by Em Petrova
“Mr. Knight—”
He squeezed her elbow. “Chaz.”
“Chaz, I need to get home.”
“To a husband?”
“N-no.”
“Kids?”
“No.”
“Cat, dog?”
“No.” Her lips quivered with sudden amusement.
“Bird?”
She giggled. “No.”
“Then as far as I see, you have no reason why you can’t let me treat you to a late-night, post-gambling bender meal.”
At that, she laughed outright. “It was hardly a bender.”
“Maybe you can tell me more while we eat.” He rounded a corner and there was a restaurant, neon sign touting the chicken and waffles he’d promised. The yeasty scent of waffles and grease floated out, as heavenly as promised.
He took her by the hand. The clasp of his big hand swallowed hers, callused and inviting images of those same hands on her body.
He led her through the door that tinkled with a bell at their entrance and straight to a booth.
“Well, I’ll be. It’s a Knight boy.” The drawl of the waitress immediately reached them. The woman sauntered over, a grin on her face for Chaz. And no wonder. In the bright fluorescent lights he looked to be chiseled from some matter other than human flesh. Huge shoulders taking up most of one side of the booth and the angles of his jaw hammered out by God Himself.
“Hello, Kay. How’s Max?” Chaz asked the waitress, reaching out an arm to swallow her in a hug.
She patted him and flapped her order pad. “He’s as ornery as ever. How are your parents?”
“Maman is busy being scandalized by my sisters and our father just sails through life on his even keel. You know nothing ruffles him.”
The waitress pulled back from the embrace and smiled at Fleur. The genuine happiness in her eyes startled Fleur, made her realize just what she was missing from her own life. Maybe had always been missing.
“Hello,” she offered so as not to be rude.
“Nice to see Chaz has a lovely young woman with him. And brought her for chicken and waffles, I hope?”
“Two orders. Bring a pot of coffee too and a lot of sugar?” He arched a brow at Fleur. How did he know she took her coffee with sugar?
She nodded and bit down on her lip. Unsure whether to laugh or cry, she waited until the waitress left them alone. “She knows your family,” she stated the obvious.
For the first time, she got a genuine smile from Chaz too—relaxed, unguarded. She gaped at him, unable to form a coherent thought. The way his lips tipped upward screamed bad boy and danger, even as the twinkle in his eyes flashed a warning in her soul.
“I’ve known Kay and Max forever. Grew up on the edge of the bayou, all open country a boy can really get into trouble in. More’n once, Kay took me in and fed me before taking me to my maman and telling her why I didn’t need a reprimand.”
She found herself leaning across the table at the imagery created by his words. Of a dark-haired, dark-eyed boy running the swamps and getting in over his head. How different that felt from how she’d been brought up.
And to think, she’d believed her life to be normal.
As Chaz talked, he drew her in. And she found she could even answer some of his questions without stretching the truth. By the time their food arrived, she was able to dig in and eat with a relish she hadn’t felt since the day she’d run for her life.
Chapter Three
Chaz watched his new charge carefully, trying to pull out elements he could feed to Jackson even as the thought made his stomach hollow. He actually liked this woman and it had taken all of one unguarded look from her for him to know that he needed to not only protect her but befriend her.
She’d eaten her way through a plate of delicious waffles as if she hadn’t eaten in a long time. She didn’t look to be living rough, but she probably wasn’t eating regularly either.
When she set down her fork with a soft groan, it was impossible for him to keep from staring at her mouth. Lush, full lips made for kissing. And she chewed on them, little nibbles that had his cock hardening again and again.
He drew in a deep breath. She was his mark—asking her to go home with him was out of the question, he told himself. Then said it to himself again. Still, his body wasn’t convinced.
She looked away from him, glancing around the restaurant. “This is a charming place.”
“Yes, it goes back to Prohibition times.”
“Does it?”
“Yep.” He pointed to the door to the kitchen. “Through that door is wall with a hidden panel. People would be invited back there to drink and hide from the Feds.”
She blinked rapidly and then slid out of the booth.
Shit, he’d just reminded her that she was hiding too. He had to make this right. “Where are you going?”
“I have to go home.”
“But…” He stood too and caught her elbow again.
She tipped her face up to look into his eyes. Something passed between them, an electric live wire coming to life.
If he was to keep his cover, he had to let her go and not push. “Can I drop you somewhere?”
“Um, no. I’m only a few blocks from my place. Thank you for the midnight meal.”
He released his hold on her arm but clamped his fingers into a fist, holding onto the feel of her soft flesh and delicate bones. She smiled, a real one with perfect white teeth and a gleam in her eyes. Then she walked away from him.
He watched her for a moment, burning to call her back. In the end, he let her go.
For all of ten seconds.
When he tossed some bills on the table and gave Kay a nod of goodbye, his senses were locked in. Rose, or Fleur, wasn’t walking these streets alone.
He slipped out the door, reaching up to keep the bell from tinkling as he did. Then he glanced left and right, following the click of heels moving down the sidewalk.
He took off walking. Hanging back enough to keep out of sight and keep her from becoming alarmed that someone was following her.
She hadn’t been kidding when she said a few blocks. She strode to a motel and entered a room using a key. A second later, lamp light shone in a corner of the front window through the curtains.
He took it all in. Crappy motel, less seedy than some in the city. But sure as fuck not a safe place to stay.
He clamped both hands into fists as he stood there staring at her door for a long minute.
Aware he looked like a stalker too, he dropped back to the parking lot to watch her door. Half an hour passed and she didn’t leave. Then an hour.
Still, she was inside and the lamp switched off, leaving her window in blackness.
From the corner of his eye, he caught movement as some unsavory people drifted from the shadows. One carried a weapon in his waistband, Chaz could tell by the way he moved. And the other was all stark purpose as he rapped on a neighboring room’s door.
They were admitted. Seconds later, the door opened again, and the men left. One laughing, one serious and holding a bag that most likely contained drugs.
“Jesus,” he muttered. This was the place Fleur was staying? Anything could happen to her—those door locks flimsy, easily forced. She had a small fortune in her pocket, he knew by the thickness of that envelope she’d received back in Nuit. And if she had more envelopes like that, she had something every thug in New Orleans wanted—money.
He withdrew his phone and saw he’d received several more texts from various women asking if he was free. But he ignored those and placed a call to his brother Sean. When his wife Elise answered in a throaty, sleepy voice, he said, “Elise. Just the woman I need to speak with.”
“Chaz?”
“Yeah. I’ve got someone I’d like more information on.”
“Can’t this wait until morning?”
“Who the hell knows where I’ll be in an hour let alone by morning. I’m sorry it’s late, Elise, but could you just this once help me out
?”
A quiet sigh and then he heard her moving around. A second later he heard a door close over the line. “Okay, Sean and the baby are asleep. You should see them side by side. They look so much alike. Anyway, what do you need?”
“Info on a woman by the name of Fleur Sutton.”
“Sutton? Damn, Chaz, what are you caught up in?”
“Jackson set me on her. She’s staying at the Gulf Breeze motel.”
“I know it. It’s not a good place to stay. Besides bedbugs, there’s crime.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed. Can you just do some digging for me please? Any information you can get on her would be helpful. Hack the motel’s computer if you have to.”
“Oh, I planned on that. Okay, Chaz. Gimme some time and I’ll call you back.”
He ended the call and leaned against a car hood, watching Fleur’s door for hours more. Around three a.m., Elise came back with a name of Rose Hutton and that she paid for her room with cash. Her reservation at the motel was indefinite.
So she was running but had no place else to go.
Chaz thanked his sister-in-law and crossed his legs and arms, waiting through the night. He received several more texts from women which he ignored, thinking only of a perfect little blonde who wasn’t blonde at all. A woman worth his undivided attention.
* * * * *
When Chaz got into the black SUV the guys referred to as the Knight Ops-mobile, silence crashed over the interior. He looked around at his brothers and Rocko. “What?”
“Dude, you look like hell,” Ben said.
“That’s because he was up calling my wife at three o’clock in the morning.” Sean’s announcement had everyone looking harder at him.
“She was very helpful, and I’ll make it up to her. I’ll babysit or something and give you a night off,” he offered, and Sean’s glare eased.
“What the fuck were you doing last night?” Ben asked.
Chaz ran a hand over his face, contemplating his words as his brother hit the streets leading out of New Orleans. He had no idea where they were headed and likely wouldn’t receive his orders until they were almost there. Per usual. In this job, you didn’t know where you were going or what for until you were in the thick of the fighting. And there was always fighting.
“I stayed up all night.”
“Jesus. You know you can’t do that, man.” Ben’s tone was hard.
“Well, I did. You would have too in my position.”
“So doggy-style?” Rocko blurted and the guys laughed, breaking some of the tension between brothers. Rocko was always good at defusing a situation. He was also damn good at dealing with explosives. He’d saved them countless times, and Chaz was glad to call him friend.
“I was told to watch this woman,” he began.
“Of course there’s a woman involved. Do tell,” Sean said as he unwrapped an energy bar and took a noisy bite. The man was probably up and down all night with his little one and Chaz’s phone call and taking Elise from her bed wouldn’t have helped the situation. Now he really had to offer to babysit.
“I went to Nuit.” Chaz’s announcement had everyone listening closer. “And yeah, it’s everything they say it is. But I suspect a lot goes on behind the scenes that I wasn’t aware of.”
“Because you were aware of a woman,” Ben answered for him.
He chuckled. “She kicked my ass at poker all night long. When she left with a big sum of money, I couldn’t let her just go out on the streets so I offered my services as bodyguard.”
“And this is where her panties fell off.” Rocko made a surprised look and covered his mouth with a hand.
More laughter.
“Her panties were very much intact. But thanks for boosting my ego and thinking I could get them off her.”
Rocko snorted. “It’s not like any of you Knights ever lacked in the female department.”
“If you’d quit dreaming about our sister then you could have your fair share too.” Chaz’s statement raised a bunch of growls from his brothers, who all wanted Lexi left alone. She had enough waywardness without a special forces boyfriend to influence her.
Chaz dropped the bomb. “Jackson has me on her.”
“Shit. Undercover?” Roades asked.
“Yeah. She’s the daughter of a big-time arms dealer and the Feds have been watching him a while, I guess. But now he’s after his own daughter for witnessing a murder, it seems.”
Ben let out a low whistle.
“Anyway, when she left Nuit I followed her to make sure she got home okay, and she’s living at a motel.”
Sean nodded. “Elise told me what she found.”
“Which wasn’t much. Sure enough, a drug deal went down two rooms from hers and with a lot of money on her, she’s a target. So I stuck around.”
“All night,” Ben concluded.
“Yeah.” He was still stiff as hell from it but he didn’t regret watching out for Fleur—or Rose. He didn’t want to slip and call her by the name she was trying to hide.
After a few minutes, they hit the highway and Chaz groaned. “Are you fucking kidding me? We’re headed to Mississippi?”
Ben shot him a look in the rearview mirror. “All information will be disclosed in a few. I want to talk about an idea I have.”
They waited.
“I think we should pitch in and add onto the cabin.”
Chaz thought of the cabin in the bayou. It was getting mighty small for all of them now that wives and kids were added to the Knights.
“It’ll take some work with adding more support posts in the swamp and a longer dock, but it’s a great idea, Ben.” Sean crumpled his energy bar paper and tossed it over the passenger seat so it landed at Dylan’s boots. Used to it by now, Dylan kicked it under the seat.
“I’m in,” Chaz said. He just hoped like hell they’d have a lull in Knight Ops to even make a good start. An idea caught hold. “Since I don’t have a wife and kids, I’ll take over the planning. Get the supplies shipped in and draw something up for everybody to approve, including our parents. It’s their cabin and they need a say.”
“Definitely,” Ben agreed. “Then I give you that responsibility and thanks.”
Chaz’s cell buzzed, and everyone in the SUV looked at him.
“You didn’t leave your cell behind?” Rules in OFFSUS, Operation Freedom Flag Southern US division, were that phones were off-limits on missions. They wanted their forces honed in one hundred percent without interruption.
“Shit, I forgot, guys.” He yanked his phone from his cargo pants pocket and stared at the screen, expecting Dani or someone else with a pair of naked breasts for him to look at. “It’s Elise.”
Sean stared at him as he drew the phone to his ear.
“Chaz,” he said.
“Hey, Chaz. I’ve been digging a little deeper into your girl.”
His heart gave a single heavy throb and then sped faster. “Have you found anything?”
“No. The opposite. Fleur Sutton doesn’t have friends to speak of, nobody we can pump information from. It looks like she really is friendless and on her own. No wonder Jackson is watching her—I think he’s trying to keep her alive because she’s likely the only one who could tell us things about her father.”
“Why hasn’t OFFSUS just hauled her in then?”
“Because they need to make sure she won’t tip him off, send him deeper into hiding.”
“Why isn’t she in Wit-Sec?”
“No idea, but she’s not. If she was in witness protection, she’d have another identity and would not be found in Nuit gambling.”
“I figured you’d say that. All right, thanks, Elise. I appreciate your help—and I promise to babysit a night and give you and Sean some alone time.”
“Really? I’d love that. But I don’t mind digging around a little bit. I kind of miss working. Sean wants me to take the time off with the baby, though. If I find anything more, I’ll let you know. And kiss Sean for me.”
He c
huckled and eyed his brother’s square jaw. “Not a chance, but I’ll tell him you miss him.”
She chuckled. “Stay safe, all of you.”
Chaz ended the call and then took out the SIMS card in his phone and smashed it. He tossed the phone onto the floor with some empty food bags there and thought about what Elise had told him.
He wasn’t surprised—no, not at all. At the start of this mission, he hadn’t realized just how complex it was. Fleur had a foot in two worlds, one of her past and one of her own making. Both could crumble from under her, and she could wind up dead.
OFFSUS needed her alive because they had to find out what she knew about her father’s operations, yet she might be too embroiled in the family life to provide them help. Which also made her a questionable person as well.
Damn, that didn’t set well with him.
He sat back against the seat and watched the miles fly by. A mix of fatigue and worry for Fleur swirled into agitation. He looked out the window and counted the mile markers to the Mississippi line, hoping like hell once he ended whatever mission they were in for that he’d be able take up where he’d left off with Fleur—and maybe help her this time.
* * * * *
Fleur couldn’t just keep hiding in her motel room, but she felt frozen. Fear of running into somebody who could recognize her kept her inside the stuffy little room and she only ventured out at night to play cards.
But she had to find Antonio and get that bag before she could even think of getting out of the city and starting a new life for herself.
How to find this man was another question. She’d racked her brain for weeks and couldn’t recall her father mentioning someone by that name. She even went over the conversations with Frankie, hoping she’d remember him dropping the name. Nothing came to mind, and that left her at a dead end.
Since she’d met Chaz Knight several nights ago, she hadn’t returned to Nuit. Maybe it was time to do so. Something in the back of her mind had been surfacing again and again since that night…
What if Chaz was a link to Antonio?
It was farfetched, sure, a stretching of the imagination. It was something that would happen in her father’s world, though—people popped up in the right places at the right times. And she was her father’s daughter.