by S. R. Jones
Why I’m willing to do this, I don’t even think about. It’s second nature to me when it comes to Abi, this need to protect her. Keep her safe.
Reece is efficiently removing Nick’s body and I think he’s dead now.
“He…h.h.he tried to…he wanted to. I k-k-killed him. Is he dead? Oh, God, is he dead, Liam?” Abi’s groaning as she speaks, and I think she’s about to be sick. I shield her from the view with my body.
Her jeans are up and I fasten them. On another deep groan from her, I gently bend her over and rub her back as she empties the contents of her stomach all over the shiny, perfect floor.
“He’s still alive, but he’s not going to make it,” I tell her, somehow thinking it might soften the blow, rather than telling her he’s probably dead already.
“Call an ambulance.” She looks wildly around the room. “Where’s my phone? I’ll call an ambulance.”
“Abi.” I keep my voice firm. “He’s going to die. Nothing can be done to save him, but you can be saved. We need to clean you up. Get our story straight. We’ll tell them I did it.”
She pulls back, and for the first time I see some clarity in her gaze. “No.” The word is so final.
“Abi, you’ll go to prison if you’re convicted. The court will drag up everything. On the other hand, if I say I came in here and found him raping you, and he came at me with the knife... I think that will fly better. I’m not the beaten spouse. They might try to claim premeditation with you, that won’t be the case with me.”
“No.” She shakes her head violently. “You’re not taking the fall for me. This is on me. I married the bastard. I went back to him. I stayed for too long in the first place, and I killed him. I’m the one to face the music.” She looks around her, and she’s dazed. It’s in her eyes, the slack set of her jaw. The reality of this hasn’t sunk in yet as blessed shock protects her from the worst. It will though. I know as much.
“You know the contact we were going to meet?” Reece comes into the room, he keeps his voice low, calm. Abi’s eyes widen when she takes in his bulk, looking at him properly for the first time, and she takes a step back.
“Yeah,” I reply.
“He’s on his way here now.”
Suddenly it sinks in what he meant about calling his Russian friend. “What the fuck?” I explode, my brain catching up with what this means. More eyes on this. More people who know what went down. I don’t think about Abi, who shrinks back against the wall. I try to modulate my tone. “What the hell, Reece?”
“Does wet work, man, and he’s going to bring a crew to clear this mess up.”
I snort. “Mate. This isn’t like what happened on that rental boat. This is an important man.”
Reece shrugs. “An important man who has screwed over everyone. I doubt even his friends particularly like him, not when he did one of them out of a job and fucked the other’s wife about three months ago. Sorry, Abi.” He glances at her before carrying on. “Information we will be sure to pass on to said friend. Nick here also, as you well know, was cheating his employers, piling up a massive amount of dirty Russian money and doing it in a stupid manner. None of us are naïve enough to think he’s the first businessman to do this kind of thing, but he didn’t use his own company to do it, and he has done it so stupidly as to leave a trail a mile wide. A trail hot enough his employers caught on and called Howard in.”
“I thought you didn’t have any info on him, it was taking too long to get to the stuff he’d wiped.”
“But Abi here has the USB stick.” Reece pauses. “We were helping Howard out, our goals aligned with his. That being said, they don’t anymore. He has a leak. A big one. Furthermore, you need our help now, and my loyalty to you trumps the work I was doing for Howard. So, here’s the deal. My friend is on his way here. We can make this go away for Abi. Nick can, literally, disappear, and no one will be any the wiser he died here today. Abi gives me the stick and I take the info and give it to my Russian contact. Abi here can start a new life back in England. So long as she stays around Leeds she’ll be safe under Andrius’ protection.”
Fuck. I don’t like it. I’ve always had a keen sense of honor, and yes, I’ve twisted it in the past when loyalty to my men has been stronger, but now the only person I’m doing this for is me. “I don’t like it,” I tell him. “We’re taking evidence that Howard needs. Information to put Nick’s organized crime bosses away for years. We’re robbing the Feds of a case too, when instead I can take the fall for this. I won’t do prison time. Even if I did, I can survive it.”
Reece sighs. “Liam. You’re normally the one in charge but I’ve got to tell you, you’re being a dick.”
His words shock me because they aren’t being said in jest. “Firstly.” He holds up one thick finger. “You don’t know what Howard’s employers will do with this information when they get it. They might not give it to the Feds at all. It might be their firm isn’t quite as squeaky clean as we think in all this. You’ve no clue. Howard’s a private contractor, and yes, he’s a good man, but the worst to happen to him if we do this is he doesn’t collect a pay day on this one.”
“Two.” A second digit joins the first. “We need you. You’re the face of this company. I’ll be fine without it, I’ll just go off and climb some mountains or surf or some shit, you know me. But Ethan? He’s got a good life, and this firm is part of that. Luka too.”
“Third.” He jabs his third finger into the air. “Do you think this is going to be good for Abi? You think she needs you rotting in prison on her conscience after all she’s been through?”
I think he’s done but he’s not.
“Fourth. Andrius is honorable, and one of the things he says is that if the guys he’s working with move in, they will stop the human trafficking side of the operation that the goons Nick has been working with are majorly into.”
“Honorable?” I interrupt at that because come on. “Reece, you’ve already told me enough to let me guess he’s Russian and Bratva. And no way the mob will take over territory like New York and not have girls being brought in. You also said he kills for them, is basically a fucking mob hitman.”
“He does kill for them, yeah.” Reece nods. “But his position, his story, is complicated. I can’t say more. They aren’t going to be running girls. The Russians and the Italians were duking it out on the prostitution front, so the guys Andrius is with will leave that side of things to the mafia. So, we do this, there’ll be one less family running girls in this area. These guys do weapons mainly. Some drugs. Not the good guys, but not the levels of shitty of the guys Nick was working for.”
Reece telling me it is complicated with Andrius means there’s much more to his story than him being a killer for the Bratva. What, I’ll never know, and I won’t ask, but it makes me feel better. As does the issue about the girls. If I do this, if we do this, then a lot of young women in former Soviet republics will get to live their lives free. Reece is correct, too, about Howard’s employers. We don’t know what they’ll do with the information Howard turns in to them. Most people see the world as black and white. They see mainstream business as moral, and the mob stuff as immoral, and have no clue how often the mainstream guys dip into the shady side of things. Arms dealing for example. A lot of pensions funds are tied up in the arms trade. Selling weapons to rogue states to use against their own population.
I ponder what he’s told me and know it makes sense. Giving a nod of my head, I accept his offer. I’m grateful as fuck to him and will tell him later. When I can find the words and wrap my head around this.
“Oh, and one more thing.” Reece gives me his patented cocky grin. “He’s Ukrainian, not Russian. Don’t call him Russian.”
“Duly noted. How long until he arrives?”
Reece glances at his watch. “Any minute now.”
There’s the sound of footsteps and I raise my eyebrows at the timing, but it’s Ethan who rounds the corner.
“Fuck me, Liam. I thought I got myself into tro
uble.” He takes in the mess in the room, then his gaze lands on Abi and he bites off whatever he was going to say next.
He’s wearing black jeans, a black long sleeved t-shirt, and has a black holdall slung over his shoulder. Ethan’s the one out of all my men who I consider the deadliest. Luka has a softness to him, a vulnerable side he doesn’t show many people hidden under his hard exterior, and Reece is like some overgrown child with deadly skill. But Ethan, he’s like me. He can lock shit down and turn as cold as ice when needed. I’m relieved he’s here.
“Abi.” I turn to her and touch her arm lightly, noting the flinch. She’s as jumpy as fuck. The shock, and the dazed and confused are wearing off, to be replaced by what will become panic. “This is Ethan. He works with me.”
“Hey there, Abi.” Ethan tips an imaginary cap to her, and for the first time since I arrived her mouth tips up a fraction at the corners.
Reece brings Ethan up to speed and he’s all onboard with Reece’s plan. Thank fuck, because Ethan thinking it a good idea goes some way to alleviating my concerns. I don’t think my head is screwed on right now because I can’t seem to make a decision rationally anymore.
My phone goes, and I pull it out of my pocket and see the caller ID with a sinking feeling. “It’s Howard,” I tell them. If I don’t answer it, he’ll come here.
Ethan takes the phone from me. He knows Howard too, although not as well as me.
“Howard. My brother, how is it going?” Ethan smiles and laughs at something Howard says then he gets right down to business. “Howard. Listen, some shit’s gone down, and the case you’re building is about to go tits up. The guy you’ve been watching, Nick, he’s in some deep crap, and let us just say another crime family has taken offense at some of what he’s done. We’re at his place now, it’s why I’m here. But Liam, he got into some of this shit, too, and if it comes out, then he might be in danger. So, here’s the thing. Reece thinks he’s got it smoothed over with the other crime guys, and in doing so is protecting Liam and also Nick’s wife, but it means your employers won’t get what they paid for. We’re going to have to destroy the evidence against Nick.”
There’s a long beat of silence as Ethan listens. He nods his head, but the movement is jerky, impatient. “I get that, bro, but the fact is either way your employers aren’t getting what they want. Nick is gone. As you know, he scrubbed his computer, and even Reece here is finding it hard to retrieve the data. He got himself caught in a battle between two huge crime families, and unless you want to do the same, I suggest you walk away. Tell your employers that Nick’s missing and his apartment got trashed and the evidence is gone. Either way, they aren’t being used as a front for money laundering anymore. And listen.” Ethan turns away from me slightly and lowers his voice, but I can hear him clear as day. “If they refuse to pay you, and you’re out of pocket on this. I’ll cover you. Okay? Just…Liam needs this. We need it. We need you to walk away and let us handle this.”
More silence, and during it my throat feels all scratchy and weird. Ethan just offered to pay Howard whatever he was losing from all of this. That’s a shit ton of money, and he did it for me. It isn’t necessary, because I can front it myself if it comes to it, but I’m touched by his offer.
“Good. Yeah, I understand. Thanks, man. And get yourself and that beautiful wife of yours over to England. Come visit us. Reece even lives nearby now since he moved up from the cursed South. We can have a reunion of sorts. Bring the whole damn team.”
He hangs up and turns to me. “Howard is going to go along with it. His employers won’t be used as a front for money laundering anymore, but they won’t have evidence against Nick, and they won’t know who was pulling Nick’s strings. Howard’s not fucking happy, but he’s going to do it. I expect at some point he’ll want a favour in return.”
I try not to let fatigue turn into exhaustion as I think of the myriad of tangled webs of favours owed and counter-owed we’re all caught up in now.
Reece goes to the fridge. He pulls out a bottle of chilled vodka and hunts out some glasses. He pours four glasses, all big measures, and hands three out to us. He gives Abi one and when she starts to shake her head, smiles softly and wraps her fingers around the glass. “Drink it. You need it.”
She takes a shaky sip and as the liquid goes down closes her eyes. A moment later she empties the whole damn glass and holds it out again.
“Good girl.” Reece tops it up but with a smaller measure this time. “Sip that one, okay?”
She nods.
“So, Abi. What sort of life would you like?” Reece asks as she sits down at the work surface ignoring all the blood.
She stares at him for a moment as if he’s insane, which maybe he is. “What do you mean?”
He shrugs. “Do you like the city? Is this your dream? Or the country? Do you want to go to school?”
She gives him a perplexed look. “I don’t know. Why?”
He smiles at her, and it’s gentle. “Because, you’re about to become a very wealthy lady.”
She frowns. “I doubt it. Nick’s money was all tied up in illegal stuff it seems. His trust fund will go to his brother, and I’m fine with that. I don’t want his money.”
“Yeah,” Reece agrees. “His trust fund reverts to his brother, and his other savings and investments may or may not be legitimate. This place though.” He sweeps his arms out. “It’s worth millions, and it’s legit. We looked into it before. He wanted more of course. It’s only worth maybe four or five million, and he wants to play with the big boys in their twenty mill homes, which is why he got into this mess in the first place. But for you. You could buy a fucking castle back in England for what this place is worth. And guess what?”
He pauses dramatically and then drops a bombshell even I didn’t know. “This place is in your name. Nick did it a while ago, we figure to protect certain assets if the shady shit ever came to light. He used his trust fund to buy this apartment. It’s a very easy trail to follow, no criminal monies wrapped up in it at all, and he put it in your name solely. You signed for it, don’t you remember?”
She shakes her head. “I signed a few things. I know I should have looked more closely at what I was doing but at the time he’d hit me if I questioned him.”
“Well, in this instance it works in your favour. You’re about to become a rich lady by North Yorkshire standards.” He winks at her.
“I don’t want to,” she says softly. “I don’t want to profit from his money. He makes me sick.”
“Then sell this place and use it to do something good,” I interject. “Don’t let it go to waste or to the government. Use it for something good.”
“Like what?” she asks.
“You told me your dream was to run a riding school for sick and disabled kids.” I go to her and take her hand. It’s cold from holding the glass of vodka, or maybe from the shock. “You can do that now. It will be making something good out of a lot of bad.”
A tear falls down her cheek and she sniffs and wipes it. “It’s something to think about,” she says.
“You should take Jay with you,” I tell her.
Truth be told, I’m not sure how safe he’ll be here.
Nick going to visit him with his hired muscle might have put a target on Jay’s back, and yeah, Reece’s contact says they’re taking over this territory, but territory wars are long and bloody. Back in the North of England the Ukrainian already runs things, which means Jay would be secure there.
“He’ll be safe with you in a way he won’t be here. He can go to art school over there. Do you think he’d go?”
She is properly crying now. “I don’t know. Maybe. He hasn’t really got anyone here. No family and few friends. Where’s Boo?”
“He’s with a lady Reece knows.”
Reece knows a lot of ladies. Typical sailor. Girl in every port.
“She loves dogs, he’s in good hands.” Reece smiles.
“What are we going to do with the two fuckers in the foy
er?” Ethan asks.
He’s referring to Nick’s thugs.
“They’ve seen us, and now Nick is dead. Doesn’t bode well.”
“They’re low level muscle, bought and paid for. We simply pay them more,” Reece says.
“This is all so scary.” Abi hugs herself as she says the words. Her eyes dart to the side, to where Nick’s blood stains the floor. “I killed him.” A huge shudder wracks her, and I’m right at her side in an instant.
I tip her chin, forcing her to look up at me and away from the dark mess on the light smooth floor. “You had no choice. Abi, listen to me. You had no choice. I think he would have killed you. He’d lost it. Reece says he tore this place apart when you left.”
“I should have trusted you. Told you. I panicked. I’m so sorry.” She cries softly and I hold her head to my chest.
They’re the words I want to hear, but I’m already distancing myself from her. She’s going to be a mess. A serious mess, and she needs time to get herself together. To know what she wants from life. She can’t do that with me watching over her every move. I’ll keep her safe. I’m going to be keeping an eye on her, but she won’t know. As far as she’s concerned, she’s going to get a fresh start. It’s what she needs even if it kills me to give it to her.
Heavy footsteps sound in in the room and I turn to see a tall, immaculately dressed man eyeing the space with cool, unimpressed eyes.
“What a mess you’ve made. And you are supposed to be a professional, no?” His heavy accented words are addressed at Reece who grins.
“Andrius. How have you been?”
Chapter Sixteen
Abi
I lift my head from where I’m resting it on Liam’s chest and a small sound escapes the back of my throat. The deadliest looking man I have ever seen is standing in the center of the kitchen. He’s looking around him with his full lips tight as he takes in the scene.