And to top it all off, he’d called her a friend.
A friend.
Coupled with work concerns, it was enough to leave her on the verge of insanity.
Roman. Zoey. Val. Knox Jefferson. Reggie King. Streetlight footage. The Blacks. Too many voices had taken up residence in her head. She couldn’t think one straight thought. Something needed to be purged. Fast.
Why had the footage on the night of the Blacks murder been tampered with? And by who? What would change once she got a clearer image of the tattoo on the back of the murderer’s neck?
Angie feared it wouldn’t change anything. Even with a clean shot of the tattoo, what were the odds of her being able to match it to an actual human being? A murderer. A man who--if he had any sense at all--was probably in Antarctica by now.
A breath of frustration pushed through her lips at the thought, but she couldn’t turn it off. Her brain continued to spin.
Why had it taken Jessica Borgia so long to find that footage in the first place? Footage that, in her own words, was buried a little deeper than it should have been? How many hands had it touched before it landed in Angie’s?
Too many.
An endless array of questions, and zero answers. Angie hated the questions, and lived for the answers. She was sure the answers were the only thing in the world capable of turning her on more than the Adonis sleeping next to her.
She couldn’t go on like this much longer, or she’d lose her mind.
Something had to go.
She had no control over the streetlight footage. There was nothing she could do to push Zoey’s case forward without the images from Kinkos, so solving the Blacks’ death was completely out of her hands at the moment. She regretted telling Val that she was looking into the case, at all. Every day she lived in fear of Val telling Zoey. Of receiving a phone call from her best friend begging for answers that Angie didn’t have. At least, not yet.
She thought of Reggie King, and a chill went up her spine. Something about him had never sat right with her, and that feeling was only amplified after their bizarre exchange on Chambers St. She mourned the loss of his business—his money--but she’d have to accept that it was out of her hands.
Knox Jefferson, however, was not out of her hands. She knew where he lived, she knew what he looked like, and most importantly, she knew that he was taking up space in her head that she simply didn’t have the luxury of renting out. He had to go.
As she looked down at the sleeping angel who’s breath was still warm on her cheek—breath that just a few hours before had given her pussy a much needed beating—she realized she wouldn’t stop until the pain she’d seen in his eyes the night before was justified. She’d laid with him, and helped him forget, but she wasn’t arrogant enough to believe that her pussy had the power to close his wounds. It would help him forget, for the night. Ease the hurt for a little while. But she had no doubt he would open his eyes with a heavy heart.
She wasn’t going to let Roman get hurt for nothing. Even if it meant going back to Knox Jefferson’s’ house, and finding out what the hell was going on that any man—any person—could hurt the kind creature sleeping next to her right now.
As gingerly as she could, Angie climbed out of bed, making sure she hadn’t woken Roman before getting dressed.
***
She’d just come to talk to him, level with him, maybe even get him to feel guilty about the cold way he’d treated his son the day before. That had been Angie’s only plan, just to sit and speak with Knox Jefferson, get inside his head, figure out his weaknesses, and find some way to exploit them in her favor.
In Roman’s favor.
It was one of the coldest winter days New York and New Jersey had ever seen, so on her way out of his apartment, she’d swiped Roman’s keys and borrowed his black Bentley Mulsanne to make the drive out to Knox’s home in Jersey. White leather interior with wood veneer accents, hand finished stainless steel, and glass switches everywhere, Angie was positive this was the most beautiful car she’d ever have the pleasure of borrowing.
She hoped when Roman woke up, and found his $300,000 vehicle gone, that the first word in his mind would also be “borrow”, and not “grand theft auto.”
She’d only planned on being gone for a few hours, convinced that Roman would still be fast asleep by the time she got back.
Angie now had a feeling this would be a longer visit than anticipated.
She’d been parked outside of Knox Jefferson’s house for two hours, heat blasting in the parked Bentley, which she had tucked away a few blocks down the road.
She watched as Knox and two burly movers lugged all of his belongings into a massive U-Haul truck that was parked outside of Knox’s home. Nothing was boxed. Nothing was wrapped. Not a strip of scotch tape in sight.
This was a last minute move.
Very last minute.
She thought she’d imagined the strange look in his eyes the moment Knox had laid eyes on Roman the day before.
She hadn’t.
She’d seen fear in his eyes. It had, apparently, been a fear so powerful that it had driven him to pack all of his shit into the back of a moving truck a day later.
She squinted shrewdly at the bizarre sight she was witnessing.
Quickly, the last of Knox’s belongings was shoved into the truck. He locked it down and hopped into the drivers seat, pulling away from the curb with a screech.
Angie waited until the U-Haul was two blocks down the road before she started the ignition.
“Just where the hell are you going, Knox Jefferson?” she asked, putting the car in drive and following closely behind.
Yep, it was definitely going to be a long afternoon.
***
Half an hour later, Angie watched from a distance as Knox pulled the U-Haul into the driveway of a massive estate that she recognized on sight. It was a house that had been featured in many Home and Life type magazines, not just for it’s classic beauty and architecture, but also for the man that it belonged to.
This house belonged to the Governor of New Jersey, and as she pulled out her binoculars to get a better look at Knox Jefferson hurrying up to the front door with a frantic look on his face, it bewildered her what the hell he was doing here.
Seeing Roman on his doorstep had spooked Knox enough to pack up everything he owned and leave. And now he’d parked his runaway U-Haul right outside the home of the single most important man in the city.
“What the hell is going on?” she asked herself, frowning deeply into her binoculars.
She was parked a comfortable distance away, so she had to turn the magnification of her binoculars up to full volume. They blurred for a moment, and then cleared, just in time to give her a perfect view of Knox banging on the front door of the home.
The door opened in seconds, as if someone had been waiting for him. The person who’d opened the door was, irritatingly, out of view.
Angie waited for Knox to go inside the house, or even exchange words with whoever had answered the door, but instead he took hold of an envelope that the person held out to him, turned away, and began making his way down the driveway.
Not a single word had been exchanged. Knox had, literally, knocked on the door, taken the envelope, and bounced.
“What the absolute fuck?” Angie was now in complete shock.
She knew a bad feeling in her gut when she felt it, she knew a rat when she smelled it, and she damn sure knew a shady exchange of money when she saw it.
She was from Harlem, after all.
As Knox hurried back to the truck, started it, and began moving down the road, she started Roman’s car and followed him, dialing Jessica’s number as she drove.
“This is Borgia.”
“Jess, it’s Ang. I need you to look into someone.”
“You’re not serious.”
“His name is Knox Jefferson.”
“You are absolutely fucking unbelievable,” Jessica groaned.
As Angie c
ontinued to trail the U-Haul, she was forced to switch off the heat that she’d been blasting all morning. She was no longer cold. Her thundering heart was now doing a beautiful job of warming her up.
“It’s the last favor I’ll ever ask of you, I swear.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, who the fuck are you talking to?” A long pause followed. “What the hell is it now?”
Angie turned onto highway 87. Her family had pulled onto this very highway many times during family vacations when she was a kid. Too many times to count.
This son of a bitch was headed to Canada.
Angie clutched the wheel. “I need you to look into a man named Knox Jefferson. He’s a former lieutenant with the NJPD, and something is off with him. And I mean all the way off.”
“Fine.”
Jessica hung up, as she often did, before Angie could respond.
It was a good thing, because Angie’s mind had already moved to other things.
Whatever “bad feeling” Angie originally had about Knox was turning out to be ten times more serious than she ever could have imagined.
The Governor was involved, for gods sake! It was the kind of traffic she didn’t like to play in—not with people this powerful.
But the seed of curiosity had been planted. There was nothing she could do to stop it from blooming, a slave to the beast inside of her that lived for answers. If she wanted those answers, she knew she had to play it smart.
So she followed Knox. For over an hour she followed, waited him out. Thankfully, he stopped for gas somewhere around Poughkeepsie, and she waited for him to make his way into the station before pushing a pair of sunglasses over her eyes and hiding her curls in a bun.
She pulled up next to the U-Haul as she fingered a GPS device out of her purse. She always kept at least one on her at all times.
Hopping out of the Bentley, she circled around to the U-Haul and bent down, depositing the GPS tracker securely to the bottom of the truck.
In the safety of Manhattan, the city she knew so well, she was usually able to accomplish this in under a minute, but the severity of the situation at hand was causing her fingers to tremble, making the job more difficult than it needed to be. She finished the job and hopped up just as Knox’ Jefferson began making his way out of the store, frowning down at something on his cellphone screen, oblivious to the world around him.
Angie leapt into the Bentley in record time, tires screeching as she tore out of the lot, and made her way back toward Manhattan.
Once she was a few minutes away from Roman’s loft, he called her.
“I was sure you’d be out cold for the rest of the day,” Angie answered, struggling to drive with just one hand. It had been a while since she’d operated a motor vehicle. She’d spent the better part of the afternoon praying that she didn’t crash it.
His voice sounded sleepy, but was still smooth like butter. “You snuck out on me again. I’m beginning to develop a complex.”
Angie opened her mouth to speak. “Uh…”
“Did you steal my car?”
“Uh…” She was relieved to hear the smile in his voice. “I prefer the term borrowed, but yes… I’m in your amazing car right now. Is there anything this son of a bitch can’t do? If I find out it can make me an espresso, I might just marry it.”
“Do you even have a driver’s license?”
“I’m not sure I appreciate all these invasive questions, Romanovsky.”
“Blowjobs, lingerie, grand theft auto. You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”
“You have no idea.”
“And just how long do you plan on being in possession of the car you…” He paused for effect. “Borrowed.”
“You’re lucky that this car is worth more than my life, otherwise I might have trailed this guy all the way to Canada.”
“You’re trailing someone in my car?”
“Not anymore. Don’t have a heart attack. I promise your baby is safe.”
“Are you?”
“I was talking about your car.” Angie couldn’t help but smile.
“Just get your sexy ass back over here.”
“I really was in the middle of a work lead. I would have never taken your Bentley otherwise.”
“Always thinking. Always working.”
“I promise I’ll take care of it.”
“Take care of you.”
Her heart fluttered. “I’ll be back a.s.a.p. Gotta go.”
“Good. I’ve got a lot of disgusting things planned for you tonight.”
Long after they’d hung up the phone, the butterflies still intensified in Angie’s gut with each passing second. She couldn’t tell if the sensation of her stomach turning inside out was because of Roman, Knox Jefferson, or some insane combination of the two.
She just knew she wanted more of it.
9
Val cuddled his head into Zoey’s bare belly. They were finally closing in on the end of the first trimester, and he spent every waking second with his ear on her stomach.
Especially tonight.
The first hint of a bump had caught his attention in the kitchen, while they’d been in the middle of making a pot of spaghetti for dinner. Upon seeing it, he’d rushed her into the living room and forced her to lay down on the couch, apparently now in too delicate a condition to manage a ladle and pot of spaghetti.
He knelt on the floor next to the couch, cheek in her stomach, watching her bare toes wiggle as he spoke softly to the baby bump, told it his darkest secrets, asked questions that, for now, would have to go unanswered. He ran the tips of his fingers up and down her body as he did.
“Val…” Zoey protested, rolling her eyes as he cuddled his cheek into her bump. “I want you to remember how much you love this moment. Store it in the back of your mind, how beautiful you find me right now, because I’m about to blow up like a Goodyear blimp, and I don’t ever want to hear a word of complaint from you about it.”
Val turned his head, pressing his other cheek into her tiny belly so he could meet her eyes. “It doesn’t matter what size you are, baby. You will always be the most beautiful woman in the world to me. I’ve loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you, and I will love you for the rest of my life.”
“Even when I’m four hundred pounds?”
“When, or if?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, Zoey, I would love you even if you were four hundred pounds, even then. More than ever. More cushion for the pushin’.”
“You’re a terrible liar.” She snatched the remote up from the couch and began flipping absently through the channels.
“Do you think he’ll like me?”
Her eyes went back to Val, mouth dropping at the question. It was so innocent, so unsure, so unlike the man she’d fallen in love with. Her hand immediately went to his hair, engagement ring shining up at her. It was the first hint of blind insecurity she’d ever seen in Val’s eyes, and it warmed her heart to the core.
“No, she won’t like you,” she said. They’d agreed they didn’t want to know the sex of the baby, and the small war they’d waged over whether it would be a boy or a girl reared it’s head every now and again, usually in very passive aggressive ways. “She won’t like you, she’ll love you. Of course she will. I’m obviously going to be the crazy one, so she’ll look to me for the entertainment, the girly things, the fun… but you? She’ll be looking to you for your strength. Your heart. Your brilliant mind. She won’t just love you, she’ll need you beyond measure. More than anyone in the world will ever need you, again. And she’ll be lucky to have a father like you to turn to.”
He closed his eyes, holding her stomach on either side. Like it often had in the last few weeks, Val’s mind rocketed back to Angie Colt. The day she’d stood in his foyer and told him she had a lead on Zoey’s case. It had struck the fear of god in his heart. That fear had remained, never fading, but instead growing into what was an insurmountable giant taking over his heart, his gut, and
his mind. His stomach went sick the moment he thought of Angie digging her heels into a past that Val thought he’d left behind him.
It was a past that could destroy everything. If it ever came to light, he would lose everything.
His business.
His fiancé.
The love of his life, the one he’d yet to meet, who was still growing under the brown skin he was currently pressing his cheek into.
His eyebrows tightened, and he tried to erase the worry from his mind, his heart.
He couldn’t.
Thankfully, like it always did, the sound of Zoey’s voice brought him back to the present. It cleared the darkness in his heart the moment it hit his ears. It made him forget the world outside, and remember the love he still had inside.
At least for the moment.
“Baby?” Zoey was sure he’d fallen asleep. “Are we ever going to eat? I’m starving. Or maybe she’s starving.” She laughed, covering Val’s hand where it still lay on her stomach.
“Just one more minute,” he whispered.
“She’s not going to kick, if that’s what you’re waiting for. It’s too soon.”
Val shook his head, eyes still closed. “I just want him to hear my voice. I want him to know I’m here. That I always will be. No matter what.”
When he opened his eyes and met hers, Zoey melted.
“No matter what, Zo.”
“She already knows that,” she said. “And so do I.”
Val’s eyes fluttered closed once more. He tried to take a deep breath, but couldn’t.
He knew he had to find a way to stop Angie Colt.
Before it was too late.
***
The next day, the wheels of Jessica’ Borgia’s pick-up truck disagreed with the gravel road as she pulled it to a stop next to Angie, who was currently leaning on a flawless black Bentley. Her eyeglasses hung by a breath from the tip of her nose, lanky arms crossed. The Hudson River gleamed behind her, reflecting light from the skyscrapers of Manhattan like dozens of bright, bouncing strobes.
Claiming Roman Page 14