The Naughty Nine: Where Danger and Passion Collide

by Nina Bruhns

  “He says he’s spoken with someone named Ian Blake. That he was your boss before you and Frankie went rogue. He says you have been conspiring with my mother to kidnap me, even though he refused to take her case when she tried to hire the company to retrieve me. Tell me it’s not true, Marisela. Please, tell me.”

  Marisela’s mouth dropped open. That son of a bitch.

  “It’s not true. I still work for Ian Blake. He’s playing a game, Jessica, I swear.”

  “Why?”

  Marisela spun around, jabbing her hands through her loose hair, pulling tight on the strands and hoping the pain would somehow kick her brain into working. What was Ian up to? What did he possibly have to gain by making Perez his ally?

  No, that wasn’t his motivation. He was destroying an ally, not building one. He was trying to put a wedge between Jessica and Marisela. But why?

  “What does your father want you to do?”

  She glanced guiltily at the phone. “He just wants to know where I am.”

  Marisela caught the thinning of Jessica’s lips, the way her hands shook. “And what will happen to me and Frankie?”

  Jessica was probably one of the strongest young women Marisela had ever met. Take away her sheltered childhood and her isolated adolescence and she would have made a great addition to las Reinas. At her heart, she was tough, though right now, the poor kid’s confidence was fluttering in the wind.

  “He didn’t say, but you know. I know. I can’t let that happen, Marisela. You saved my life. You’ve been honest with me, haven’t you? You aren’t some rogue agent trying to make a buck off me, are you?”

  Marisela reached out and laid her palm on Jessica’s arm. “No, niña, I’m not. I’ve told you the truth—all of it. Ian Blake is the one who is lying now and I suspect he’s done that so I can’t return you to your father without paying with my life. Your father is now a threat to me, not an ally, because you and I both know that even if I’m not some rogue agent, I’m still not who I convinced your father I was. Either way, I’m dead.”

  Jessica stepped back, her breathing ragged as she fought the greatest conflict the girl had probably had to face to date. If she ran home to the safety of her father, her new friends would die. If she stayed, she’d likely be returned to her mother against her will. Marisela stepped back to Frankie in the bed, where he slept fitfully. She checked his bandage. Blood was still seeping through. She touched his forehead. He was on fire.

  She wasn’t a doctor, but she knew she didn’t have much time to sort all this out.

  Luckily, Jessica sensed the dire situation and lifted the phone to her ear. “Lo siento, Papi. I can’t tell you where I am. You’ll kill them, I know you will.”

  Marisela couldn’t hear Perez’s response, but judging by the way Jessica jerked the phone away from her ear, he was furious.

  “I do love you, Papi. More than anything. You need to trust that. You need to trust me.”

  With the same effort she might have used to lift a car off the street, Jessica pulled the phone away from her ear and disconnected the call. With a quavering hand, she offered the phone to Marisela. “I don’t know how much time you have. He’ll likely have the call traced.”

  Marisela took the cell and with a burst of emotion she knew she couldn’t afford, pulled the girl into a tight and desperate embrace. “Thank you, mija. I swear, I won’t let them take you. But we have to get Frankie help.”

  Moisture seeped through the material on Marisela’s shoulder, though beyond a sniffle, Jessica contained her emotions, which helped Marisela hold herself together. But the surrender to sentimentality couldn’t last. She pushed Jessica back, her hands clutching her arms.

  “How safe do you feel in this neighborhood?”

  Jessica eyed the window, fluttering with a pillowcase tacked over the splintered frame. “I’m pretty sure some of them know who I am, or at least, know my father.”

  Marisela nodded. This could be both good and bad. “Can you go out there? Make arrangements for someone to take us to the nearest hospital?”

  Jessica’s eyes widened. “But my father will find you! You’ll be killed.”

  Rubbing her hands over the cell phone, Marisela glanced over at Frankie on the bed. “I thought Ian would get us out of this jam, but he obviously has his own agenda. Frankie will die if we don’t act. The first thing we’re going to need is a ride out of here before your father tracks us down. We’ve bartered nearly everything we have on us so we’re going to have to depend on your influence as Javier Perez’s daughter. No one knows that we’re on the run from him. You go out there, let them think that they’ll get a big reward for helping you, okay? It wouldn’t hurt to imply that not helping you might get them trouble they don’t want, too. Think you can pull it off?”

  Jessica gnawed on her bottom lip, but nodded her head at the same time. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “That’s all I can ask. You didn’t sign up for any of this, Jessica. I know you just wanted to meet your mother.”

  In a rush, Jessica grabbed for the door, turning at the last minute when Marisela had punched the first three numbers of Ian’s cell phone. “Marisela,” she said, laughing at the sound. “That suits you so much better than Dolores.”

  Marisela grinned.

  Jessica’s tentative smile melted away, replaced by a troubled frown. “Could my mother have done that? Have people shoot at us that way?”

  Marisela had gone this far being honest with the kid, she couldn’t stop now. “I don’t know, but it’s a definite possibility. That doesn’t mean it’s the truth. I don’t know what the truth is yet, but I’m going to find out.”

  As soon as Jessica left, her face a streaked and pale picture of uncertainty and betrayal, Marisela finished pressing numbers until she heard Ian Blake’s cool, collected voice on the other end of the line.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Like I’d tell you, you snake. You betrayed us to Perez.”

  “No, Marisela. I simply ensured that you returned to our original plan.”

  “If you weren’t going to meet me in the church, why didn’t you just say so? You didn’t have to send shooters after us. Frankie’s been hit, you cock-sucking son of a bitch. I swear to God, if he dies, I’m going to slice your fucking heart out with my fingernails.”

  Ian clucked his tongue into the phone, but she also heard him move so that the noise she’d initially heard in the background faded. Good. He was taking her seriously.

  “Frank is wounded?”

  “Shot in the stomach during the car chase.”

  “Is he bleeding?”

  “Yes, but I’ve slowed it down as much as I can. He needs real medical care.”

  “You know I’ll arrange the best.”

  “No, I don’t know that. If you would have kept your god-dammed mouth shut, I could have called Perez, reunited him with his daughter and played Frankie up to be the hero. We could have taken her another time.”

  “There couldn’t be another time. I need the girl, now.”

  “Well, you royally screwed up, Ian, ‘cause now, you’re not getting her. Maybe not ever. She’s terrified. As soon as I get Frankie help, I’m sending her back to her father. He’s the only one that seems to have her safety in mind. You know, if you haven’t figured it out, when bullets are fired, people die. Jessica could have been killed.”

  “I had nothing to do with those assailants. Despite my initial annoyance that you’d changed our strategy, I was at the church, with Elise, prepared to meet the daughter in the alcove. We weren’t alerted to a change in plans until Perez’s bodyguards suddenly left the building. I still don’t know who orchestrated that debacle.”

  Marisela rolled her eyes, her rage increasing with every multi-syllable word he used. “Cut the crap. You know, or you’ll know soon. I want to talk to Max.”

  The request caught him off-guard, she could tell. The truth remained that the only person she trusted in the Titan organization at this point was
Ian’s ever-present assistant. She doubted that he’d lie to her, even if Ian ordered him to.

  “Max’s been called away.”

  Had he found something on Elise? Or was he still investigating?

  “Patch me through to him, damn it.”

  “I know what Max knows, Marisela. You should understand that by now. His loyalty is to me.”

  “No, his loyalty is to Titan. There’s a difference.”

  “Semantics.”

  This argument wasn’t worth the time. She changed the subject. “If you know what Max knows, then he’s filled you in on my suspicions about Elise.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you know that so long as I suspect that ice queen of having a hand in the bloodshed that has freaked Jessica out, I’m not bringing her kid anywhere near her.”

  “You’re too emotionally involved,” Ian said, and Marisela could hear the words hissing through tightly clenched teeth. “You have a job to do. You work for Titan.”

  “And that means I leave my brain at the door? No such luck, Blake. You knew what you were getting when you signed me on. I am who I am and if working for you means leaving that behind, I fucking quit.”

  She was tempted to hang up, use that as her last parting shot, but there was so much that had yet to be said. The fact of the matter was, she couldn’t get Frankie help without Titan’s resources now that Ian had poisoned Perez’s mind against them. Even if she found an emergency room, the minute Perez located them, they’d be dead.

  “I do not accept your resignation. I want the girl. Bring her to me and I’ll see that Frank is cared for.”

  “He’s dying, damn you. You want me to trade Jessica’s life for Frankie’s?”

  “You’ve given me no choice.”

  “Fuck you. You run this operation. You have a choice.”

  “Yes, I do. I choose to win. I choose to complete the original mission and collect the payment I’m owed for services rendered.”

  “You sure Elise has the cash? Or is she just yanking your chain? You’d better make sure, Ian. I swear to God, if I find out she double-crossed us, I’ll take her out myself.”

  “You’re full of threats, Ms. Morales, but you’ve proven you’ve got a soft heart where the child is concerned. Who’s going to take you seriously now?”

  Marisela swallowed, caught in the web of her own actions. He was right, dammit. With Jessica, she’d lost her edge. She’d acted because of a moral code she hadn’t known she possessed. But she couldn’t betray the kid now, not when she’d been through so much.

  Behind her, Frankie groaned. He’d shifted on the bed, displacing his bandages. Marisela ran to the bed in time to watch the threadbare sheets saturate with blood and the last of the color drain from his skin.

  “Oh my God,” Marisela said, sliding gingerly onto the bed, tossing aside the cell phone while she struggled to press her hand against the wound and stop the bleeding. She could hear Ian Blake’s voice echoing as if far away, and she could only hope he’d stay away long enough for her to figure our how to save Frankie’s life and keep Jessica out of her mother’s clutches.

  Jessica rushed back into the room. “I’ve got someone!” She caught sight of Marisela on the bed with the moaning Frankie and she dashed toward them. “Is he all right?”

  Marisela shook her head, overwhelmed by the realization that Frankie might not live. She’d confessed that truth to Blake, but the words had meant nothing until she could feel his life slipping away. Unwilling to wipe her bloody hands on his forehead, she leaned forward and placed her cheek on his. His skin scorched her.

  “He’s dying, Jessica. And Titan won’t help unless I turn you over to them, to your mother.”

  Jessica staggered backward. “You can’t!”

  Marisela stared at the girl as if she’d never seen her before, trying with all her might to imagine that she was just some whiny, spoiled teenager with a father who was a killer and a mother who cared. Her eyes clouded, but the image simply wouldn’t come.

  She looked aside, listening as the voices beyond the door raised. Whoever Jessica had wrangled to take them to the hospital had arrived. Frankie wouldn’t survive without immediate medical attention. Time had run out.

  “I’m sorry, Jessica,” Marisela said, wrapped her fingers, sticky with Frankie’s blood, tightly around Jessica’s arm. “I can’t let him die.”

  Dirty Little Secrets: Chapter Twenty-Two

  Max cupped Marisela’s elbow as he led her into the suite in the hotel across the street from the hospital. Frankie had survived surgery, but just barely. She’d had a scant moment to whisper in his ear before Max spirited her away for an emergency meeting with her boss. Or ex-boss, depending on how things went.

  Ian Blake stood the minute she entered the room, not a wrinkle daring to mar his perfectly tailored pants. With his sable brown hair stylishly combed back and those devastating aquamarine eyes of his sparkling in unabashed triumph, he looked every inch the powerful, invulnerable mogul. But every man had a weakness and thanks to Max, Marisela now knew what Blake’s was. She’d keep his secret—for now

  “I hear Frank will make a full recovery. We’re very pleased.”

  Marisela glanced around the room. Elise Barton-Ryce stood sentry over her daughter, her French manicured nails curved over Jessica’s defeated shoulders. Elise wore a tiny, polite smile, but her eyes remained cold as ice. Jessica, on the other hand, didn’t bother to look up—or else, couldn’t bear to. She stared into her palms cradled in her lap, broken and sad.

  “Looks to me like no one around here gives a damn about anyone but themselves. Why is she still here?” Marisela said, nodding toward Jessica. “Aren’t you playing with fire keeping her in the country so long? Her father is going to tear Puerto Rico apart looking for her.”

  Elise chuckled haughtily. “As far as he knows, Jessica has already arrived in Boston and is settling into a bedroom on my heavily guarded estate.” She turned her gaze worshipfully at Ian, but the man didn’t seem to notice. “Mr. Blake has Javier eating out of the palm of his hand. He’ll never find Jessica.”

  “You better hope he doesn’t,” Marisela challenged. “If he finds her with you, he’ll kill you. And no amount of begging from her will save you this rime.”

  The this time caught her attention.

  She tightened her hold on Jessica’s shoulder so that the kid winced. “Javier wouldn’t dare murder the mother of his child.”

  Marisela hooked her thumbs in the loops on her jeans, the same jeans that were stained with Frankie’s blood. “You’ve been counting on that, haven’t you? For a long time, you’ve based everything you’ve done, everything you’ve said on the confidence that no matter how far you went, Javier wouldn’t order your death. Well, I think your ‘get out of assassination free’ card has expired, lady. I’m betting your daughter will agree.”

  If Jessica could have dipped her face lower, she would have.

  Elise glanced down at her, trying not to look worried—and failing miserably.

  Marisela afforded a half-grin.

  “That is of no consequence,” Ian said. “In a few minutes, Jessica and her mother will leave for the mainland and I don’t think we’ll have any trouble hiding her until she turns eighteen. At that point, she’ll have her own decisions to make.”

  Jessica’s gaze rose slowly. She locked stares with Ian, but almost instantaneously looked away. She spared her mother a cursory glance, but remained silent. Brave and resilient, Jessica would muddle through. For a few months, until her birthday. Marisela had to believe that Jessica could handle the heartbreak.

  “Why am I here?” Marisela asked.

  Elise’s upper lip curled into a snarl. “Jessica insisted. She refused to leave until she knew your associate survived his injuries and she’d had a chance to talk to you.”

  Marisela quirked an eyebrow. Jessica could be headstrong and persuasive, but she didn’t have the finesse to have altered Ian’s plans. She glanced over her shoulder
and caught the slight upturn of Max’s mouth. He’d done this. Arranged the delay. He’d likely conspired with Jessica, too.

  “So talk, kid.”

  Marisela caught the glimmer of energy in the young girl’s eyes the minute she stood and put a few paces between her and her mother.

  “I wanted to thank you.”

  “Thank me for what? For exposing you to your viper of a mother?”

  “For exposing my mother to be a viper,” Jessica retorted. “Did you get what you needed?”

  Marisela dug into her pocket and retrieved the wad of papers Max had handed her shortly before they’d left the hospital.

  “Just a few minutes ago. I’m glad you convinced everyone to wait around.”

  “You’re not the only resourceful sucia around here, mi amiga,” Jessica said with a grin.

  Elise barged forward, positioning herself between Marisela and Jessica, her daughter at her back. “What are you talking about? I didn’t come here to be insulted! And don’t speak that horrible language. I don’t understand.”

  “What a shame,” Marisela said, feigning sincerity. “I’ve got a long list of names for you, lady. Some in Spanish, too, and they defy translation. But we’ll start with your native tongue. How about trying on liar for size?”

  Marisela unfolded the paper so Elise could see the legalese streaming across the page. Her eyes widened, but when she moved to snatch the codicil from Russell Barron’s will out of her hands, Marisela easily yanked the document away.

  “Have you seen this yet, Ian?” Marisela asked.

  Ian had turned and was staring Max down.

  “There wasn’t time, sir,” Max explained simply.

  “No, Ms. Morales, I haven’t had the pleasure.”

  She turned and walked over to him, her hips in full swing, her confidence spiking and her energy revitalized. That Ian had allowed Max to pursue her request for more information on the financial background of Elise Barton-Ryce earned him some credit. Apparently, he did have a modicum of trust in her instincts, even when all she’d had to go on was a flippant comment from a bitter ex-lover. And yet, he’d still done the one thing she’d warned him early on not to do—he’d toyed with her emotions. He’d pitted her loyalty to Frankie against success on a case. He’d forced her to betray an essentially fragile young woman.