CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
He wished he could be there with her. Holding her ’til she fell asleep. Kissing her forehead as her eyelids fluttered closed. Brushing loose strands of hair away from her face.
Instead, from the wooden swing on the back deck of his house, Colin zoomed in on the screenshot Elle had sent him a few hours ago. The one of her newest text. A night breeze tripped through the trees as he studied the message. He stared so long he let his vision go blurry. The message turned hazy around the edges of the words, and the letters seemed to float off the screen.
Ladies. Smarter. Pretty.
Then one word, in all caps, slammed into him.
INVOLVED.
He tapped in the community center’s web address into a search bar. Quickly he found Elle’s bio, where it said she prided herself on being involved with the local community.
In his head, he replayed the messages.
Be careful who you get involved with.
Hey, pretty lady. Don’t you be messing around with that new guy. WJ.
Pretty ladies should be smarter about who they get INVOLVED with.
The blurry haze evaporated. The clouds burned away, and the sky was clear. Colin had figured a gang member was somehow targeting her, because she was involved with a man whose family had been torn to pieces by a gang. Someone like Kenny or T.J. Nelson, who didn’t want the case reopened. Someone who was trying to intimidate Colin’s family through the woman in his life.
But that theory didn’t entirely add up.
He called Ryan. His brother answered on the first ring. “What’s up? It’s late. You okay?”
“Yeah. You answered quickly. What are you up to?”
“Sophie and I just finished a game of pool,” he said, and if there was ever code for fucking, that was it. But now was not the time for razzing his brother.
“You told me something the other day, about visiting Marcus at the convenience store,” Colin said, reminding Ryan of a conversation they’d had earlier in the week. It hadn’t seemed like much at the time, but now he was examining every possible connection. “The kid mentioned a guy who’d been there?”
“Yeah. He got some weird vibe from him. Thought he reeked of Royal Sinners. Said he had a goatee and was bitching about not having an iPhone.”
“And that made him think he was a Sinner?”
“More like Marcus had a gut reaction to him. And he said his dad has always been worried about those guys coming after them.”
Colin snapped his fingers. That was it. Instinct told him the warnings Elle had received weren’t about Colin—but they might very well be about Marcus.
Elle wasn’t only involved with Colin. Elle was involved with the local community. Elle was involved in helping the kids at the center. Elle had been deeply involved with helping Marcus. And Marcus’s father had been worried about gang members targeting his family. Were they targeting Marcus through Elle?
In the morning, he called Marcus and asked him for help.
“Tell me everything about the guy who came by your store the other day,” Colin said, and his young brother described the guy in detail, right down to his hands.
* * *
After Colin finished a training swim at lunch, his phone buzzed as he left the gym. He’d set up an alert for any new photos from the Instagram and Facebook profiles he’d check-marked as likely belonging to the Royal Sinners. The account that had pinged was called Don’t Mess With, and it often featured snapshots of stolen goods.
As he walked across the parking lot to his car, he scrolled through the new set of photos in the feed.
Boatloads of iPhones.
In some of the pictures, a guy pointed at his stash, his fingers in the shape of guns. The guy’s face wasn’t in any of the pictures, but Colin punched the air when he read the caption.
Looks like Wicked Jack is gonna make a cool couple of Gs on this haul. Burner phones are the shizz, but iPhones are the biz. $$$$$$
“Wicked Jack,” Colin said out loud. “WJ.”
Anger rolled through him, and he slammed the door on his car. Who the fuck was this guy harassing his Elle because of Marcus? What did Marcus have to do with the Royal Sinners? Was it because he was in the Protectors? He couldn’t imagine gang members caring that much about a guardian angels–style group of volunteers, especially teenagers. The Royal Sinners trafficked in guns and drugs and stolen goods, so why would a group of unarmed vigilantes bother them? And why would they care that Elle was talking to Marcus?
Outrage filled his chest, but he forced himself to let it go, and set to work.
The thing about gang guys was they didn’t always realize that some types of technology were highly traceable. They might have mastered the burner phone and made its anonymity their ally. But Instagram? That social media service was like a dog with a microchip.
Every picture had a location attached to it unless you turned off the geotagging feature, and not everyone knew to do that. Or chose to turn it off—because street gangs tagged. They left their mark. They bragged.
Colin wanted to kiss the original investors in Instagram and thank them for the geotagging technology that made it possible for braggarts to be found. In a few minutes, he had a longitude and latitude. As he looked at the picture one more time, something else clicked.
“Wicked Jack’s” fingernail was black and blue.
It matched the description of Marcus’s convenience store visitor.
* * *
Her nerves were frayed and worn thin. They were nails bitten to the quick. As she dressed for Ryan and Sophie’s proposal celebration, slipping into a dress and fastening a necklace, her stomach dived. Twenty million times. She ran a brush through her long hair, tugging, pulling, and yanking. Punishing it. She tossed the hairbrush in a basket on the bathroom floor, left her apartment, and took her son to her mother’s house. “I’ll pick you up later.”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
There it was again. The dead voice. The empty tone.
She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a hug. “You always come first. You know that, don’t you?”
He managed to quirk his lips up in a small smile, then she said good-bye. Even if he didn’t believe her now, she’d prove it to him.
* * *
The second the call came from Marcus, Colin pounced on it.
“Talk to me,” he said, then glanced at the time on his wrist. He needed to leave the office any second to make it to Ryan’s event.
“I went in early for my shift, and I found the video from the other week,” Marcus said. “I just played it on the work computer in the back office and shot a video of it with my cell. You should have it any minute. I emailed it.”
“Let me see if it’s here.” He switched to his email program on his laptop, clicked on the new message, and hit play. The video was black and white, and the conversation was barely audible.
“Do you know who he is? You think this is the guy who’s sending harassing notes to Elle?” Marcus asked.
“I don’t know for sure,” Colin said, then zoomed in on the guy’s hands. Lo and fucking behold, there it was. The messed-up fingernail. A chill ran down his spine. “It has to be the same guy. The comments about the phone in his Instagram, then this stubbed fingernail, then the location. I just don’t know his name.” He crooked his head against the phone as he grabbed a screenshot and dropped it into a reverse image search. “But I’m going to call the detective after I plug this into a—”
His heart stopped beating. His blood froze. That last name. It echoed in his nightmares.
“You still there?” Marcus asked.
“Yes,” he whispered, his voice a hiss.
“What is it? Who is it? What did you find out?”
The photo had taken him to a Facebook page for Jerry Stefano’s teenage son. The photos matched the ones he’d found on Instagram.
“Lee Stefano. The shooter’s son. And it looks like he’s following in his father’s footsteps. He c
alls himself Wicked Jack, and he’s in the Royal Sinners.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Sophie’s hand was adorned with the most gorgeous diamond Elle had ever seen. Brilliant and vintage cut, it was one hundred percent Sophie. Elle held her friend’s left hand and couldn’t stop oohing and ahhing at the beautiful bling. Nor could Shannon.
The women and the men gathered around the blue plush lounge chairs in one of the bars at New York-New York, having just surprised Sophie with the proposal celebration that Ryan had put together for her. Elle focused on the diamond and on Sophie’s happiness, letting it distract her from the inevitable turn her own life was taking.
This was antithesis of what she had to do later this evening, but for now, Elle wanted to soak in the romance. She wanted to savor all her friend’s happiness. Sniff it like a fine perfume she could enjoy but never own for herself.
“Tell us everything. Did he actually take out the ring at the top of the roller coaster, too?” Elle asked.
Sophie shook her head, her pretty platinum blonde curls bouncing. She looked windswept, and radiant, too. Not to mention like a total knockout in her pinup girl dress with a peach pattern on it. “As soon as we reached the top, the very second when the car just sort of hovers there on the track and you’re about to scream your lungs out, he shouted ‘Sophie, will you marry me?’”
Shannon clasped her hand on her mouth then dropped it just as quickly. “Oh my God, that is so perfect.”
“And what did you say?” Elle asked, making a rolling gesture with her hands, eager for Sophie to tell the rest of the tale. A Bruce Springsteen tune played in the background at the bar, while the men toasted to Ryan. Colin, Michael, and Sophie’s brother John—one of the most handsome detectives Elle had ever seen, with his dark blond hair and blue eyes—were all there. “Well, obviously you said yes,” Elle quickly supplied. “But how? Tell us, tell us.”
“I shouted yes! It was that simple,” Sophie said and her joy was infectious. Elle beamed as she listened. She couldn’t stop smiling. Not even the specter of the rest of her evening could cast a pall on this moment.
Ryan leaned in, draped an arm around Sophie, and raised his finger in the air. “Actually, to be precise, she said ‘Oh my God, yes, yes, yes.’”
Sophie swatted him on the elbow. “Ryan Sloan.”
“Sophie Sloan,” he countered.
He tugged her in for a kiss, and even though Elle’s chest ached with sadness, she clapped loudly and cheered them on. She couldn’t help it. This kind of bliss needed to be celebrated, even if a relationship like that was too risky for her. Even though love was biting her in the ass.
Oh, wait.
That was Colin grasping her rear. He brushed his lips to her ear. “You look beautiful tonight,” he whispered. “And I’ll be right back. I need to talk to John. But I have good news.”
She flashed him a smile. “Can’t wait,” she said, her eyes following him briefly as he walked into the casino with Sophie’s brother. But truth be told, she could wait, because she desperately needed the second-hand high she was getting from Sophie’s tale. The only good news would be that her stalker was arrested, and she doubted that was the case, so she opted to exist in this bubble of happiness for a few more minutes.
“Tell us the rest,” Elle demanded when Sophie and Ryan managed to pry their lips off each other.
“I need every single detail of how my brother finally got down on one knee,” Shannon added.
Sophie laced her fingers together and continued. “As soon as the cars stopped and everyone got off the rollercoaster, the attendant handed Ryan the box. Ryan didn’t want to have it on the ride, obviously, since it goes upside down. He stepped off the car, reached for my hand, dropped down on one knee, flipped open the box, and said…” Sophie stopped to clasp her hand on her heart. “‘You are the love of my life. And I have never wanted anything more than I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you.’”
Elle shrieked. She couldn’t help it. It was so perfect. Her heart skipped around the room. It traipsed and pranced, and sang tra la la. She grabbed both of Sophie’s hands. “That is the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”
A tear of happiness slid down her cheek. Followed by another. Only this one was laced with sadness, because she couldn’t have that kind of romance right now.
Maybe not ever.
* * *
The sound of shrieking distracted him momentarily. As he and John threaded their way through the slot machines, he glanced back at the bar and spotted Elle holding Sophie’s hands and beaming. Man, was there anything better than a proposal to send the woman you were crazy for into romantic overdrive? He couldn’t wait to have a minute alone with her tonight. They hadn’t been together all week, and he wanted to feel her in his arms. To hold her, touch her, taste her. To tell her how he felt, tell her he wasn’t just falling.
He’d fallen.
But this had to be done first.
The problem wasn’t fully solved yet.
That was where John came in.
They continued past the Willy Wonka slots, where the chocolatier presided over Oompa Loompas, and reached a quiet hallway near the restrooms.
“I’ve got some info for you,” Colin said, then told him everything about the texts, the convenience store visitor, the Instagram pictures and the name. “Is Stefano’s son part of the case? Why would he have something against Marcus and be trying to get to him through Elle?”
John nodded a few times, seeming to process the news. He blew out a long stream of air. “Lee Stefano is one of the reasons there is an investigation. When he started falling into the gang activities, we were tipped off about what Lee was up to, and started looking into the possibility that his father had accomplices in the Sinners. He might have a bone to pick with Marcus.”
“But Lee’s dad is in prison, so what would he have against Marcus or Elle?”
“That’s what we’re working on. My belief is that Kenny Nelson and T.J. Nelson were supposed to look out for Lee Stefano and keep him out of trouble. They did for a while, but then they stopped keeping him away from the gang and brought him into it instead. He’s one of them now, and I’m willing to bet that Lee is doing his part to look out for the men he thinks of now as his brothers—Kenny and T.J.”
Colin knit his brow. “How is he looking out for them? Especially since they’re on the run.”
“That’s exactly why Lee’s looking out for them. So we don’t get to them. This is Lee protecting them, and they don’t like that Marcus is talking to you. I have some leads I’m chasing down, but my gut is telling me that these guys figure the more Marcus talks to your family, the more they’re at risk.”
“Do you think Marcus knows something?”
John paused and clenched his jaw, his eyes hardening. “I have my suspicions.”
“Jesus Christ,” Colin muttered in utter frustration. “This is like a fucking onion. Peel off one layer and there’s another one underneath.”
“Believe you me, I know. But we’re getting closer to the key suspects, and now it looks like Lee Stefano just put a sign on his back that says arrest me for grand larceny. After all, iPhones aren’t cheap,” he said with a wry grin. “And on that note, I need to cut out of here and get on with paying a visit to a certain longitude and latitude.”
* * *
He couldn’t wait to tell Elle, to let her know that the end was in sight. They had a name, and the name was in the hands of the cops, and the cops were doing their job. She was going to be safe. Safe with him.
When he returned to the bar, he reached for her hand, pulled her up, and led her into a quiet corner. He grabbed a small booth and told her every detail. She cycled through surprise, shock, and fear.
He threaded his fingers through hers, trying to reassure her. “But John’s on his way to make an arrest.”
She parted her lips to speak then simply said “good” in a voice that was devoid of emotion. He wanted to reach ba
ck in time and recapture some of that magic she seemed to feel moments ago. Maybe it had all disappeared. Abracadabra. Now you see it, now you don’t.
“Elle, this is a good thing, isn’t it?”
She shook her head then she nodded, as if she couldn’t decide. “It is good. It’s wonderful. It’s everything I hoped for. But he’s not in handcuffs yet, and we don’t know if he’ll be at his home when John goes there to arrest him. We don’t know what will happen,” she said, fiddling with her necklace. “All I know is my son is freaked out, and he’s barely talking again. I can’t take this chance right now. He is my son. He is my world.”
“Oh.”
His heart cratered. It fell from the sky and crashed hard at his feet, in pieces.
“I want to,” she said, squeezing his hand. “You have to know how much I want to be with you.”
He nodded. He didn’t doubt it for a second. “I understand,” he said, though the words cut his throat.
She let go of his hand and ran her fingers through his hair. Fuck, he would miss this. He would miss her touch. He would miss all of her.
“I think we just need to cool it for a bit, until things settle down.” She kept her chin up but the trembling in her shoulders gave her away. “This is temporary.”
But temporary had never felt so miserable.
All that joy, all that happiness, all that possibility unwound into a heap on the floor of the bar at New York-New York. He’d always known Elle was his Everest. He’d always suspected he’d never have her the way he had hoped. But he’d been wrong about why. He wasn’t losing her—whether temporarily or permanently—because of his bad choices. Instead it was due to the choices of others. Choices he couldn’t control. He had no notion what was next for them, or how long this separation would last. Maybe a day, maybe a year.
But there was one choice he could control. He brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek and gazed into her hazel eyes. In them he saw everything he’d ever wanted. Love, peace, acceptance, understanding, and so much passion.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” he began. “I told you I’d always be honest with you. And I don’t want you to think that will stop even if we can’t be together right now.”
Sinful Longing Page 20