by Tee O'Fallon
“Sure.” He sat on Nicky’s other side. “Are you stuck?”
“Not really.” He shook his head, and a dark lock of hair fell in front of his eyes. “But it’s hard to remember everything.”
When Daisy reached out to push his hair off his forehead, Dom tracked her fingers and the deep pink nail polish adorning her nails.
“So how can I help?” He looked at the open textbooks and notepad.
“I’m trying to memorize times tables.” Nicky wrinkled his face at the diagrams Daisy had drawn.
“I didn’t know they still taught those.” Dom picked up the pad and stared at the drawings of what looked like tiny flowers. He scratched his chin. “What are these?”
“That’s what I said.” Nicky laughed, elbowing Daisy.
“Hey.” She elbowed him back. “Those are roses.” She pointed to the first row of flowers. “And these are tulips.” She indicated the next row of drawings.
“Really?” Dom scrunched his brows, mimicking Nicky. Although in reality the hand-drawn images looked exactly like two groups of four roses and four tulips. “I have a better idea.”
He popped the magazine out of his duty weapon and proceeded to flick out the bullets with his thumb until sixteen rounds of ammo clattered onto the wood table. He then segregated the rounds into four groups of four bullets each.
“Are you serious?” Daisy’s eyes went wide. Her lips, looking extremely kissable with deep pink lipstick that matched her nails, were caught somewhere between a grin of disbelief and amusement. “You are not going to teach him times tables with bullets.”
“Now, Aunt Daisy.” Dom looked first at her, then at Nicky. “Teaching is all about relating to your audience. Nicky is a guy’s guy. Am I right, buddy?” He held up his open hand.
“Right, Uncle Dom.” Nicky smacked his hand against Dom’s in a high-five.
“You see, Aunt Daisy? Guys don’t relate as well to things like flowers as they do to manly guy stuff.”
“Manly guy stuff?” Her eyes went even wider, giving him another clear view of all the glittery golden specks in her irises. “Like bullets?”
“Exactly.” He nodded, leaning forward over Nicky’s knees. “It’s all about finding something your pupil can relate to.”
“I see.” She also leaned forward. “Did the army teach you this ballistic method to do other useful things, like count your missiles?”
“As a matter of fact, it did.” He grinned, enjoying her snappy comeback.
They stared at each other, neither moving, neither giving an inch.
“Are you guys gonna kiss?” Nicky wrapped his arms around his shoulders, then pursed his lips and made smacking, smooching noises.
Daisy jerked backward, as if suddenly realizing their mouths were only inches apart.
“Hey.” Dom gave Nicky a sharp look. “Back to your homework, pal.”
“Dinner’s ready.” Alex poked her head through the open door to the kitchen. “Nicky, you can finish your homework later.”
“Okay, Mommy.” Nicky got up from the sofa and climbed over Dom’s legs, leaving him and Daisy alone in the living room.
“Dinner, you two,” Gray shouted from the kitchen.
He turned to see Gray with two beers in his hand. When he turned back, Daisy had already gotten up, a palpable look of relief on her face. He followed her, pausing to yank one of the bottles from Gray’s hand. “What the fuck are you doing?” he hissed under his breath.
“Nothing.” Gray held up his free hand.
“Bullshit.” As he turned to follow Daisy into the dining room, he noted a large white schematic on the kitchen counter, then his eyes were drawn to her hips swaying back and forth beneath that long, black skirt. He imagined his hands cupping the globes of her perfectly shaped ass.
When she pulled out a chair for herself, he automatically rounded the table and pushed in the chair for her as she sat. He was reminded of the night he’d done that in Alex’s kitchen. The first night they’d met.
She cleared her throat and glanced over her shoulder at him. “Thank you.”
He sat next to her, suddenly overwhelmed with awareness, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop it. As beat to shit as he was, his skin felt prickly, and the hairs on his neck stood at attention. He didn’t know how the hell he’d survive dinner sitting not six inches from her.
Alex began ladling up heaping bowls of beef stew while Gray dished up salad and Nicky helped by passing around rolls and butter.
“I saw the drawings on the table,” Dom said, unable to just sit there or he’d go nuts. “What are you ladies working on?” He looked from Daisy to Alex.
“Daisy has a very prestigious design contract with the Piazza Hotel.” Alex accepted the breadbasket from Nicky and selected a roll. “She beat out nearly twenty other floral designers who bid on the project. That’s quite a coup.”
“Ah, yes. The Piazza.” Dom raised a brow with the intention of reminding Daisy of their conversation about that wimp, Andrew Foust. “The Piazza’s big time. Congrats,” he said to her.
“Thank you.” She gave him a quick smile and then spread a linen napkin on her lap. “I’ve been working on it for months. The grand reopening is less than a week away.”
Dom caught Daisy’s gaze. “When did you start your company?”
She turned to him, her eyes sparkling with excitement, the first look she’d given him in a year that wasn’t all fired up with anger or resentment.
“Around ten years ago, but it was just a little shop at first. A tiny corner bodega until business began booming and I moved to my current location. I’ve been in the floral industry since I was eighteen, and I love every minute of it. Anything to do with flowers and I’m hooked.”
Dom smiled. She wasn’t his, but he found himself inordinately proud of her accomplishments.
“So what about you boys?” She tore open a roll and looked at Gray. “What have you both been working on? Any interesting cases?”
He met Gray’s gaze, saying nothing.
“Daddy’s been working on something he can’t talk about,” Nicky answered with his mouth full of stew.
“Sweetie, don’t talk with your mouth full,” Alex admonished.
“Okay, Mommy,” Nicky replied, still chewing.
Alex threw up her hands and rolled her eyes to the ceiling in defeat, and they all laughed.
Luckily, Nicky’s intervention saved Dom and Gray from having to answer Daisy’s question, and before he knew it, dinner was over and they were clearing the table.
A phone dinged with the muted sound of an incoming text, and Daisy pulled her cell from her purse to read the message. “My ride’s here,” she announced and began rolling up her drawings. She donned her coat, then hugged and kissed Alex. “Thanks for dinner.”
“Anytime.” Alex hugged her back. “Nicky, give Aunt Daisy a kiss good night.”
Nicky obliged, then Daisy gave Gray a quick hug and headed for the door.
“Hey!” Nicky shouted, looking from Dom to Daisy. “Aren’t you two going to hug and kiss g’nite, too?”
The room went silent. Gray’s mouth twitched. Alex looked at Daisy, who licked her lips, a shocked, panic-stricken look on her face.
“Well?” Nicky prodded, and when neither Dom nor Daisy made a move toward each other, Nicky grabbed Dom’s hand and dragged him over to where Daisy stood.
When Nicky nudged her with his elbow, a look of resignation replaced the panicked, shocked expression, and she took a quick breath and held it. Her body went rigid, and her hands fisted at her sides just before she turned her head to offer him her cheek.
Dom clenched his jaw. That she couldn’t stomach so much as a chaste good-night kiss angered him. Not at her, but at himself for making her feel such overwhelming disgust at his touch.
He gently rested his hands on her upper arms, then leaned in to touch his lips to her cheek. His heart thumped a little faster, as did hers. He could see the quickening pulse beat at her thro
at. Unable to stop himself, he let his mouth linger a moment on her warm skin before pulling back. When he did, he caught the low sound of her exhaling, telling him she really had been holding her breath.
She opened her eyes and met his gaze. Her expression was all but unreadable, but he couldn’t miss the pretty pink flush that crept to her cheeks. “G-good night,” she stammered, then rushed out the front door.
For several long seconds he stared after her, confused. Initially, the prospect of being kissed by him seemed to make her want to puke. Then she’d seemed almost afraid.
What the fuck?
He jammed his hands into his pockets and turned to find three sets of bewildered eyes on him. Gray’s brows were raised. Alex’s were drawn together, her lips twisted with concern. Nicky giggled, looking entirely pleased with himself.
“What?” he said, glancing first to Alex, then to Gray and Nicky.
“C’mon, Nicky.” Alex shook her head. “Let’s finish your homework while Daddy and Uncle Dom take their coffee in the office.” She put her arm around Nicky’s shoulder and propelled him toward the living room, but not before giving Dom a meaningful look that clearly said she wasn’t pleased with him.
Fuuuck.
A few minutes later, Gray closed the door behind him, and they both sat on a long, black leather sofa in Gray’s office. Dom quickly gave his partner the rundown, including the identity of his assigned target.
“I know we expected an initiation hit, but now that it’s here…” Gray set his mug onto the table and let out a harsh breath. “How to murder someone, but not really kill them?”
Dom took a long drink of coffee, sorely needing the caffeine jolt. “My plan has at least a fifty-fifty shot at success.”
Gray shook his head. “I don’t like those odds.”
“Too late. Plan’s already approved.” He shot Gray a look intended to broach no argument, although he knew his friend was only concerned for his safety. “The circle of people who know about the plan is tight. Only four other people besides us are in the know. Cassie, Lieutenant Frye, Captain Fazioli, and the commissioner himself. For the last twelve months I’ve researched and strategized how to pull this off. We’ve always known there’d be an initiation hit. The only missing component was the target. Now that I have one, we can move forward.”
Gray frowned. “This is one crazy-ass plan.”
“I know.” Dom nodded. “I’ll handle the hit, you take care of Smith. I don’t trust him, and he doesn’t trust me.”
“Consider it done.” Gray ran a hand through his dark hair. “This better work or—”
“Yeah,” Dom said. “I’m a dead man.”
Chapter Seven
The second Lt. Frye’s office door shut behind him, Dom’s stomach felt like he’d swallowed a bottle of battery acid. Everything that was about to pass was part of a carefully choreographed plan, one designed to help keep him alive.
If this doesn’t turn into a total goatfuck.
“Captain.” Dom nodded to Capt. Fazioli. Lt. Frye sat behind his desk. When Gray rose from a chair to clap him lightly on the shoulder, he knew the gesture was one of not only professional support but friendship. True friends—ones who support you through good times and bad—were a rarity.
“When does IA get here?” Dom patted the bulge in his right front pants pocket.
“They’re waiting on my call,” Lt. Frye said as he dialed the extension for the big man upstairs.
Capt. Fazioli extended his hand, which he clasped in a firm grip. “Detective,” the captain said, “I don’t know how this insane plan of yours got approved, but I want to wish you luck and thank you for your dedication and service to this city.”
His captain didn’t have to say the words he really meant: in case I never see you again.
“Thank you, sir.” He shook the captain’s hand, and they all sat in chairs strategically placed near the speaker on Lt. Frye’s desk.
“Commissioner’s office,” a female voice came from the speaker.
“Lieutenant Frye.”
“He’s waiting for your call,” she said. “I’ll put you through.”
A moment later, the confident voice of the commissioner of the New York City Police Department came on the line. “Gentlemen, let’s get started.”
Lt. Frye identified all present.
“Detective Carew,” the commissioner began, “I initially opposed this plan due to the inherent and extreme danger. But apparently you have very important contacts that go all the way to the highest military levels. And there’s nothing I’d like more than for this department to be credited with taking down the Pyramid. As a result, I’m compelled to put one of my most decorated officers in serious harm’s way, and I need to hear directly from you that this is really something you want to do and that no one is pressuring you into it.”
Dom cleared his throat. It was a rare occasion to address the commissioner directly under any circumstances, let alone one as important as this. “Sir, I’ve never felt more strongly about any case I’ve worked. This is something I not only want to do, but I have to do.”
There was a pause, and if he heard correctly, a lengthy disgruntled sigh.
“Very well,” the commissioner said. “Good luck, Detective. Keep me posted.”
The line went dead. For a few seconds, no one spoke.
“All right, then. Moving on.” Lt. Frye leaned back in his chair. “Before we do this, give me an update on the thumb drive.”
The thumb drive Lt. Frye referred to had been grabbed by Alex just before the barn she’d been held captive in went up in flames.
“In the last six months,” Dom began, “Gray and I have interviewed everyone identified on that memory stick. Interviews confirmed they all had a weakness, something a Pyramid assassin could blackmail them with to do their bidding. Gambling debts, extramarital affairs, kinky sexual preferences. So far, none of them have been approached by anyone threatening to out their weakness unless they did something illegal.”
Lt. Frye massaged his chin. “How many people were on the list, and are any of them employed at One PP?”
“There are about sixty people on the list,” Gray said, “three of whom are employed at One PP. Everyone cooperated, and we feel confident that if anyone had actually tried to blackmail them, they would have alerted us.”
“Especially,” Dom interjected, “those working at One PP. The fact that we haven’t heard back from them poses the very real possibility that the Pyramid’s original target has changed.”
“That’s what concerns us.” Gray met his gaze, and Dom nodded that his partner should continue. “When the Pyramid’s assassin—Fatima—kidnapped Alex to get critical security information from her about One PP, we all assumed that One PP was the intended target. Now that the Pyramid knows Fatima is dead, we can’t ignore the possibility that the Pyramid will adapt and alter their plans.”
“And do we know what exactly their original plan was?” Capt. Fazioli asked.
Dom shook his head. “The only thing we can say with reasonable certainty is that they planned an attack on One PP, although it’s not clear whether it was intended to be a massacre of police personnel or a hit on someone specific. Remember,” he added, leaning forward, “the Pyramid is not a group of terrorists, they’re paid assassins. They don’t do hits unless there’s a specific target and there’s money in it.”
“And the list of dates on the thumb drive?” Lt. Frye asked, now tapping his pen on the desk.
“There were over a hundred dates spread over the next twelve months,” Dom continued. “Each date coincides with a city event that would be attended by dignitaries such as senators, congressmen and women, heads of city departments, the commissioner, the mayor. We’ve had extra police security at each of these venues on those dates, but nothing’s ever gone down.”
“Then for now we’ll go on the assumption that the Pyramid changed their plans,” Capt. Fazioli said. “And that the information contained on the thumb drive
may or may not be of any use.”
“Agreed.” Dom turned to face his captain. “There were a few dates on the list for events that were either canceled, rescheduled, or for which the date has yet to be determined. The bottom line is, we’ve narrowed down the Pyramid’s target to something connected with that list of dates, but we do have to assume the date and venue may have changed.”
Dom stood to pace the room, feeling the other men’s eyes on him, and continued. “The Pyramid’s leader said they were understaffed, no doubt because Fatima and Abdullah are dead, and because of that they would speed-track my initiation.” He stopped pacing to stare out the window behind Lt. Frye’s desk. “This next hit is different, requiring multiple operatives.”
“What does that change?” the captain asked.
“We need to focus on citywide events identified on that thumb drive, the ones with the largest number of high-level dignitaries,” he said.
Lt. Frye cleared his throat. “If the Pyramid is all about making money off contract hits, who’s footing the bill?”
Narrowing his eyes, he stared out the window as he wrestled with his growing suspicion that this hit wasn’t just about money. “The leader—they call him ‘the boss’—said he planned this job himself, and that’s a serious break in the Pyramid’s MO. The boss has never been known to have anything to do with the individual plans for any hit. That falls to each of his operatives.”
He paused, still struggling to put the pieces together. “I don’t know for certain who the boss is. Yet.”
Gray stared intently at him. “But you’ve got a hunch.”
He met Gray’s silver-gray gaze, and the feeling of déjà vu was crystal clear. The events he may have precipitated nearly fifteen years ago were coming back to haunt him. “Colonel Bud Marsden, United States Army. Delta Force.”
“You’re shitting me.” Gray raised his brows. “I heard the man was dead. Killed in an RPG explosion.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Dom said bitterly. “His body was never found.”
“What makes you think it’s him?” Gray’s forehead creased. “If you’ve got information I don’t, I damn sure need to hear it.”