by Tara Janzen
“He’s the . . . uh, guy in the wheelchair,” she finished.
Wheelchair?
Sonuvabitch.
The crowd opened up, and there he was, Rocky Solano. Kid was riveted to the spot, his hand tightening on Skeeter’s belt until she squeaked.
He felt a twinge of remorse, but there was no way in hell for him to let go of her. He couldn’t even lighten his grip. Holding on to her was the only thing holding him together, and she deserved to squeak, dammit. There were about a thousand things she hadn’t bothered to tell him, and the goddamn wheelchair was only one of them. Maybe one of the least of them, he thought, getting a good look at the guy.
Rocky Solano, geezus, a cripple. He’d imagined a big guy, somebody with some heft to him, maybe somebody whose ass he could kick. But the freaking genius fiber artist looked like Nikki, amazingly like Nikki. He was slight of frame despite the broadness of his shoulders, dark-haired, and—no shit—more than half pretty. The features of his face were harder edged than Nikki’s, his jaw wider, his mouth thinner, but the resemblance was still damned disconcerting. They were both beautiful, gray-eyed and silky-haired, about half fey, insanely talented, and the absolute center of attention.
Soul mates.
The guy had a few years on her, but the white stripe in his hair wasn’t from age, and it wasn’t from out of a bottle. It wasn’t an affection. It was an anomaly, like the man himself, a guy who could weave silk and torch steel.
But couldn’t walk.
How could Skeeter not have told him that?
Rocky finally made it through the crowd to Nikki and pulled her into his lap. A small cheer went up, and Kid felt instantly sick, hating what he was seeing. When Rocky tilted her back and kissed her, everything inside Kid went cold. The chattering of the crowd grew unbearable, the angles of all the lights, the crush of people.
Mine. He wanted to shout it, to startle the sonuvabitch into letting go of her, to tell him he couldn’t touch her like that.
Mine. Every cell in his body echoed with the need implied in that one word. It ran through his blood, entered with his breath and would not leave him, no matter how much logic and common sense he used trying to bend it to his will—mine.
The kiss slid off her cheek. By accident or design, he couldn’t tell and didn’t care. Momentary disappointment crossed Solano’s face, but Kid didn’t give a damn if the guy was disappointed or not. All he cared about was the sense of loss threatening to overwhelm him. Nikki was his and somebody else had her, another man, and it sure as hell didn’t matter that the other man was in a wheelchair. Kid knew what he would do to her, if he was paralyzed from the waist down. He would still make her his, still hold her close. Still find a thousand ways to make love to her with his mouth, with his hands, with his heart.
His hand fell from Skeeter’s waist.
“I’ll be outside,” he managed to say, surprising himself. He wanted to howl, and his voice sounded almost normal. “I need some air.”
He needed more than air, but when he stepped outside, it did help, enough to get him to the alley. He took a few steps down the darkened way and leaned back against the building, letting his head fall back, pressing his body against the bricks.
Impossibly, for a moment, he missed the jungle, the deep rain forests of Colombia where he’d spent most of the last seven months, the nearly intolerable heat, the heavy humidity, the utter silence of mid-afternoon. Then reason reasserted itself. What he missed was the sense of purpose he’d had in the jungle, the certainty of what he was doing, but every single day, he’d missed Nikki.
He let out a weary breath and pushed off the building. Fuck. He had to find a way to do this, to let her go. It seemed impossible, like cutting out his heart and walking away. She was that dear to him. All he had to do was close his eyes, and he could almost smell her—the sweet mix of woman, and musk, and paint that was pure Nikki. The way she tasted when he had his mouth between her legs, his tongue sliding over her, so incredibly soft, so sweet when she came. How was he supposed to live without that? He could share her smiles and the sound of her voice. He could share the five earrings in one ear and the three in the other and those damn short skirts she loved to wear, but not the way she arched into him when he had his mouth on her breasts and ran kisses down her belly, not the way they smelled together when they’d made love for hours and the sweat was cooling on their skin, not the way she tasted then. That was private, sacrosanct, only between them. It was primal, the way he breathed her in. It knotted around his gut and sunk its talons into his psyche.
So much for growing up and doing what was right. It sucked.
He dragged his hand back through his hair. He needed his head examined, to have left her for so long. Unfortunately, in his line of work, there was a whole battery of people lined up, ready and eager to do the job a little more thoroughly than he was willing to allow. For the most part, he handled his own demons, the glaring exception being the last time he’d been in Toussi’s. He’d died in Nikki’s arms that night, soaked her with his agony and tears, his heart cracking wide open. It had been the most unimaginable, god awful feeling ever. It had been the night he’d brought J.T.’s bones home.
Only Nikki could have saved him that night.
But she sure as hell couldn’t save him tonight, not when she was sitting in Rocky Solano’s lap.
Geezus. Just take a breath, he told himself, then take another. Look around. Get your bearings.
The day had been warm, melting the previous night’s snow and leaving the streets wet. A warm wind was still blowing, the nice weather bringing a lot of people out for a Saturday night in LoDo.
Kid watched the couples and mixed groups of men and women pass by the mouth of the alley. There were a lot of clubs in LoDo, a lot of bars and restaurants within walking distance of each other.
As he watched, a small form darted across Seventeenth Street, and for a second or two, when the boy reached the other side, there was a tangle-up with a group of college-aged men. The young men laughed, picking him up off the sidewalk, brushing him off, and setting him aside with cheerful advice for him to watch where he was going, look both ways, and keep his feet under him—and then the child took off, heading up the street.
One wallet at least, Kid thought, maybe two. The boy had been quick, exceptionally skilled, but Kid had seen the pull. Under other circumstances, he would have grabbed the pickpocket, retrieved the wallet, and saved the day.
But tonight, it was going to take everything he had to save himself.
He glanced back down the alley the other way, to the far end, and to his surprise, saw another boy getting himself picked up and brushed off. This time it was an older man providing the service and getting fleeced.
Geez. LoDo was hot tonight.
He started back toward Toussi’s, knowing he had to tough it out and do the right thing. Going home wasn’t an option. He didn’t know why not, but it wasn’t. Nikki was with her friends now, with her fiancé. She didn’t need him—and yet his gut feeling was to stay and see the night through to the end, no matter how awful it got, no matter how much it hurt. So he was staying.
Back on the street, he glanced up toward the intersection, his attention drawn by a sudden bunching up of people at the light, waiting for the walk signal. When the light changed, the first boy, joined by two girls, crossed against the crowd, weaving their way through the Saturday night partiers. Kid caught two pulls, maybe three, before everyone got across the street to their respective sides.
He looked down Seventeenth the other way, toward Wynkoop and Union Station and saw three more kids, one tall and older, and two pretty damn little to be out on the streets, hanging around.
LoDo was not only hot tonight, he thought, it was crawling with pickpockets. They were everywhere, coming out of the alleys, working the streets, and disappearing again, like a pack of rats.
It was true, he’d been out of town for a while, but he’d grown up in Denver, and he’d never seen the likes. T
hen he saw something at least as noteworthy, if a hundred times more common than half a dozen kids stealing wallets. Two gangstas piled out of a black Escalade parked in the lot on the corner and got into another black Escalade that had stopped on the street. From the amount of movement Kid saw through the briefly opened door, he guessed there were at least three, maybe four other guys already in the second luxury SUV.
Somebody’s gang was on the move.
He checked the first Escalade, and sure enough, there were still two guys inside. Waiting for what? he wondered. A few things came to mind, all of them criminal, none of them his business. This wasn’t his trouble, the underside of nightlife in LoDo, pickpockets and gangbangers. Still, he’d tell Suzi to warn her guests to be careful tonight. The streets weren’t safe.
CHAPTER
17
TROUBLE.
Jane was looking it straight in the eye, into two of them actually, and those eyes were brown, set into a thin, little face covered in freckles.
Kondo squirmed under her unrelenting gaze, undoubtedly getting her message that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He didn’t belong at Toussi’s. Neither did trouble’s side dish—the girl named Blue. They knew it. She knew it, and Suzi Toussi knew it.
“This isn’t a day-care center,” the older woman said, censure lifting one artfully shaped eyebrow.
“Yes, ma’am.” Jane had known last night was the beginning of the end, and damn Fast Jack, he’d just had to go and prove her right.
Up until five minutes ago, the gallery showing had been going great. To her surprise, Travis James had shown up, looking none the worse for wear, but she was still avoiding him, which hadn’t proved too difficult.
She let out a short breath and glanced around the room. She’d never seen such a crush. There had been huge sales, lots of them, for both Nikki and Rocky. Katya was still in L.A., meeting with her partner, Alex Zheng, but Jane didn’t mind working with Suzi, the original owner of the gallery, not usually. Tonight was proving to be the exception. Suzi knew everybody, no matter which coast they were from, and she knew how to keep the party going and the caterers doing their job.
Unfortunately, as of five minutes ago, she also knew Fast Jack Spencer, who had shown up at Toussi’s back door with Blue and Kondo in hand—and left them.
“And you are not a babysitter,” Suzi admonished, not at all happy with the turn of events.
“No, ma’am,” Jane said. It was one of the hardest things she’d had to learn in the last two years, the “yes ma’am, no ma’am” business, but she’d had a very patient teacher, Sister Theresa Ann—patient like a steel trap and just as unforgiving.
“I want you to put them in a corner somewhere, and warn them not to touch anything.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Suzi Toussi was elegant, always richly turned out, tonight in a perfectly gorgeous emerald green dress. Her clothes were conservative and expensive, in direct contrast to her preference in art and men, which veered toward cutting edge and outrageous. Her auburn hair was blunt cut to her chin, the deep reddish brown underscored with blond highlights, the whole of it somehow matching the color of her eyes.
She intimidated the hell out of Jane, with good reason. Suzi ran a tight ship, and there was nothing tight about having a couple of gangly street urchins dropped into the middle of a high art gallery showing. To his credit, Fast Jack had cleaned them up and tricked them out in decent clothes, but Suzi hadn’t been born yesterday, and she’d no sooner bought Jack’s story about “cousins just happening to be in the neighborhood,” and “the little ones wanting to see Jane,” than she would have bought a velvet Elvis.
“And would you watch the back door for Yves? He’s bringing more escabeche and crab canapés. They’re mad for the escabeche tonight.”
“Yes, ma’am.” But Suzi wasn’t throwing them all out on their butts, and for that, Jane was truly grateful.
“Also tell him we’re running low on the Merlot.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Escabeche and Merlot,” Suzi mused, turning away. “Who would have guessed?”
Not Jane. She didn’t drink wine, ever, or beer, or anything else, and the escabeche everyone was so mad for looked and smelled like tuna fish to her—expensive, large-flaked, marinated tuna fish, but still tuna fish, of which she’d eaten a boatload in her younger years, plenty of it straight out of the can.
She looked down at Blue and Kondo, then glanced around the gallery again, pulling herself together. This mess, this trouble, wasn’t their fault.
“There are a lot of people here tonight,” she said. When she looked back at the children, they nodded, attentive, their faces solemn. “Under normal circumstances, we would pick them clean.”
Another nod.
“But these are not normal circumstances.”
They both shook their heads.
“Some of these people are very rich, all of them have money in their pockets, and in their wallets, and in their purses, and we aren’t going to take any of it. Not a dime. Not a single credit card.”
Blue’s brow furrowed beneath a thick fringe of blond bangs. She was ten years old, disarming, quick-fingered, and suddenly confused. Jane was sure she’d expected to work the room for all it was worth, and it looked to be worth a lot.
Kondo looked equally confused. He was twelve and desperately needed a haircut. The brown mop of curls on his head was going in about a thousand different directions. His freckles stood out on his thin, pale face, making Jane wonder if he was getting enough to eat.
She bit back a curse, silently damning Fast Jack.
For two years, she hadn’t had to worry about children eating, and she resented like hell that Jack was trying to dump it all back in her lap—all the hunger, and the danger, all the scraped knees, lost gloves, and runny noses, all the bruised faces, and once, the broken bones of one of those Rats who had juggled their lives between the Empire and their capital-S-screwed-up families, coming and going as best suited their survival needs of the moment, or the day, or the week.
She’d run with the wildest of them, seen more than she ever should have, at ages when impressions became scars, street life at its worst, teenage whores, drug addicts, and the certifiably insane. They’d all left their mark.
Then one night she’d lifted Superman’s wallet, and her life had changed.
“You see the tables with the food?” she said, pointing to a cleared area not too far from the back door, then looking back at them.
Both kids nodded again.
“Go ahead and get a plate and fill it up with whatever you want. No one will mind.” Rats were always hungry. There had been times when Jane had wondered if the whole world was hungry. “My apartment is on the fifth floor. That’s where I want you to go. That’s where I want you to stay.”
This was not the “Do Not Touch” speech Suzi would have expected. Jane knew the older woman had meant for her to tell the kids not to touch the artwork, not to break anything, but that was unnecessary, a waste of time. Rats didn’t break things, ever. They touched, lifted, held—all in the blink of an eye. They did not drop. They did not mess around. If something wouldn’t fit inside a coat or into a pocket, they ignored it, saving their light, sticky fingers for something they could spend or fence, always looking for value. No sense in getting sent up to juvie for a cheap piece of junk or a damn candy bar, she’d told them over and over, drilling it into them, the way her mother had drilled it into her. Make your moves count, she’d said, and then taught them how, the same way her mother had taught her how.
She’d been so proud of the Rats when they’d been hers. But they weren’t hers anymore, and she didn’t want them back, so help her God. She didn’t even know Blue.
She didn’t want to know Blue.
The two children left for the buffet table, and Jane headed toward the back door to watch for Yves and the escabeche. But all she found was Fast Jack, lingering in the alley, three more kids in tow.
; This, she decided, was turning into a nightmare.
“What’s going on, Jack?” She wasn’t happy, and she made no effort to hide it. She didn’t like being used, and Jack was a user, always looking for an angle, always looking out for himself.
“Raymond. He’s here.” Jack didn’t look any happier than she felt, and he looked a whole lot more nervous, which should have been impossible. She felt like a cat in the middle of a dog pack.
“What do you mean here?”
“Here,” he said more forcefully, taking a step forward, making a short cutting motion with his right hand. He was holding a young teenaged boy by the scruff of his jacket with his other. “Out front, out back, on every side, everywhere, here. He’s making his play, Robin. I’ve got to get the kids off the street. They can’t go up against the Parkside Bloods.”
Jane just looked at him. Was he insane? The Rats against the Parkside Bloods? That was like sending a puppy out to fight a Rottweiler.
“I can take fucking Raymond,” the boy said, and Jane’s disbelieving gaze slid to him. He was all of a hundred and ten pounds, maybe. The two girls with him weren’t any bigger, or any older. Raymond, she remembered clearly, topped the scale at two-twenty. It was his personal tag—220.
Two hundred and twenty pounds of pure serious mean packed around a seriously sly, conniving, self-serving, highly intelligent brain, and the Parkside Bloods had guns.
So did Jack, she noticed, alarmed. When he turned to the side, she could see the butt end of a pistol sticking out of his jacket pocket.
“And what are you doing here, Jack?” Do not hyperventilate, she told herself. Take control of the situation. Make it work for you.
“It’s Saturday night, Robin,” he said as if the fact spoke for itself. “We were working our way into lower downtown. Then I noticed we had Bloods on our tail.”