“I didn’t mean—” She smiled. “Thank you. And yes, I prefer sleeping naked.”
He grinned and gently bit her lower lip. “Let’s go.”
They went inside. The house was more than a little amazing—it took Scarlet’s breath away. It wasn’t a large house for Mulholland Drive, but it had one of the best views of the Valley that Scarlet had seen.
Matt had already been here. There was a bottle of champagne chilling; roses on the table; chocolate and strawberries. And a small, wrapped box.
“Matt.” She could barely speak.
He smiled, poured the champagne. “It’s ten to midnight. We just made it.” He handed her the box. “I love you, Scarlet.”
She was light-headed and heavy all at the same time. She took the box. Opened it. Stared at the diamond that was… big. Big and beautiful and she didn’t know what to say.
“I’m not going to rush you into setting a date, but I want to marry you, Scarlet Moreno. I love you. You’re beautiful and strong and amazing. I can’t imagine spending my life with anyone else. I don’t want to spend my life with anyone but you.” He took the ring out of the box and slipped it on her finger. His watch beeped once. “Happy New Year.”
She kissed him. They made love on the floor of Jack Boone’s house, then again on the deck under heat lamps, then again in the guest room.
It wasn’t until she gave him the ring back four months later that she realized she’d never actually said yes.
Chapter Six
Scarlet had begun to think that Matt had forgotten about her. Jim too for that matter because he didn’t say a word. Fifteen minutes after Jim took her to this room, the door on the far right—where she’d entered—opened. The jerk Ray walked in, talked to the guy who appeared to be in charge of the floor, and within two minutes, the three computer people had shut everything down and left by another door, the one on the left next to the single roll-up door. Was there another gate? Exit? She had seen the two other cars out front, but they weren’t going that way. Could there be another parking area? Maybe a door Scarlet could access that would take her beyond the fence?
“What are they doing?” Scarlet asked, partly to herself, and partly hoping that Jim would answer her.
When he didn’t respond, she added, “Matt’s going to kill me anyway. Or you, or whoever is assigned the job. Tell me—don’t leave me curious.”
Again, silence. Definitely military, not cop. Cops would talk—not to perps, but to fellow cops. Jim must know she’d once been on the job. A cop might want to smirk. Gloat. Give her a hint. That would be Ray. He’d want her to know he was smarter, better than her, that he didn’t care what happened. Or, maybe, a fellow cop might feel guilty. Want to explain, apologize, tell her they had no other choice. Like Gabe.
She got up to stretch—she was sore, her face was swollen and her wrists ached. In fact, her entire body felt like she’d been used as a sparring dummy.
“Sit,” Jim ordered.
“I need to stretch.”
“Now.”
Jim didn’t move, but she obeyed his command. It was his tone…. He meant it. She wanted to know what was going on with the computers and staff and information they seemed to be looking for… and she wanted to know what was in those boxes and file cabinets, but she wanted to live more than she wanted information.
“What time is it?” she asked.
He didn’t answer.
Fine, be that way.
It was late morning. Maybe noon by now. Alex would have probably freaked since she didn’t call him like she said she would. Especially if he was telling the truth about being with John. And Krista would have begun to worry around ten when she didn’t show up at the office—if she got the message Scarlet left about her timetable. Yeah… she would have. Krista was good that way. Dependable.
Guilt seeped in. Scarlet hadn’t given Krista the 100% commitment she’d promised her… and re-promised not even four months ago. That she wanted to make Moreno & Hart a success, that she would start pulling her weight and take paying cases, not just work the Vartarians on the side. Or helping friends like Jason. Almost every major paying case that had been brought into Moreno & Hart during the last year had been because of Krista.
And yet… Scarlet had lied to her. Maybe she hadn’t intentionally lied, or even knowingly lied, but she knew herself well enough to know that she wasn’t going to let the ambush sit. She had for three years because she had no information… and then after Jason Jones came to her when he was in trouble, Scarlet finally began to put the pieces together. Once they proved Tony Mercer was behind the hit, that he was connected to the Vartarians through Thomas Laurens—the pervert married to Diana’s little sister—Scarlet couldn’t stay away. Because it was all connected to whoever put the hit out on her three and a half years ago.
But for the life of her, she couldn’t think about what she’d done to piss off the Vartarians or anyone affiliated with them.
She straightened her spine. Jim was watching her, so she tried to make it seem like she was working through stiffness. But the truth was she had more pieces now than she did before Ray grabbed her on the interstate. Ben Vartarian, the prosecutor, was Matt’s best friend. And Matt was here, working with the men who had kidnapped her. Just how deep did Matt’s involvement go? Was he one of the inner circle… or one of the hired guns?
I saved your life three years ago.
What the hell did that mean? She had nearly been killed. If she hadn’t had immediate medical attention—thanks to Krista—she would have died. Had they been planning to finish what they started?
Maybe… but then she’d resigned and left the force. Maybe because she was no longer a cop she was no longer a threat to the Vartarians.
She just wished she knew why she was targeted in the first place. What she’d done, what she’d seen, who she’d arrested. Scarlet had many pieces to the puzzle, but she couldn’t make them fit. She knew information, but it made no sense. She couldn’t see the entire picture. It was clear that Diana Vartarian and Armor Plus were on the wrong side of the law. According to R.J., Armor Plus took some legit security jobs, but also provided the muscle for criminal enterprises. Blackmail schemes, drug transportation, shaking down criminals who didn’t pay their protection money.
And murder-for-hire.
Diana Vartarian ran the group, but it was bigger than one bad organization. Scarlet had already identified one and possibly two judges who were corrupt. If Matt was involved, that meant their reach went even deeper into the courthouse. Not to mention the cops on their payroll. Could there also be a leak in the FBI?
Three months ago, when Scarlet had helped take down Mercer for murder, she’d met FBI agent Faye Clarke, who was running the operation. It had been a brief meeting, not even private, but Scarlet learned that there was an undercover agent inside Armor Plus. That’s why the FBI and L.A.P.D. task force had let her be grabbed back then, to lead them to Thomas Laurens, the Armor Plus guy married to Diana Vartarian’s younger sister, because they had him on other charges—like murder—and they believed they could make him flip.
Laurens was in jail awaiting trial. He wasn’t talking. He also wasn’t dead, unlike Tony Mercer. Was that because he had a familial connection to Vartarian? Or because his brother was a criminal defense lawyer? Or because he might be of use to them inside the prison system? Or if they had enough people on the inside, could they find a legal way to get him out? A judge? A prosecutor? Like Matt?
A woman burst in through the main door and immediately started searching for something. She was angry, pushing boxes and kicking file cabinets. Matt was close on her heels. The woman was yelling, but Scarlet couldn’t hear what she was saying.
She looked familiar, but Scarlet knew she’d never met her before. Long black hair, perfect olive complexion, well-dressed, expertly applied makeup…. She was a younger version of Diana Vartarian.
“Her sister,” Scarlet mumbled. Christina Vartarian. Thomas Laurens’s wife.
&
nbsp; Jim walked over to the desk and looked below. “Shit,” he said. “Move away from the window, Moreno.”
Christina looked up and locked eyes with Scarlet. She pushed Matt and started up the stairs on tall, spiked heels.
Jim locked the door. “You sure know how to make friends,” he said.
“I’ve never met her before.”
“You got her husband arrested.”
“You mean the asshole who beats up prostitutes while screwing them? I did her a favor.”
Jim almost smiled—she could see it in his eyes—but he didn’t. A second later, Christina was pounding on the door. “Open the fucking door!” she screamed. “I’m going to kill that bitch!”
“Take a number,” Scarlet muttered, but she’d grown increasingly uneasy. A psycho wife of a bad guy who blamed Scarlet because her hubby was in jail was less predictable than her former fiancé working for a criminal enterprise. Both wanted her dead, but one would at least be logical about it.
“Christina,” Scarlet heard Matt say. She didn’t hear what came after that.
“Shut up!” Christina said. “Don’t tell me what Diana wants. This is personal!”
“Go home,” Matt said clearly.
“This is a family matter. You’re not family yet.”
What did that mean? That Matt was dating someone in the family? Like who? Diana?
There was more pounding, then it stopped and Christina screamed, “Ouch! Let me go!”
“Stop fighting me.”
“You don’t understand! You don’t understand!”
“You don’t understand, Christina!” Matt shouted. “We have this under control. You need to get out of town and let me handle it.”
He said something else, calmer, and Scarlet couldn’t hear it. Then they were gone. She leaned forward, careful to stay out of the window, but needing to see what was happening. Matt had his arm around Christina’s shoulders as they left the building.
She leaned back and rubbed her temples, then winced. She looked at her fingers and saw blood. “Do you have any aspirin? Tylenol? Anything?” she asked.
Jim didn’t respond.
His cell phone rang and she jumped. He answered the phone with a gruff word, then listened.
She couldn’t let Jim, or anyone, see that she was scared. She was scared—terrified, actually. She didn’t see a way out of this. Did Richardson’s task force even suspect that Matt was involved in the Vartarians’ operation? Did John know?
If so, how could be investigate his best friend—the man who had almost been his brother-in-law—without saying a word to her?
How close were Kyle and John to arrests or was this solely a federal investigation and L.A.P.D. was taking a back seat on the task force? She didn’t want to blow their op, but at the same time, she didn’t want to die.
She was so screwed.
“Yes, boss,” Jim said and hung up. “Let’s go.”
She didn’t budge. “Where?”
“Stand up.”
She stood.
“Turn around and face the wall.”
“Why?”
“Do it.”
She complied. He grabbed her wrists and she grunted, tears springing to her eyes. Her wrists were still raw from the zip-ties, especially her right wrist.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “Don’t fight the cuffs and it won’t hurt as much.”
Was he really sorry? Because he hurt her? Or was it just something to say?
He locked the handcuffs then led her out of the office and back down the stairs. They stood at the bottom. Matt entered the warehouse carrying Scarlet’s backpack. He was annoyed, his perfect hair not-so-perfect, his tie askew. Matt whispered in Jim’s ear, then grabbed Scarlet’s arm. Jim left without a word.
“Matt,” she began.
His jaw clenched. He barely spoke. “Don’t. Talk.”
He pushed her through the first door in the row of offices beneath the room she’d been kept in. It was dark; he pressed a light switch.
The room was long and narrow. There were no doors. A single table and two chairs sat in the middle like an interrogation room. The walls were padded with some sort of thick acoustical squares—sound proofing? To muffle screams? Gun shots?
But what truly unnerved Scarlet were the blood stains on the concrete floor. Who the hell were these people? The L.A. mafia?
She might not be that far off.
Matt pushed her down into one of the chairs.
“Why?” she asked.
She didn’t need to explain what she meant.
He dropped her backpack on the floor and sat across from her. She stared him in the eye—brown eyes too pretty for a man, eyes she had once trusted. Eyes she had lost herself in during moments of passion.
They were still pretty… but hard. Bottomless. Eyes that didn’t love or hate. And she knew at that moment that she had never known Matt Hamilton, the man she’d once planned to marry.
“It was early May. You testified in an armed robbery case—I don’t remember the trial, that idiot Gomez was prosecuting. You brought me a file I’d left on the dining room table.”
She stared at him. She had no idea what he was talking about. She’d testified in hundreds of trials. It was part of being a cop. There wasn’t a month that went by that she hadn’t testified in at least one case. Gomez… he was an older prosecutor, near retirement, had been working for thirty years for the county. She’d never thought he was an idiot, just… different. He had a hard time communicating about anything other than the law and legal process. She remembered him because she’d testified for him at least a dozen times. She thought back and vaguely an armed robbery case… a couple of gangbangers holding up a jewelry store? No… it was a smoke shop that doubled as an illegal pawn shop. Maybe that was it. But the case was unremarkable.
“You called me that morning, said I’d left a file—I told you I’d pick it up at lunch. If you had just left it there…”
“All this because I was being nice?” Of course not. “What was in the file?”
“We couldn’t be certain you hadn’t opened it.”
“That makes no fucking sense, Matt.”
“Even if I could have convinced my colleagues that you hadn’t seen anything, that you hadn’t looked, there was the unfortunate situation of who I was with when you tracked me down that day and handed me the file.”
She shook her head. She didn’t remember. She barely remembered the file or seeing Matt on that random day in May over three years ago.
“I don’t remember. Any of it.” She thought back. Vaguely remembered that file, seeing it, thinking she was going to the courthouse. “Didn’t I say something like I’ll bring it and we could have lunch together?”
“Yes.”
She barely remembered but Matt sounded like this whole exchange had happened yesterday. “You were outside—I saw you—I don’t remember who you were with! Shit, Matt, you must be paranoid.”
“Not a bad trait in my business. I couldn’t count on you not knowing who he was.”
“Who was he?”
Of course he didn’t tell her.
She glared at him. “You had someone try to kill me!”
He pounded his fist on the table. “I saved you! When you survived and it was clear you didn’t know anything, I saved your life. As long as you minded your own business, you would have been fine. Then you started digging into our operation. You’re a fucking piranha. You wouldn’t let it go. When Mercer went down, that was the final straw.”
“It’s not like I killed him. That’s on your people. On you.”
“No, it’s on you, Scarlet. We needed him, and when he was compromised, the only solution was silencing him. Some people you can trust behind bars, some people you can’t.” He leaned forward. “Who’s spying on my operation?”
It wasn’t a question; he expected an answer.
“What the hell? How would I know?”
“You know. You’ve been staking out Armor Plus. You’ve b
een talking to people. Stirring the shit. You’re involved. And I know there’s a traitor inside. Who is it?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“You know. You will tell.”
She shook her head. “I’m not a cop anymore, thanks to you.”
“Tracking down that witness… that’s the final straw.”
Krista had found Riley Campbell! Yes! Scarlet wished she knew what the woman had said to her. Who she’d fingered. Why it had gotten Matt all up in arms.
“I can’t protect you any longer.”
“I never asked you to protect me.”
Matt’s face tightened, his lips pulled into a sneer.
“I suggest, Scarlet, that you tell me everything you know. It’ll be the difference between intense pain and a quick death.”
“Spare me the Hollywood theatrics.”
Matt reached out and slapped her. She fell off the chair. Even if she hadn’t been restrained, she didn’t know if she would have seen his hand coming.
She lay on the ground and didn’t make a move to get up. Matt swore under his breath. From her vantage point on the floor, she saw him reach for her backpack. She heard him dump everything on the table.
What had happened that day she handed him the folder? What had she seen that had Matt so freaked out? Freaked out to the point that he’d ordered a hit on her.
Her fiancé had tried to kill her.
“You tried to kill me, Matt.”
“I tried to stop it. I realized you hadn’t figured it out… but I was too late. But after… when you survived…” For a moment he actually looked pained. Or maybe it was just the odd angle she saw him from there on the filthy floor that made him seem remorseful. Scarlet had no sympathy for Matt. She still suffered from being shot. The pain then, the recuperation, the pain now. She’d never be pain free because of this bastard.
“Get up,” he said. “Now!”
She struggled, but managed to pull herself up into a squatting position and slowly stand. She sat back in the chair, breathing heavily, hurting and angry and wishing she could figure out how to get out of this disaster.
“You didn’t say anything,” Matt said as if he hadn’t watched her struggle for the last few minutes. “Because no one went after us, they knew you didn’t know the truth. It saved your life. You left the force, that was it. But then that damn cop Jason Jones dragged you back in.”
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