Taking Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy Book 1)

by Wild, Nikki

  I held up my hand, signaling for him to stop talking. He frowned and opened his mouth to speak again, but I gestured more firmly this time, settling my gaze on the floor as I listened hard to the silent, empty house.

  It wasn’t so silent anymore. There were footsteps downstairs, heavy and deliberate. I closed my eyes and focused, trying to ascertain how many there were.

  Two… three… four… five…

  There were five men downstairs. I was sure of it. I finally looked back up at Nathan and whispered:

  “Were you expecting any company?”

  He shook his head, flattening his lips into a thin, grim line as I stood and slipped my sidearm out of its holster.

  “I didn’t call for backup,” I told him.

  Then, holding up my hand again to signal Nathan to wait, I readied myself for the worst and approached the study doors.

  I listened carefully. I could hear them talking on the first floor. They all seemed to still be centered in the atrium. I wet my lips, surrendering to the pulse of adrenaline coursing through my veins.

  I hadn’t come here prepared for a fight. Not a firefight, anyway. But that was the thing about being a cop: whether you knew it or not, your life was always on the line.

  Stay, I mouthed to Nathan, hoping to get my point across. I couldn’t have him in the crossfire. If things went south, then it was best he was out of harm’s way. I might need a clear shot.

  He sipped his whiskey like the sounds downstairs were nothing, but I could see his hand was shaking. His emerald eyes stayed trained on me as I quietly opened the door and slipped out into the hall.

  Outside of the study, I could hear their voices much more clearly. They weren’t being subtle in the least. Were they hoping to flush Nathan out?

  If so, that probably meant they’d come prepared to subdue him. I hoped to God that they hadn’t considered the possibility that Nathan owned a gun.

  There was a lilting brogue that might have been charming under any other circumstances coming from the stairs. “Oi, make sure you get the rugs and the drapes. Don’t leave any room untouched.” I took that to mean he was the leader, and most likely the one I should be speaking with.

  Nathan’s mansion wasn’t exactly easy to get to. Though it was still within the city limits, it toed the line. It’d take backup ten, fifteen minutes to get out here in full force. I didn’t have that kind of time. I’d have to negotiate.

  I stopped at the end of the hall leading to the rail. Through it, I could see the man on the stairs. He was wearing a black t-shirt and jeans with a pair of scuffed-up work boots, but I didn’t see any weapons on him.

  As I surveyed the rest of his crew, I didn’t spot any on them, either. That was good. That meant that these were just thugs hired to beat a little sense into Nathan.

  Or, judging by the gas cans they were carrying, burn down his house.

  Maybe both.

  I came around the corner fast, gun drawn, and aimed at the one on the stairs, their blue-eyed leader with a pathetically stereotypical Celtic band tattooed on his bicep.

  “Police,” I said, breathing evenly to steady my gun. It was easy to let nerves and adrenaline get the better of you, no matter how experienced you were. “Drop the gas. Now.”

  The other four paused, glancing at their ringleader, who regarded me with one of the coldest stares I’d ever suffered. Then he shrugged his massive shoulders and set the can down on the stair beside him, holding up his hands, his palms facing out.

  “We don’t want any trouble, miss,” he said, his voice low and gravelly and filled with dark promises. Despite his hulking frame, there was something distinctly serpentine about him. “Just came to have a little chat with Mr. Hale, is all.” He looked past me and down the hall. “Is he in?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I’m Detective Williams,” I replied. I wasn’t about to give up any more information than I had to. “And you’re trespassing on private property.”

  “Well, I’m Francis O’Rourke, and the garden door was wide open,” he insisted, those glacial eyes sending icicles straight into my core. “Figured we’d come in and see if our friend was about. Ask him. He’ll tell you.”

  There was no way I was bringing Nathan out here. We’d be swarmed in seconds. A cool bead of sweat raced down my spine. I was glad that I was sweating in places this guy couldn’t see. I didn’t want him to think I was nervous.

  But somehow, I got the impression that he already knew. I felt like he could smell it on me, like his crooked grin mocked the blood rushing in my ears. This was a bad situation. There was no denying that. But there was also no reason to add any fuel to the fire.

  So to speak.

  “I know who you are,” I said, keeping an even tone. “You’re Peter Wallace’s men. And I doubt, given Mr. Hale’s sizable estate, that you’re carrying those gas cans in here to help ease the burden of his fuel costs.”

  Not a single one of them uttered a word. I had their attention, though. That had to count for something. There was no way these guys were going to let me arrest them without a fight, and I wasn’t ready to die protecting Nathan’s pompous ass. Rules be damned.

  I continued: “I’m giving you a chance to walk away. Get out of here and don’t come back. Tell whoever Wallace’s right hand man is to back off, or…”

  “Or what?” O’Rourke sneered, eyeing me defiantly. “You’ve got no backup, girl. You’re all alone here with me and my boys. Sure, you might be able to take out a few of us, but not all. I’m willing to bet that you miss at least once, and that’s all it’ll take.”

  “And then you’ll go away for killing a cop. You know what they do to cop killers on the inside?”

  He smirked and glanced down at the gas can near his feet. “Nothing, Detective. Not a damn thing if they never find the body.”

  I clenched my jaw. This was not going well. “You’re threatening me? I’m giving you fair warning. Leave now, before things get ugly.”

  “And I’ll say it again,” he replied, taking one step up toward me. “Or what?”

  “Or,” Nathan said, coming out behind me with his drink still in his hand, “she’ll shoot that gas can at your feet and ruin your whole day.”

  That seemed to give O’Rourke pause. I could practically hear the gears turning in his head as he glanced down at the can.

  “You’re bluffing,” he said.

  Nathan shrugged. “All it takes is a spark, and you’ve already soaked half the first floor. I’m willing to bet that from this angle, the shot will knock the can backward down the staircase, torching every single one of you before you can even think to run.”

  “Of course, there’s always the possibility she doesn’t hit it on her first shot,” he continued, and for a moment, my guts twisted. What the hell was he doing? But he shot me a sideways glance and smiled, and I kept my mouth shut. “And hey, maybe the can won’t explode, but that gun she’s holding is a standard issue Sig P220 full of .45 ACP. Ten in the magazine, one in the chamber, and she’s got the high ground. Do you have any idea how big of a hole that will leave at this range?”

  He swaggered to my side, taking a long draught from the tumbler and licking his lips before again regarding the thug, almost like he’d forgotten about him.

  “How much ground do you think you can cover before she unloads her clip? Your friends down there might get away, if they run, but I’ll take great pleasure in knowing that you most certainly won’t.”

  O’Rourke didn’t answer. Behind him, his groupies shifted uneasily. No one took their eyes off me, but I could tell that some silent exchange was going on between them. I hoped that none of them could tell I had no idea whether or not Nathan’s little plan was going to work.

  I could hit the gas can, sure. But could I make it blow? That seemed like something straight out of an action movie. I preferred to keep the business end of my gun pointed right where it belonged: center mass on the Irish asshole with the big mouth.

  Standing next to me, Nathan
seemed so calm. I could feel his stoicism, his self-assuredness radiating from his body. I gripped my weapon tighter and nodded in agreement.

  “So, what’ll it be?” I asked him with far more certainty than I actually felt. “You boys wanna do this the easy way, or the hard way?”

  I didn’t have to wait long for an answer. O’Rourke’s face pulled taut in cold, hard rage, and then he turned and descended the stairs, his men following soon after. My eyes found themselves firmly planted on the oversized handgun tucked into the back of his waistband.

  “Leave the gas cans,” I instructed, finally tearing my eyes away from them to look up into Nathan’s face.

  He waited until they’d shut the door to look down at me. Then he produced the faintest of smiles.

  I holstered my gun, leaving the thumb-strap open in case we were in for any more visitors. “Thanks,” I said, though it pained me to do so. Maybe Nathan was a bit braver than I’d given him credit for. “You really think a bullet would set the gas off?”

  “No,” he answered, downing the rest of his whiskey in one harsh gulp. “I don’t. And I’m pretty sure the boys downstairs would have riddled us with holes before you took down more than two of them.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I replied, a shiver passing through me. He was right, of course. I only had a clean shot on two of them, at best. Even if we ducked back into Nathan’s office, they could have lit the house and left us to smolder…

  “So if I couldn’t stop them, why did they back down?” I asked.

  “Because they know where I live, and they were just here to scare me. I think it might be time to talk about that safe house, detective,” Nathan replied, his smile growing. “I suddenly have a burning desire to put this place on the market.”

  Chapter 2

  “So, it’s worse than we thought.”

  I stood in front of Captain Pierce, looking down at his wizened face as he leaned back in his chair. His fingers touched his lips, drumming softly the way they did when he was thinking hard about something. His bright eyes narrowed as he stared off into nothingness like an oracle searching the aether for answers. When his faraway look receded, he turned his attention back on me.

  “I made a mistake sending you without backup, Williams. If something had happened to you today, it would’ve been my fault. I would’ve had to live with it. It was a bad call. It won’t happen again.”

  I straightened. That was the closest thing I’d get to an apology, and I was happy to take it. Captain Benjamin Pierce wasn’t exactly renowned for his overabundance of sentiment, and given how he felt about me, a female cop doing what he felt to be a man’s job, it was more than I had expected.

  He stood up from his chair and walked to his office window, lowering one of the horizontal blinds that made mincemeat of the sunlight streaming in. The department had a great view of the city from here and overlooked the distant bay. I got the feeling that he was silently wishing this case away so he could be out in his fishing boat hauling in a marlin or two.

  “Look… I want you to keep what happened out there quiet for now. No reports. It’s possible those men stopping by our playboy’s mansion wasn’t a coincidence. Someone might be feeding them information from the inside, letting them know who we’re talking to as we build the case.”

  “You think we have a rat?” I asked, my voice low.

  “I think we have reason to be careful,” Captain Pierce replied, shifting his gaze back to me. “I spoke with Mr. Hale,” he began. “He said you handled the incident well, despite your obvious disadvantage. I know there wasn’t much you could do, given the circumstances.”

  Obvious disadvantage? The words burned in my mind.

  “Yes, sir,” I answered, though I didn’t particularly agree. I couldn’t help but feel like I’d fallen short in my efforts to protect Nathan, especially since he’d had to step in and convince those goons I was serious. In all my time on the force, I’d never fired my gun on duty. This time, I was a breath away from pulling the trigger. I felt like a rookie on her first day, and worst of all, I had no doubt that was how the other officers and detectives would choose to see me. I wanted to be angry at Nathan, but I could only be mad at myself. This was my failure, and I needed to own it and not let it shake me up for round two.

  Captain Pierce must have read my expression, because he sighed, ran a hand through his white hair, and turned to face me.

  “Sandra,” he said, “everybody has something go wrong at some point. Today, you had to let Wallace’s boys walk free to save yourself and the witness. Nobody got hurt, his property is still intact, and you not only convinced Mr. Hale to testify, but to move to the safe house he was so adamantly against last time I sent a uni out there to talk to his spoiled ass. I know it’s not a perfect score, but I think you can count this one as a win.”

  I nodded and forced a smile. “Yes, sir.”

  He mirrored my expression. “Good. Now, let’s talk about where we go from here.” He put his hands on his hips on either side of his pot belly. “Mr. Hale will be transferred to a secure location on the other side of town. It’s nothing fancy, just some apartment complex near the tracks, but it’s the last place anyone will look for him.”

  “The Peachtree Overlook?” I asked, raising a brow. Captain Pierce nodded, and I stifled a laugh. “Oh, yeah. He’ll just love that.”

  I couldn’t imagine Nathan Hale, a man accustomed to living in the lap of luxury, reacting to the Peachtree Overlook with anything short of disgust and horror. Those apartments weren’t exactly the worst the city had to offer, but they were far from the best. Located just a stone’s throw from the railroad tracks, they had a layer of grime and soot embedded into the exterior, and from what I’d heard, the inside wasn’t much better.

  “A rich boy living in the Peachtree Overlook,” I mused, shaking my head. “I almost wish I could see it.”

  “I’m glad you said that, because you will see it,” Captain Pierce answered. “You’re still on the case, detective. In fact, you’ve been assigned to him full-time until the trial.”

  I felt all the blood rush from my face. My lip trembled for a moment, disbelief slackening my jaw as I tried to process what he’d just said.

  “Wait—full-time? Meaning…”

  “Meaning you’ll be sitting on Mr. Hale until the start of the trial,” Captain Pierce finished, sitting down again behind his desk. “The paperwork’s already been filed. You’ll be undercover, of course, posing as Mr. Hale’s girlfriend, Candy Love.”

  I shot him an “are-you-serious?” look. I couldn’t help it—Candy? Really? Like some kind of stripper?

  The captain waved his hand dismissively, as if that detail didn’t matter. “It’s just for a week, detective. And you won’t be the only cop there. We’ve arranged for undercover officers to be present on each floor. If you need something, just holler, Candy.”

  I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. The captain made it sound like I was staying in a guest room at some quaint little bed and breakfast. “Just holler” was more likely to mean “if we hear gunshots, we’ll come running.” I didn’t need him to candy-coat this for me.

  I also couldn’t figure out if I was being punished or rewarded. An undercover operation was a serious undertaking, but a week with Nathaniel Hale was an even more arduous one. Why me? Why not someone with a little more experience who hadn’t let five criminals walk free just a few hours ago?

  “Sir,” I began, measuring my words carefully. “I’m… not clear on why you need me for this. I’m a first-year detective. I’m sure there are more appropriate choices…”

  “Not on this one,” he quickly answered, folding his hands on his desk. “This is a big deal. Nathan Hale’s testimony is going to put away a sex trafficker, murderer, and illegal arms dealer. We’re talking about unraveling the whole organization. With Wallace gone, the rest of the Paddies will crumble. That’s a feat even the FBI hasn’t been able to accomplish. It’ll look good for the depar
tment...”

  There was an implication there, a subtle reminder that cops who did things to bolster the department’s reputation were always rewarded. Doing this might mean a chance at respect, but could I respect myself for dancing to this man’s tune by shacking up with some yuppie billionaire and calling myself Candy?

  But he was right about the Paddies—the gang Wallace headed up with ties to the Irish mob. They had to go, and if this would oust them from the city once and for all, maybe it really was a small sacrifice.

  “I get the point, sir. But I don’t know if it’ll be that easy. One of those men who came to Hale’s mansion—he called himself Francis O’Rourke—there was something about him. An air of authority? I think he might have been higher up the food chain than the others. Even with Wallace out of the picture, the Paddies might be able to hold their ground if that man’s been groomed to take over.”

  Captain Pierce nodded grimly. “I’ll see if the FBI is willing to let us in on who some of the other major players are. In the meantime, get your things in order and meet me back here in an hour. I want you two moved into the Peachtree Overlook by this evening. The sooner, the better,” he added.

  I shook my head. “I still don’t understand why you’ve chosen me, sir.”

  The captain sighed. He looked weary. “Do you really want to know?”

  I nodded. “Yes, sir. Absolutely.”

  I’d been hoping for some speech where Captain Pierce admitted how much the department needed me, how I was an invaluable member of the force, and how handing me this responsibility was just the first step in showing the rest of the boys how capable I really was.

  Instead, Captain Pierce spread his hands helplessly. “Mr. Hale wouldn’t agree to our terms any other way. He requested you, personally.”

  My heart sunk. Once again, I was Nathan’s pawn and plaything, a bargaining chip to ensure he would get what he wanted. I wasn’t a valued member of the team—I was a sacrificial lamb.