Sin With Me (With Me Series Book 2)

by Lacey Silks

  “You drive.” He threw the keys at me and then shrugged. “I had a drink as well.”

  By the time I turned on the ignition, Brook already had the holster around him, concealed by a leather jacket. For the first minute or so we drove to Kate’s precinct in silence. My brother lit another cigarette and opened the car window. I hated the smell of smoke and he knew it. This only meant that whatever was bothering him was serious.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “I don’t know. She’s driving me crazy.”

  “It’d help if I knew who she was.”

  “You know exactly who.”

  Lola.

  “All right, why is Lola driving you crazy.”

  “She’s stubborn, obnoxious, and crazy. Make that double crazy.”

  “Exactly your type, then.” I glanced to the side at my brother. At least I got that frown off his face. “You want some advice from an older brother?” I asked.

  “The one who fucked a woman as a priest?”

  I gave him a warning look and the only reason I didn’t swerve off to the right, park the car roadside, and beat the shit out of him was because he didn’t need it right now. Actually, neither of us did.

  “Sorry. I can’t think around her because half the time I’m wondering what she means. It’s like she talks in code. What would you do if I asked you to get pizza for dinner, and instead you got chicken wings, but you really wanted a burger? That’s the crap I’m dealing with. Fuck, I never knew a woman could challenge me so much.”

  I laughed. “I guess she hasn’t figured you out yet. You haven’t told her that you’re a father, have you?”

  “No, and she swears she hates kids. I don’t even know why.”

  “Well, figuring out the answer to that may be your answer.”

  “You’re as cryptic as Father.”

  “Seriously, Brook, if you like her – like, really like her – you have my blessing. I think you two would get each other. Unlike Barbie, she looks like she gets you.”

  Barbie was his ex – and mine. Our relationship used to be much more complicated than it was now, except when Barbie still thought she had a chance to get underneath my covers. Her real name was Evie, but ‘Barbie’ suited her better.

  “Thanks. Me too. But what if Lola doesn’t like Sophie?”

  “Hah! If she doesn’t like Sophie, then is she really worth it?”

  He didn’t reply and remained lost in thought until we parked the car behind the precinct. My brother stayed in the car while I went around to the front. We didn’t want to seem intimidating, and bringing what I was sure was an unregistered gun to a room full of cops and detectives wasn’t the wisest idea.

  I focused on the first officer behind the counter and asked, “I’m looking for Mike Donaldson.”

  The officer named Kim glanced at her watch. “He left about fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Do you know where he went?”

  “I didn’t ask. What’s this about?”

  “It’s a personal matter. Is there a number I can reach him at?”

  “We don’t give away private numbers, but I can message him for you. What’s your name?”

  “No, that won’t be necessary. Thank you.”

  I gave her a polite nod and, desperate not to seem anxious, slowly walked out the front door before sprinting back to the car. If my gut was right, and I prayed that it was wrong, the last thing I wanted was for Mike Donaldson to have a heads up that we were looking for him.

  I quickly dialed Kate’s new cell, but she didn’t answer.

  “She could be sleeping,” my brother suggested. I merged onto a highway and pressed my foot on the gas pedal until I was passing everyone, and then dialed her again.

  “Kate, pick up the phone, damn it!”

  She didn’t pick up.

  “Where’s Lola?” I asked.

  My brother didn’t reply. Instead, he grabbed his phone and dialed a number. “Kate may be in trouble. Cameron’s condo.” He then hung up while I tried Kate’s number once more and again received no reply.

  When we got home, Lola was pacing up and down the hall, popping her gum.

  “I knocked. No one’s home.”

  “Did you knock hard enough?” Brook asked.

  She put her fist against the door and banged three more times.

  “All right, all right. You don’t need to break it down.”

  “You better have fucked all the energy out of her last night, Cam, because if she’s not in there sleeping it off, then you’re going to have to deal with me.”

  I quickly scanned the access key and pushed the door open.

  “Kate!”

  I searched through all the rooms frantically, even checking under beds and behind curtains, though I already knew that she wasn’t here.

  “She left a note,” I heard Lola call out from the kitchen. “She went to the precinct to get a box of papers about Xavier.”

  “We just came from there,” Brook replied.

  And we must have missed her.

  “Fuck! What do we do now? Where would he take her? Why would he take her? She didn’t do anything to him, just Cortez. Cortez…”

  That’s when it dawned on me. Everything made sense, and I felt like I’d just been hit over the head and all the pieces scrambled together. If I was right, then Kate’s troubles had only begun. If my gut was right, which it usually was, then our chances of getting her out of Mike Donaldson’s hands were falling tenfold with each minute we stood around.

  “Cortez is not only looking for revenge but also the lost money. He thinks Kate knows where the fifty million is.”

  “Who is he?” Lola asked.

  “Kate’s half-brother.”

  “Kate’s brother died when he was two.”

  “No, he lived. I don’t know how, but that fucking bastard lived, and I’m pretty sure that even though he was adopted, Cortez ensured that his nephew knew about his roots. Mike was the key to get to Kate and the money, and when he found out that Kate was going back to Pace, he waited like a patient predator.”

  Brook placed his hand on my shoulder. “I have the jet on standby. Just tell me where and when.”

  “To the only place that money could logically be is in Pace. And the only logical hiding spot is…”

  No, no, no….

  Could it really be that I had been so close to the money and never thought of looking where I was supposed to? I turned on my phone and opened the tracking app that would trace Kate’s phone. The last location picked up was her precinct and I swore under my breath. The phone must have been turned off, and we didn’t have time until it went back on again – if ever.

  “I’m flying to Pace and I’m going now.” I didn’t wait for a reply, instead heading straight for the door.

  “You’re not going by yourself.” Brook followed me.

  “I’m going with you,” added Lola.

  I froze. “That’s two more people I have to keep track of.”

  “You may not think so, but I’m capable of taking care of myself. You’ll thank me when I save your sorry ass,” Lola replied.

  “It’s true. She’s one of the strongest women I know.” My brother gave her that I see you and I know you see me kind of glance. I wanted to roll my eyes. Just this morning he’d been fighting with Lola, and now he was already trying to get inside her panties.

  “Fine. Let’s go.” We took the stairs back down to the garage and drove to the airport. Brook called the pilot from the road to file a flight plan.

  “Why would Kate’s brother want to harm her?” Lola asked, as we passed the security gates.

  “Because he’s also the son of Benjamin Cortez. I think Anna ran away that year from Pace because Ben Cortez took Mikey away from her. I don’t think she ever admitted to anyone that Mikey was Ben’s. Father John insisted Mikey was theirs. Ultimately, Ben Cortez had Anna believe that her son died.”

  “Remind me again how you know this? And how is Mike Donaldson Ben’s son?”
Brook asked.

  “It does make sense.” In the rearview mirror I saw Lola’s face fall as she digested the idea I’d had for a while now. “Ben and Anna… they… no, I don’t think Kate’s mother would willingly sleep with Benjamin Cortez.”

  “She didn’t,” I said. “Anna and John must have wanted nothing to do with Ben Cortez after he raped her.”

  “You sure Mikey didn’t die? Mr. Black never mentioned him. If Mikey was alive, then Anna had no idea.”

  “I don’t have proof, but it’s the only reasonable explanation. I opened little Mikey’s coffin back in Pace and there was a note. It said, My blood, my flesh, my bones, and it was signed by Benjamin Cortez. I don’t know how but somehow that son of a bitch took Anna’s son, faked his death, and kidnapped him to raise as his own to spite Anna. Then the fifty million was stolen. Anna had to leave Pace to keep Kate safe. She had to leave Father John, who at the time hadn’t been ordained, without possibly telling him that she was pregnant with Kate. Mateo Cortez knew Anna hid that money. He used Mikey, or Mike Donaldson, to get to them.”

  I pulled into the parking spot, and we hurried to the waiting jet fifty yards out.

  “Xavier’s notes said that no one knew Anna was pregnant. No one.”

  “Well, obviously someone must have known.”

  “They kept Mikey or Mike a secret, so he could get closer to Kate and to Anna and find the fifty million. Kate was their answer to that money, but Anna never told her daughter about it.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m going on a hunch here, but if Kate knew where the money was, she would have told me.” Lola went up the plane’s steps first, leading the way. She actually looked good in charge, and I could see why my brother was so smitten with her. Brook followed her up, and I was right behind him.

  “What better way of getting to Anna and the money than through her unsuspecting daughter who had no idea about the family’s history? It’s a perfect plan. Kate wouldn’t have suspected her boss at all.” I took a seat by the window and buckled up. The pilot was already lining up for takeoff to Tucson.

  “All plans have holes,” Lola said. “There’s no exception. There’s no perfect plan.”

  When she said that, I had to admit, she gave me that small ounce of hope I was desperate for. I knew it would be enough to pull me through the next twenty-four hours. If we didn’t find Kate by then, our chances of finding her at all decreased by seventy percent.

  “Anna fled because she was afraid Ben would kill her unborn child the way he had supposedly killed Mikey. She burned down Ben’s house the night Mikey died. I saw it in the records. Two days later, FBI documents show that an exchange between four cartels was supposed to happen but never did. Fifty million was missing, and everyone was pointing their finger at Cortez. Anna stole that money from him.”

  Lola grasped her armrests. Her knuckles whitened underneath the grip and she shut her eyes. I wasn’t the only one to notice.

  “Are you afraid of flying?” my brother asked.

  “Not so much flying as plummeting to death in an airplane.”

  “I should have known. It’s because you have no control, isn’t it?”

  “Fuck, do you even know who’s flying this thing?”

  Brook laughed. “Of course I do. Lola, you’re fine. We’ll be fine. If you want, though, we can switch our seats to one of the back ones. Statistically speaking, your chances of survival are much higher if you sit in the back.”

  “Fuck you!” she screamed.

  “Why are you upset with me?”

  “Because I’m freaking out here and you’re making this flight impossibly more frightening by talking about crashes and chances of survival.”

  “I’m sorry, Lola, that’s not what I meant.” Concerned, Brook took his seat belt and unfastened it.

  “Don’t get up. Don’t you dare get up. Just leave that fucking seat belt on or I swear to God I will never fly with you again.”

  He buckled back into his seat.

  “Well, well. I never thought I’d see the day when Lola Lowes was afraid of something other than kids.”

  “Don’t get me started on monsters. I don’t need that right now.” She gritted her teeth.

  “Hey, Lola. Do you know which clinic Kate’s mother’s in? I want to check in on her.” I asked.

  “New Hope in North Carolina. She’s under the alias Jo Winters.”

  “Thanks.”

  I quickly searched for the number and called the clinic next. As suspected, the receptionist told me that Jo Winters had been signed out earlier that day.

  “They’ve got Kate’s mother as well.” I lowered my head. We were battling a cartel, which in addition to handguns also possessed machine guns, grenades, and fucking automatic shotguns.

  “Shit. I really fucked up this one.” Lola slouched in her chair.

  “Hey, we’ll get them back. I promise,” Brook said. Lola glanced at him with a spark of hope, which was good. We needed as much hope as we could get.

  My brother turned my way, asking, “How do you suggest we approach this?”

  “I don’t think they know we’re coming, so we have the upper hand there,” Lola said from the side.

  I flipped the pen I was holding between my fingers, under the pointer, over the middle, followed by underneath the ring finger, and back. “We need an element of surprise. We’ll ambush them. We’ll be exactly where they want to end up.”

  “Wait – you know where the money is?” Brook asked. “The fifty million?”

  “I’m going on a hunch, but right now I’m going to trust it. I also don’t have anything else, other than to search the whole town. If we do that, they’re dead.”

  “I’m ready.” Lola reached behind her back and removed a gun.

  “Put that thing away, you’re on a plane,” Brook scolded.

  “You can’t tell me what to do,” she replied.

  As they bickered some more, I stopped listening and turned my head toward the window. They didn’t need me to help them solve their issues. Sometime during the flight I heard them shuffle to the back of the airplane. If Brook managed to get Lola out of that seat, it meant that she trusted him. We needed trust. As soon as I heard her giggle in the back, I put on my headphones and turned on the music. All I needed now was to find Kate.

  Chapter 28

  Kate

  My mouth felt dry. I moved my tongue underneath my upper lip, desperate to find a drop of spit, but there was none. I then check the rippled roof of my mouth and behind the lower lip. There was nothing there; in fact, I found it difficult to switch the position of my tongue as well. I could have sworn that someone stuffed my cheeks with cotton balls. They too not only felt dry, but also big and swollen, like a chipmunk’s.

  I wiggled my nose, inhaling dry, familiar air. It hurt to do so. I didn’t catch the trace of smog I remembered from Long Island and no salty ocean breeze. There was only dust, dirt, and maybe even a splash of beer. Even the thought of a nice cold one didn’t salivate my mouth. I moved my tongue around again over the grains of sand between my teeth. A memory of being dragged across the desert, barefoot, swollen, dehydrated, and barely alive flashed through my mind.

  “Michael, you don’t have to do this. You’re a good man.” My mother’s distant voice echoed over and over again, but that wasn’t possible. My mother was in a clinic. She couldn’t talk. What had happened to me? Was I still alive? I slowly opened my eyes, but everything blurred into a blend of brown and orange tones. The smell of candle wax hit me next.

  Where am I?

  I shifted in the hard seat and felt an ache in every part of my body.

  Ouch.

  Everything hurt: muscle and bone. Another memory was triggered: this time of a slap across my face. Its sting traveled from my cheek all the way down to my toes. In fact, I could still feel its print on my skin.

  I tried to open my eyes further and realized that I could barely do so on my left side, so I just kept that one closed. In the
corner of the somehow familiar room I recognized a man’s figure. It was my boss.

  “Chief? What’s going on?” My throat felt hoarse. Each word scraped over my vocal chords. I needed water. It was my only hope to survive.

  “Welcome home, Hope. Or should I say, Kate? Which one is it, sister?”

  “Water,” I said.

  “You’ll get water when you’re ready to talk.” Mike’s voice was cold and I didn’t recognize why he’d take that tone with me.

  “Water,” I repeated. If I didn’t get any, I wouldn’t be able to speak again. I could feel my body failing me. Each time I breathed, it hurt, and that was when I remembered that not long ago someone had kicked me in my ribcage. The pain surged through my chest each time I inhaled, and so I chose to take shorter breaths.

  Don’t ever lose hope. Cameron’s last words rang in my ears, and that was when the events of the last twenty-four hours began coming together. I remembered sleeping in his bed, calling my mom, and then I went to my office.

  Mike kidnapped me. He kept asking about fifty million.

  It hurt even more when my body suddenly tensed. My muscles couldn’t take much more abuse. Mike Donaldson took me home. Where was home? I looked around the room some more and realized that I was sitting by a table on one of the wooden chairs at the Bistro, in Pace.

  He took me back to Aaron Cortez?

  “Water,” I begged. If I had a chance to explain that I had no clue where their money was, maybe I could still save myself. From the way my leg felt, it was broken, so running was out of the question. My feet pulsed, cramping each time I shifted. They felt blistered and bruised. Even if my leg was okay, I was sure my body would fail me at the first step. Why did Mike call me sister?

  “Where’s the money, Kate?” he asked.

  “For God’s sake, haven’t you done enough?” I heard a familiar voice. Was it real?

  I forced my right eye open and couldn’t believe my sight. I wanted to cry but I knew that no tears would fall. My body was too dehydrated, and I had nothing to cry with.

  “Enough? I’ve been waiting for this moment almost thirty years, Ma. You gave me up. You didn’t want me. You killed my father. All I want is what’s rightfully mine. I want this family to regain the value of its name.”