by K. Ryan
Trailing closely behind Jack is a stocky, scarred man with slicked back dark hair and dressed in crisp suit. Even from over here, I can practically smell the filthy expensive linens. Gucci, probably. Maybe Armani, but most definitely Italian. There's something familiar about him that I can't quite put my finger on. He's one of the Gianotti brothers, that much I know. I suppose which one is obsolete.
He practically oozes power, intimidation, mystery, and inherent, unmistakable danger. No wonder the mayor has been working this angle for as long as he has—the two might as well be cut from the same cloth.
Another figure comes into view, towering over everyone else around him except for Jack, and the second a flash of light illuminates his face, the buzz of the crowd fades into the background.
His eyes. Bottomless like a shark. Hollow and devoid of emotion. I've seen those eyes before. Just like Sean's eyes will forever be seared into my memory, this man's eyes will haunt me until the day I die.
I'm walking down the sidewalk, my phone in one hand and earbuds in to shut everything else out. My night class let out twenty minutes late because the professor showed up twenty minutes late. So now, I'm tired, I'm crabby, my brain hurts from two hours of financial modeling and analysis, and all I want to do is go back to my apartment so I can air all my grievances about this day to Bennett.
Street lamps light up my path home, pillowing the darkness with slants of light that set the night aglow. I don't hear the footsteps behind me. I don't sense the danger until it's too late. Until something solid and iron slams into my knee.
Hot sparks of pain explode through my body and I crumble to the ground like a rag doll. Blood splatters on the ground. My blood. Everything is hazy and somewhere, in the distance, I finally hear another set of footsteps barreling toward me. My body might be on the ground, but I feel like I'm hovering above it, observing this bloody scene from a safe distance away.
Somehow, my eyes force themselves open and I blink. I blink again to wipe some of the cloudiness from my vision and as the clouds part, there they are.
Twin orbs of darkness.
Those same orbs stare back at me now, curious and contemplative like he's trying to place me. I don't know which Gianotti brother he is. I don't know why he did it or what it has to do with the mayor. I just know my brother is in prison for a crime this man committed.
As if they have a will of their own, regardless of risk or danger, my feet carry me forward. Bennett calls out to me, but I keep moving. I can't tear my eyes away because I know, with everything I have, that I'm staring at him.
Movement flutters around me. Bodies press up against me and knock me sideways. It doesn't deter me because I just have to get a little bit closer. I have to be one hundred percent sure.
When yet another body knocks into me, I pitch forward, barely catching my balance before it's too late, and it's only then that I finally realize the music's been cut. Not only that, but the entire club seems to be shifting from left to right as patrons scamper past me. Then a glass shatters about ten feet away from me. And then another. And then another.
Suddenly, my body is attuned to the danger around me that's escalating exponentially since the moment I locked eyes with my attacker. My head whips around frantically to find Bennett in the crowd, but when I do, he's been pushed to the opposite end of the room, his face tight and pale with panic. From the other side of the room, I can see Jack's agitated face, craning his neck above the throngs as he shoves right through it to get to me.
Caught in the middle is a terrifying place to be. No matter which way I try to run, someone's always boxing me in and keeping me from gaining any ground to get the hell out of here. Now the sound of skin slamming into skin cuts through the room—more glass breaks and tables turn over as everyone nearby races to put as much distance between them and the fight as possible.
When I try to shove around the person blocking my path, all I get is pinned against the bar.
"Hey!" I yell and pound on the guy's back.
Just as ripples of panic grasp hold of my lungs, the guy jerks to the side, but the arms belonging to my rescuer aren't the tattooed ones I'm expecting.
"Back the hell off!" Brennan growls at my would-be suffocator and shoves him backward. Once the guy disappears inside the throng again, my brother whips around to face me and takes a quick inventory of any injury. "You alright?"
I barely have time to nod before he grips my arm and tugs me behind him, clearing a path for us with his free arm. Still, I manage to glance frantically around for Jack—God help me—but I don't see him, or Bennett for that matter, anywhere. Instead, Brennan ushers me through the frenzied crowd with measured authority and just enough brawn to get us both out of there unscathed.
Even when we step out onto the sidewalk and put more distance between us and the chaos inside the club, he doesn't let go of my arm. Even when he digs his phone out of his back pocket and makes a call, he still doesn't let go of my arm.
"Hey," he speaks into his phone gruffly. "I got her. Yeah, she's fine....we're outside right now."
When he shoves his phone back into his pocket, he affords me a quick, impassive glance.
"Thank you," I whisper.
He just looks right through me, scanning the crowd for the rest of our party, but still keeping on ironclad grip on my wrist. It's only when Bennett and Jack materialize on the sidewalk from inside the club that he finally lets go and shoves me roughly toward them. I really should be ashamed at the wave of disappointment that flashes through me when Bennett, not Jack, swings his arms out to catch me.
Bennett draws me into his chest, hugging me tightly, and murmurs in my ear: "You scared the shit out of me, Rae. What the hell were you thinking before? Did you not see those guys pummeling each other right in front of you?"
I'd nearly walked into a much bigger trap by practically holding my arms out to the Gianotti brothers and yelling, "Hey! Remember me?" It was like a tractor beam zeroed in on me, pulling me in closer and closer until I'd been almost all but exposed. He saw me too. Maybe he didn't quite recognize me—it's possible he's hurt more than his fair share of people in his long life of crime, so all the faces must blend together after awhile. But he still saw me and I still saw him.
Bennett's arms slip away and he steps aside as I'm met with yet another set of eyes, this time a pair of all-too-familiar grey ones. Jack scans me from head to toe, not unlike Brennan's reaction when he found me earlier, but his hands never get close enough to actually touch me. His gaze narrows dangerously when he crouches down to inspect my leg. Apparently, I have a deep gash running down my calf—I never even felt it when Brennan dragged me out of there. I'm not feeling much of anything right now.
I shake his shoulder to get his attention. "Jack."
When he just ignores me to continue his meticulous probing, sans touching of course, I huff out a breath in frustration and shove against his shoulder. "Stop it. I'm fine. It doesn't even hurt."
Yet. Whatever. I'll deal with that later because a little cut on my leg should be the least of our worries.
"I saw him," I whisper hoarsely.
That gets his attention and his head jerks up, his forehead creasing into a deep frown. "Saw who?"
It takes him a moment once those words leave his lips, but his eyes fill with understanding. He nods tightly and he steps back carefully, like he's hyperaware of our surroundings, or rather, who's surrounding us. Shoving his hands deep inside his pockets, probably best to keep himself from touching me, Jack glances at Brennan, who just shakes his head.
"Looks like we have some things to talk about."
I DON'T PARTICULARLY enjoy being in Jack's apartment again. All I can seem to focus on is that stupid couch. No matter what I do or how hard I try, my gaze always seems fixed right on that soft, cozy couch. And even now, with the four of us crammed together in his kitchen, he won't let himself look at me. I understand why he won't touch me. There are one too many sets of eyes around us right now, but I just need h
im to give me something. I just need him to acknowledge more than just my presence. I just need him to actually say the words out loud.
It's the detachment that pollutes the air around us. The refusal. The rejection.
Just say it, Jack, I mentally beg him. Just tell me to my face you don't want anything to do with me. That after all this is said and done, you're just going to walk away like I always knew you would.
He won't, of course. At least not with an audience present.
"So what's first on the agenda, huh?" Brennan finally breaks through the silence as he leans a hip against the kitchen counter. "That offer or whatever it is she thinks she saw."
"Hey," Jack levels his gaze squarely on Brennan. "Don't talk to her like that."
Brennan holds up both hands in defense and shrugs nonchalantly. "Sorry. Wouldn't want to offend your woman."
His words bruise with every syllable and I can't stop the flinch that flashes across my face. The contempt written on his face stings even worse. Clearly there'd been no point to getting my hopes up—just because he led me out to safety tonight doesn't mean anything has changed between us. Throw in the fact that everything has changed between Jack and me, it's just rubbing salt in an open wound.
Jack winces and scrubs both hands over his face. Glancing at Bennett is a huge mistake because his eyes have taken on a frenzied gleam and his lips spread apart in a wide, cartoonish grin. This is just snowballing toward disaster by the minute.
With a slight shake of his head and his lips curling up ever-so-slightly in mild disgust, Jack turns his attention back to me. "Gianottis laid out an offer tonight and I'm gonna take it."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Brennan interjects hotly, both hands spread wide out in objection. "Slow down here. You can't just jump into something like that without talking to me about it first."
"Or me," I grumble under my breath, but if either of them catch it, they don't show it.
Jack just lifts a shoulder and cocks an eyebrow at me. "They're offering me the deed to the mall property." He lets that hang in the air for a second so we can all digest it. "You know what that means? It means we've got cold, hard proof that Moretti and William Rossi are one in the same 'cause that deed has 'Rossi' all over it. We've already got all the files from his computer and now this is that last nail we were looking for to bury the son of a bitch. He won't be able to talk his way out of it—or the fact that the Gianottis were involved."
I swallow hard and push down the sand coating my throat. The way Jack's talking makes me nervous. He's chomping at the bit to bring down the mayor and the longer we wait, the longer we sit on this, the riskier this becomes. Besides—
Brennan cuts through my thoughts like he'd just read my mind: "How in the hell does that help Sean, huh? How does that get our brother out of prison?"
"It doesn't," I whisper and wince as Jack's shoulders slump. "It might put the mayor in prison, but it doesn't get anyone out."
Brennan, for once, nods in agreement and jerks a thumb at me. "Listen to her. I mean it, Jack. I'm not gonna stand by and watch you get yourself killed."
"Just hold up a minute, okay?" Jack actually looks like he believes this is going to work. How could this end any other way but bad?
"I saw him," I tell them again, reminding everyone once again that maybe we have a different ace in the hole to play. "Not the one with the scars. The big one—the one who looks like he could tear apart a car if he felt like it."
I squeeze my eyes shut as another wave hits me. Black eyes. Bottomless pits. Just the thought of that man getting anywhere near me, of what else could've happened to me if Sean hadn't intervened when he did...I can't think about that right now.
Jack folds his arms across his chest, his eyebrows knitting together in concentration, but that still doesn't prepare me for what's about to happen next. "You sure?"
"Positive," I nod.
Brennan narrows his eyes at me now and tilts his head to the side in appraisal. "You've never seen the Gianotti brothers before?"
"What do you mean?"
He just lifts a shoulder. "You've never seen their picture in the paper or something? Seen something about them on the news before?"
That's enough to give me pause and as my heart burrows deep into the pit of my stomach, I know exactly where they're going with this little interrogation. They know what any detective worth their salt knows: eyewitness testimony is always the worst kind of testimony. Especially if it's a victim. Another sharp shard of pain knifes down my chest at the word victim. Even now, when I'm trying so hard to break free from that label, when I'm trying so hard to do the right thing, I still can't shake it.
Always the victim of circumstance. Always the loser in the fight.
"Rae," Jack tells me gently, crouching down just enough to make sure I'm paying attention. "I'm not saying I don't believe you—"
"I am," Brennan huffs.
"Would you shut the hell up and let me talk?" Jack glares at him from over his shoulder before shifting back toward me again. "Look, Rae, I believe you, okay? I do. Nero Gianotti is a sick son of a bitch and he's absolutely capable of something like what happened to you. But you IDing him seven years after the fact...I don't know, Rae. I just don't know."
Hot tears sting my eyes, but I push them back. Not here. Not like this. "Why did you even let me come along then? Why did you let me think I'd be able to help?"
He rubs his mouth with one hand and winces painfully before finally letting his hand fall down to his side. "I don't know. I didn't want you to feel like I was trying to push you out of this."
"Well," I laugh bitterly. "It's a little late for that, don't you think?"
Jack closes his eyes briefly and makes the mistake of looking to Bennett for help, who just cocks a bitchy eyebrow at him and angles closer to me protectively.
"All I'm saying is if we go to the cops with this, right now, they're just gonna ask you the same questions, except it'll be worse. They're going to want to know every single detail from that night right down to what he was wearing and how he smelled. They're going to want to know why you're just coming forward now. They're going to want to know why you suddenly think Sean's innocent and you're going to have to tell them. The second they find out you're related to him, they won't want to hear another word from you because nothing else you'll say would ever hold up in court. No judge, especially not one on Moretti's payroll, would ever believe you because if you lied before, why wouldn't you lie again to try to make things right? Especially to try to get your brother out of prison?"
So it doesn't matter. What I saw, what I felt, what I know, none of it matters. I've never felt so powerless in my entire life.
"I wish you'd just told me that," I grouse. "Would've saved us all a hell of a lot of time."
Jack's face twists with remorse and for a second, I almost think his left hand twitches to reach for me. "I'm sorry, Rae. I should've thought this through more before I let you come to the club tonight."
"There are lot of things we should've thought through before we did them," I practically snarl at him.
He flinches from the impact and swallows hard. Oh, so now he feels uncomfortable about the way he's treated me. Good for him.
"We need to focus on what we have," Jack's voice fills the room again, setting aside my not-so-subtle accusation for the time being, and this time, he's got the floor. We all know we need a plan and it looks like he has one. "We know Moretti's been buying up property with his Rossi alias and using the city council to make it happen. We know Nero Gianotti is the one who attacked Rae. We know the Gianottis and Moretti are working together to open up this boxing arena. We know they're offering to give me the deed to that property if I win. What we don't know is why the Gianottis would want to attack Rae in the first place or how much Moretti knows about it. The only way to buy ourselves some time to figure that out is if I take this fight and get the evidence we need."
"That sounds a little like you're changing your tune, bro," Brennan narrows h
is eyes at Jack and leans forward to study him. "Before it sounded like you wanted to take the fight just so you could nail Moretti to the floor."
"I know, I know," Jack scrubs a hand over his short, dark hair and affords me one passing glance before blowing out an agonized breath. "I feel like I'm flying by the seat of my pants right now trying to come up with something, but all I keep thinking is that if I can get that deed, what would happen if we go to Moretti with what we know? What if we tell him we want Sean out of prison or else we'll leak every single piece of dirty, bloody evidence we have against him?"
Brennan is not amused, but he remains impassive in the kitchen. "Blackmail?"
"Something like that, yeah," Jack nods.
"That's a good way to get yourself killed, douchehole."
Jack rolls his eyes up to the ceiling, but I don't see what's so funny about this. He's talking about just strolling up to the mayor with guns blazing, actually telling him everything we know and expecting...what? That he'll actually comply? That he wouldn't hesitate to eliminate the threat as soon as it presents itself? This isn't funny. This is suicide.
"You're not doing that," I shake my head firmly. "Nobody's doing that. There's got to be another way."
"What's the other option, Rae?" Jack holds his ground, staring both of us down like we've got him cornered in the ring. "What's the plan? 'Cause I don't see either of you comin' up with something better."
I hold my hands out in front of him as I dare a step closer. "Calm down, okay? We'll figure this out and it doesn't have to be tonight."
"We don't have a ton of time either," Brennan retorts from the opposite side of Jack.
Shaking off his incisive, bitter tone, I choose instead to focus on the matter at hand. "Maybe Jack was right before. Maybe we need him to take this fight to buy us some more time until we can figure out what to do with all the information we have."