In his reverie, staring up at the distant glinting glass of the penthouse, Wes nearly missed the tall blonde man pushing through the revolving doors. But Carey spotted him immediately, striding across the pavement toward him with an expression that hovered somewhere between amused and flabbergasted.
“How the hell did you know I was here?” Carey asked, shaking his head at him.
“I’ve actually been trying to get a face-to-face with Mack for a few weeks,” Wes told him with a shrug. “When his assistant told me he was stuck in a board meeting most of the day, I knew you’d have to be here as Sam’s proxy.”
“She shouldn’t have told you that.” Carey sighed. “Christ, am I going to have to fire her now?”
“What can I say?” Wes shrugged lightly. “She’s sweet on me. I’ve been wearing her down.”
“She’s fifty-five years old,” Carey pointed out, yanking at the knot in his tie.
Wes laughed. “She’s still a woman, isn’t she?”
“Mama always said you were too damn charming for your own good.”
“Sounds like Hannah,” Wes replied with an easy smile. “You look none the worse for wear. Can I buy you a beer?”
“I shouldn’t,” Carey sighed. “Got a conference call with Talon in Chicago.”
“It’ll keep. Come on—I know a place that serves some ridiculously good burgers. You’ll feel right as rain after some chow and a longneck.” Wes turned toward a diner he knew down the street a few blocks.
“Why do I get the feeling I’m walking into a trap?” Carey remarked as they strode down the sidewalk.
“Carey, I’ve known you since you were in short pants. Sure, I’ll take any news on Sammy you care to supply, but you’ll get a cold beer and some protein either way, so what’s the harm?”
“Aw, hell, I can’t resist,” Carey declared, throwing his hands up. “You know they only serve these little finger sandwiches in those meetings? I’d have to eat three platters of those just to get my fill.”
Wes laughed aloud. “I can just see you holding one of those fancy silver platters over your mouth and shaking it down. God, what would the board say?”
“They’re already saying it: ‘This boy doesn’t know shit from Shinola when it comes to oil. When’s Sammy coming back?’” he mocked with an eye roll.
Ten minutes later they were sitting in a corner booth of a small, raffish diner scented with seared chuck and house-baked buns. Carey slugged back a Shiner Bock with relieved gusto, smacking his lips before leaning back with a sigh.
“There’s nothing more boring than listening to drilling reports,” he confessed. “Did you even know it was possible to sit through a two-hundred-page report on thermal energy collection?” He shook his head ruefully. “Man, I’d rather take a heavy mortar shelling in Fallujah than endure this shit.”
Wes quirked a brow. “That’s…ah, extreme.”
“It’s your fault, too,” Carey accused, pointing his beer bottle at him.
Wes blinked. “How the hell do you figure that?”
“Sam was all set to return to the helm this week, but that impromptu drive out to Austin to ream you out got her so fucked up and pissed off, she’s busy turning over stones on her daddy. I oughtta beat your ass for that,” Carey told him as he took another sip of beer.
“Seriously?” Wes sat back. “That wasn’t my intention.”
“Yeah, well. Sam stayed up all night afterward, stewing. Alejo says she’s being unbearable.” He sighed. “More than usual.”
“I still can’t get over the irony of that situation.” Wes shook his head. “In college those two could barely stand each other. They were constantly at each other’s throats.”
Carey shook his head. “It ain’t much different now.”
“By the way, Sammy came to me,” Wes pointed out. “What did you expect me to do—lie to her?”
The waiter brought out their burgers, and Carey immediately perked up. “I’ll feel better after about four of these. Afterward, I’ll beat your ass.”
Wes rolled his eyes, but he did give Carey a bit of time to enjoy his food before he got into the particulars of this impromptu visit. Sam might have told him to butt out and leave her the hell alone, but she hadn’t said her best friend and business partner was off-limits. Wes wasn’t fooling himself though—he knew Sammy was still hot and angry as a brand, but he knew her well enough to know that her temper was hottest in the first few days. When she cooled off, she’d level out and look at the rationality of the points he’d made about her father and the investigation. In the meantime, Wes wasn’t wasting time. He fully intended to shore up additional questions with Carey, see what information he could dredge up.
“Did Sam tell you what I told her?” Wes asked after a moment.
“Not about this,” Carey responded, wiping his mouth. “I gather it has something to do with the file you shouldn’t know anything about?”
Wes nodded. “Indeed, it does.”
“And I’m guessing she told you to drop it?” Carey sent him a knowing look.
“Indeed, she did,” Wes answered with a nonchalant shrug.
He looked briefly amused. “So you’re doing the exact opposite.”
Wes smiled. “Well, I never did take orders too well. If my mama was still alive, she’d tell you the same.”
“Whatever you’re up to, Wes—it’s not going to get you back into her good graces,” Carey warned. “You of all people know when Sammy’s mind is fixed, it’s fixed.”
He leaned back, drinking his beer. “You done with telling me shit I already know?”
Carey finished his burger, then leaned back, petting his stomach. “God, I feel about ten times better. Now why am I here, Wes?”
“Because you’re curious about what I have,” Wes replied. “And you want to know how you can help.” He reached inside his jacket pocket and tossed a few photographs toward Carey—photos he hadn’t shared with Samantha when she’d surprised him at his office.
Carey flipped through the stack of photos. “What the hell is this?” he asked, his mouth flattening.
“You know all these people, don’t you?”
He looked up, eyes narrowed. “Most of them, yes. More than half of them were sitting in the board meeting just now. Why are you asking?”
Wes leaned forward. “I’ve been look into Rob’s death for months, and from where I’m sitting, each and every one of these individuals stood to gain the most from his passing. That’s motive. Now I’m looking to get a handle on who’d have the balls to take on the chief. His death was an elaborate, thought-out assassination. The only unplanned-for piece was Ry being in the car that night.”
Carey winced, his face paling under his tan skin.
Wes pressed on: “What I need to understand is if anyone in Rob’s inner circle had the means to do this. It’s more than money. A kill like this takes intestinal fortitude. Whoever got to Rob was either very far away or intimately close. I just need someone with skin in the game to help me puzzle this out.”
Carey was quiet a long time, fingers rotating his beer bottle as he considered Wes. There was a pain in his eyes that he didn’t bother to hide. Wes remembered what he’d been like as a boy. He remembered how close he was to Ry—and how he looked up to Rob like an uncle.
“You know Ry and I were less than a year apart in age, right?” Carey said finally.
Wes nodded, silent.
“He wasn’t just my best friend—he was my brother. Just like Sammy’s my sister,” Carey told him, his blue eyes burning. “I loved that boy more than anything. And Uncle Rob was a hard ass, but he was a good man to me. He took care of me like a son—treated me no different.”
“The same as your father sees Sam,” Wes commented.
“Exactly.” Carey leaned forward. “First, you have to know if I help you, I’m doing this for me. It has nothing to do with your relationship with Sam. She is her own person, and I don’t have a dog in that fight. If she won’t take you back, you
have to respect her wishes.”
“Agreed.” Fat chance.
“Second, you share everything you have related to this investigation,” Carey told him. “No secrets; no hidden agendas. I need to see the landscape to help you fill the gaps.”
Wes tilted his head. “Even if you don’t like what I find?”
“Especially if I don’t like what you find,” Carey confirmed.
“You have a lot of rules,” Wes remarked idly, taking another sip of beer.
Carey looked sardonic. “You want my help or not?”
“Go on.”
“Sam’ll skin us both alive if she knows we’re working together. I’ve learned to do what I think is right and ask forgiveness later, but I’ve also learned to come clean fast when my tail gets caught.” Carey shook his head. “The harder you make Sammy work for the truth, the more pissed off she gets.”
“You forget I lived with her,” Wes said with a chuckle. “I know that wrath first hand.”
“Then you know I’ll be honest with her when it comes to that,” Carey looked at him pointedly. “So should you.”
“Carey, far as I’m concerned, she’ll have to catch me first. And at this point, I kind of want her to,” he confessed before extending his hand across the table. “So do we have a deal?”
Carey grasped his hand, shaking on it. “We got a deal. Now show me what you got.”
*
April—Evening
Safe House, Tel Aviv, Israel
R O X A N N E
Rox watched as a lovely dark-haired woman sang Uzi Dichter’s daughter to sleep. Avi had set them up in a pleasant enough safe house—an old villa in one of Tel Aviv’s suburbs that was quiet and unobtrusive. The woman caring for Dichter’s daughter was an older Syrian refugee that Rox had found rather easily in one of the encampments set up in Israel for the influx of refugees. The woman had been looking for work, happy to accept cash in exchange for taking care of a little girl. Besides, she had three children of her own, and the prospect of a safe place to stay was miles better than the dreary dormitories they’d been confined to for months. Her silence seemed a fair enough exchange.
“Is she asleep?” Avi asked from the sofa as he sat with a laptop perched on his legs. Here, he’d set up a mini-command center, with blueprints and satellite images of the Port of Ashdod spread around him.
“Pretty much,” Rox replied. “She spent the day playing with the nanny’s kids. I told her that her father was on a trip. She was upset at first, but now I think she’s fine.”
Avi released a pent-up sigh. “I don’t like that we took her,” he murmured, his hazel eyes troubled.
“Well, I don’t like that her father is selling nuclear weapons to assholes like Lightner, so I guess neither of us get to be in a good place about this.” Rox picked up the bottle of liquor Avi had brought over, checking out the label. “What is this?”
“Try it,” he suggested, picking up his own glass.
Rox poured herself a glass and took a tentative sip, her eyes immediately watering. “Holy fuck, what is this?” she coughed, trying to hack out the burn. It reminded her immediately of black liquorice, if said liquorice were a hundred proof and made you feel like you’d set your hair on fire just sniffing it.
Avi smirked, sipping from his own glass. “We call it Arak.”
“¡Manda huevos!23 You should call that shit ‘awful!’” Rox made a face.
“It’s an acquired taste.” He cocked his head, considering her. “So you’re Spanish, neshama.”
“Not quite,” Rox answered.
“From South America then?” he probed, hazel eyes bright with curiosity.
She sat down beside him, picking up some of the satellite photos he had of the dockyards. “No comment.”
Avi nudged her shoulder. “We’ve threatened a man’s life and kidnapped his daughter, and you still won’t tell me your name or where you’re from.”
She glanced at him in amused disbelief. “Since when were either of those things the basis for bonding?”
He shrugged lightly. “Maybe I’d like to know who I’m partnering with before we do even more terrible things together.”
Rox laughed. “Avi, cariño, we were doing terrible things before we met each other, and we’re going to do more very bad things when we’re done with this gig,” she remarked, resting back on the sofa beside him, her head in her hand. “What does it matter what we call each other? We’re still both devils at the end of the day.”
“You have an American accent, yet you speak Spanish. Maybe your parents were from Mexico? Cuba?” he persisted.
“Or maybe I’m Dominican? Or how about Puerto Rican?” she taunted with a mocking smile. She leaned in close, her voice low and teasing.
His eyes dropped to her mouth.
“My name is Sofia,” she told him softly, leaning in. She let her lips brush the bristle just below his cheek. She felt the fan of his eyelashes flutter across her skin as he closed his eyes. “Or is it Isabella?” Rox nipped his earlobe with her sharp teeth and Avi groaned, somewhere between desire and frustration. “You want to play?” she whispered, not sure if she was drawing him in or if she was getting sucked into his gravitational pull. He smelled utterly divine—like the citrus of oranges cut with the rich, intoxicating scent of cloves.
“We’re already playing,” Avi murmured, pushing his laptop aside to slide a hand to the back of her neck. He gripped her close, his hazel eyes steady and unerring. “But you should know I’m demanding, neshama. I’ll want things that you might not be prepared to give.”
“Like my name?” she teased, smiling, languid in his arms.
“Like your secrets,” he whispered back, looking at her like he meant it. It felt precarious and heady to be this close to a man as dangerous and seductive as Avi, like touching an open flame, mesmerized by the way it danced, knowing it could burn you and not really caring. A slow flush spread across her cinnamon skin, her attraction to him making her heart thump like a drumbeat. Avi Oded was a nearly irresistible combination of vitality, jeopardy, and power. Avi liked edges. He liked pushing them, seeing how far he could go—all the things he could get away with—just like she did. But tangling with him would be a challenge she might not win.
He hadn’t kissed her yet, but it felt a little like he’d just shot a warning over the bow.
Rox pulled back very slowly. “The only thing I’m in the mood to give is a good ass-kicking, Avi.”
He watched her a moment before nodding, then knocking back what was left of his drink. He leaned forward, spreading the satellite photos of the Port of Ashdod along the glass coffee table.
“Dichter has indicated he’s meeting Lightner here.” Avi pointed at an aerial shot of a cluster of massive warehouses the size of airplane hangars. Each building was surrounded by faded metal containers stacked high as a multi-story building.
“Shit, that’s a ton of ground to cover,” she observed, leaning in to look closer at the picture. “Between Dichter’s guards and whoever Lightner brings to the party, we’ll be lucky if we can take down a dozen people on our own.”
“We’ll need help to pull this off,” Avi confirmed. “Dichter will only be helpful to an extent under this kind of duress. We can’t count on him or his team to pin down Lightner and whoever he comes to the meeting with.”
“I have to call Sam—let her know.” Rox moved to stand, but Avi stopped her, his hand on her arm.
“I think we should ask for her team,” he told her, expression serious. “Talon, Rush, Michaelson, Henri—they’re excellent. And they have as much skin in the game to take down Lightner as we do.”
Rox knew what they’d been able to pull off against Nazar in Afghanistan. “You want to get the band back together?”
Avi nodded, amusement flitting across his features momentarily before the seriousness returned. “Getting any outsiders involved right now will just be messy. We only have a few days to prepare for this, and most of her team is in London. Th
at’s only five hours by air if Sam green lights it.”
Rox glanced around the villa. They had the space. The guys could all stay here while they got their intel together and organized their plan of attack. It made sense. They needed all the help they could get from guys who could hit the ground running. Normally, Rox hated relying on outsiders, but in this instance, it couldn’t be helped. It would have to be all hands on deck to nail Lightner. He was too damn good, too, and far too dangerous at this point to take the chance.
Rox made the call.
*
April—Early Evening
Wyatt Ranch, Texas
J A C K
“This isn’t a good idea.”
“Why? Because from where I’m standing, this is the best position I’ve been in months.” And it was. Jack was standing at the edge of the garden lining the guest house, phone to his ear as he watched the sun set over the ocher plains of Samantha’s private paradise.
Sandro Roman sighed heavily. “She’s a trigger for you, Gianni. Samantha Wyatt will cost you so much more than you realize. She will subvert all the progress you’ve made.”
Jack pinched the bridge of his nose, reminding himself his father would naturally voice his opinions on the matter. He had to hear him out if he had any chance of convincing him to help him further. He couldn’t get one without the other.
“Did it ever occur to you that my impropriety had less to do with her leaving me and more to do with me loving her, then letting her go? I lost faith in her, Dad, then I lost faith in myself. The rest of it was just aftershock.”
“Cristo santo! Don’t be an idiot, Gianni! So you’re madly in love with her. Amore, che schiavitù l’amore!24 That passion—it fades. For a relationship to be good, you have to be able to trust her to be a good partner to you when it’s all said and done. If you two don’t have that, you’ll go nowhere! And when it’s finally finished—and it will be, trust me on this—she will destroy you. She’s too damaged to not know how to hurt you, Gianni. I know you don’t want to hear this, but that’s the truth.”
Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three Page 24