“She knows too much, thanks to you,” yelled Charlie.
“I didn’t tell her anything because I didn’t know anything, remember?” Riley shouted back. “And I need to know because if you’re planning to do something stupid, it doesn’t serve our purpose.”
“We’re only going to talk to her to see what she intends to do with the information that she had,” said Raymond.
He curled his upper lip. Riley didn’t believe him. “As far as I know, she doesn’t have any relevant information. If she did, she would’ve gone to the police long ago.”
“Are you trying to protect her?” Charlie demanded.
“As always, I’m looking out for our best interests.”
“Shhh…” said Raymond in a commanding voice. “We don’t want any more arguments within our ranks. Once you bring her in, we’ll decide as to what we want to do. Right now, she is a loose cannon and we can’t afford to let her remain a threat to us. She knows you, she has recognized the two men, and she was aware of the location where she was kept. That place is our property. If she takes the police over there, we will be in serious trouble. So before she opens her mouth, we need her with us.”
“Fine,” huffed Charlie. “But I don’t trust him. He won’t bring her in.”
“You wait and see,” said Riley with a cocky grin. “I’m going now. I’ll be meeting her soon, and I hope that your goons won’t follow me. If she sees a sign of them, she might back off, and then it won’t be my fault.”
“You go ahead,” said Raymond. “Two days you’ve got and if you can’t do the job in that time, we’ll have to take over.”
Riley executed a smart salute and sauntered out of the place. He was in a well of shit, and there was no way out. There was only one thing that he could do to escape the repercussions of failure, and that was to meet Tania. Would she even see him again?
He could’ve gone home, changed, and thought about his strategy, but he was impatient. He wanted to see her now. After checking his watch, he realized that it was already six in the evening. Would she be home? Or did she step out?
Her phone was still switched off or, perhaps, she never got a new one. There was only one way to meet her, and that was to go see her in that mansion. If she called the police on him, he would be stuck. Not that he had a choice.
After hailing a cab, he went straight to her house, or rather to the mansion that belonged to her new lover.
She didn’t take too long to replace him. The hurt would never leave him. Still, she was the one he loved, and he would do anything to save her, even if it meant that he had to put his life on the line.
That’s exactly what he was doing, but he didn’t care. He was reckless, strong, and nothing could stop him from protecting the woman he gave his heart to. Riley rang the bell on her mansion after he was dropped off in front of it. Shit! He wished that he’d taken the time to shower and change. He looked like a mess. Roughly, he ran his hands through his hair and, much to his surprise, the gate swung open.
He glanced into the camera that was mounted on top. So she knew that he was here. Good. He didn’t intend to waste any time. After he walked in, it took him a few moments to get over the staggering beauty of the estate. The magnificent garden that surrounded the house was stunning. The profusion of color, the scent of them, was heady.
But much more mesmerizing was the woman who opened the door and walked out to greet him. Dressed in the same mint green dress he’d seen her in earlier, she looked beautiful. Nothing about her had changed, and yet everything was different. Once, she would’ve ran into his arms and, perhaps, he might’ve twirled her around, but now she was right in front and still a world apart.
Pain echoed in his heart but he ignored it. She wasn’t his anymore.
She came to a stop a few feet away. “Hi.”
“Hello.” What the hell did one do in such a situation? Riley shifted on his feet. “Beautiful house.”
“Yeah, it is.” She cast a glance at the garden. “Why don’t you come in? I saw you from the camera.”
“Yeah, the state of the art security is impressive.”
“Jason needs it and, frankly, I am happy to live here for now. At least no one can get in, and that gives me a lot of peace.”
They walked into the house and, as expected, he was impressed by the sheer opulence of the place. If he could’ve given her all this, would she have waited for him? Riley was aghast at his own thoughts. She wasn’t the sort of woman who went for a guy just because he was rich. He had his chance and he blew it. She was with someone else now, and that guy, no matter how much Riley hated him, probably deserved her.
She led him into a living room and he sat on the couch. “Coffee?”
“Sure.”
She went into the kitchen and came back a while later. “It’s coming.”
He laughed. “This guy’s got a housekeeper.”
She met his gaze and smiled. “And two part-time maids, a chauffeur, and two gardeners. There is any army of people around to make life comfortable.”
He shook his head. “I can’t even imagine this life. It’s pretty…fabulous, I suppose.”
She shrugged and took a seat opposite him. “One could get used to it easily enough, but that’s not why you’re here. What bring you to this place, Riley?”
A matronly woman brought in a tray and he waited until she left it on the table. Tania poured him a cup.
He took it from her hand. “I told the gang I was coming to meet you, that I could convince you to come with me, and they would have you.”
She gasped and her hand stilled on the pot. After gazing into his eyes for a moment, she picked up the pot and poured herself a cup. “You lied to them. Why?”
It gladdened his heart to know that she trusted him at least that much. It wasn’t much, but it was something. He was grateful she didn’t think too badly of him anymore. “Obviously because if I hadn’t, they wouldn’t have let me get out of that building alive.”
“So you did it to save your hide?”
“Of course.” He took a sip. “Why else?”
“If that was your sole reason, why are you telling me this? You should’ve skipped town, left them behind, and started elsewhere.” He didn’t say anything. The woman was too sharp, and there wasn’t much that he could slide by her without her picking up on it. “But you didn’t do that. You came here to warn me.”
He made no attempt to deny it. Of course, he wanted to tell her to be careful. They were fixated on her and though he tried to dissuade them, it didn’t work. She wasn’t safe in this town, not now, and, perhaps, never. “They want you. For some reason, they have decided you’re a threat to their security, and until they find you...and either get rid of you or make sure that you don’t talk, they aren’t going to back out.”
“I don’t have any evidence or proof of their wrongdoing. If I did, I would’ve gone to the police by now.”
“That’s what I tried to tell them.”
She sipped her coffee as if she didn’t have a care in the world. He wanted her to pack her bags and leave this town, perhaps this country. But maybe she didn’t want to go away from her new boyfriend. A hot lance of jealousy pierced his heart. He wanted to smash the cup on the ground and stomp on it. A scream spiraled to his throat but he swallowed it. There was no point getting worked up on this issue. She’d chosen her path and it was time for him to choose his. All he wanted was to make sure she was okay.
“They are not going to leave me alone.”
“No, they won’t.”
“What do you suggest I do?”
He sipped his coffee. It was bloody delicious. The asshole probably flew in the beans from Spain or some other exotic location. Why would she want to leave a suave, successful man like him and hang out with a gangster? That’s what he’d become. He’d sought adventure and instead he got crime. It was his fault for trusting the wrong people, and he would be damned if she paid the price for it. “You should leave this town.”
“And what about you?”
He shrugged. What the hell could he do? “I would have to move away also, find a new place, and start all over again. It’s the only thing that would keep us safe.”
She leaned back, the cup held in her hand. “There is another option.”
“What?”
“We could work together to expose the gang. Why should they disrupt our lives? They get away clean – without any damage – and that’s not acceptable to me. Alone, I can’t do much, but if you’re with me, we can get the evidence we need to show to the police that they rigged the warehouse.”
His mouth gaped open as he stared at her. The woman sure had guts. What she said was true, and it made sense, but would she really have the courage to do it? Did he want her to do it? It was dangerous, risky. They could get hurt, killed even. No way did he want to put her in that much danger.
“How are you so sure that I’m not working for them?”
“You would’ve grabbed me in the morning if you were,” she answered.
“There were too many witnesses,” he said.
Her smile lit her face. “Is that what you told them? Did they buy it? You’re smart. In any case, I know that’s why you didn’t do it. Even you’re not that good an actor, Riley.”
He didn’t have much to do now. After telling her to get out of this town, there wasn’t much ] he could add. He put the cup on the table and stood. “Thanks for the coffee. I’m going to leave the town, and I suggest that you do the same.”
He didn’t want to leave her, but he had to. She belonged to someone else, and he didn’t have any more rights on her. Their relationship frizzled out a long time ago, and he needed to accept that fact before it drove him crazy. He would never see her again. Never.
Chapter Eighteen
Conflicted and confused: those two states described the state of her mind to an accurate degree. Ever since she met Riley, she pretty much felt the same way and now her feelings were even more jumbled up. She’d spent too much time hating Riley and now she discovered he wasn’t that man who she tried so hard to blame for all the wrong things in her life.
Seeing him walk towards the door, she was reminded of the time when she spent hours crying because he wasn’t with her, because he wasn’t the man she thought he was. He was more than she’d assumed.
“Riley,” she said. “Wait.”
He turned to look at her. Was it hope that flitted across his eyes? Did he want to stay with her? “These people…this gang of yours, they have screwed up our lives.”
“Yeah, they have.”
“If we go away, if we’re the ones who get out of town then they would think we’re scared and that we fled. They might look for us for a while, but since we won’t be a threat, they would forget about us eventually.”
He shrugged. “Yeah! I suppose so.”
“But nothing would happen to them.”
“What do you mean?”
She stood and walked over to where he stood. “They’re the ones who blew up that warehouse. They nearly killed me, and even you might’ve died in that place. Had we been inside…” She shuddered. It was a thought that crossed her mind a number of times before. “So why should I flee? Why should you do the same? Instead of turning our backs on them, we should face them.”
A smile lifted his lips. “What do you intend to do? Confront them? That’s not going to achieve much.”
“They are blackmailing you, aren’t they?” she guessed. It made sense. They must want something from him, and mainly that was to get her. In order to issue a command, they must believe that they held some leverage over him. “What is it?”
Looking surprised, he folded his arms across his chest. Some of the earlier cockiness that endeared him to her was reflected in his eyes. “It’s not something I can’t handle.”
“What is it?” she demanded. “Come on. It won’t hurt to let me know.”
He bit his lip as he considered her words. “Fine. If you must know, I was the one who initiated the contact with Xavier. All the initial papers that were sent to him have my signatures, so, obviously, if the police start an insurance fraud investigation, I’ll go down along with others, but there isn’t much proof against them.”
“And they want you to bring me in so they can question me or kill me, and if you don’t, they might release those documents to the police.”
He shook his head. “They issued that threat, but, of course, I’m not worried about it. How can they get me in trouble while keeping themselves clean? They won’t do it.”
“What if we do something that would get them into a pile of shit?”
He cocked an eyebrow, perhaps responding to the cold tone in her voice. “What do you mean?”
“Why should we run? Why should we hide? They are the ones who started this mess, and they should go to jail for it. I intend to see that they do, and I want you to help me. Together, we can uncover evidence that links them to this plot to blow up the warehouse.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“I am dead serious.”
He stared at her as if she said something incredibly stupid. Sure, on the face of it, the idea was terrible. How could they take on the might of a criminal organization? But stranger things happened, and she was willing to give it a try. “You intend to do this alone.”
She shook her head. “No, I want to do this with you. Together, we’re strong. You know them and you can figure out where those weaknesses are. If we search their records, if we go deep down, we will find something that will link them to the explosion and then we can go to the police.”
“They don’t trust me enough to give me access to their records.”
She tapped her foot on the floor. “They will when you hand me over. Then they won’t have a choice but to include you in their inner rank.”
He exploded. She saw the color that flushed in his cheeks, and the gleam of anger that sparkled in his eyes. “Have you lost your mind?”
“I haven’t, actually. It’s the only thing that will allow you to access to their inner sanctum and without it, we won’t get anywhere.”
“And you would risk your life? Have you gone mad?”
“I wouldn’t risk my life because you would keep me safe. I trust you, Riley.”
Now she could see the flabbergasted expression on his face. He wanted to take her in his arms, but he was hesitant to do so. She didn’t blame him. In their own way, both of them went to hell but now they were back – and everything would be good once more.
“It’s a stupid plan.”
“It’s not.” She took another step forward. Her heart pounded so loud she was sure he could hear it. Sweat beaded on her forehead. “I would tell them that if something happens to me, a friend of mine would give certain information to the police. And I would assure them that all I want is to stay safe, and if they let me go, I’ll get right out of town. They won’t let me go immediately. Of course, they would keep me prisoner for a few days and, in that time, you can ferret out all the relevant information. Then you can go to the police and rescue me.”
“What if you’re wrong? They could kill you right away.”
“Would they do that?”
He walked over to the window and glanced out. She could see the wheels in his mind turn as he pondered over her plan. “I don’t know…I think they won’t. They would want to make sure that what you said was true.”
“I would tell them that I’d secretly followed you and took pictures of your meeting with others, and that if that information is released, they will be connected to you and since your name is on those papers…” She was brainstorming without giving it much thought. Sure, the plan was raw and it wasn’t perfect, but if he agreed with her, it would fall into place.
“It might just work.” He nodded. Turning back to face her, he ran a hand over her jaw. “But what would your boyfriend say to all that? Surely, he wouldn’t want you to face this mess.”
A smile flitted over lips. “What boyfrie
nd?”
He blinked his eyes. “The one who…that Jason guy…”
“He is not my boyfriend.”
“Huh?”
“He owns this place and he is a friend. We did date for a while, but that was a long time ago, and we’ve moved on since then. So yeah…he is not my boyfriend.”
“Not your boyfriend? As in you guys are not…” He shook his head.
She mimicked his action. “No, he is not.” Silence reigned in the room. She didn’t know what to say, and it was obvious that he was at a loss for words.
“So are you…I mean, do you…what is…?”
This Savage Love: A Bad Boy Romance Boxed Set Page 110