The mafia-hired assassin that had been tracking Stedman’s natural daughter, Tegan, had smoked menthol cigarettes. That’s not what Carson found on the roof. Instead of cigarette butts, he discovered a little brown puddle.
There had been a new killer up here watching Kayla’s every move. He liked to chew tobacco instead of smoke it. And the dampness of the puddle told Carson that the guy had only left a few minutes ago. Probably when he had seen Carson enter the apartment. Kayla was in real danger. They just had to find a way to convince her that it wasn’t all a hoax.
Chapter Two
“What are you doing here?”
Carson didn’t actually know how to answer Nash’s question when he stepped back into the big box truck they were using as a mobile surveillance unit. The team had started the job with six people and one surveillance vehicle. That had quickly grown to three trucks and twelve people over the last few days as the threats against Stedman Hyde-Pierson just seemed to keep coming in.
Nash snapped his fingers. “Holcum, I’m talking to you.”
“I heard you,” Carson grumbled. He glared at Analise Vega. She was smirking as though she could not wait to hear Carson’s excuse. He glared right back and then addressed Nash once again. “The woman has refused our protection. She tried to stab me with some art tool to get me out of her loft.”
Analise scoffed. “And you just let her boss you around like that? What kind of man gets his ass handed to him like that by a woman?”
“A smart one.” Wrath—another of their bodyguards—took the seat next to Analise and popped her on the back of the head. “Tegan told you this wasn’t going to be easy.”
“I didn’t count on the woman being completely devoid of logic,” Carson grumbled.
Nash shook his head and pulled up a map on the screen. He pointed to the building where Kayla’s loft was located. “What did you find out about the area?”
“There’s a lookout on top of a building next door.” Carson grimaced. “The guy dips, so there’s tobacco juice all over the rooftop. He’s obviously not worried about us finding him.”
Wrath nodded his head. “Neither was the guy who tried to take out Tegan. He was bold as brass.”
“Then you need to get back over there,” Nash ordered. “Don’t listen to the woman. Just take up a position and wait for something to happen. Eventually, it will and she’ll be sorry she didn’t take us up on our offer when you first made it.”
“I don’t know,” Carson said slowly. “If she catches me on her property, I have no clue how she’ll react.”
“You’re not on her property,” Nash said drily. “The property belongs to the man who contracted us to protect it. So, go in there and do your damn job!”
Carson now officially felt like he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Or rather he was trapped between the rock that was Nash and a sharp pointed instrument held by a beautiful woman named Kayla. He heaved a huge sigh and started to walk out the back of the truck. There was no point in hanging around here.
“Hey!” Wrath called after him.
Carson turned at the bottom of the outside steps. He did not miss the fact that Wrath let the truck’s back door slam shut before he continued speaking. “Do you want me to ask Tegan to go talk to Kayla for you?”
“I’m not entirely sure how helpful that would be,” Carson mused. “Kayla seems to have as much disdain for Tegan as she does for Stedman.”
Wrath didn’t seem surprised by this. How odd. He rubbed the back of his neck and leaned against the truck. “Tegan is aware of that. She and her cousin didn’t exactly have a great time growing up with Stedman. Tegan stayed mostly with her mother, but as I understand it, Kayla had to spend most of her time with her uncle Stedman after her parents died in a car accident.”
“That seems odd.” Carson had come from as typical of a family background as anyone could have. Sometimes everything seemed odd to him.
Wrath didn’t seem fazed one bit. “Custody always winds up looking strange to anyone that doesn’t have to live it,” Wrath explained. “For now, it might help to have Tegan go and at least try to make amends for things that have happened in the past.”
“Whatever you think.” Carson was so done arguing about this or even thinking about it. “I’m going to go stand outside and try to prevent something that Kayla Hyde swears won’t happen from happening.”
Wrath laughed. “We’ll be by in a bit, then. I’ll go grab Tegan from the office.”
“Meaning you’ll be by whenever you guys are done having sex.” Carson felt like he wanted to stick his fingers in his ears and chant “nah, nah, nah” to avoid hearing Wrath start talking about how incredible his love life was now that he and Tegan were a couple. It was nauseating, in Carson’s opinion.
Carson could still hear Wrath’s laughter when he had gotten into his car. Only the purr of the engine drowned out his friend’s boisterous voice and the way he was practically bragging that his life had turned from stale to amazing in less than two weeks’ time.
“Some guys have all the fucking luck,” Carson muttered as he steered his personal vehicle toward Kayla’s building.
*
Kayla spun around and stared at the elevator. Was that someone knocking downstairs? What was with all of the noises? Usually her upstairs and downstairs neighbors were quiet. For some reason tonight, there was so much noise that she could not even fathom what might be going on.
Of course, it might have been nothing at all. She put her empty tea mug in the sink and braced her hands on the countertop. It was all that stupid Carson Holcum’s fault. He’d put a bunch of ideas in her head, and now she was driving herself crazy. Every time she turned around, there was a noise or a shadow.
A sudden crash made her shriek and throw up her hands. The mug tumbled over in the sink and clattered against the drain. Kayla whirled around to face what she was sure was an intruder only to find that Creepers had knocked the window closed.
“You stupid cat!” Kayla said breathlessly. “You scared the crap out of me!”
Feeling stupid, Kayla marched over to the big window that she almost always kept cracked so that Creepers could go in and out as he wished. The shoe that she kept jammed between the sill and the window had come loose. She picked it up and slid it back into place.
“There.” She didn’t know why she was talking out loud. It wasn’t like Creepers paid attention. He was face-first in his evening bowl of food and could not have cared less about her musings. “If you would stop making a mess, it would be much appreciated. Of course, if you would be the kind of roommate who would chip in for the rent, I’d appreciate that too!”
Kayla happened to turn at the last second and caught a glimpse of a shadow on top of the building next door. She dropped to the ground and pressed her back up against the wall beneath the windows. Nearly bending herself in half backwards, she tried to crane her neck up and around to see if she was imagining things or not.
The moon was full tonight, although the city itself gave plenty of light. Boston never slept. Especially not here in Southie. South Boston was a thriving mecca of pretty much everything under the sun. Old row houses, industrial buildings, commercial buildings, and shopping all overlapped each other until every inhabitant was basically living on top of every other inhabitant.
But that man on the building was not part of Kayla’s overactive imagination, and he was not a neighbor. There was no reason at all for him to be up there. Kayla groped in the pocket of her cutoffs for her phone. She tried to stay low as she searched her contacts for her cousin’s phone number.
Now. What to text someone she hadn’t spoken to in years? Kayla had no time to start with some weird salutation. What if that man had a gun? What if he was going to kill her? What if…
“I’m being stupid.”
Kayla jumped to her feet. She marched over to the window she had just propped open and pushed it all the way up. She hung her head out as far as she dared and put her hands on the sill t
o keep from tumbling headlong into the alley below.
“Hey!” Kayla shouted at the top of her lungs.
Her heart was hammering a staccato beat against her ribs, and she thought she might possibly faint from the lightheadedness, but she was done being a silly twit! The shadow on top of the building froze.
“You up there!” Kayla started pointing emphatically. “Peeping Toms are seriously disgusting! Get your ass off that building before I call the cops! You got it? You don’t belong there. I have a phone in my hand right now, and I’m dialing Boston PD. So, unless you want to be a perv in the city lockup getting poked by some nasty dude in an orange jumpsuit, you better go away!”
There! It felt so much better to be assertive, right? This whole nonsense about assassins and the mafia was bullshit. Kayla had this well under control. She would just…
“Fuck me!” she muttered. “Is that a—holy shit, he’s got a gun!”
She hit the floor just in time. A bullet pinged through the window she’d just been hanging out of. It buried itself in her wood floor and shattered one of the slats. Kayla squeaked in terror. She was frozen. She could not move. He had shot at her!
Belly down, she started crawling toward the kitchen and potential safety. All of these damn windows! What was she thinking to keep them wide open? Elbows on the floor, she pulled herself along. She had to keep moving. She had to…
Another bullet ripped through the window. This one wasn’t open. It shattered into a million shards of glass that rained down on her legs and bare feet. Kayla was crying and not even realizing it. She tried so hard to hurry. Another bullet. Another one. Three. Or was it four? She was sobbing now.
Then she heard a barrage of gunfire, but it was coming from a different direction. Kayla scrambled the rest of the way into the kitchen and pressed herself into the corner with her back to the refrigerator, and the dishwasher and range on her other side. She listened to the world outside change from a quiet night in Southie to a warzone.
Kayla pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around. She felt something soft curl into her side and realized that Creepers had decided they needed to be allies during this war.
She picked up the cat and curled herself around him. She buried her face in his fur and prayed that it would all be over soon. Was it the police out there? Was it her uncle’s security team? Had the handsome Carson come back even though she had thrown him out of her house? Or were they just standing outside fighting each other for the right to kill her, just because she was related to that piece of shit Stedman Hyde-Pierson?
Chapter Three
“Kayla?”
Kayla had no notion of how long she had been tucked into the corner of her kitchen. She lifted her head just enough to peek over the tops of her knees. Creepers squirmed out of her lap and went to investigate what was obviously a visitor—in his mind, at least. The stupid cat apparently had no lasting trauma from their horrible adventure. That figured.
The first thing Kayla noticed was that her cousin Tegan was crouched a few feet away, staring at Kayla as though she were a wild animal in a trap. The comparison might have felt accurate, but Kayla hated the idea of becoming a victim in anything.
“What are you doing here?” Kayla asked Tegan. “There are people shooting outside. You should probably go.”
Tegan smiled. It was friendly and it didn’t look fake. “The shooting is over. Carson and Wrath chased the guy about four buildings down, then he disappeared.”
“So, it’s over? All of that and it’s just over?” Kayla straightened up and tried to rise. She had to grab the kitchen counter to haul herself into a standing position. Her legs were cramping and she felt weak in the knees.
Tegan sighed. “So maybe over is the wrong word. How about that? Can you come and sit so we can talk?”
“It’s my living room,” Kayla said irritably. “I’m supposed to be able to invite who I want to come and sit.”
“So, invite me, then.” Tegan said it as though they were old friends instead of the bitterest of enemies. Although that was probably being just a tad more dramatic than was necessary.
“Fine!” Kayla waved sarcastically to the little sitting area in the corner of her loft opposite her studio space. Her bed occupied the other corner, the bathroom built into what had once been a warehouse office.
Tegan sat down on the couch, looking completely unperturbed. Kayla had to admit that her cousin looked good. She looked—happy. It was odd. Tegan had always seemed tense and unhappy. She had been a driven child who had turned into an even more driven young adult obsessed with making her father proud. It was actually rather pathetic in a way because there was no pleasing Stedman Hyde-Pierson. Kayla knew all about that.
With that blond hair and those blue eyes, not to mention her perfect body, Tegan had always been the standard to which Kayla was held. Uncle Stedman had not been shy when telling Kayla over and over again that she would do better to emulate Tegan’s ladylike and very elegant and trendy ways. Everything from Kayla’s sense of fashion to her manners had been compared to Tegan and found wanting. It had not created a feeling of sisterhood, in the least.
“I’m really sorry to just barge in on you like this,” Tegan began.
Kayla curled up into her chair and pulled an afghan over her legs. It seemed surreal to just sit here and talk when there was a mess of broken glass and splintered wood all over her floor just a few feet away. Were they just going to ignore the obvious?
Kayla finally sighed. “Just tell me why you’re here.”
“Wrath thought I might be able to convince you that you really do need protection.” Tegan had the balls to laugh at that absurd comment. “If you can believe that.”
“Are you laughing because someone just shot at me?” Kayla was insulted. The idea that Tegan could find this situation funny was appalling. “I have to say that I don’t find this at all amusing. What did your idiot father get himself into now?”
“That’s the strange thing.” Tegan sat forward on the couch. She braced her elbows on her knees and folded her hands together. It wasn’t a very ladylike pose, and Kayla was surprised her very girly cousin would allow herself to look anything but fabulous. Then Tegan rubbed the balls of her hands against her eyes. “I think Daddy is into something bad. I think the story about him turning the mafia down and that’s why they’re trying to hurt him is crap.”
Kayla only had to think about that for a second. “You think the real story is pretty much the opposite.”
“My father is an ass.” Tegan sat up straight and looked Kayla in the eye. “You were right about him. You were always right. I’m sorry I never acknowledged it. I’m sorry I always defended him. I was a naive fool.”
“Wow.” Kayla pulled her feet up into her chair and felt herself start to relax. “Where is your protection squad?”
“They’re downstairs trying to look for clues about the guy who attacked you.”
Kayla snorted. “This is all very Scooby Doo, right?”
“Sort of.” Tegan bit her lip. “Which is the other reason I wanted to talk to you myself.”
Kayla had a feeling that Tegan was about to go off script. How interesting. The Tegan that Kayla knew almost never did anything out of the ordinary lest it get her in trouble or make her look bad. Kayla was the constant boundary-pushing rule breaker.
“So?” Kayla prompted. “I can tell you’re freaking out because you’re about to suggest we do something that I’m guessing isn’t exactly sanctioned by your protective squad or whatever.”
Tegan glanced toward the elevator as if she were worried about a sudden appearance of the two men—Carson and Wrath—what kind of a name was Wrath? Finally, Tegan pursed her lips and seemed to decide to start talking. “Okay, see, I think that we need to go to the source.”
“The mafia?” Kayla wanted to be sure she understood her cousin correctly. “Which one exactly are you talking about? There are more than a few mafia families here in Boston.”
&nb
sp; “Sokolov. The Russian mob.” Tegan appeared to be frightened to say the name out loud. “I think we should go talk to them ourselves.”
“So, basically, you want to serve yourself up on a platter to the people that are trying to murder you?” Kayla snorted. “Great plan.”
“Do you have a better one?”
Not really, but Kayla could bluff. “How about we go dig around in some Sokolov hangouts. You know? We could flirt with some mafia members and try to get information that way.”
Tegan looked scandalized. “Do you think that would work?”
“Honey, men always say stuff they don’t mean to when a pretty girl is involved.” Then Kayla went just a little further. “And if they don’t talk, one of us can keep them occupied while the other one snoops. There has to be an office or a hideout or something above one of their bars or casinos.”
The sound of the elevator heading back up to the second floor made Tegan look around as if she were trying to find someplace to hide. “There are casinos here in Boston?” Tegan was obviously scandalized. “Gambling is illegal!”
“Oh, sweetie.” Sometimes Kayla had trouble believing that Tegan could really be that sheltered. “There are casinos all over the place if you know where to look!”
CARSON STEPPED OFF of the elevator with a sense of something approaching dread. He and Wrath had chased the assassin nearly all the way to the border of South Boston without getting even a clue for their trouble. They had no idea of the man’s identity or how to either get rid of him or circumvent his plan.
Wrath seemed completely at ease. And why wouldn’t he be? Everyone knew that he and Tegan Hyde-Pierson were a thing. The two of them were so disgustingly in love that Carson often felt uncomfortable around them. They were just so sappy and happy sometimes. It made Carson feel oddly—defective. He had never been in such a relationship and never expected to find one. Did that mean he was somehow less of a man or that there was something wrong with him?
Nash Security Solutions Page 17