Consequence (Reckless Killers Book 2)

by V. Hunter

  "I'll never understand how any son of mine managed to walk away from a girl like you and—" he made no attempt to be subtle as his gaze dropped to my chest—"your assets."

  My cheeks burned red with embarrassment as angry tears pricked my eyes. "How dare you," I whispered in a hoarse voice. "You should be ashamed of yourself, talking about your wife and kids and then turning around and making a disgusting comment like that."

  Alex looked horrified, but he noticeably didn't speak up in my defense.

  "I think you must have misunderstood," he said. His eyes had a hard, warning glint to them. "Young girls like you have a tendency to do that."

  My fists clenched by my sides. "You can't say whatever you want just because you're an elected official. You're not invincible."

  "Yeah, okay, sweetheart. You keep believing that." He winked again and I'd had enough.

  I looked to Alex, wanted him to speak up and say literally anything to his Dad at this point. He met my eyes, but when his shoulder drooped, I knew he had no intention of standing up to his dad. I jerked the door open and got the hell out of there, ignoring Alex calling for me as I attempted to navigate the concourse through a blinding wave of tears.

  I shouldn’t have offered to go with Alex. And now more than ever, it was clear I didn't owe him a thing.

  3

  Jairo

  "I want to be out of here before things get chaotic," I growled.

  Tomas, keeping pace beside me, nodded. "My guy can only promise us a few minutes anyway."

  My body quaked with tension in preparation for the upcoming confrontation. Barron Duffey had managed to elude me for weeks, but now his time was up.

  A uniformed officer met us at a side door. He nodded to Tomas but otherwise made no acknowledgement as he turned to walk away. Tomas gestured for us to follow him. It never ceased to amaze me how those guys could somehow communicate without giving anything away. The guy was yet another friend from the days before Tomas worked for me.

  I didn't ask many questions about it, but I knew none of them were the kind of guys anyone wanted to be caught messing with. Each one of those fuckers seemed bigger and more heavily armed than the last.

  "Shit," the guy in front of us muttered.

  We all came to a screeching halt as two people up ahead moved quickly in our direction. "I thought there wasn't supposed to be anyone else here," I snapped.

  "There wasn't," Tomas confirmed, frowning as he looked at the officer.

  The guy looked bewildered himself, which only pissed me off. The circumstances were starting to scream sloppy work, which I couldn't afford to overlook. If we were forced to retreat now, there was no telling when I'd get another chance to get that close to Duffey.

  My annoyance nearly caused me to overlook her.

  She looked like a goddamned doll. Big blue eyes, porcelain skin, and perfect bow-shaped lips in an innocent shade of pink that looked natural as far as I could tell. She also had barely tamed, dark curls that were nearly pitch black, which only drew more attention to her pale, perfect flesh. It almost hurt to look at her, she looked so bright and untarnished.

  Not that it kept me from staring anyway.

  It was only as she drew nearer that I realized she was crying, so hard in fact that it seemed she couldn't see what was right in front of her. Tomas and his friend both quickly stepped out of her path, but I did no such thing.

  She ran right into me, her lips parting to let out a soft gasp that shot straight to my groin. I let my hands fall to her hips to steady her, and she froze at my touch.

  "Sorry," she muttered and moved to side-step me.

  I tightened my grip, drawing her back to me. She blinked rapidly, probably trying to clear her vision from the tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. It was a real shame to see such an exquisite creature so worked up. I took one hand off of her so I could withdraw a handkerchief from my pocket.

  I took her hand, placed the handkerchief in her palm, and then closed my fingers around hers to make her take it.

  "I— Thank you," she whispered.

  The man hurrying after her finally caught up. The concern for the woman showed on his face until he saw my hands on her, and then he glared at me with a white hot rage. It did little more than amuse me. There wasn't anything about the man I found intimidating. He had to be a good ten years younger than me, and whereas I spent ample time in the gym cultivating a muscled physique, he looked like his version of working out was lifting stacks of books in the library.

  "Brooke," the guy barked out her name.

  She tore away from me and stumbled off, looking desperate to get away from him. I had to tell myself not to get involved. Nothing about her demeanor said she was scared of him, only that he'd upset her. A lover's spat, probably.

  The boyfriend kept following her, but about ten paces away he turned to glare at me again from over his shoulder. I waved sarcastically, just to get the pleasure of seeing him more worked up. I figured he probably deserved it for whatever he'd done to that girl. Just by looking at the pair you could tell she was well out of his league.

  Only a very stupid man would upset a woman like that.

  "Friends of yours?" Tomas joked once the duo was safely out of earshot.

  I smirked. "Not after how many ways I just imagined fucking his girlfriend."

  "No kidding," the officer muttered under his breath.

  "Watch it," I warned, my voice cold enough to broker no room for argument.

  As far as I was concerned, I'd claimed that woman as mine the second I laid eyes on her. As soon as Duffey was dealt with, I'd see what Tomas could do about tracking her down again. The ladylike ones were always the most fun when you finally got them unbuttoned, and I was more than happy to volunteer to unbutton her blue dress right off of her.

  The boyfriend was inconsequential as far as I was concerned. There was no way he satisfied her—not the way I would.

  "We need to move or we're going to lose our window," Tomas warned.

  "By all means, lead the way," I prompted him and his buddy. There was no woman in the world fuckable enough to be worth missing my chance to take a shot at Duffey.

  When we made it nearly to a dead-end, Tomas' friend did some fancy knock on one of the doors. When the lock audibly clicked open, he waved us in. Tomas walked in first to assess potential dangers, but he moved so quietly that he went unnoticed.

  "Good afternoon, Governor."

  Duffey's face paled as he turned to face me just in time to find me handing my suit jacket to Tomas so I could roll up my sleeves. Tom Ford didn't pair well with bloodstains.

  "You—You can't be here," he spluttered.

  He took a few steps back, but only succeeded in bumping into the wall behind him. There was nowhere for him to go. Tomas was blocking the only exit, and no one would be stupid enough to try to fight their way past him.

  "Have a seat, Duff."

  He flinched at my use of the nickname he famously hated, but did as I suggested. One of his legs shook nervously, his foot tapping the floor in an uneven rhythm. I took a step closer, enjoying the way it made him tap faster.

  Already tired of playing with him, I got right to business. "You already know why I'm here. So, you tell me, what the fuck do you think should happen next?"

  "Personally, I was thinking an accident might do you some good," Tomas chimed in. "Maybe a few months in a wheelchair would even help you win the sympathy vote."

  Duffey's head moved back-and-forth between the two of us so fast I wouldn't be surprised if he gave himself whiplash. "Please, no. Please don't hurt me. I'm sorry. Really, I am. Brunetti's offer, you have to understand, it was an offer I couldn't refuse."

  "What do you think this is? The fucking Godfather?" I sneered.

  "Oh, God." He dropped his head into his hands, the rest of his words coming out muffled but clear enough that I heard every word. "You're still green; you don't understand this thing with Brunetti. He's not the kind of man you say no to. You show up
here with your bodyguard trying to throw your money and weight around, but Brunetti's already proven what kind of threat he is. A man doesn't become president in this country by making an enemy out of Oscar Brunetti."

  My voice was cold as I said, "Stand up."

  Reluctantly, Duffey dragged himself up on his feet to face me. He'd made a mistake by repeating Brunetti's name over-and-over like that. He tried to wield the name as a warning, but all it did was stoke the anger already burning inside of me.

  I swung my fist hard into the center of Duffey's gut.

  "Oof." The impact knocked him back a couple feet.

  He wrapped his arms around himself and hunched over as if that would do him any good. When I hit him the second time, it was with my knee to his chest. He started to wheeze, struggling to catch his breath. I might have considered killing the man right there if we were anywhere less public.

  I leaned down to his level to speak directly to his ear. "How do you think the good people of this country are going to feel when they find out you've been making under-the-table deals with the head of an international human trafficking ring?" I clamped my hand down hard on the back of his neck. "Better yet, how do you think they're going to feel when they find out you buried more than a dozen missing persons cases to protect a criminal?"

  “I’d be ruined!" he shouted when I tightened my grip.

  The man had the audacity to start sniffling. He'd made a deal with the devil and now was too much of a pussy to deal with the consequences. I hated it when grown men cried.

  “I offered you a good thing and you spit on it. Now, it doesn’t seem like you’ve got anything left to offer me.”

  “If I was president, I could—”

  A loud laugh burst out of me. The man was more dense than I initially thought if he really expected I would ever let that happen now.

  I motioned for Tomas to hand me the folder he'd briefed me on in the car so I could toss it at Duffey's feet. "Go ahead, have a look."

  He eyed me warily as he reached for the folder. It would’ve been easy to take a cheap shot, but I knew the contents of that folder would hurt him more than any physical damage I might inflict. He muttered every profanity in the book as he sifted through page after page of evidence proving he’d been asking a select group of police chiefs to ‘lose’ reports of missing young women.

  Ironically, several of the women went missing from the same university where he was now preparing to give a commencement speech.

  Fucking rats, the whole lot of them.

  His shoulders slumped, a sign he was finally accepting his defeat. Not even the Brunetti’s could bury the kind of evidence Tomas managed to dig up. The governor didn’t cover his tracks well, and since the Brunetti family did, it would be Duffey left holding the bag if the story were to get out.

  "Next week, Hagan is going to hold a press conference to officially announce his presidential campaign."

  Duffey grimaced. "My team wanted me to announce the same night, try to steal some of his thunder."

  "Well, now you have a new plan. The night before, you're going to call a press conference of your own to say you don't intend to run—and that this will be your last term as governor. You want to spend more time at home with that beautiful family of yours. Y'know, be there to keep them safe."

  He straightened, his fingers curling into fists as if he wanted to launch them at me. Tomas sighed, drawing his attention. We both turned in time to see Tomas lift the edge of his shirt to show off his handgun.

  Duffey stumbled backward, putting his back to the wall again.

  "You have a speaking engagement to get to." I was already bored with him and the pansy ass way he handled conflict. "Have I made myself clear enough for you?"

  "But what about Brunetti?"

  The way his face twisted up made me scoff. I got back in his face, knowing that was more intimidating than talking to him from across the room. He flinched as I stared him down hard, putting all the fury I was currently feeling into the harsh glare.

  "Remember when I tried to guide you out of that mess and you put a knife in my fucking back? You wanted to make deals with Brunetti so bad, and now you get to really deal with him."

  I sunk my fist into his gut one more time for good measure. Hopefully he'd remember his lesson when he went home, took his shirt off, and found the bruises I'd no doubt left behind. Good luck explaining that to the wife.

  "Enjoy."

  I turned to the door, Tomas sliding out of the way to let me walk through first. Duffey was silent, but I could feel the weight of his eyes on me. He'd thought I was dumb when I showed up waving my money around, but this afternoon proved otherwise.

  Criminals were rarely pleased about being outsmarted by other criminals.

  "DAMMIT!" Duffey shouted, barely waiting until we were out of the room.

  I exchanged grins with Tomas. We'd done what we came to do; we managed to rattle him. My problem with the Brunetti family wasn't resolved, not by a long shot, but at least I'd put one more barrier between them and the seat of the presidency. It was bad enough Oscar Brunetti controlled every governor in the southeastern United States. There was no telling what he might get away with if he could manage to get a president in his pocket.

  "That went better than expected," Tomas mused.

  "I agree. We should celebrate." A whole slew of filthy scenes played out in my head. "I need you to figure out who that woman was."

  4

  Jairo

  I laughed under my breath as I scanned the front page of one of The Atlanta Star. They'd raked Barron Duffey over the coals after yesterday's announcement that he wouldn't be throwing his hat in the ring for the next presidential election. Less than twelve hours later, every decision he'd ever made in office was under intense scrutiny.

  And I wasn't even responsible for it.

  Based on how quickly things deteriorated, it wasn't hard to gather that Brunetti's camp must be involved. They'd probably caught wind of things before Duffey made the actual announcement. I was more than happy to see Duffey's career going up in flames, but Brunetti's involvement created a whole new problem for me.

  They'd clearly decided he could no longer protect them, and that meant they were willing to play dirty to replace him with someone that would. It would mean starting from scratch for me, and there was no guarantee the next Georgia governor would be as susceptible to promises of personal financial gain.

  Though, maybe that was for the best. Duffey easily agreed to anything I asked when I flashed the right amount of money, but it hadn't bought his loyalty. I needed to come up with a new tactic. Something I would have more control over.

  I was too distracted at the moment to come up with a new plan.

  "There's more on the second page," Tomas said.

  I shrugged off the suggestion. "I'm sure it's just more of the same."

  Tomas grinned like he had a secret, which prompted me to pick the paper back up and flip to the next page. I wasn't all that interested in reading more details of Duff's shitty career, but as my eyes scanned the page they landed on a picture near the bottom.

  The quality of the photo was crap, but the subjects of the photo were unmistakable. It was the couple we'd seen before confronting Duffey, albeit at least a couple years younger in the picture. I read the caption directly underneath.

  Alex Baker-Duffey and guest.

  "What else do we know about this?"

  "Quite a bit actually, thanks to a very overzealous campaign manager who's now effectively out of a job. Apparently, the governor forgot about his conservative southern values when he knocked up his mistress six months after he married his wife. The campaign manager was the one that convinced him to go public when the kid was eighteen so he could control the narrative. Apparently they had to pay the kid's college tuition as a bribe to get him to start using dear ol' dad's last name."

  "That's all good and well." I waved him off with the unnecessary details. "But I don't give a shit about Duffey's son ot
her than the fact that he's got something I want."

  “Her name is Brooke Harris, and actually," Tomas said, "he doesn't." He took his phone out and within seconds managed to get an email pinging in my inbox.

  It was a link to an engagement announcement from a suburban newspaper in northern Florida.

  Mr. and Mrs. Don Harris are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter Bridget Harris, to Alex Baker-Duffey, son of Barron Duffey and Anne Baker.

  "Sister?" I guessed.

  "Yeah, older sister by two years. But then that's where it gets a little weird." Tomas set his phone down on the desk and slid it across to me.

  I scrolled through pages worth of pictures people had taken of Brooke and Alex together over the years. The pictures abruptly stopped about a year ago. They were obviously a couple for a long time. There couldn’t have been much time between when they broke up to when he started dating the sister if the two of them were already engaged.

  “Anything else interesting in Brooke’s internet history?” I wanted as much information as possible. If she wasn’t dating Duffey’s son, then I didn’t really care anymore about him.

  “Just a lot of new accounts she made on job search sites. I dug around and found out she just left a waitressing gig. That's the only job history she's got, but she did just graduate, so I assume she's looking—"

  “Hi,” a small voice interrupted.

  A petite figure stepped out from behind Tomas. Her brown eyes, wide like saucers, reminded me so much of my brother Franco that it sometimes pained me to look at her. It didn't help that she insisted on keeping her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. From the front you couldn't see her chestnut locks at all, which made her look slightly boyish and even more like a young carbon copy of Franco.

  Part of me wondered if I should admonish her for interrupting, but as always, I wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do. She was already so quiet and odd, and I found myself constantly on edge wondering if each of my decisions were only making her worse.