by Zara Chase
“You think he wanted a reconciliation?” Kent asked.
“Yeah, but he never actually said it, not once he saw Saul and me together. But I could see it in his eyes, in the way he looked at Saul.”
“Did they meet again? Did Sam ever go to the penthouse?”
“Not while I was there, but I was away for a couple of days that week, so he could have, but I’m sure Saul would have said.”
“Not sure about him then,” Jared mused. “A lover scorned, and all that.”
“What about my lovely father and step-brothers?” Naomi asked.
“How long have you got?” Frank replied. “Bastards! They just wouldn’t leave Saul alone. No matter what he did for them, it was never enough.”
“We couldn’t find any emails from his old man on Saul’s laptop,” Kent said.
“He doesn’t do email,” Naomi replied. “I thought you realized.”
“He does intimidation and guilt-tripping a hell of a lot better.” Frank sighed. “When Saul finally decided enough was enough and stopped funding them, they bombarded him with phone calls, doing their best to guilt him into capitulation. When he stopped taking their calls they appeared here in the UK. They came to the flat mob-handed and pleaded with Saul for help. Your father said he was desperate, Naomi. He’d remortgaged his house to keep the bar afloat, convinced that Saul would win Wimbledon and make it really take off. In the meantime he’d borrowed more money from some unsavory characters who were demanding repayment with menaces. He was scared shitless, and I’ve never seen him scared of anything before.”
“I’m not surprised,” Naomi said. “Chicago loan sharks are not people you want to get on the wrong side of.”
“Right. Your dad left details of his debts with Saul, but he flat out refused to look at them. I don’t think they believed he’d hold out though.”
“All the more reason to keep him alive,” Naomi mused.
“Saul told them they’d have to wait until he was dead to get anything else out of him,” Frank said bitterly.
Jared and Kent’s heads jerked up. “But he didn’t leave them anything.”
“Did he not?” Frank managed a wan smile. “Good for Saul.”
“Would you recognize the men who attacked you?” Jared asked. “You said there were at least two of them.”
“I only saw one, and then only briefly. I heard another. But I’ll never forget the one I did see. A big bloke, he was, with a bald head and a scar over his left eye.”
Jared could see they’d exhausted Frank and stood up. “Thanks, mate. We’ll let you know what we find out.”
“Do that. I get out of here soon and I’ll be at my mum’s while I recover, but I want to be at Saul’s funeral, even if I have to go in a wheelchair.” Tears poured unchecked down his face. “I need to say good-bye to my soul mate.”
“That was so sad,” Naomi said, snuffling as they left the ward. “I felt so sorry for Frank.”
“Well, at least he knows now,” Jared said, squeezing her hand. “He took it better than I expected him to.”
Kent nodded. “He had to know only something pretty devastating would have prevented Saul from visiting him, so he was prepared for bad news.”
Naomi brushed away tears with the back of her hand. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“To your brother’s apartment again,” Jared replied. “I want to see if I can find the papers your father gave Saul regarding his debts. See if there’s anything in them that doesn’t jibe with what we already know.”
“Or if they’re still actually there,” Kent suggested, sharing a significant glance with Jared. “Your family are keen to get into that flat, Naomi. They either want to remove those papers, strip the place of any valuables or plant evidence to point the finger of suspicion away from them.”
“You think they actually killed Saul?” Naomi asked.
“We know they haven’t had access to the apartment since Saul died, so if they have removed those papers it could only have been done when the steroids were administered.”
Naomi sat a little straighter. “What Frank said about Saul telling them they wouldn’t get anything else out of him until he was dead…that gives them a motive.”
“A whopping great motive. If Chicago hoods really are after them.”
“I still can’t believe they would go that far,” Naomi said.
“It’s unlikely we’ll ever be able to prove that they did,” Kent replied. “But perhaps leaving them to the not-so-tender mercies of the Chicago underworld would be a fitting punishment.”
“More fitting than being imprisoned in the UK,” Jared said. “We don’t have the death penalty, nor do we have life without parole. Life sentences usually mean fifteen years, or less.”
“I can think of another reason why they want to get into the apartment,” Naomi said after they’d travelled a few miles in pensive silence. “My brother, Arnie, is a dab hand at forging Saul’s signature. When they set up the bar, using Saul’s success to pull customers into Redford’s, Arnie used to sign a whole bunch of posters of Saul in action and I swear to God I wouldn’t have known it wasn’t Saul’s signature.”
“You think they’re after Saul’s checkbook?” Jared asked.
“It wouldn’t surprise me. If they wrote a hefty check, Arnie signed it and they backdated it, the bank would probably honor it.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “They’re used to seeing large sums of money go from Saul’s account into my family’s.”
“Okay, babe,” Kent said. “If it’s still there we’ll spirit it away to safety. If it isn’t, we can warn the bank. Don’t worry, they won’t get away with a stunt like that.”
Wimbledon village was awash with activity, the start of the tournament only days away. Connor parked in front of Saul’s block and stayed with the car while the three of them made their way inside. The flat already had a musty, unlived-in feel to it, and Jared threw open a couple of windows to let in some fresh air.
“Why not sift through the drawers in that desk,” Jared suggested to Naomi, hoping to save her the pain of going through her brother’s more personal stuff.
She nodded, her eyes dull and lifeless, and was slow to respond. Kent went through the wardrobes in Saul’s room, looking for anything of significance, while Jared attacked a small filing cabinet.
“Ah-hah!” she said a short time later, brandishing the papers relating to Saul’s family’s failing business.
He tucked them inside his jacket and also removed all of Saul’s financial records and checkbooks. He’d have Jack, as Saul’s executor, put a stop on all his accounts pending probate. They’d gotten what they came for, but before Jared could suggest leaving, his mobile rang. It was Connor.
“What’s up?” he asked, taking the call.
“Just seen Saul’s brothers and a guy with no hair checking out the building around the side.”
“You think they’re looking for a way in other than through the front door?”
“Looks that way. They’ve seen the car so they know we’re here, but I’m standing out of sight so they haven’t seen me. Hey up, they’re splitting up. The bald guy’s gone off on his own.”
“Follow him, Connor. See where he goes and what you can find out about him. Get some pictures if you can, but be careful. He fractures people’s skulls for kicks.”
“I’m on it.”
“What?” Naomi asked anxiously.
“They don’t give up easily, do they?” Kent said when Jared had explained.
“So what do we do now?” Naomi asked.
“We wait for Connor to report back.”
He did so ten minutes later.
“I’ve got what you need.
“Okay, we’re on our way down.”
“He went to a pub a few roads away,” Connor told them when they were back in the car. “Downed two shots of whisky in quick succession, like he was annoyed about something, then legged it. I followed him outside and managed to get a few shots on him. He d
idn’t notice ’cause there’s loads of tourists around snapping anything to do with the Wimbledon preparations.”
“Did you get his name?” Kent asked.
“No, he didn’t talk to anyone. He’s obviously not from around these parts. But I did follow him to his car and got the registration number.”
“Good man!”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like the creep.” Connor fired up the engine. “Back to the hospital?”
“Why?” Naomi asked.
Jared squeezed her knee. “To see if Frank recognizes the pictures Connor took. There doesn’t seem to be any doubt now that your family did this. I’m sorry, darling.”
“Let’s just nail the bastards,” she replied, grinding her jaw and staring straight ahead, dry-eyed and resolute.
“That’s him,” Frank said without hesitation. “I’d know that ugly face anywhere. Apart from anything else, the scar gives him away. Who is he?”
“That’s what we have yet to find out, but we will.”
Jared used his mobile as they strode back to the car to call in a favor from one of his Discretions friends. Then he called Detective Regan and asked if they could meet with him at the local nick. By the time they arrived there they knew the car belonged to a Terry Bradstock who lived in Stockwell, South London.
Detectives Regan and Salter appeared impressed by Jared’s discoveries. They looked the guy up on the National Crime Database and discovered Bradstock was known to them as a “heavy for hire,” with a string of convictions for aggravated assault to his name.
“If your brothers needed someone Saul wouldn’t recognize to separate him from Frank, then they wouldn’t have to ask too many people before Bradstock’s name came up,” Regan said. “So, we’ll round him up and grill him.”
“And he’ll lawyer up and deny everything,” Jared replied. “It will be Frank’s word—the word of a man who saw his attacker for a split second on a dark night before having his skull caved in—against Bradstock’s. And you can bet Bradstock will have an alibi lined up.”
Regan conceded the point with a nod. “Even so—”
“And even if you trip Bradstock up, there’s nothing to link him to Naomi’s family. If they get wind of the fact that Bradstock’s been picked up, they’ll just hot-foot it back to the States and get away with murder.”
“The due process of law, I’m afraid,” Regan said, shaking his head. “We have to abide by the rules.”
A slow smile spread across Jared’s face. “You do, but we don’t.”
“What do you have in mind?”
Chapter Twelve
A savage nausea gripped Naomi as she sat between Jared and Kent in the back of the car, her melancholy pushed aside by an icy, incipient rage. She had never doubted her loud-mouthed bully of a father was capable of filicide. She just hadn’t been able to see what motive he would have. Now she knew. He was in a desperate financial situation, and when he had been unable to persuade Saul to help him out again, he decided to benefit from him after his death instead.
Jared’s plan to get them to confess was simple, but required her direct input, and the thought of seeing it through fired her resolve. It was just about the only thing keeping her sane. Well, that and the reassuring support of the resourceful duo surrounding her with a wall of warmth and security. They seemed to understand she needed to get her head together and were content to let her cogitate without feeling the need to offer reassurances or make idle conversation. Every so often, one or the other of them touched her—her hand, her thigh, the curve of her face—letting her know they were there for her. Saving her from falling apart.
It was late afternoon by the time they got home.
“Go and get some rest, babe,” Jared said, probably sensing she couldn’t face lunch. “We have a few hours’ work to do, then we’ll have an early dinner and iron out our plans for tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to just talk,” she replied, fixing him with a speaking look. “I want to forget, and you guys are experts at focusing a girl’s mind. Besides, you promised me more.”
“That was before we found out about your family’s involvement,” Kent said. “We didn’t think you’d want to—”
“Well, I do.” She planted her hands on her hips and shared a defiant look between them. “And if that makes me a bad person, you know what, I don’t give a damn. Besides, if I lock myself away and give in to my grief, they’ll have won. I can’t bring Saul back, but I can fight for justice and save his reputation, with or without your help.”
“Okay, sugar.” Jared’s sexy smile sent the life blood flowing back through her frozen veins. “Go and take a rest. One of us will wake you in a couple of hours and help you into what you’ll wear for us tonight.”
“What if he rings?” she asked, her excitement stalling when she contemplated having to speak to her murdering bastard of a father.
“Leave your phone down here so you don’t have to worry about it. He keeps calling every few hours, so wait until you’re with us before you pick up.”
“Okay.”
Naomi was emotionally drained, but the moment her head hit the pillow she fell into a deep, surprisingly dreamless sleep, the sleep of emotional and physical exhaustion. It didn’t feel like she’d been between the sheets for more than a minute or two before she sensed a presence looming over her. She blinked the sleep from her eyes and saw Kent standing beside the bed, sporting a killer smile.
“What’s up?” she asked, sitting up. The covers slithered down to her waist.
“Nothing from where I’m standing,” he said, sweeping her naked torso with his gaze. “Feeling better?”
“I actually slept,” she replied. “Who would have thought?”
“Come on then, up you get. Go and do what you need to do in the bathroom. Then I’ll help you rig yourself out.”
Curious to know what they had in store for her, she didn’t dally in the bathroom but did remember to put her collar back on. When she emerged she saw a slim, long-line black dress laid out on the bed. It looked entirely respectable to her expert eye, and she was a bit disappointed they didn’t want more of her exposed over the dinner table.
Until she saw Kent’s grin, and the weird contraption of straps he was brandishing.
“It’s a harness,” he explained.
“You make me sound like a horse.”
He chuckled. “Just be grateful we don’t intend to put a bit between your teeth.” He paused. “Well, not until after you’ve eaten.”
Kent helped her into the complicated leather arrangement that left her tits poking through large holes and had a halter strap that went around her neck. It had a wide straps leading from rings beneath her breasts to a criss-cross arrangement over her pubic bone and a single strap that cut tightly between her legs. She couldn’t see how it was attached behind but before Kent pulled it tight he slid a small, fat vibrator deep into her cunt relying, presumably, on the strap to keep it in place. Naomi was already massively turned on, but when she saw the look of appreciation in Kent’s eye, her excitement ratcheted up several levels.
“Do I have to sit through dinner wearing this?” she asked.
“Sure you do. I know you wanna cut straight to the chase, darling, but you also know better than that.”
“But the vibrator—”
He flexed a brow. “You don’t like it?”
“Sure, what’s not to like, but—”
“Hey, we know what’s best for you.”
He held out the dress and Kent zipped her into it. It fit like a glove—why was she not surprised? A slinky material that clung to every curve, with a slit up the side that revealed her bare buttock no matter how carefully she moved. Her nipples pressed against the fabric, their outline clearly visible, as was the halter strap. Kent grabbed a pair of her four-inch black mules from the closet and she slipped her feet into them, examining her appearance from all sides in the full-length glass. She had to admit that she looked pretty sexy, and she sure as hell felt it
. Her eyes smoldered, her lips seemed to have developed a sexy pout and that strap between her legs would never stop the trickle of honey already building there.
Kent came up behind her, his hands covering her nipples and tweaking them.
“Like how it makes you feel?” he asked, running one hand down her backside and patting a buttock.
“I ought to feel like a cheap slut but in actual fact I feel classy.”
“That’s kinda the point. The dress is couture, the harness from an online BDSM supplier.” He flashed a grin. “We like extremes. Come on then. Let’s show the boss man just how smoking hot you look. And in case you’re worried, it’s just us here now. We gave Alice and Connor the night off.”
Reassured, Naomi walked slowly down the stairs, awkward in the tight-fitting harness. Kent held her hand and kept up a non-stop flow of compliments, interspersed with warnings about what they had in store for her, his language crude and arousing.
“Very classy,” Jared said when she reached the bottom of the stairs.
His reaction helped to calm Naomi’s nerves. She so wanted them both to approve, not judge, because a small part of her brain still kept pointing out that her behavior was inappropriate. Damn it, her beloved brother had been murdered. Murdered by his own family. But Jared was right. Moping wouldn’t change anything, and these two studs had gone above and beyond, trying to protect her from an avalanche of hurt, albeit in a somewhat unconventional fashion. Trying to impress them in return was nowhere near as hard as walking down a catwalk in front of hundreds of pairs of critical eyes.
It was way scarier than that.
But Naomi could do it. She was proud of her body and knew they wanted her as much as she wanted them. They were just better at hiding it. She inverted her chin, in model mode, poised and in control. Pretending to be someone else had gotten her through countless photo shoots when, surrounded by glamorous, confident people, she had often felt like the scrawny kid from the Chicago back streets who had no place in such company. But she had survived that jungle and would get through her initial embarrassment now. Her heart was hammering at twice its usual rate, but she was determined to give the impression that she wore sexy bondage gear to dinner every day of her life and that it was no big deal.