Unforgettable (Untouchables)

by Cindy Skaggs

  They’d been holding on to hope that Manny would provide some answers, but Manny was a ghost. The man did not want to be found. He’d been a hired killer for longer than Blake had been alive, and no physical evidence existed to prove he made a living killing. No witnesses lived long enough for him to go to trial.

  The invisible strings of destiny were afloat, tying knots in his gut. Victoria was more restless with each passing day. She wanted to meet Sully, find out what the man wanted. Blake respected the direct aspect of her personality, but he would haul her ass to the coldest reaches of Alaska before he put her within spitting distance of that evil.

  Sully was lethal. He rose to power on the bodies of his competitors and his contemporaries alike. He had a houseful of daughters he protected like Fort Knox. No point of entry. No signs of weaknesses. There wasn’t a man, woman, or child he wouldn’t kill to get his way, and Victoria was in his path.

  An armored truck parked on his chest at the thought of Victoria endangered. Blake’s priorities had changed. Catching Sully was secondary to protecting Victoria. She’d been serious about meeting with Sully, had spent the last two days trying to convince him. His superiors were all for it, but to them, she was expendable. A means to an end.

  Not to Blake.

  The need to wrap Victoria in a soft cushion of protection was irrational. The woman knew how to protect herself. She’d beaten the crap out of two hardened men. They didn’t roll over and let her win, but Sully’s men wouldn’t underestimate her a second time. Trenton had gotten her out of the building right under their noses. Victoria hadn’t been able to get free. She needed his protection. Period.

  He fisted a hand in her soft curls. She turned in her sleep, wrapped an arm over his chest. She was stronger than she looked, but knowing she had some defensive skills didn’t ease the rage flowing in his blood. If putting her on the chopping block was the only way to entrap Sully, then the bastard would walk, because Blake refused to let his little pixie anywhere near the evil son of a bitch.

  The snick of the outside door—the one in the outer hallway—brought him fully awake. No one used the back exit. The clock flashed the time. Four twelve in the morning. It wouldn’t be Mick or any of the waitresses this long after the bar closed. He rolled to his feet, but Victoria’s hair caught in the crook of his arm, pulling her awake. “Shhh,” he warned. He slipped on a pair of jeans and grabbed his Glock. “Wait here,” he whispered. His bare feet didn’t make a noise on the carpeted floor. He stepped into the living room and softly shut the bedroom door in time to hear someone punch the keys on the apartment keypad. The knob turned, but the inside dead bolt was latched.

  A soft rap sounded.

  Gun drawn, he positioned himself beside the door. “Who is it?”

  “Eddie.”

  Blake disengaged the lock and stepped back. “Come in, slow and easy.”

  Eddie reentered the code, and the door opened. Eddie wore all black from the top of a watch cap to the soles of his black running shoes. Behind him was a scarecrow of a man, also in black. “Heard you wanted to talk?” Manny said. His voice had a tremble that came with age. His skin was papery and white, like he hadn’t seen the sun since the ’70s.

  Blake kept his gun trained on the man. He nodded to Eddie. “Lock the door behind you.”

  Eddie complied before drawing Manny deeper into the room.

  “Where did you find him?” he asked.

  “He found me,” Eddie answered.

  That sounded ominous. He backed farther into the room. “Have a seat, gentlemen.” Manny wasn’t leaving until Blake had answers.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Vicki gripped her kubotan and opened the door a crack. From a thin strip, all she could see was the back of two men—heads only—on the couch. Blake stood beside the TV armoire, using the heavy piece of furniture as a shield from the window. He had on a pair of jeans that were zipped but not buttoned. He’d gone from half asleep to fierce focus in under a minute. He held a gun on the men on the couch. She let the door slip silently open, making sure these three were the only ones in the room.

  Blake lifted his gaze, meeting hers across the room. “Didn’t I tell you to stay put?”

  “And wait for someone to slit my throat in my sleep?”

  “Glad to hear you’re still cautious.” The man closest to her turned.

  “Uncle Manny.” She couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice.

  “How’s my favorite grandniece?” His teeth were yellow and ground to stubs with age, but his smile was genuine.

  “I’m your only grandniece.”

  Blake motioned her into the room with his free hand. “You’re going to want to hear this.”

  Manny tracked her movements with eerie focus. “You don’t let her out of your sight much, do you, son?”

  Blake’s eyes hardened. “If you’re waiting to catch her alone, you’ll die first.”

  “As it happens, I approve.”

  From the moment Manny had shown himself outside her house, her life had been in turmoil. She still didn’t know whose side her great-uncle was on, but she didn’t think she’d have to beat him up anytime soon. She lowered the kubotan, but didn’t stow it away.

  “Are you sure we want to do this here?” She put her hand to her ear, reminding them the room had more bugs than a roach motel. This conversation was a long time coming. She didn’t want to share it with whoever was listening, be it cops, the Feds, Sully, or anyone else. And if Blake turned on his typical background noise—porn—in front of Eddie and Manny, Vicki might die of mortification. Her face burned at the thought. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been truly embarrassed, but porn in front of a seventy-four-year-old hit man would do it.

  Eddie jumped up and went in search of the bug detector. She didn’t know how old Eddie was, but he seemed spry compared to Manny. He disappeared into one of the bedrooms, his movements smooth and quiet. Blake stayed beside the armoire, content to let Eddie do the bug sweep. When she stepped deeper into the room, Blake motioned her close. He wrapped his free arm around her waist and pulled her behind the protection of the wood armoire.

  Manny pointed his left hand at Blake. It trembled slightly, and arthritis knotted his knuckles, but his eyes were clear and wise. “He’s paranoid.”

  “Aren’t we all?” she asked. Every one of them looked like they were waiting for a bomb to go off.

  Eddie was running a countersurveillance device over every square inch of the room while Blake had backed into a corner where no one could come from behind. He held a gun aimed at a man who looked deceptively harmless. She clutched the kubotan, knowing it was ineffective against a weapon, but unable to let go of her only defense. Manny sat perfectly still on the sofa. The man had lethal patience. Where most people moved several times a minute, small, unconscious movements, Manny had learned to remain as still as a predator waiting for the kill.

  The small window against the outer wall felt like a telescopic lens into the tense room.

  “It’s not an easy shot,” Manny said, following her gaze. The old man removed his black trench coat. “Glass alters the trajectory of a bullet. Beyond that, you’d have to hit between the bars. A moving target complicates the math.”

  His little factoid did not ease her fears, because the only reason Manny knew the obstacles was so he could overcome them if the job required such a hit.

  “You good enough to make the shot?” Blake asked.

  Manny’s eyes lit with humor. “My hands aren’t as steady as they once were.”

  “I call bullshit,” Blake said. “You’re not as old as you want us to believe.”

  Manny shrugged. The black button-down moved over the shoulders, showing his scary thinness. The clothes hung off his too-skinny frame, and sadness rimmed his eyes. She hadn’t seen him this frail since her mother’s death. The memory hurt even now.

  Christmas break, sophomore year, and Vicki had been enamored of life outside the family. The return to a bitter New Y
ork winter had seemed proof the opulent lifestyle on the Upper East Side was no longer home. She had felt bigger than the marble floors and ten-feet ceilings. She fought with her father about freedom. She failed to notice her mother’s clammy skin or the glazed eyes, her pregnancy turned complicated by male dominance, meek submission, and the family’s inherent obedience.

  Maria Calvetti died because her husband—Vicki’s father—was a sick bastard.

  Manny had been an ever-present shadow at her mother’s beck and call that Christmas. Vicki tried to recall the details she’d been too young to notice and too self-absorbed to recognize. The fog of time did not ease the pain in her chest, yet the more she tried to recall, the greater the ache in her head signaled resistance to a truth she couldn’t see, or the memories she no longer trusted. The truth was in the details, and the details were buried with her mother and the unborn child.

  Days after returning to college, her father called. The one and only time he bothered. Her mother, he had said, had gone into preterm labor. Truth or lie? His voice held the right amount of concern, his slick salesman shine. She’d flown home, where a limo waited at LaGuardia. Manny had driven.

  Great-Uncle Manny, acting as chauffeur? He wasn’t a driver, wasn’t even a member of the family at the time, not in the ways that would inexplicably bind him in later years. So why would he drive? Why was he sent from his favorite niece’s bedside when she had needed a trusted family member the most? It hadn’t occurred to Vicki at the time, but Manny had no business in the limo, other than to be absent when her mother died.

  Dear God, had her father killed her mother?

  She trembled, her knees weak. She stepped forward, her movements jerky. Blake called her back, but she went to Manny, sat next to him on the couch, and grabbed his hand.

  Did Uncle Manny know? Did he suspect? Why had he never said?

  “Your man is worried,” Manny said, piercing her fog.

  Her vision swam with memories. “Manny won’t hurt me.”

  Manny tentatively reached out, tilted her to meet his gaze. “You’re starting to remember.”

  Vicki shook her head. Was she? Blake cursed and set his gun on the top of the armoire. He grabbed Manny’s trench and hooked it over the empty curtain rod.

  “If I were as good as you think,” Manny said, “the moment you approached the window, I’d have taken the shot.”

  “Damn good thing you’re on this side of the glass, isn’t it?”

  “Shut. Up.” Eddie drew their attention, reminding them he was still in the process of eliminating bugs. Several tense minutes passed. Blake left the room only to return minutes later fully clothed. He draped a blanket over her shoulders. Only then did she realize she was shaking like an addict in withdrawal.

  Blake sat on the opposite end of the couch from Manny. He turned sideways, drew her between his legs, surrounding her with his heat. He hugged her close, and she buried her face in his chest. Did she want to remember? Blake stroked her neck and back until she stopped shaking. The memories were like shadows. They moved with the light so she couldn’t focus on them, couldn’t look on them long enough to see the truth. That she had gone to such lengths to hide from herself worried her. Another shiver sent her deeper into his embrace.

  She wasn’t just worried. She was terrified.

  When Eddie pronounced the room clear, he sat on the coffee table, inches from her knees. The pressure of their gazes, the anticipation, brought a stabbing ache to the base of her skull. She turned her gaze to Manny, struggled out of Blake’s hold to move closer to Manny. “Why weren’t you with my mother when she died?”

  The darkness around his eyes deepened. “I loved your mother. I love you.” He patted her hair like he would a child.

  “Then why did you leave her alone with my father on her last night?”

  “She asked me to.”

  Flares and flashes of light sparked behind her eyes. The pain stabbed into her skull. “Manny, whatever I buried, it’s deep. I need help remembering.”

  “I don’t know what it is.” He didn’t even blink.

  “You’re lying,” she said.

  “If I am, it’s because you asked me to.”

  Why? “Why would I destroy any potential to retrieve my memory?”

  Manny swallowed. His throat flexed, drawing attention to his scaly skin. Old and wrinkled. Weathered. She had always thought him hard, and a part of her had admired his emotional distance, because relationships and friendships and love made you weak. Gave your opponent the means to bring you to your knees.

  “Who would you risk your life for?” Manny asked.

  The only thing worth risking her life for was family, but most of her family was dead. The only people left were Eli and Sofia, but they weren’t in danger. She felt it in her soul. Had she intentionally forgotten someone? Was that even possible? To forget a person?

  Remember what you can’t forget.

  Those words were Manny’s hint. They hadn’t helped the first time, but now, she concentrated on his question as it pertained to her mother, because that’s where her intuition drew her. The deeper she struggled, the more the migraine threatened, which meant she was close. Like playing a game of hot and cold. Find the memory.

  What she couldn’t forget was the last look on her mother’s face. The terror. The red of her mother’s blood. But Maria wasn’t afraid for herself. She’d already embraced death. Wait. What? “Manny, I wasn’t there when my mother died. You came to the airport. Picked me up in a limo.”

  “When have I driven a limo, Princess?”

  The stabbing in her brain doubled her over. Blake rubbed her back. “Manny,” she whined, begging him to understand. “Tell me what I need to know.”

  “I can’t. You made me promise on your mother’s grave. My niece. Nothing matters more than family.”

  Those words sounded more like her father’s side of the family. She thought of her brother, her father, of the death and destruction they left in their wake. She thought of her mother, who taught her to stay out of the path of the devil.

  No one leaves the family, except by way of a body bag.

  They all left in a body bag. Her father, her brother, the unborn baby.

  No one leaves the family, except by way of a body bag.

  Her father had said it that night. Why would he say it to Maria? Light stabbed behind her eyes. The memory that wasn’t a memory taunted her. Even her mother, who never wanted a part of the life, even she had left his world in a body bag. “My mother is dead, right?”

  “Only death would keep her from you.”

  Her eyes stung. After all this time, she missed her mother. She’d trade all her days for one more with her mother. Tears streamed unchecked down her cheeks. “Who the hell is left?”

  Uncle Manny, of course, but she wouldn’t have gone to this much trouble for him. Not that she didn’t love him, but the man had killed more people than the American Sniper. He could take care of himself, even if he did seem a little frail. Who else was left? She didn’t have any more siblings. The ache in her head amped into a full-blown migraine. “Dear God.”

  Manny smiled, tapped the tip of her nose as if she’d gotten it spot on.

  The memories exploded. A three-dimensional box, sealed in her memory by a dead hypnotist, finally fell open on a blast of C-4 in her brain. The last time she was home, her mother had known she wouldn’t survive the birth of the baby. Not because she was sick, but because Vicki’s father was. Sick with jealousy. The baby wasn’t his, and Maria wouldn’t name the biological father.

  “It was Sully’s baby?” she whispered.

  Manny nodded, but before he could answer, a loud knock sounded at the door.

  Blake jumped, knocking her further off balance. He grabbed his gun, Eddie at his heels.

  “Open up,” Mick hollered through the solid door.

  Blake took a stance to the left, gun drawn. Eddie pulled the door open and stepped out of the line of fire, but only Mick stood in the hall
. He wore his usual leather vest and jeans, but his hair was spiked as if he’d just jumped out of bed. “Sully wants a meet.”

  Blake slammed the door shut. “No fucking way this is a coincidence.”

  “I thought this was a good thing.” Mick glanced around the room, acknowledging the strange assemblage on the couch. He took in Blake’s protective stance, the gun in his hand. “You kids having a party?”

  “Family reunion,” she said with a tight smile. She wiped the moisture from her face. “I’m overcome with joy at seeing my great-uncle again after all these years.”

  “Right.” Mick stomped farther into the room. The energy sweeping off him filled her with nerves. “We don’t have time for games. What the hell is going on?”

  Vicki left her tears in her wake. She had no room to mourn. Not now. “Look, Muscle Man, I warned you—”

  “Stop.” Blake moved between them. “Tell him.”

  “Not a chance.” Enough people knew her business. She didn’t trust anyone. “Within an hour of Manny showing up, Sully sends a message for a meet? Through Mick. That’s a little too coincidental.”

  Blake holstered his weapon and pulled her into an embrace. “Tommy was Mick’s brother. Mick would never work for Sully.”

  Tension eased from her shoulders.

  “He has a right to know,” Blake said softly.

  Manny nodded. “Too late to keep this a secret. Too many people know, and Sully won’t give up.”

  “Can’t you just—” She made a slicing motion across her neck. Manny was a hit man for God’s sake. Surely he could eliminate one pain-in-the-ass mobster.

  The old man smiled from his seat on the couch. “I appreciate your confidence, Princess, but the man has serious protection, and my job the past six months has been keeping you alive. You told me Blake was your fail-safe. Let him prove it.”