for years, and as one of the best undercover agents at the Bureau, there’s nobody I’d rather have as my partner. But that’s how our relationship works best. I can’t bring emotion into what we do because it’s dirty and dangerous. I need to think with a level head, and so does he. Recently that’s changed, and I’m desperate to get us back on track for our current mission - the takedown of Trey Conlon, the one person who’s been able to evade the FBI for years because of his money and contacts. A tiny shudder runs through me. My tracks are clean, but Conlon is ruthless. He would cut your neck for the promise of making a nickel.