Wild Rebel

by Laurelin Paige

  I’d started after her, without thinking, when he stopped me. “Let her go. She’s upset, but she’s safe. This is definitely not a meeting you want her attending.”

  It took a couple of deep breaths before I turned back toward him. “This guy’s that scary?”

  “Not sure. It’s my first dealing with him. My contact vouches for him, but he also emphasized caution. The amount of money being exchanged and what I’m getting in return is enough reason to be wary.” He moved to the bookcase while he spoke, where his safe was hidden behind a fake shelf. He opened it up and removed a loaded semi-automatic handgun. “Here’s this, just in case.”

  I put my coat on before taking it, sticking it into the inside pocket that I’d had made specifically for hiding a gun. It had been a while since I’d carried one. The weight against my chest felt both exhilarating and foreboding. The thrill of danger was a nice perk of running Donovan’s dirty errands. The actuality of it was the downside.

  I was suddenly curious about what I’d be transporting. “What is it I’m bringing back to you?”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “Nothing that interesting. It’s the info you’re getting about the kids that’s valuable. Didn’t want to worry your girl, but it took some heavy negotiating to even get the conversation started. Someone really doesn’t want this information out.”

  He was feeding me some bullshit somewhere. Either he really didn’t want me knowing what he was involved with or what he’d discovered about the missing teens was a whole lot bigger than Stark.

  I knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t tell me any more easily, and with twenty minutes left to six, I didn’t have time to push. “Where am I meeting up with this guy?”

  He gave me the info, along with a shot of whiskey. Liquor was always a good idea before these errands. Not too much to cloud the head, but enough to steady the nerves.

  “Call me after. I can meet you at the hotel, if that’s easier. I know you’ll want Jolie with you when we open the case up. You know she’s going to try to get you to let her come with you, right?”

  I’d already considered that. “I’ll put her in the cab myself.” I straightened my collar, rechecked the gun, buttoned my coat, picked up the briefcase. “Oh, and Donovan? She’s not my girl.”

  He threw out some rebuttal, but I’d already left.

  And truthfully, I was having trouble finding the will to deny it.

  Twenty-Three

  “I’m going with you,” Jolie said as soon as I found her in the lobby downstairs.

  Sometimes I fucking hated it when Donovan was right.

  Without saying anything, I ushered her out the main doors, pretending it didn’t feel natural to touch the small of her back.

  Outside, I dropped my hand and walked to the edge of the sidewalk so I could signal a cab.

  She trotted after, pleading her case the whole time. “I’ll be quiet. I won’t interfere. I can stay outside if you really want me to. I won’t be in the way. I just need to go with you.”

  Miracle of miracles, a taxi pulled over toward us immediately. I didn’t speak until it was at the curb, and I had the door opened for her. “Where you need to go is back to the hotel.”

  She didn’t move, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “You can’t keep me from going with you. I want to go. Why can’t I go?”

  “Why do you want to come?” I sounded tired and frustrated because I was. I needed to be getting my head in the right place, and she was distracting me, pulling my focus, throwing me off my game.

  “He’s my blood relative, not yours. I should take the responsibility of his sins.”

  “You took responsibility. You asked me for my help. So let me do the thing I’m good at, and wait for me at the hotel so we can go over what I come back with together.”

  “And if it’s dangerous, you shouldn’t go alone. You should have backup. You could get hurt. ”

  Like she could protect me.

  But what I said was worse. “Since when do you care what happens to me?”

  She retracted as though I’d slapped her, her eyes glistening. “Is that what you think? You think I don’t care?”

  The cab driver honked his horn, but I ignored him. “Have you given me any reason to think otherwise?”

  She blinked several times, and her jaw got tight, her mouth a straight line. “I guess that’s how you’d see it.”

  Damn straight. Because I wasn’t an idiot. Because I’d been there.

  “Hey, lady. You getting in or not?” The driver had his head cranked over his shoulder, waiting for Jolie’s answer.

  “She’s getting in.” This time when I pushed at her, she got in and hugged her arms over her chest, refusing to look at me.

  Well, that was fine. She could be mad. Like Donovan said, she’d also be safe.

  “She’s staying at the Park Hyatt.” I reached over her to hand the driver some bills. “This should cover the cost.”

  I hesitated for a moment before closing the door, wanting to say something, not sure what that something was.

  After a beat, I figured it was best to let things lie. I shut the door and hit the roof of the cab, letting the driver know he could take off.

  I was tempted to watch after her, but I knew that would be a mistake. Turning away from the street, I set down the briefcase, pulled a Camel from my pocket, and lit it. The rhythmic act of smoking was a great way to get focused. I needed to be on my toes. Needed to be completely in the moment.

  Needed to stop thinking about what she’d meant when she said, I guess that’s how you’d see it.

  Why would I see it any other way? Had I missed something? Was she saying she did care?

  It was a detail I could run away with, if I let myself.

  I couldn’t let myself.

  Shaking my head of all Jolie thoughts, I took a long drag of my smoke, picked up the case, and set off toward my destination.

  The meeting point was at the edge of Midtown, right where it met up with Hell’s Kitchen. Admittedly, the area had a bit of grit, but the luxury apartment building across the street made it an unsuspecting location for dirty deals.

  Truth was, the more upscale meetup spots were the ones that put me most on guard. Upscale meant money, and people with money were, in my experience, the most dangerous.

  I slipped into the alleyway between a grocery store and a restaurant that served Cuban cuisine and counted doors until I came to the fifth one. My watch said it was a minute to six. Right on time.

  I knocked.

  A burly man in a black suit opened the door. He didn’t make eye contact, scanning both directions in the alley behind me instead. “Entrance to the restaurant is round front. We don’t take deliveries after five.”

  I responded with what I’d been instructed to say. “I’m here for Bishop.”

  With a nod of his head, Burly Man pushed the door open, his jacket lifting so I could see the glock he was packing. “Upstairs. You’ll know the room.”

  I resisted the urge to pat my gun. It was a typical interaction for this sort of thing, and my spidey senses didn’t detect anything out of the ordinary, but there was a reason I’d moved out of dirty work. Even typical interactions had the likelihood of going bad.

  Cautiously, I stepped past him, scanning the room as he’d scanned the street. It was a typical back-of-restaurant loading area. I could hear the scrape of pots and pans from the kitchen just ahead, and beyond that, as a swinging door flew open, the buzz of New Yorkers hoping to finish their meal in time to catch a show.

  The staircase ran to my left—a standard narrow corridor that practically gave a person claustrophobia to climb through. Of course the light was out, and the stairs were steep, and the briefcase bumped against the wall with each step, but I was at the top soon enough. There I found a dark hallway, the only light coming from a room at the end.

  Aren’t you supposed to not go toward the light?

  I chuckled at the thought as I walked the hall, car
eful to make noise so I wouldn’t surprise anyone. I stopped at the threshold, thrown a little off guard by the sight of five overtly armed men stationed around the room. A bigwig sat behind a desk at the far side. A skinny lackey type perched on the edge as though they’d been consulting on some matter.

  All eyes were on me.

  Now this was a little atypical. Usually these deals were conducted with even teams.

  I reassured myself that Donovan knew what he was doing—fuck, he better know what he was doing—and addressed the bigwig. “You Bishop?”

  It was the man I’d thought was the lackey who answered. “I’m Bishop. You Beasley’s guy?”

  “That I am.” Beasley was the name Donovan used when he did shady deals.

  Bishop, which was likely a pseudonym as well, gestured toward the briefcase in my hand. “That for me?”

  “You have something for me in exchange?”

  He worked his mouth like he had snuff tucked in his lip and ignored the question. “Put her here.”

  I paused. I preferred not to hand over money without seeing the goods first, but I wasn’t sure I was in a position to have demands. I swept my gaze around the room, noting that though none of the heavies had a weapon drawn, they were each at the ready. It was a lot of protection for a simple exchange. What the fuck had Stark gotten mixed up with?

  Or was it the information Donovan was seeking that was so valuable?

  Either way, I needed to be cautious. “Seems I’m at a clear disadvantage here. I’m expected to hand this over with no promise I’ll get what I’m after in return?”

  “You want a promise? Okay, I promise.” It was half-hearted at best.

  “Yeah, we both know there’s nothing keeping you to your word.”

  Bishop stood and turned to face me. “For what Beasley wants, this is how it works.”

  His patience was wearing, which was not ideal. And it was clear I had no power in the situation and no resources to play hardball.

  Fine. Whatever. It was Donovan who’d be out cash if I returned empty-handed, something he surely knew when he made the deal. Goal was just to make sure I returned.

  Whoa. That was new. Since when did I care about a potential risk to my life? My flippancy about death had been one of the reasons I’d been suited to this kind of job in the past.

  I refused to let myself acknowledge when and why that had changed.

  Keeping my senses on alert, I crossed to the desk, set the case down, and took a step back. Bishop bent to enter the combination. The lid flipped open, and he nodded to the guy who wasn’t the bigwig saying, “Be sure it’s all there.”

  I hadn’t counted it in Donovan’s office. It had been a lot, and I probably could have done some fast math if I’d wanted to, but I hadn’t. Now that not-bigwig was thumbing through it, it was obvious just how much my friend was willing to hand over.

  And it was a lot.

  The minutes passed like hours as all the cash was counted and inspected with a digital light to be sure they were real and hadn’t been marked. Finally, the goon announced it was all there and accounted for. “Plus $10K,” he added.

  I’d forgotten I was supposed to mention that. “That’s a tip for the rush.”

  Bishop studied my face, as though he thought the extra money might have been a trick. “No tip necessary. But we’ll keep it for a down payment for future interactions.” He nodded to his guy to take the cash to a large safe on the floor behind him.

  I fidgeted as I watched the money get packed inside, then breathed a sigh of relief when the guy returned to Bishop with a hard drive. “Real sensitive info on here,” he said, holding it up. “Hope Beasley knows what he’s getting into.”

  Jesus, so did I.

  “It’s password protected.” Bishop dropped the drive in the case. “He knows what it is. Any problems getting into it, he knows how to reach me.”

  The hard drive could be blank. It could all be a scam. But thirty more seconds, and I’d have what I came for. I’d be back on the street within two minutes.

  Except, just as Bishop started to close the lid, a noise came from the hallway behind me. Footsteps and a shuffling sound like one of the people walking wasn’t coming willingly.

  I wasn’t facing the door and didn’t turn because it was never wise to take eyes off the man in charge. But I knew.

  Maybe it was the scent of cherry blossoms.

  Or the muffled high-pitched scream.

  Or maybe just that I fucking knew Jolie, knew that she never took kindly to a no, knew that she was stubborn as the day was long.

  Whatever it was that made me certain, I didn’t have to look to know that when all the men in the room pulled their guns out in alarm, they were aiming them at her.

  Twenty-Four

  “Found her sniffing around the back door,” Burly Man from downstairs said.

  “I was looking for my cat?”

  I cringed at the sound of her voice—confirmation that it was her and the ridiculous lie, one she couldn’t even make convincing with the question at the end.

  I turned just enough so that I could see her without putting my back to Bishop, slowly so as not to arouse a reaction from any of the gun-wielding men. Seeing her was both a relief and an ache. She was in one piece, didn’t seem scuffed up in any way.

  But she had a gun to her head, and it took everything in me not to rip Burly Man’s arms off his body for being the one to hold it there.

  I focused on her face, trying to blot out the Glock pointed at her temple. She looked scared, which did something to my insides, but not scared enough, which did something to my brain. Fuck, Jolie. Why didn’t you just do what I asked, for your own damn good?

  As if she could hear my thoughts, she mouthed a sorry.

  “She’s with me,” I said, knowing I’d probably just screwed Donovan’s deal out of existence.

  “With you?” Bishop had already removed the hard drive from the case. Now it sat open and empty, the object of our pursuit in the hands of the man who’d counted the money. “There were strict instructions that you come alone.”

  Jolie opened her mouth to say something, but I shot her a silencing look. “You know women. They never listen.”

  I addressed her now with false admonition that would be very real later, when we got out of this. If we got out of this. “You were supposed to wait at the hotel, baby. I told you I’d be back later.” I added the endearment for the men—an indication that she wasn’t a threat to whatever business these guys were doing—but also it was for her. To give her some reassurance in whatever way I knew how.

  “I got impatient.” Her voice was tinier now, her eyes wider as she scanned the room and really took in the situation. She practically shrank in front of me. “I think I probably made a mistake.”

  You think?

  Bishop narrowed his eyes. “She’s...what? Your wife?”

  I knew this kind of questioning technique. I’d used it many times in the past. He’d already checked out our bare left hands. He was trying to catch us in a lie.

  “Girlfriend,” I said.

  At the same time Jolie said, “Fiancée.”

  She wasn’t helping. I was going to kill her later for trying.

  “Girlfriend,” I corrected. “Stop getting ahead of yourself, baby. These men don’t want to hear us get into another argument about it.”

  Except for the guy holding her, the others relaxed a bit, identifying with the nagging-lover trope, either for real or for show, as happens with men around their peers.

  “If she’s a problem, we could take her off your hands.” It was the first time Bishop had smiled since I’d walked in the room, and now that he did, I saw I’d been mistaken in thinking he wasn’t carrying. That smile was his own weapon, as threatening as any hardware.

  Whatever he intended by the offer, it was clear that death would be the nicest of options.

  I could hear my blood rushing in my ears. “I’ll pass. I hate to say it in front of her, but I’m
kind of attached.”

  He swept his eyes down her body, pausing too long at her curves. “Understandable.” He stuck one hand into the pockets of his crisp suit pants and scratched at his bare chin with the other. “But you see, now we got a problem. You know what we do when someone doesn’t follow the rules?”

  He was going to tell me anyway, so I didn’t answer. Thankfully, Jolie kept her mouth shut as well.

  Again that evil smile. “Why don’t you tell him, Ross?”

  I looked to the goon who’d counted the money, thinking he must be who Bishop was addressing, but it turned out Ross was the burly man holding Jolie captive. “Sure, Bish. We shoot them.”

  Jolie let out an involuntary squeak. I saw the quiver in her lip just before she covered her mouth with her hand.

  Finally, she was as scared as she ought to be.

  It had been a long time, but now I was too. “All right, hold on. Let’s not overreact here. She did something dumb. Real dumb. It wasn’t intentional. Just let us go. You got our money. Let us walk out the door, empty-handed if you prefer. No harm, no foul, and you’re up a lot of cash.”

  “I’m up the cash anyway.” He was fully aware he held every card. But he did seem intrigued by something. “You’re willing to walk out of here without Beasley’s drive? That much money sent out with no prize in return, seems you’d be dead anyway.”

  Of course Bishop assumed that Donovan was my boss. He definitely didn’t realize that I had twice the amount we’d handed over in my personal checking account.

  All of which made me more of a threat than if I were simply an errand boy. In my eagerness to talk him down, I’d drawn suspicion. If we weren’t worried about our lives, then who were we?

  “No, no, no.” Jolie’s panic erupted before I’d thought through my next move. “We can’t leave without the information, Cade. We have to—”

  I winced as she used my real name. “Shut up, baby. I’ve got this handled.” I didn’t have this handled at all. I addressed Bishop. “Obviously, I’d rather we left with the drive. But if that’s off the table, I’ll take my chances with Beasley. At least that’s not a sure step in the grave. But, really, do we need to be talking graves at all? For such a minor infraction, it doesn’t seem like a reason to get blood on your hands.”