The Financier (Hudson Kings Book 2)

by Liz Maverick

  Nick adjusted his stance, pointed his weapon, and waited for his shot.

  He thought of Flynn hunched over the blinking box. He imagined Jane’s face, under the desk, behind the door, as the tiny wire cutters went snip . . . snip . . . .

  In front of him, the oxygen tank blew bubbles. Above the waterline, over the top of the rim, the massive Russian moved forward until Nick had an elbow, now part of his gut . . .

  He secured his grip.

  “Nikolai!” Sokolov bellowed, throwing his body into range and unloading a full cartridge of ammo in Nick’s direction.

  It seemed like the gunfire would never end, even as Nick shot back, controlled, methodical, and deadly.

  And when he was out of bullets, angry shouts filled the aftermath. The air was thick with Russian and English curse words getting buried by the sound of something exploding.

  Jane. Flynn and Jane. “No!” Nick yelled into the dark chaos. Glass was flying all around, water gushing onto the floor, pouring into Nick’s shoes, disorienting him. A loose hose from the fish tank jerked and swayed, shooting water into the air.

  Through the debris, Nick could see Sokolov floundering on the slippery floor where thick dark mixed with gushing water.

  The lights went on. Geo’s voice, Rothgar’s voice, Flynn’s voice mixing together in his ear.

  The Russian was still waving a muzzle in the air, pointing at Nick. But when he pulled the trigger, nothing but a dull clicking sound came out.

  And when Nick caught his breath and looked a little closer, Sokolov’s arm just fell gently back to his chest, and the Russian’s body stilled.

  Nick reached down and grabbed Sokolov’s gun and turned toward his office, absolute terror flooding into his bloodstream as the glass began to settle. But Flynn was right there. He was right there, stowing his wire snippers, gently prying the box off the wall, and placing it into a secured carrier.

  Nick blinked, trying to comprehend that his friend was still there and the door was still there, which meant that . . .

  Jane was still there.

  The bomb hadn’t gone off . . . the fish tank. The fish tank, shot up by a shit ton of rounds. Shattering.

  Flynn poked his head through the door; Nick couldn’t hear what he said. There was something wrong with his hearing.

  “Jane,” he said, feeling like his whole future hinged on this moment. Feeling like he was about to find out if he had a future.

  Flynn pulled his head back out and froze when he saw Nick. It looked like he mouthed, “Holy shit,” and then asked if there were any more targets. Nick shook his head and watched Flynn’s body relax.

  He stared at the open door, wondering why Jane wasn’t coming out. Beyond the ringing in his ears, Nick heard Flynn say, “She won’t come out. Asked for you, though.”

  Nick took a deep breath and entered the panic room. Jane was still huddled under the desk and he couldn’t see her face.

  Nick bent down. “Jane?” he whispered. She was staring at the wall. Nick closed his eyes. She’d found her limit. And if he walked her past the dead Russian bleeding out all over his foyer in a pool of tank water, she was going to her Nana’s, and she was never looking back. My star. “Jane, I’ll get someone to take you home. I don’t even know how to say I’m sorry for getting you into this mess.”

  Jane looked over her shoulder in surprise, and she looked nothing at all like he’d worried about. She was paler than usual, her green eyes looked wide, and her lip was bleeding a little where she’d obviously bitten down. But she wasn’t in distress. “I just wanted to finish this for you,” she said. And then she climbed out from under the desk, holding out her hand for a lift up.

  Nick had never felt relief like this. In one moment thinking he’d lost everything and then . . . she was reaching out for him. He pulled her to his feet, soaking in her tremulous smile, and then he looked over her shoulder under the desk.

  She’d drawn on his wall at floor level. A tiny, intricate mural done in pencil of a garden in moonlight, stars in the sky and all.

  “Jane,” he said hoarsely, clutching her in his arms.

  “I think you’d better kiss me already, Nick. Because I’m about to cry. Or something. I’m not sure.”

  Nick kissed her then. A crazy, swashbuckling, dipped-back kiss that went on and on and on. He pulled away only to take a breath, setting Jane back on her feet. She let out a whoosh of air but wouldn’t disengage her arms from around his neck.

  “Better?” he asked, touching the tip of her nose with his.

  Jane made a show of thinking about it and then said, “Almost.”

  Nick grinned and tilted his head, his gaze on that lush mouth of hers . . .

  Someone cleared a throat behind him. Chase. “Rothgar and I finished a sweep of the house. You’re clear except for the, uh, mess in the front. And, be ready. Because it’s a mess.” His brow was furrowed.

  “What’s behind your back?” Jane said suspiciously, dropping her arms from around Nick’s neck.

  “I’m really glad you’re okay,” Chase said, a weird look on his face. “No hard feelings, right?”

  “I tend not to hold a grudge against the cavalry that’s just saved my ass. No hard feelings,” Jane said with a smile. “So, what’s behind your back?”

  Chase winced and slowly pulled out a gallon-size plastic zipper bag, which he held in his meaty fist. To Nick he said, “It’s all I could save. I’m really sorry, man.”

  The bag held three fish and an agitated frog. Jane squealed in horror. “Oh, god. Really? Just these guys. Oh, wow.”

  “I tried,” Chase muttered. “It’s pretty grisly out there. Maybe you should—”

  “I’ve got to get these guys into a better situation.” Jane took the bag and marched off to the kitchen, all business, every problem-solving inch of her.

  Nick held out his hand and gave Chase a shake that spoke volumes without a sound, and then followed him into the foyer.

  Rothgar was on the phone, one leg bent at the knee and resting on Sokolov’s wrist. Dead, for sure, with an outstretched arm and curled, lifeless fingers. Glass, dead fish, and a mix of tank water and blood surrounded the Russian’s body. The big man signaled Nick that he’d be off in a moment. “Missy,” Nick heard Rothgar say. “Get the cleaners to Nick’s place ASAP . . .”

  Nick’s cell phone vibrated. A name came up, the code name Nick liked to use for Maksim Krovopuskov. Nick showed the screen to Rothgar and then took the call. “Maks, what’s up?”

  “I just got paid for the heist. Money wired in about ten minutes ago. Tapped Lawrence. Same thing. Can’t reach Tristan, but I figure he got paid as well. Wasn’t sure if you were going to pick up or if Sokolov owned your phone now. What’s going on?”

  “My best guess is that Sokolov assumed I’d be dead by now, and he wanted to use the timing to show you that he’s making good on your contract.”

  There was a long silence. “If you’re not dead, why did I get paid?”

  Nick thought about keeping Maks in the dark merely on the basis that the guy wasn’t one of the Hudson Kings but decided the Russian had earned his trust, and he needed to pay him back in similar currency. The guy had laid himself on the line for a man of the Hudson Kings—maybe burning some of his own bridges down to do it—and as far as Nick was concerned, he’d earned more than a mere marker. “Because Sokolov’s too dead to cancel the wire transfer.” There was a small hitch of breath on the other end of the line. Maksim was surprised.

  “And it turns out Tristan hijacked the heist; he took the money. I’ll work with Dex to get it back. Does this create a problem for you in any way?” Nick asked.

  After a pause, Maks answered, “No problem, Nikolai. The girl from the party is safe?”

  “She’s safe. I appreciate you asking.”

  There was another pause. Nick couldn’t figure out why they were still on the phone. It was almost as if Maksim had something on his mind. Maybe about Missy. Maybe about his own business. He should kn
ow by now Nick—and by extension, the Hudson Kings—had his back. “Maks, if you ever decide to come in from the cold, you know Rothgar still thinks you’re one of the best.”

  There was an even longer pause. “Not today, Nikolai.”

  Rothgar was off the phone now, and the men of the Hudson Kings were gathered, prepping to go.

  “I’m out, Maks. Later.”

  “See you on the next heist, comrade.”

  “I’m taking a vacation,” Nick said. He could see Jane from here, now, still fussing over the fish in a makeshift tank on the dining room table.

  “The girl from the party,” Maks said, a new lightness in his tone.

  “The girl from the party.”

  “You’re a smart man, Nikolai.”

  “Smarter than I used to be,” Nick said. And then he hung up.

  CHAPTER 38

  Not for the first time did Jane muse that it was amazing what you could do with enough resources.

  It took less than an hour for a mysterious trio of people Jane had never seen before to remove a large dead Russian from the foyer of Nick’s apartment and clean up the biggest mess of corpse residue and exploded fish tank she’d ever almost seen but had certainly heard about in a dramatically rendered description courtesy of Chase’s enthusiasm for making things sound bigger than life.

  Nick wouldn’t let her look. Said he knew she could handle it, but that some things were just better not imprinted on a person’s mind. So, he’d taken her down the service elevator and dragged her to lunch at Bianchi’s.

  They sat in the regular part of the restaurant and didn’t drink Chianti, and he asked her if she minded if he introduced her as his girlfriend, which she didn’t mind one bit, and then they went to Nana’s and had tea and cookies. When she wasn’t looking, Nick slipped out to the tiny balcony and shared a cigarette—just one!—and some deep discussion with her grandmother. Jane could hear them laughing through the glass while she cleaned up the kitchen, but the words were too low to hear.

  Finally, he got a call and asked her if she wanted to go home.

  And they held hands, and they walked into the building of his penthouse together and went up the elevator and opened the front door. Nick paused for a moment, staring at the place where the fish tank had once sat.

  But the empty table was the only suggestion that something in the room was off. The place was clean and smelled like lavender from a candle that had been burned at some point during the cleanup process and was the only evidence that work had been done.

  “You got a lipstick?” Nick asked.

  Jane retrieved one from her bag, and Nick proceeded to knock out the video cameras in every room. “Don’t need these anymore. Also don’t need the boys getting more of a view than I want them to.”

  When he did the living room cameras, he grabbed the small volume of poetry off the shelf and gestured for Jane to follow him into the bedroom. There were twenties and rose petals littering the bed, obviously a joke from the boys.

  “Move this crap aside and come here,” Nick said. Jane bit her lip at the sight of an adorable, rumpled Nick pushing away money and flowers in annoyance to make space for her and his book of poetry. Jane snuggled up next to him as he opened the book to a well-worn page and said, “This is called ‘My Star’ by Robert Browning.

  “All that I know

  Of a certain star

  Is, it can throw

  (Like the angled spar)

  Now a dart of red,

  Now a dart of blue,

  Till my friends have said

  They would fain see, too,

  My star that dartles the red and the blue!

  Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:

  They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.

  What matter to me if their star is a world?

  Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore, I love it.”

  With one arm hooked around her body, he pulled her close, then closed the book and said, “The other guys out there are all reaching for the shiniest star. They’re all out there pushing each other trying to reach the same thing, blinded by the reflection of the sun and focusing on what they think they are supposed to want. Not me. I’ve been looking all this time just for you. I waited for my star, and I’m not ever going to let it slip away.”

  Nick pressed the slim volume to his chest. The pages shifted, and Jane saw the book was marked EX LIBRIS, an old library book with the initials J. J. inside. He kept talking: “I read this poem, and I look at you, and I know that I kept a promise. And keeping that promise is the smartest thing I’ve ever done.”

  Jane smiled and rolled over and kissed Nick sweetly on the mouth. His lips curled into a smile.

  “It’s not a passionate poem,” Nick said with a shrug. “It’s a quiet poem. But to me it means that you’re the one meant for only me.”

  Jane pressed her finger against the page and read the last line. “If it’s not a passionate poem, I guess we’ll just have to make up for it.”

  Nick took the book and tossed it to the bedside table. “No time like the present.”

  “What the hell does ‘dartle’ mean, anyway?” Jane teased.

  “Oh, I’ll show you ‘dartle,’ baby,” Nick growled, reaching for her.

  Jane laughed her head off, until Nick’s mouth made it impossible for her to speak.

  EPILOGUE

  The floor of the war room was a madhouse, in the best possible way.

  “Seven puppies for seven badasses,” Jane said to Missy in her most reverent tone, her arms crossed over her chest.

  Missy’s expression was difficult to read. “It’s hard for me to work with all of this going on.”

  Her hand gestured in the air, making it clear that “this going on” was the hotness of the Hudson Kings team playing with an entire litter of golden retriever puppies while on a mission-planning break.

  One of the puppies had successfully ripped one of Chase’s band T-shirts so badly he practically wasn’t wearing one anymore. Missy was enjoying the revelation that was Flynn’s Adonis Belt, Cecily appeared to be glued to the sight of Shane’s Henley hiking up, and Jane . . .

  Well, Jane was enjoying everything about Nick. He was on his back, a massive grin on his face as the puppy he was holding in his arms licked his nose.

  Even Rothgar was in on it, though he hovered on the perimeter of the chaos, looking down with a hint of a smile at a dainty puppy attempting to eat his boot.

  “I don’t know whether to get my camera or just live in the moment,” Missy said.

  “Camera,” Jane said. “And then we make a calendar. Put Nick sometime in the spring, will ya?”

  “I think Nick’s picked his dog,” Cecily said.

  Nick still lay on his back, laughing at the puppy now standing on his chest on all four paws, tail wagging like mad.

  “Yup,” Jane said, “Although, he’ll hate to choose just one.”

  Nick broke away, cuddling his wiggly puppy against his chest. He brought the puppy to Jane.

  “This one?” she asked.

  “This one,” he said.

  Jane stretched her hand out slowly and let the puppy have a sniff fest. The puppy apparently had good instincts; they moved to joyous slurping almost immediately, and Nick had to pull the dog away. He put the dog back with the others and came back to Jane.

  “Hey, Jane,” he said quietly, brushing her hair back from her face.

  “Hey, Nick.”

  “You’re making me nervous,” he said.

  “I’m making you nervous?” Jane giggled.

  “It’s not funny. You said this morning you had something you kept meaning to tell me. You want to spit it out?”

  Jane’s eyes widened. Nick actually did look unsettled.

  “I love you,” she said simply.

  His expression was one of spontaneous joy . . . until he cocked his head. “And?”

  “That’s it. I completely forgot to tell you. I love you, I’m
in love with you, and I never want you to go away.”

  He released a breath and started laughing his ass off. “This is so you, Jane.”

  “Well, it’s not my fault you never give me a chance. Every time I’m about to say it, you kiss me or give me an orgasm or something, and I—”

  Nick covered her mouth with his. He ignited the fire in an instant, kissing her until she thought a kiss and an orgasm and something all at the same time might actually be doable.

  Unfortunately, the number of men and dogs in the room along with them made it impossible to explore that level of multitasking, and Nick ended the kiss. He didn’t pull away entirely, though, and pressed his mouth into her hair just at her ear. “I love you too, Jane MacGregor.”

  Jane hadn’t really understood what it would feel like to hear those words. She blinked back tears, speechless. Nick just kept grinning down at her, letting go only when Rothgar barked at everybody to get back to work.

  Nick still didn’t move away from Jane, though. Rothgar came over and in his gruff voice, with that stern expression, took one look at the two of them and said, “You obviously forgot to feed the fish.”

  “Is that a euphemism for something?” Missy teased.

  “Absolutely,” Jane said.

  Nick didn’t wait for the boss to change his mind. He scooped up the puppy with one hand, grabbed Jane in the other, and bolted for the door.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you, Alex and Katie. Without you, Nick’s refrigerator would be down one bag of mosquito larvae, and the pH balance of this book would be totally off. Also, once again, a huge thank-you to my husband, Chris, and Little Mouse too, plus the crew: Alison Dasho, Lauren Plude, Louise Fury, and Megan Frampton.

  Watch for the next Hudson Kings book, coming soon!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2010 Chris Keeslar

  Liz Maverick is a bestselling and award-winning author and adventurer whose projects have taken her from driving trucks in Antarctica to working behind the scenes on reality-TV shows in Hollywood. Known for her smart, funny, and emotional romance novels with fast-paced plots, Liz has written more than fifteen books. Her bestselling book Wired was a Publishers Weekly Book of the Year, and Liz also created the USA Today bestselling Crimson City series.