by Marie Harte
His lips tightened.
I wanted so badly to reach out and wipe that scowl from his face. A moment ago he’d been so earnest in his desire to share his hometown with me and I’d ruined that.
“I can’t go back home because I have no home to go to. When I walked away yesterday, I kind of severed ties.”
This time his brows pulled together as he thought about what I said. “Does this have to do with your father forcing you to marry some guy? Are you in danger?”
My heart sank. The hours of bliss with him were about to come crashing down on both of us. I’d forgotten what I said to him as I was falling asleep last night until he reminded me just now. Now he would expect an explanation.
“It’s complicated.”
“I’ve been a sniper for the US Government for almost ten years, trust me, I can handle complicated.”
I shook my head, trying to pull free from his hold. “I can’t. Not yet.”
“Izzy, you’re making this much harder than it needs to be. I’d like to help if I can, but I can’t do anything if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
I sighed. He was right. At the very least I could use his help getting out of town. I needed clothes and he could get them for me. I had more than enough money for any immediate incidentals. “How about we make a deal?”
“Depends on the deal,” he said, frowning.
“It’s sunny and gorgeous outside, I’m hungry, and I’d like to have a little more fun before reality has to come crashing down on us.” I looked up at him, biting my lip. “Can I have a couple of more hours where we don’t worry about anything more than that and then I’ll tell you what I can?”
He stared at me looking a lot like he wanted to argue with me. I really didn’t know what I was going to do. Telling him too much about my family could lead us both into danger. By running away I’d become a liability and I wasn’t too naive to realize that.
Push comes to shove, me keeping my mouth shut might mean the difference between a clean getaway and someone getting hurt. I wasn’t ever allowed to forget all that I learned about my father and his illegal dealings. Now I only needed to worry about whether he was concerned about what I might know. Damn, this situation was complicated. I really needed to think this through.
“How about brunch on the rooftop?”
I blinked, his question pulling me out of my maudlin thoughts. I focused on him and smiled. “That would be absolutely perfect.”
Chapter Nine
Houston
‡
HOUSTON ROUNDED THE corner to the rooftop pool and smiled when he passed the spot he’d fucked his princess the first time. That lounge chair was going to hold a special place in his memory for some time to come.
He lifted his gaze to seek out the woman in question to find her current chair empty. Probably in the ladies head. Back in his room he forced himself to put all his questions on ice and give her the time she requested. Now, however, it was time to get down to business. The knot in his stomach was continuing to grow the longer they waited. He was a man of action and this waiting was killing him.
She was trying to bury her head in the proverbial sand over her situation, which he suspected might be serious.
As he neared their space he noticed Izzy’s glass shattered on the ground by her chair. Her small white purse also on the ground. He jerked around and searched the area. No sign of Izzy or anyone else. Houston’s heart raced. He backtracked to the head and stormed into the ladies room.
“Izzy,” His voice echoed through the small room as he pounded on each of the empty stalls. “Shit.”
Panic squeezed his heart. Something was very wrong here.
HE RETURNED TO their chairs and collected her purse. It seemed unlikely she’d wander off without this. Women guarded these idiotic things like their life depended on it. With the gut feeling that something bad happened driving him, Houston slipped open the zipper and pawed through her meager belongings. His hand wrapped around a thick roll of bills and pulled them out.
What the hell?
He flipped through the money, counting as he went. For some reason she was carrying around several thousand dollars.
Digging deeper he pulled out a drivers license that read Isabelle Martin with a local Seattle address listed on it. He slid the card into his back pocket in case he needed it later and searched for anything else that might give him a clue about what was going on. Pocket after pocket he found nothing of consequence. He crumpled the little bag in his fist.
Think.
He shoved the money back in her bag, scraping his finger across a zipper he’d not noticed the first time he searched. He slid it open and fished out another Washington State drivers license. A more recent photo of Izzy greeted him this time that made him curious about the age of the one in his pocket. But it was the rest of the information presented that made his blood run cold. Particularly her name.
Isabella Mazzeo.
Ten years away didn’t mean he didn’t recognize the name as soon as he saw it. There were some things too powerful to ever be forgotten. And the name Mazzeo was one of them.
As a teenager, Houston hero-worshipped his father, following him around and trying to learn everything he could from him. One of the most important lessons he remembered was what his father did to people who betrayed him or the club. He’d witnessed more than one ruthless death and he’d fought his way through more than one gunfight. So he easily remembered his father’s number one enemy. Frank Mazzeo, the purported mob king of Seattle. Purveyor of porn and pussy in a city that refused to believe the mob had any real control.
Was Izzy his…
What the fuck was going on?
Houston tucked the purse under his arm and sprinted back to his room. Maybe she’d gone down there for some reason. Either way he needed to find her and get some answers. He didn’t believe in coincidences and it was way too coincidental that he’d walked into a sex filled weekend with Frank Mazzeo’s daughter on accident.
He slammed into the room. “Izzy.”
Only silence met him. Still, he ran into the bathroom on the slim chance she was in there and didn’t hear him. Nothing. He was breathing heavy now and it had nothing to do with running. He turned a few times hoping against hope for some sign of something. When that got him nowhere, Houston grabbed his backpack and shoved his crap inside along with her purse. He also picked up the knife from the nightstand and shoved it in his boot. With one last sweep of the room to make sure he had everything he headed downstairs.
Normally if some chick were to sneak out on him, he’d let her go and simply find another one. But something about this situation didn’t feel right and he felt the need to further investigate.
His stomach churned with increased anxiety as he located the security office, just off the lobby, and strode toward it. Before he knocked on the door he pulled out the dog tags he still wore from underneath his shirt and laid them in full view. He’d learned from experience that any kind of military uniform had a way of opening otherwise closed doors and considering what he was about to do, it seemed like a good idea.
A tall, pasty white guy with thinning hair answered the door. “Yeah?”
Before he could answer the guy zeroed in on the tags. His spine straightened and he sucked in his stomach while opening the door wider.
“I know this is going to sound crazy, but there was a guy out by the rooftop pool hassling my girlfriend and before I could get a good look at him he ran off. I think it might have been her stalker. But I’d like to be sure before I have to call the cops.”
“A stalker, really?” This guy was probably so bored he’d jump at any chance of some action. “I’ve got some video footage I could check. How long ago?” The guard moved over the small bank of screens.
Bingo.
Houston followed him into the room. “Less than an hour ago.”
“Okay, have a seat while I check.” The guard walked over to the control panel and hit a few buttons.
“What’s that?” He pointed at the screen.
The guard stopped the footage and hit play. Izzy was laid out in a lounge chair looking sexy as hell in a pair of his shorts and one of his USMC shirts. His body tightened with the need to touch her again. Nothing in her body language looked off. She was relaxed.
When two figures walked into the screen and leaned over her, his temper flared and he jumped from the chair. These guys were not relaxed and at least one of them was packing.
“Is that them? Is one of those guys your girl’s stalker?”
Houston couldn’t speak. In the next second one of the fuckers grabbed her arm in a too tight grip and hauled her out of the chair. Something snapped inside him as rage tore through his gut.
“What the hell?” The security guard looked as alarmed as he felt.
They dragged her off the screen, but not before he got a good look at the sheer terror stamped across her face as she fought like a crazed wildcat.
“I’m calling the cops now.” The guard picked up his phone and started to dial.
Houston disconnected the call, glaring at the security guard. His self control was unraveling fast. “Not yet. Let’s see what else you have before we do anything rash.” He pointed at the screens. “You have footage of the street? I need to see if they took her off property.”
The guard was so flustered he turned to another screen and repeated the rewind process. To his horror Izzy was shoved into a nondescript white van and driven away from the hotel going south on Alaskan Way. He checked the time stamp. Twenty-six minutes ago. They were in the wind.
Fuck.
He turned and punched the wall.
Fuck.
The soul chilling look of Izzy’s fear now burned into his brain came to mind, terrorizing him.
“We gotta call the cops, dude. They just took her.”
Houston methodically locked down his rising panic, shutting it behind the cold wall that made him such an effective killer. He pasted a convincing smile on his face and turned to the guard. “Nah, I was wrong. Not her stalker after all. As it turns out one of those guys was her brother and I’m guessing her family disagrees with her choice of groom.”
“No shit? Are you sure?”
“Yeah. She’ll be back. Right after she tears him a new one.”
“Oh, thank God. I thought she was kidnapped. That would have been some shit.”
That was shit all right.
Epic FUCKING shit.
Chapter Ten
Houston
‡
HOUSTON RAN TO his bike, ignoring the emotion tearing through his gut that threatened his ability to function. He needed to stop thinking about Izzy as his princess and start working through the problem like a mission. He was trained to acquire and take down these kind of people before shit went bad. That’s exactly what he’d do here. First he needed some intel and there was only one way he knew how to get it.
By the time he made it to the garage a few minutes later, he had his gear strapped to his back and his shit together. He straddled the bike and stabbed his key into the ignition. The bike roared to life and he raced out onto the street, forcing himself to turn in the opposite direction the van had taken. Too much time passed, searching blind would be a waste at this point. Without eyes in the sky and a description more concrete than a plain white van he didn’t have a chance in hell.
Even in warrior mode his muscles coiled tight and the frustration of losing her from right under his nose still rankled him. He had to fight the urge to do something violent. The whole thing was stupid. The initial attraction made sense, and there was no denying the sex was off the charts hot. But it should have ended there. It certainly would have the minute she told him she was really Isabella Mazzeo.
Images of her sitting on his bed, listening to him tell his story filled his head. The way her eyes lit up when something excited her or the compassion she’d shown over the not so good parts. He didn’t know how to connect that with the fact she was a Mazzeo, one of the most dangerous organized crime families on the west coast.
The urge to protect her from her own family gripped him, making him ride faster. Tonight there would be no comfort from the open road. He had to find her, whatever the cost. Then whatever secrets she harbored would be laid out on the table and dealt with. Whatever it was.
As long as she was safe.
Less than two hours later and after a shit ton of traffic laws had been broken, Houston rode into the Wrath compound. Back in Seattle he made the split second decision to turn to the only people he knew who would have insider info on her family and then spent the entire ride home cursing life for putting him in this situation.
Wrath getting into Mazzeo family business would require a huge payment on his part or no go. He didn’t have enough money for that kind of service but he did have something they wanted. Him.
He killed the engine and hooked his helmet on the handlebar.
“Look what the cat dragged in.” Axel and two other men he didn’t recognize came out of the Wrath headquarters, which was a behemoth of a building that used to be a local saw mill. “What brings you back here? You were pretty clear you wanted nothing to do with us.”
There was more than a little annoyance in his friend’s voice and the two guys with him looked surly at best.
“I need your help.”
Axel raised a brow. “You shitting me?”
“No I am not shitting you. I have a serious problem and I need help. I don’t have much money to hire you, but whatever it takes, whatever you want I’ll do it.”
That brought a slight smile to his old friend’s face.
“Anything?” he asked. “Well, come on then. By all means lets go in the office and discuss what you need. I’m guessing it’s pretty bad for you to drag your ass in here.”
Houston followed them in not all together surprised that the main gathering room hadn’t changed much in a decade. Other than a few new pieces of furniture and a sweet sixty-inch television hanging on the wall, everything else had stayed the same. A strong sense of nostalgia washed over him and surprisingly soothed some of the rougher emotions he’d been dealing with.
The grainy image of Izzy being thrown inside the van outside the hotel kept flashing before his eyes. And with so little intel to go on he had nowhere to funnel his growing rage.
“How about a drink?” Axel pointed to one of the guys Houston didn’t know. “Zook get us some fucking beers and bring them in the office.”
When the man named Zook went to the bar, Houston got a look at the back of his cut and noticed the missing rocker. He was a recruit. Part of the club, but not yet official. Recruits had to make it through an unspecified probationary period before the club would consider them for full membership. Basically, they made sure you weren’t a pussy or a narc.
He followed Axel into the office, which was actually a conference room for club meetings. The furnishings in the room were sparse with the focus completely centered on the long, scarred table with the club mantra burned into the wood.
Reap what you S.O.W.
Back in the day when his father started the club with his military buddies, they’d put the club’s focus on the fact that every action has consequences with a goal to make sure justice was served. Sometime between then and that fateful night of his mother’s death, the club motto and everything else about it went to shit.
The anger already sitting in his gut began to grow. He wasn’t supposed to be here. This wasn’t his life anymore and neither was the Marine Corps. Everything was fucking shit.
“So lets have it. What the hell happened that brought you willingly into the mill?” Axel
handed him a beer and took the seat across from him. The other guys had melted away and he was left facing his best friend with the worst possible news.
“I met someone.”
Axel smiled, but smothered some of it by taking a swig of beer. “Not surprised it involves pussy. Most problems do. Thank God we got out of that business. More power to the fuckers that want to manage that shit.”
Houston was kind of surprised to hear the club no longer dealt in pussy. His father had loved that part of the biz, JD too. “She was kidnapped. Right under my fucking nose.” Again, that turmoil eating him from the inside out flared to life.
The smirk on Axel’s face disappeared. “No shit? What the hell, man? Who is this girl? She worth something? Or did she just get in some kind of trouble and can’t get out?”
“I don’t know. One minute we’re sitting by a pool and the next I come back from the head and she’s gone. If not for my gut and the signs of a struggle I would have assumed she ran out on me.”
“So who the hell is this chick?”
“Yeah, that’s the kicker and why I’m here instead of the police.” He pulled out Izzy’s drivers license and slid it across the table.
Axel eyed it warily. “I’m not going to like this am I?”
Houston shook his head, waiting as his friend picked it up and read it.
“Fuck.”
Yep, that about summed it up. This situation was fucked front ways, sideways and every other God damned way.
Chapter Eleven
Axel
‡
AXEL STARED AT the tiny picture on Isabella Mazzeo’s drivers license still in complete shock. There wasn’t a whole lot that surprised him these days, but Houston randomly hooking up with the daughter of the man they were investigating…
They could not afford to let this fuck things up.
He handed the card back to JD, his club president. “I’m not sure there’s much we can do about this one. She’s virtually untouchable.”