Brother's Keeper V: Wylie (the complete series BOX SET): NEW RELEASE + Series Box SET included!

by Stephanie St. Klaire

  “Who? Who’s watching? What about Gran? Oh my God, Gran!”

  “Whoever just blew their way into the building. And your Gran is safe. They’re not here for her, okay? She’ll be fine. Now, get in the elevator and take this bag with you. They can’t know you were here. We’ll replace anything that was ruined when this is over.”

  “Luke! Stop! Please! I’m not going without you.” Another overwrought sob escaped her, and her voice fell to a whisper, “I’m scared.”

  He hugged her, dropping a handful of rapid kisses to the top of her head, wishing he had more time to console her. “I know, baby. I know. I promise, nothing is going to happen to you, okay? I’m sending you to the vault so they don’t find you. Stay inside.”

  “Why can’t you come with me? What about you – what happens to you?”

  “They aren’t going to hurt me. I’ll be okay.”

  “How do you know? Please come with me. Please.”

  “I can’t, and you need to go now before it’s too late.”

  “But—”

  “Daisy, go. They’re here for you, okay? They’re here for…you.” He didn’t want to scare her any more than she was, but he had to get through to her – and fast.

  Daisy gasped and stared blankly. The color drained from her face when she whispered, “Oh my God.”

  “I love you.” He kissed her one last time before he backed her into the elevator and hit the hidden vault button. “I’ll come for you.”

  The doors closed, and she and Gibson were gone.

  He went back to his apartment, calm and cool, sat on the couch, kicked his feet up on the coffee table, and turned on the television. With his hands resting behind his head, he waited for them to come for him.

  And they did.

  It had been nearly thirty minutes before his apartment was stormed by men dressed in dark clothing, assault rifles, and combat helmets. FBI was brightly displayed on the front and back of their flak jackets. It looked like Carter was right – they were drawing attention, and it was by someone on the committee or close to it.

  “Hands where we can see them,” came a monotone voice.

  Luke complied, putting his hands up on display, showing his willingness to cooperate.

  “For your safety and ours, we have been instructed to restrain you by way of handcuffs, sir.” Luke extended his hands and nodded. “Just so we’re clear, this is an open investigation. You are not under arrest or a person of interest until otherwise advised. You are entitled to an attorney at any time during our search and seizure – a copy of the warrant will be left with you.”

  “Well, my attorney is somewhere in the building. Don’t suppose you could find him for me?”

  “No. We will not, sir. We have a job to do.”

  “Well, then I guess the attorney spiel is just that if I can’t have him present. Oh well, proceed. Don’t let me keep you from your job.” Luke took a seat on his couch and put his feet back up.

  Luke sat idly while the men proceeded to go through his home, leaving nothing untouched or unturned. Evidence bags remained on the table in which they were originally placed, empty, because they weren’t going to find anything.

  It didn’t take long before a familiar face made his way into Luke’s apartment. “Francis, wow, this is coming from the top. Mind telling me why you have men tearing my place apart?”

  “It’s Frank. Director Waterman, to you, and I know my agents told you what you need to know.”

  “Yeah, also told me I could have my attorney present but wouldn’t go get him or let me contact him. Where’s Landry?” Luke didn’t give two shits about having an attorney present. He knew this would go down however the FBI Director wanted it to go down. His concern was for Carter. Whoever abducted and nearly killed him was behind this and may have another go round with him.

  “Carter is with the rest of your brothers. You’ll be joining them soon for transport.”

  “Joining them, huh?”

  “So, my men tell me it’s just you here, O’Reilly.”

  Luke looked around as if it were obvious nobody else was there. “Well, Dictator…”

  “Director. Watch it, O’Reilly.”

  “Director…it is just me, as you can see, or there would be someone else cuffed next to me. If you’re trying to get me to fess up to a frog in my pocket, it just isn’t going to happen, because that big guy is not a frog. And no, I won’t show you.” Luke dropped his tone to dark and menacing. It was time to add the dramatics and act offended. “What’s going on, Frank?”

  Director Waterman looked at flower petals on the ground between the couch and end table Luke must’ve somehow missed. “What are those from?”

  Luke laughed before suddenly turning serious. “Oh wait, you’re serious? Umm…”

  Luke pointed, with his cuffed hands, to a bouquet of flowers on a table by the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked part of the city. To really sell his act, he gave the director an are you some sort of idiot look.

  “You in the habit of sending yourself flowers?”

  “Cute. Really cute. No. Those are from my brother. Well, from his fiancé. They’re getting married in a few weeks, so the florist sent over a bunch of sample arrangements. There were too many for their apartment, so she…shared. She’s a real sweetheart like that.”

  The director nodded, buying the story but still suspicious. “How about that box over there – a bunch of candles and stuff. You running a little love nest in here?”

  “We both know neither of us do the romance thing – casualty of the job we used to do. Surely you remember that. You’re still single yourself, if I recall?”

  “That doesn’t explain why you have all that.”

  “Again, the wedding.” Luke hung his head and shook it like the wedding was becoming a source of frustration for him. “Felicity went a little overboard on decorations and asked to keep them here so my brother didn’t have a panic attack over the budget. Just doing them a solid. I mean, I got flowers out of it, so…winning.” Luke was laying it on thick.

  When the director revealed a smarmy smile, Luke knew Francis was about to show his cards and play what he thought was the winning hand. “Very nice of you. So, are those two used champagne flutes you doing someone a solid? Perhaps you sampled a little champagne with your brother’s fiancé too…you know, in the spirit of sampling and the wedding.”

  “You’re a dick,” Luke said, as if it were a compliment. “But not far off on that one. It was in wedding spirit that I hung out with my niece for a while, so Liam and City could go do some wedding shit. We watched some movie about a girl inheriting a kingdom and being a princess. We drank sparkling cider with our pinkies out. It was kind of a big deal.”

  “Pinkies…out?”

  “It’s in the movie. Check my trash if you’d like. You’ll find the bottle and probably some left over chocolate covered strawberries. They were good. Try one if you find them in there.”

  “I’ll pass. You seem to have an answer for everything.”

  “Which doesn’t mean I’m doing anything wrong. I’m guilty of being a family guy – lock me up, Francis.”

  “That won’t be necessary…yet. I do want to run through all of this again, make sure we didn’t miss anything. You don’t mind joining me and your brothers down at the Federal Building, do you?”

  Luke gave the director a shocked look, part of the performance. He’d expected this. “Not a problem. I’ll say hi to the guys while we’re there visiting. It’s been a while. You driving?”

  “The cuffs stay on, O’Reilly.” Director Waterman walked toward the door as an agent led Luke behind.

  In a quick motion, the director turned to Luke with a finger to his temple as if he just remembered something, “Oh, you wouldn’t happen to know where we can find Daisy King, would you?”

  Boom. There it was. They were looking for Daisy, and it made Luke’s blood boil despite knowing the question had been coming, one way or another. He knew how this game wor
ked. How he answered and reacted would be the difference between Daisy’s safety and demise.

  In a cool, questioning tone, he answered, “Daisy King? Never heard of her. Should I know who that is?”

  “Maybe.” The director took a long stare, as if it would cause Luke to break. “She’s a fugitive. One of the FBI’s most wanted.”

  “Wanted for what?”

  “Assassinating Senator Martinez.”

  “I thought that was solved – you have guys locked up.” Luke chanted play dumb over and over in his head. Get him talking. What does he know?

  “No. That was only the beginning. Miss King is the muscle behind it. She has ties to all sorts of organized crime and even political campaigns. She’s as dirty as they come.”

  “So why the senator?”

  “That’s what we’d like to know. She’s holding the smoking gun. We want to know why so we can put her and anyone helping her away.”

  Now the part where he played offended. “And you think we know her and where she is? Have you forgotten we’re on your side? We put the bad guys away. Hell, Carter is handling the case.”

  “Not anymore. The White House has assigned a special prosecutor to oversee the case in light of new evidence.”

  “Evidence? Evidence that led you here?”

  “The kind that has Miss King’s grandmother living in your building. The same building Carter Landry is staying in.”

  Luke raised his eyebrows, but didn’t say another word. Carter’s plan was working.

  The O’Reillys sat at the FBI building where they were questioned for hours. Each were asked the same questions over and over, as the agents tried to trip them up and nail them with something. It didn’t work. The O’Reillys were good at the game — hell, they invented. Carter was allowed in the room with each of the brothers at first, then they were all in the same room together in some odd group interrogation method.

  Special Agent in charge, Pete Langley, was head of the Portland field office and a good friend to the O’Reillys and Carter. He stopped to check in with the brothers when Director Waterman relieved his agents and left himself to make a phone call. Who he had to call, as the director, nobody knew, but they certainly found it interesting.

  “Look, I had no idea these guys were coming,” Pete said, apologizing for the chaos. “They just showed up and took over. I would have given you a heads up if I had known something, but this is big. All the way from the Capitol. DC doesn’t visit often.”

  “Appreciate it, Langley. We were expecting them – or someone, anyway,” Carter shared.

  “What? What kind of bullshit did you get yourselves into?” Langley asked.

  “We aren’t entirely sure, but this goes all the way to the top, hence these guys showing up,” Carter answered with confidence. If they knew anything at this point, it was that this was as big, or bigger than originally thought. The FBI Director didn’t just pop in on raids clear across the country.

  “White House top?”

  Carter nodded. “We believe it could.”

  “Shit. That never ends well. Play it right, guys,” Langley added in a low timbre. “Let me know if you need any help and I’ll do what I can.”

  “Thanks, man, but you need to stay clear,” Luke informed. Langley was a good guy with a family, he didn’t want to see anything happen to him. “It could get pretty ugly.”

  “This guy is a fucking prick – I don’t care if he’s my boss. He walked in here and pissed all over the place like he owned it.” Pete shook his head in disgust. “You know how to reach me…”

  Director Waterman walked in as Pete was leaving, each of the men nodding a courtesy at one another. “Did some checking and it seems your story checks out for now, Landry. Sorry to have…bothered you all. You’re free to go. The tenants in your building have already received an official apology from the bureau. I hope that helps.”

  “Thank you, Director. We’ll let you know if we get any leads on the fugitive or related to the investigation. Otherwise, see you in DC.” Carter turned his back to the director before the obligatory handshake. He didn’t think he had it in him to shake kindly.

  “Good afternoon, gentleman.” With a quick nod, the director turned and left the room.

  Under his breath, as the door was closing, Wylie mumbled, “Good afternoon to you, Director Prick.”

  “What’s the story that checked out?” Luke asked.

  Carter dipped his head toward the door. “C’mon, let’s get out of here. I’ll fill you in when we get back to Watermark. City should be waiting outside for us. I gave her a call and had her do some digging while you guys were…busy.”

  “Jesus. Watermark was a mess when we left. That’ll be fun to clean up.”

  Shaking his head as they made their way through the maze of hallways, Carter revealed, “There’s already a team there working on clean up and repairs.”

  “No. No, noo, nooo.” Liam stopped them in the hall, all worked up. “I don’t want his people touching my shit there. Security is tight, and I don’t need them infiltrating.”

  Carter leveled his hands in front of him, calming Liam down. “It’s okay. I called in a favor. It’s a clean crew. No affiliation to Director Prick. They’re with me.”

  21

  Daisy paced the floor, worried. Luke had been gone for hours. Out of tears, and exhausted, she was scared. She knew she was safe in that hidden floor of Watermark – but was Luke safe? She saw what they did to the senator, and Carter’s injured face was a brutal reminder of what they were capable of and the lengths they would go to in order to get what they wanted.

  What they wanted was her. Her gut told her to turn herself in, claim innocence, tell the world what she saw just to save Luke and the boys, but she knew that was a suicide mission. She’d never make it to the end of the block, much less a police station or local news building.

  Just when she couldn’t stand to take another step, the elevator pinged. Where excitement should have been consuming her, it was fear instead. What if it wasn’t Luke? She didn’t wait to see who it was. She ran.

  Ducking into the bedroom closet, she left the hidden passage door to the rooftop slightly erect so she could hear who was in the vault with her. If it wasn’t Luke, she’d lock herself in, buy herself time. She heard the footsteps growing near, and her pulse raced. With the hidden door nearly closed, she was ready to flip the latch and lock herself in when the heavy footsteps stopped just outside the closet.

  “Daisy?” came a soft voice from the other side.

  She pushed the door open and leapt into Luke’s arms. “Oh my God. I was so worried.”

  She kissed him, but abruptly stopped, leaning back to look him over. Her hands stroked his face as she searched his eyes for any indication that he was hurting before she kissed his face, over and over, covering every inch.

  “I was going crazy in here. How are you? How’s Gran? The boys, how are they?”

  He held her head in his hands, his thumbs stroking her cheeks. He grinned, so happy to see her. He’d never had anyone to worry about like he worried about her, nor had anyone worried about him that way. “We’re all okay, baby. They just took us down to the bureau for questioning. That’s all.”

  “You left? They took you?” Luke regretted his choice of words the minute he saw fury brewing in her stare, right before she raised her voice to a level he’d yet to hear.

  “But they let us go when they realized they had nothing. If US Attorney Landry and the O’Reilly brothers show up missing, far too many people are going to come looking. Director Prick…errr, Waterman, knows better.”

  “You’re sure Gran is okay?”

  “Yes. Ma has been with her. She went right to her when everything started to go down. They’re all waiting in the lair to debrief. Let’s go. You can see her for yourself, okay?”

  “You want me there for that?”

  “Yes. We all need to be there. Especially you.”

  “Why me?”

  “You’r
e famous now, baby. You’re one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives. There’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to your capture.”

  “Most wanted?” Daisy was furious, and didn’t find the humor in his tone…well, humorous. “Wanted for what?”

  “Murdering a US Senator.” He winked.

  When Luke and Daisy exited the elevator and approached the entry to the lair, Luke signaled for Daisy to be quiet. As they went in, she saw why. Liam and Dace were sweeping the room with a metallic flat-headed wand, scanning over every surface and body in the place. There were bright pink post-it notes on the conference table, one on the light in the ceiling, and even one on Liam’s computer.

  The rest of the brothers, along with the cousins and Carter, were moving about in such a quiet fashion, you could only hear the light breeze their movement made – it was eerie, to say the least. Small, silver button-like items were being removed from each area with a bright pink paper. Everyone was there, even Daisy’s Gran, with Colleen sitting at her side, holding her hand, which warmed Daisy’s heart.

  After placing all the silver buttons in an odd-looking bag that was relatively flat, Ronan disappeared with them.

  “Okay. Safe to talk now,” Liam announced.

  “Wh-What was that?” Daisy asked, seemingly the only one on edge.

  “Room was bugged,” Dace said, taking a seat at the table. “They were trying to listen to us.”

  “So they didn’t believe Daisy’s not here,” Declan added. “Big shock there.”

  “Did you think they would? This played out as I planned,” Carter laughed, going on to explain how all of this was intentional. “Showing up to that meeting like I did and mentioning I was staying here was the missing piece.”

  “Piece to what?” Wylie questioned. “What are the rest of us missing here, because last I heard, there weren’t enough pieces to call it a puzzle.”