by Jami Alden
Krista nervously perched on the edge of Brooks’s couch. “Now that we’re here, maybe we should wait outside,” she said. “I met Brooks only once, but he doesn’t seem like a guy who will react well to finding us waiting in his house.”
“What, you think I can’t take him?” Sean asked.
Krista rolled her eyes. “I couldn’t even speculate—all I’m saying is that if we want him to cooperate, maybe surprising him in his house isn’t the best plan.”
“I get what you’re saying, but better to get him in here than risk him spotting us and taking off before we get a chance to talk to him.” And right now, the element of surprise was their only slight advantage.
A soft thud sounded from the back of the house. Shit. Maybe they’d lost their advantage after all. Krista’s eyes went wide as Sean pulled the Glock from the back of his waistband and pressed himself up against the wall. He motioned for Krista to stay silent and directed her to the small alcove by the front door, which Brooks used as a doorless hall closet.
Wait here, he mouthed. She nodded, eyes wide as she burrowed silently between two huge jackets that hung from metal hooks.
Sean slipped into combat mode like it was a second skin as he crept silently along the wall, waiting for Brooks to round the corner. Like Sean, the former Green Beret had years of training drilled into him that allowed him to ghost in and out of places undetected. Despite his size, Brooks didn’t make a sound as he came down the short hall, and it was only a slight disturbance in the air that alerted Sean that he was about to round the corner.
Brooks scanned the room, gun gripped in both hands as it followed the path of his gaze. Sean took two silent steps back and raised his Glock.
Sean knew the second Brooks sensed his presence, and in that split second he shoved the muzzle of his gun into the back of Brooks’s neck. “Drop yours,” Sean said.
Brooks grunted and did as he was told.
“Kick it.”
The gun skittered along the hardwood.
“My name is—”
Before Sean could finish, Brooks whirled around and launched a fist into the center of Sean’s chest. Sean jumped to the side at the last minute, taking the blow in the meat of his pec instead of dead center. A blow that, delivered with enough force, could have stopped his heart in his chest.
Still, Brooks’s fist landed with considerable force, enough to make him grunt and loosen his grip on the Glock enough so that when Brooks’s next blow landed against his wrist it was enough to send the gun out of his hand and across the room.
“Brooks, I just want to ask you some questions,” Sean said as he blocked a blow to the face.
Brooks wasn’t interested in what he had to say. His sole focus was on beating the shit out of the guy who had dared to invade his home.
It took all of Sean’s concentration to keep Brooks from pounding the shit out of him, and within a few seconds the adrenaline kicked in. They were well matched in size and skill, and soon Sean had nearly forgotten why he was even here, he was so caught up in the rush of the fight.
Brooks swept out with his leg and Sean jumped back, barely avoiding being taken to the ground. Brooks rushed him, slamming him into the wall with enough force to knock the wind from him and crack the plaster. Sean could see the heel of Brooks’s hand rushing to his face and quickly ducked his head.
Shit, if that blow had landed it would have sent pulverized bits of bone straight up into his brain.
Fucker was seriously trying to kill him.
The primitive urges Sean had kept so carefully in check for the past several years surged, straining to break free, urging him to give as good as he got. But the steady, rational voice inside him reminded him that they needed Brooks to talk—they needed him on their side. If they weren’t fucked enough already, they would be if he accidentally killed or maimed their one possible connection to a key witness.
He forced himself to pull his punches and he tried to push Brooks past the red haze of combat to get him calm enough to talk.
Sean grunted as a blow glanced off his temple, flooding his head with pain and making him see stars.
The wound on his head opened up, sending blood coursing down his face, quickly blinding him in one eye. With his depth perception all fucked up, he couldn’t move fast enough to avoid a kick to the chest. It sent him reeling into a low table. He keeled over backward, felt the wood splinter under his weight as he went down like a ton of bricks.
Brooks came over him, his face a mask of cold rage.
Krista. Desperation flooded him with a surge of power. Brooks was in full-on fight mode, in no mood to listen. No matter that Ibarra’s friend vouched for him—in the place Brooks was in, there was no telling what damage he might do to Krista.
Sean was vaguely aware of her screaming as he brought his knees up to his chest and shoved his feet into Brooks’s stomach. The other man stumbled a bit and reached out to grab something from the floor.
The yelling got louder as Brooks swung what looked like a table leg at Sean’s head. He heard the whoosh of the bludgeon as he ducked at the last second.
Blam blam!
“Knock it the fuck off!”
Both men froze and turned in the direction of the dark-haired woman standing at the front of the room like some refugee from La Femme Nikita, feet in a wide, bracing stance, forearm muscles corded as she gripped a pistol in both hands and pointed it straight at Jack Brooks’s chest like she meant business. Bits of plaster still fell from the bullet holes she’d shot in the ceiling.
Brooks’s eyes narrowed on the gun and Sean could see the other man’s muscles coil as he prepared to spring.
“Don’t you fucking touch her,” Sean growled. “Even if she doesn’t manage to shoot you, I’ll fuck you up if you touch so much as a hair on Krista’s head.”
“Krista?” Brooks’s head cocked to the side and Sean could sense a little of the tension melting out of him. “Krista Slater?”
Krista nodded, but kept the gun raised and aimed at Brooks. Good girl, he thought as he moved to stand beside her.
Brooks eased back off the balls of his feet and held his hands up. He turned his focus to Sean. “So you must be Flynn.”
Sean nodded.
“I take it she’s not your hostage.”
“And he didn’t kill a cop, either,” Krista said. “We were set up, and we’re hoping you can help us figure out who’s behind it.”
“I’m not sure how I can help,” Brooks said. “Do you mind putting that down?”
Krista’s hand was cramping at the weight of the pistol but she didn’t lower the gun. “You’ll have to forgive me if I’m a little nervous after the way you tried to kill Sean with your bare hands.”
Both men were breathing hard, muscled chests heaving up and down. Krista was afraid that if she breathed too deeply she’d sprout hair on her chest, the air was so thick with testosterone.
The room itself was a wreck, furniture splintered, cracks in the plaster coating the walls, and blood—probably from the oozing cut on Sean’s forehead—stained the pine planks of the floor.
“I didn’t notice him holding back,” Brooks said, lifting his fingers to the cut on his lip. His right cheekbone was red and already swelling, and he winced as he probed the left side of his ribs. “And how do you expect me to react when my alarm goes off in the middle of the afternoon and a guy jumps me in my own living room?”
“Sorry about that,” Sean said, “but your boss indicated you might be reluctant to talk to us, and since we can’t exactly get to you in public, we had to improvise. So you have a remote monitoring system?”
“Sends an alert to my cell phone if the perimeter is breached.”
“Nice,” Sean said, admiration evident in his voice. Krista could see them relax a degree as they took each other’s measure.
Each must have found something they liked because their faces lost some of the hardness and they gave each other nearly imperceptible nods.
Krista
took it as manly man speak for we’re cool. She thumbed the Glock’s safety back on and tucked it into her waistband. “Does it alert the police?” If so, they had about five seconds before they needed to get out of here.
Brooks shook his head and gave her a look like she was crazy. “Just me. I don’t like dealing with the cops.” He pulled the couch back to its original position and sank down. Krista followed suit, taking a seat in the armchair across from him. Sean went to the kitchen to retrieve a towel for his head and positioned himself behind her chair as though he was standing guard. “Although I can’t make any promises if any of my neighbors heard you tear up my ceiling,” he said to Krista.
Krista felt guilty heat rise in her cheeks and she shot Sean an apologetic look.
“Let’s get right to the point,” Sean said. “We need to get in touch with Talia Vega.”
Only a subtle shift in Brooks’s facial muscles gave a clue that the name had meaning to him. “What makes you think I can help you?”
“Spare me the bullshit, Brooks,” Krista said. “Talia went missing from the hospital after her attack. The way I see it there are two options: Either someone finished what Nate started or someone helped get her into hiding. If that’s the case, I’d lay odds you had something to do with it.”
Brooks was silent, his blue eyes unreadable.
“We know you helped her before, that you brought in Gemini Securities to get her sister to safety.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “Before she was attacked, Talia was supposed to meet with me to give me details about Sean’s case. I know she was pushed to testify in Sean’s trial by someone other than Nate, and we think whoever that is, is trying to shut us up before we find out. We need to know who.”
“What makes you think I have an answer?” Jack said curtly.
Sean cocked a doubtful brow. “You were one of the last people to talk to her before Nate got the drop on you and took her,” Sean said bluntly.
Krista could see the guilt flash across Brooks’s face. He was still beating himself up for that. After examining the scene and seeing photos documenting Talia’s injuries, it wasn’t hard to see why it still ate at him. “I find it hard to believe she didn’t tell you anything,” Krista said.
“You can believe what you want. But Talia was dead set on telling only you.” He shook his head.
“If that’s the case, then we need to talk to her,” Sean pressed. “What little we’ve found so far—it’s not enough. We still don’t know who’s driving this boat and if we don’t find out, more people are going to die.”
“I promised I’d keep her safe, and I let her down. I fucked up big time and it almost got her killed with your sister,” he said to Sean.
Krista exchanged a look with Sean. Did he know for certain someone hadn’t finished what had Nate started?
“I know you want to nail these assholes,” Brooks continued, “and believe me, if I knew who they were, they’d be too dead to be fucking with you right now.” He scrubbed his hand over his short-cropped hair. “But it’s like I told the cops, aside from the little bit Talia let slip, for all I know everything started and ended with Nate Brewster.”
Krista exchanged a look with Sean, who gave her a quick nod. “That’s obviously what someone wants us to believe, but based on some financial transactions we were able to dig up, it’s pretty clear there was someone else paying Nate’s bills.”
Jack’s brows pulled into a frown that grew darker as Sean and Krista shared their theory that Nate was in fact a knife for hire for a much bigger fish.
“Some sick fuck paid him for what he did to Talia?” Brooks said. Krista could see a vein start to throb in his forehead.
“We don’t know about Talia specifically,” she said, cautiously watching Brooks’s fists as they clenched and unclenched. Next to her, she felt Sean subtly shift into readiness, poised to spring if Brooks lost it. “But we can connect some deposits to the murders of the other girls, as well as to the murder of a U.S. Customs agent.”
Brooks wrestled himself back under control and blew out a shaky lungful of air. “No names?”
“Nothing but bank accounts and multiple dummy corporations,” Sean said, “including the one that ran your former company. That’s why we were hoping maybe you could help.”
Jack shook his head. “I heard about the job from a friend of a friend, and I was low man on the totem pole. Guys who were more senior got moved out into the private sector, working high-end jobs for corporations and executive muckety-mucks. What I did at Club One was basically glorified bouncer work.”
“You seem a little overqualified for that,” Krista said.
“With my record, I had to pay my dues before they’d trust me with the big jobs.”
Sean heaved a frustrated sigh. “And if any of the big jobs are connected, we’ll never know because the company and its records evaporated into thin air. What’s up with that?” he asked Brooks.
“Hell if I know,” Brooks said. “I gave the police my statement, and next thing I know the club is closed and I can’t get in touch with anyone in the company. All I got was a cashier’s check for my last week of work.”
“You didn’t keep in touch with anyone you worked with?” Krista asked.
“We weren’t exactly a tight-knit group of guys,” Brooks said. “I didn’t ask too many questions.” He gave his broad shoulders a shrug. “I figured it made sense for me to lie low for a little while and not go nosing around. But, shit, if I’d had any idea how fucked up this all was…” He got up abruptly and went to stand in front of the windows, gazing out into the marina.
“When’s the last time you saw Talia?” Sean asked.
“As she was loaded into the ambulance,” Brooks said, and Krista thought she detected a subtle stiffening in his shoulders. “I wanted to ride with her, but Williams wanted me to stay and talk to the cops.”
“And you haven’t seen her at all since?”
He gave his head a definitive shake, but Krista wasn’t buying it.
“The company you’re working with now—Gemini Securities—they’re no longer protecting Rosario? Maybe they helped Talia too?”
Another negative. “I saw them load Talia into the ambulance, and the next thing I heard she disappeared. I was afraid someone had gotten to her, but apparently she picked up Rosie at one point and headed over the border.” He turned and hit Krista with a challenging stare. “Unless you’ve heard different.”
Crap. This was going nowhere, exactly what she’d been afraid of. Whatever he knew, he wasn’t giving it up any time soon, and they didn’t have the leverage to force it out of him. She sank back into the cushions of the armchair. “No.” Then: “I know this is a long shot, but do you know of any connection Nate might have had to a man named Roman Karev?”
Brooks’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve seen him in the news. Russian mobster, you were trying to get him for murder?”
Krista couldn’t stop a wry half smile. “He likes to call himself a restaurateur, but yeah, that’s the guy.”
Brooks’s eyes got a faraway look. “He came in only once the whole time I worked there, him and three of his guys. I thought it was weird at the time, because those guys usually keep to their own territory.”
The tiny hairs on the back of Krista’s neck stood on end. “Was there trouble?”
“Talia asked me to keep an eye on them and told the staff to make sure they got everything they wanted. They made her nervous. They headed straight up to the VIP room and got a bottle for the table.” He frowned as he tried to call up the details. “They kept to themselves and didn’t try to get any girls. I remember it was kind of weird—like they weren’t there to party but to check out the scene.”
Krista looked to Sean as she tried to sort it out in her mind. “Maybe they were there to check out their operation?”
“Or the competition,” Sean said.
“You think they paid for the murders?”
Krista shrugged. “It wouldn’t be their regular MO.
If Karev wants someone dead, he has plenty of heavies on his own crew. But all of this has gotten so convoluted, I wouldn’t be surprised at anything.”
“Me neither,” Brooks said. “The night I saw them, they left after an hour and one bottle, and didn’t speak to anyone but each other.”
The only way to get to the bottom of this was to get to Karev, and if he was behind the hits, it would be suicide to take him on directly.
There had to be another way. She rose from the chair and grabbed a pen and piece of paper from the kitchen counter. “If you can think of anything else that might help, you can call us on this number or send an e-mail to this address.” She handed him the slip of paper with their contact info.
“Both are completely secure and untraceable,” Sean said. “So don’t get any ideas about trying to turn us in.”
“I know we’re all on the same side here,” Brooks said as he idly flicked his thumbnail along the edge of the paper. “Whoever the fucker is, he has to go down.” Krista could tell from his expression that Brooks was deeply disturbed by the idea that someone had paid Nate to kill those women, knowing what kind of torture he would inflict. Knowing that it would send a terrifying message to the others. “Problem is, if his influence goes as deep as Talia said, we’re going to have to be damn careful,” he said, almost to himself.
Krista’s ears pricked up. There was something about the way he’d said “we.”
He gave his head a little shake as though trying to clear it. “I’ll let you know when I hear anything.”
Krista cocked her head to the side and shot Sean a look. Yep, he’d caught it too. Brooks’s use of when, not if.
He didn’t seem the type to out himself with a simple slip of the tongue.
Brooks offered his hand first to Sean and then to Krista. “I hope to hear from you soon,” she said.
Talia Vega answered Jack’s call, assuming he would give her an update about how her younger sister Rosario was faring living under her temporary secret identity. After he told her about his visit today from Krista Slater and Sean Flynn, she wished she hadn’t.