“You didn’t name me in your little story, but if you take Tommy out, do you think that the cops would just leave me be? You knew what would happen, Janie, and you did it anyway. Prison was rough, but you better believe that I thought about you every day.”
I wanted to scream but I couldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that he terrified me. I couldn’t even flinch when he ran his hands along my face and neck.
“Why didn’t you leave Tommy?” I asked. “You could do anything once you left prison. Why didn’t you just leave town and start over?”
“Why should I have to leave? I liked my life here before you stuck your nose into our business. This is my city. I lived like a king. I could have that again. The real question is, why didn’t you leave?”
“I have work to do.”
“Work,” he scoffed. “I hope they pay you well. Otherwise, is it really worth getting cut for?” he traced a line on my neck with his finger.
“Why are you working with Keen?” I asked. “What does Office Supply and Global Industries have to do with Tilucci?”
“Shh,” he hushed, touching his finger to my lips. “Enough with the questions. It’s just business, baby. Leave that to the men.”
“You won’t get away with any of it.”
He laughed, hissing like a snake. “I missed that fiery personality. I loved you, Jane. You broke my heart into a million pieces when you ratted us out. Don’t you remember all the lovely gifts I bought you? The diamond earrings, the gold necklaces, the designer handbags.”
“I sold them.”
He continued as if he didn’t hear me. “I treated you like a queen. I was kind and loving. I would have made you my wife if you had let me. You wouldn’t have to do this kind of work ever again.”
“You threatened to kill me,” I reminded him.
“You threatened to leave me,” he added. “Do you see what you do to me? You make me feel things that no other women made me feel. Especially in bed. Oh,” he groaned. “The sex was phenomenal! Do you remember?”
I nodded. As much as I hated to admit it to myself, the sex was good. What started as undercover work turned serious the moment I first went to bed with him. He tempted me with his cool charm, and once I got hooked, I was done for. My body ached for his touch, even though I knew that he was dangerous. I just couldn’t get enough.
Until I watched him kill a debtor in cold blood. That turned me from him for good. I liked bad boys, not psychotic men. Seeing him be that vicious sent me running for the hills. I reported on their story two days later, and soon after, they were arrested.
“But now that we’re together again, there’s so much I want to do to you. I’m going to take you back to my house and make sure you can’t get away this time. Then, we’re going to make love the way we used to. I don’t want to make James here uncomfortable, so I’ll let you imagine your own dirty details. You remember what I like, right?”
James frowned; probably disappointed that he’d be sleeping alone while Max took his prize. I felt sick, thinking about what he would make me do. As much as I enjoyed his body all those years ago, the thought of him touching me was absolutely revolting. I didn’t want a man that treated me like garbage. I didn’t want to be subjected to rough, detached sex. I wanted sweet, fiery passion from someone who wanted to be with me. I didn’t want Max and I was ashamed that I let things go so far with him. I wanted Bryce, but I had ruined any chance with him. There was no way he’d find me. I would have to come to terms with the fact that I might never see him again.
“Once I’ve had enough of that, I’m going to make you feel the pain that you caused me.” He rolled up a sleeve, revealing a long, jagged scar on his smooth bicep. “Do you see that?” he asked. “Tilucci sent some guy after me in prison. He was pissed that I brought you into the picture. He hired a hit man within the prison system to punish me. I lost a lot of blood, but they managed to stitch me together.”
“And you joined back up with him again?” I asked, bewildered.
“We’re basically family. And you know how Tommy is. Besides, we got even when I started sending him letters from a fake admirer. He proposed to this broad. Wasn’t too happy when he found out it was me. It fucked with his head for a long time. He wrote some pretty nasty stuff to her. But, we were even.”
“What is wrong with you?” I spat.
“Not a damned thing, sweetheart. I’m back on top now. I’m making up for lost time, rekindling old flames.”
“You can’t keep me at your place forever,” I said.
“I know that. Believe me, once I get bored with you, I’ll get rid of you. It will probably be painful, but I need to hear you cry. I cried for you, you know. I need you to cry as I tear you up the way you tore my heart apart.”
“You never had a heart!”
“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we? James, grab a rope. We can’t let this one get away. Not again.”
“I need my bag,” I said, nodding at the other couch.
“You girls and your accessories,” Max scoffed. He grabbed my purse and looped my arm through the handle. Before I had a chance to grab my gun, James returned with the rope. Max held my hands together as James tightly looped it around my wrists.
“Goodnight, James,” Max said cheerfully. “Thank you for returning this little present to me,” he said, kissing me on the lips.
Max pulled me by my hands outside toward his car. If I wanted to get away, I would have to be quick. I couldn’t run very fast with my hands tied together and if he caught me, he would certainly kill me. I could scream, but I couldn’t guarantee anyone would come to my aid in time. All I knew for certain was that I couldn’t get in his car. I would never make it out alive.
Just as I was gearing up to make a break for it, a dark figure lunged at Max. Bryce’s fist made contact with Max’s temple, sending him crashing to the ground. Max groaned, blood dripping from underneath his perfectly coiffed hair.
In the scuffle, I was dragged down to the sidewalk, my bare legs scraped along the concrete. My wrists bent unnaturally as Max pulled the rope down with him. I couldn’t tell if I was injured or not. I was definitely in shock.
In one quick motion, Bryce’s arms swooped under me and lifted me to his chest. He pushed me into his car and peeled out, down the dark street. I fumbled with the rope until I was free.
I let out a deep sigh. The closest calls always yielded the sweetest relief.
Murder
Bryce
Jane rubbed at her red, swollen wrists as I whipped around the corner, trying to make sure no one could follow us.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “For everything. I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you this morning and I shouldn’t have stormed out like that. If I knew that this would have happened, I would have never left.”
The second I saw Jane with Max, my heart dropped. I had never been so scared for her since we met. If it weren’t for Andrea’s tracking device, I never would have found her. But, if it weren’t for my temper and jealousy, she would have never been alone in the first place.
“I don’t know what I would have done if—” I couldn’t finish that sentence. I knew what would have happened and I couldn’t bear the thought of it.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Honestly,” she added, seeing my distraught face. “I’m just glad you showed up. How did you find me, anyway?”
I looked straight ahead at the road. I didn’t want to spill Andrea’s secrets, nor did I want to lie to her.
“On second thought,” she said quickly, “I’m not sure if I want to know.”
“We can talk about it later.”
“Where are we going?” she asked as I barreled down the highway.
“I don’t know. I just wanted to get as far away as possible. Where should we go?”
“I need a computer,” she said, pulling tiny thumb drives out of her shirt.
“Where the hell did you get those?”
“It’s a long story. Can we go to my office?
”
“Don’t you think they’ll be waiting for us there?”
“We can go through the back. I have a key. We just need to be there long enough to see what’s on the flash drives.”
I made a few turns and we were on track to get to Jane’s office in five minutes. I had to slow down so the cops wouldn’t pick us up. It was always a crapshoot with cops in this city. Some were good and some were paid by Tilucci to be bad.
“Whose house was that?” I asked.
“James Keen. He has ties to Tilucci.”
“Never heard of him.”
“No, you probably wouldn’t. Tilucci is part of a larger organization. He’s not really at the top—he’s just a piece of the pie.”
I shook my head. As far as I knew, it started and ended with the Tilucci family. “I’m not following.”
“Pat gave me some leads. They didn’t really have anything to do with you, so I figured I’d check them out on my own anyway.”
“How does it not have anything to do with me?” I asked. “Aren’t we working together?”
“This wasn’t about Tilucci. If it wasn’t about getting revenge, then what difference does it make to you?”
I blinked. The difference it made was the fact that Jane could have easily been killed or tortured in there. I wasn’t there to make sure she was okay. I could have lost her and I couldn’t live with myself if that happened. Not again.
I remembered what I vowed to myself after talking with Andrea, though. I wasn’t going to put her in a difficult position now. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us.
“I want to help you,” I said. “I don’t care if it goes beyond my own personal vendetta—let’s take down all of the bastards.”
She smiled. “If you still want to help, I have tons of files to look through. We need to find something that will connect Tilucci to any illegal activity. The more stuff we can find, the better. If everything goes well, we might even be able to seal his fate tonight. I’ll call Pat and see if he can come in.”
She dialed his number and I saw her smile as she held the phone to her ear. It made me happy to see her so pleased. Earlier today, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see her again. Now, it seemed like nothing had changed between us. We were working together again, another step closer to our goal.
“Pat,” she said into the phone. “Call me back as soon as you get this. I have a lot of files that I need help looking through. You’re going to be so psyched to see what I have. Call me back. I’ll be at home.”
“Voicemail?” I asked.
“Yep. It’s late; he might be sleeping. It’s weird because he usually answers his phone at all hours of the day. It pisses his wife off so much.”
“Why did you say you’d be at home? Aren’t we going to your office?”
Jane chuckled. “It’s a stupid inside joke. We call the office our home because we spend more time there than our actual houses.”
“Oh, got it.” I probably would never understand what it was like to have a job that I enjoyed that much.
“Turn right,” she directed. “You can park along this street and I’ll use my key to get in through the back door. That way, if someone is waiting for us out front, they won’t see us come in.”
I locked my door and followed her into the dark stairwell. A few motion-activated lights flickered on as we passed.
“Sorry,” she panted, as we passed the fifth floor. “This side of the building doesn’t have elevators.”
“That’s okay,” I wheezed. I hadn’t worked out in weeks. I felt out of shape.
By the time we got to her floor, a thin layer of sweat covered my brow. I wiped the moisture with the back of my hand.
“You can sit here,” Jane said, leading me to a desk with a computer. She set her phone down on the desk and leaned over me to turn the computer on. Her top button must have popped off when she went down with Max. I snapped my eyes shut as her breasts came into full view. After we finished our work, I could fantasize about her then.
After she tossed me a thumb drive, she sat down at her desk and started searching.
“All I’m seeing is a bunch of numbers,” I said. “I don’t know what any of it means.”
“Same. It’s some kind of code. I think these translate into names. Maybe another drive contains the code.”
Her phone vibrated next to me. “It’s a message from Pat,” I called.
Her brow furrowed. “Really? I didn’t think he knew how to text.” We both stood up and I reached over to hand it to her.
A gasp like I had never heard before escaped her mouth. Jane was frozen on the spot, the uncharacteristic look of terror on her face. I lunged over to see what was wrong. Luckily, I moved quickly, or she would have collapsed onto the ground. Instead, her body crumpled like a rag doll, but I caught her in my arms.
“What is it? Jane, what is going on?”
She opened her mouth to respond, but only a forlorn howl came out. I wrenched the phone from her grip. Someone had sent her a picture of a man, bullet holes dotting his body. This was an extremely violent crime, so I wasn’t surprised to see a signature in the message line.
T.
“Pat,” she wailed, as I lowered her to the floor. I sat with her, pulling her close to me as she sobbed. Seeing her this upset made me feel like I was losing Emily all over again. My heart couldn’t bear such misery.
If Tilucci killed Pat, then it meant that we would be next. Or worse, they would go after Arianna.
“He wouldn’t tell me who he was going to talk to,” she sobbed. “He told me that I would get myself killed. Now, this happened. Why would he go talk to Tilucci?”
“I don’t know.” I didn’t understand anything. I felt like I was always one step behind of everyone. Everyone else had plans. I could only react to what was happening around me.
“He told me today that he had two leads. If one was Tilucci, then who was the other one?”
I shrugged, still holding Jane close to me. Her tears ran off her face, but she made no attempt to wipe them away.
“This is my story. He never wanted me to work on it. He always said it was too dangerous. Now he’s dead. And for what? Tilucci keeps getting away with this. He’ll always get away with this.”
“He must have known it was for a good cause.”
“I don’t know if I can do this without him,” she cried. “He was one of my best friends. He cared about me when no one else did. He understood me and still liked me. When I came back from Afghanistan, I was a damaged person. He took me in and taught me everything I know. I owe everything to him, and now he’s gone. I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
I turned Jane’s body so she was now facing me. She sniffled pitifully.
“He’s going to pay for this,” I said, wiping tears with my thumbs. “We are going to make sure Tilucci and everyone he works with will suffer. We have to do this—for Pat, for Emily, for everything he stole from us. He’s going to pay.”
I helped Jane back up to her feet, watching her slowly shuffle her way back to her computer chair. She sniffed and wiped at her eyes one last time.
“Let’s get back to work,” she ordered.
Payback
Jane
The only way I’d be able to work through this is if I just pretended like I never received that text. I would just pretend that Pat was at home, asleep next to his wife. In the morning, I’d march into his office and tell him all my grandiose plans for my story. He’d laugh and tell me to slow down. He was the best at helping me relax when I got too manic.
Maybe in the morning, I’d be in a position where I could handle his loss better. Maybe I’d process my feelings, or maybe I’d just shove them down deep inside me like I always did. The latter was more probable. I wasn’t good at dealing with feelings. Pat knew this.
I could see Bryce staring at me out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t like it. I felt like I was being examined under a microscope. I couldn’t have been the first person he’s ever see
n to suffer a major blow like that. I wasn’t happy about him seeing me that way, but what could I do. My boss and mentor had been shot multiple times in the head and torso. I felt like I had a good excuse.
“What?” I snapped at him.
“Are you okay?” he asked nervously.
“Fine,” I said shortly. “We need to make sense of these numbers.”
I stuffed as many of the flash drives as I could into the computer and opened all the files. It was a mess of spreadsheets, but I knew that they were all connected in some way.
I could work out that some of the columns indicated payments, and an alphanumeric code was used in place of the subjects who were putting money in and taking money out of the accounts.
The records went back for decades. At one point, there was a span of time where not a lot of money was changing hands. I calculated that business had slowed down from the past five years. With Tilucci in prison, business had not been good. Apparently, the man was quite the tycoon. No wonder he was so furious at me for putting him in prison—he lost five years and millions of dollars behind bars.
As I read, I scribbled down my own notes. I wrote out codes and tried to crack them, thinking that the right code breaker would give me all the secrets. I wrote down my theories about where the money was going and what it was being used for.
If Keen made the records himself, then he was smarter than I originally gave him credit for. However long the Tilucci family had been bringing in this kind of money, they had disguised it well. If the IRS only found discrepancies in their audit after I tipped them off, then they must have had a good money laundering system in place. My guess was the charitable organization they pretended to contribute to helped them out with this.
Tilucci must have been paying Keen an outrageous sum to keep this quiet. If he got caught with it, he would bring the whole operation down. James Keen seemed like a money-hungry prick, though, so I guess I wasn’t that surprised that he would commit a crime in exchange for a small fortune.
Her Protection: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Omerta Series Book 2) Page 14