"I didn't say it was rational. I said it was how it made me feel. I just need a little time to process everything without you snarling at me."
Jake was silent for a moment and then he leaned closer to brush his mouth over the tears on her face. "Stop crying for me and I'll go see our boy. Give me a minute with Alonzo and I'll be right back."
Alonzo forced a frozen smile when Emma lifted her gaze to his. Clearly Jake hadn't said anything about Evangeline or the shooting because he straightened, turned slightly and shook his head.
"I'll come back later, Emma," Alonzo said. "Let you get some rest. I just wanted to make certain you were all right." His allowed his gaze to drift up toward the bags of blood they had obviously been used for transfusions.
"Just tired," she said.
"I'm glad you and the baby are all right." Alonzo backed out of the room and moved out of sight of the doorway, allowing Jake privacy to say good-bye to his woman.
He didn't understand certain things in relationships. Jake had allowed Emma to get pregnant and carry a child even though she'd nearly died and now he was angry--not, he knew, at her but at himself. He was taking it out on her. Making her miserable. Sad. Upset.
He'd snapped viciously at Evangeline as she'd lain in a pool of blood. He'd been so ridiculous, as if his anger would somehow make the terror go away. It was that feeling of helplessness. Feeling. Frozen sometimes was better. He knew he was never going to get the sight of her face covered in blood from his mind, not until the day he died. And it would never, ever, happen again.
10
JAKE Bannaconni had a tremendous amount of pull at the hospital. The men came together around a large table in a conference room. They left guards at Emma's room and also the surgery entrance just in case a hit was planned against the women or Mitya. Timur and Gorya joined them, and they didn't look happy.
"The alarm above the door and over the sidewalk outside had been tampered with. The bell inside the shop had also been tampered with. The lock had been systematically shaved until it didn't work. That had to be done over a day or two or Evangeline would have noticed."
"The cleaning crew?" Alonzo asked.
Timur shook his head. "It's a crew the Arnotto family used for years. Same people. I doubt that it's any of them."
"Not my men from Borneo," Drake said. "I've known most of them since I was a child and they would have no reason to betray us. Nor would any of them have time to build a relationship with another crime family."
Alonzo sighed. "It isn't Mitya or Sevastyan. They've been with Timur and Gorya for the last few years. Had they wanted to kill me they certainly had many opportunities."
There was a small silence. Twice Elijah started to say something and then backed off. He ended by just shaking his head.
"Who put out the hit?" Joshua asked.
"The shooters are from out of town. They belong to a biker club from back East," Elijah said. "It's known the club has done hits for the Chicago mob."
Alonzo kept his face expressionless. He didn't make the mistake of glancing at Timur, even knowing his brother had to be as relieved as he was. In the back of his mind, he always had to remember that his uncles would someday track him down. If there had been a connection to the Russian mob, they would know that they'd been found. He wouldn't run, but he would have taken the fight to them in order to better protect Evangeline.
"Any one of the bosses could use the club to carry out the hit," Drake said.
"We need to look closely at Amodeo," Elijah said. "He has an inflated ego, demands respect when it isn't earned and has a huge sense of entitlement. Alonzo stepped all over his pride. I made him apologize and then we turned him down. I'd say he would believe he had every reason to order a hit."
"This soon? Doesn't that make it obvious?" Alonzo asked, playing devil's advocate. It did seem too soon to him. The shooters should have known Alonzo and his bodyguards would be there in full force. Armed. He had four bodyguards with him, not two. It didn't make sense to him. It was ill-conceived. Poorly carried out.
"Amodeo is a hothead," Joshua said, disgust in his voice.
"Emilio?" Drake asked. "You said he wanted Evangeline. He's certainly been around long enough to have affiliations with the biker club. He'd know whom to call on for a hit he didn't want traced back to him. Elijah? You would know that as well."
Elijah shrugged. "I prefer to do my own dirty work so there is no chance of it being traced back to me. Paying someone leaves a money trail. If they're caught, before I can have them killed, they might talk to the cops just for a plea bargain."
"Check into Emilio. And don't forget that gun shipment. Alonzo, can your men still take care of that?" Jake asked. "If you can't . . ."
Timur stirred, irritated that their work integrity would be called into doubt. He didn't make the mistake of protesting, just looked as expressionless as Alonzo.
"We have it under control," Alonzo assured.
Eli Perez, a former DEA agent, hurried into the room. He was married to Catarina, the woman who had set so many things in motion. She'd run from Rafe Cordeau and when Rafe had disappeared, his territory had been left open. Joshua now ran it, but because the territory had been up for grabs, Siena's grandfather, Antonio Arnotto, had made his try for it. That had ended in his murder and forced Alonzo to fill the opening left by Antonio's death.
"Sorry I'm late. How's your woman? Have you heard anything? And the bodyguard?"
Alonzo had fought beside the man and knew him to be tough as nails. He hadn't expected the inquiry, especially about Mitya. He looked around the table at the men sitting there. Jake Bannaconni. Drake Donovan. Elijah Lospostos. Eli Perez. Joshua Tregre. The men guarding them. All leopards. All alpha. All in love with their women. So different than the way he was raised. The lair he'd been born into. They were genuine friends, watching one another's backs.
"They're both still in surgery," Alonzo said gruffly. "And Catarina?"
"She's good. She's visiting with Emma right now. I told her I'd drop her off to see Siena next."
"Thanks, Eli," Elijah said. "Triplets are tough to carry. She's exhausted a lot, although she pretends she's not." He turned toward Alonzo. "The women can't wait to meet Evangeline, Alonzo. She'll have plenty of friends."
He was grateful for that offer as well. As far as he could tell, Evangeline only had a couple of women she reached out to. "Drake, I know Saria is pregnant as well. You don't have to stay while we figure this out. I wouldn't want to be away from Evangeline if she was pregnant."
"I go home often. Jake lets me use his small jet. He's got a lot of toys, and someone has to use them."
"Can she fly?" Jake asked. "Emma would like to meet her. She talks to her on the phone, and they text, but mostly I think they laugh at the pair of us."
"When things settle down, I'll bring her for a visit," Drake promised.
That told Alonzo Drake didn't want his woman anywhere near the explosive situation. He couldn't blame the man.
"We'll take care of the shipment," he said. "And we don't need help. I've given orders to put the house in order so I can bring Evangeline home with me to recover. I can protect her better there."
Joshua cleared his throat, bringing the attention to him. He was a man of few words, but he wasn't a man anyone ever wanted to go up against unless it was absolutely necessary. His fighting skills had been honed in the rain forest, both man and leopard, and he was fast and brutal when necessary. Alonzo knew he was like Drake in that he had patience and the kind of mind it took to run a lair. He was fair and just, and when he fought another leopard, he didn't automatically go for the kill. He wanted to force the other male to submit and, hopefully by winning the battle, keep a member of his lair in line.
Alonzo's leopard always went for the kill. It was difficult, once the big male cat was set free, to pull him back. Any lair he ruled, the members would have to know that up front before they challenged him, because the likelihood that a challenger would escape death was slim.
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"I didn't grow up with my cousin. I never actually met her, not officially, but she's family and she had it far worse than I ever did. I grew up without a father, but I had the other leopards in the rain forest and I had my mother. Evangeline had no one. Not really. That bakery appears to mean everything to her. If she closes it for a few weeks, can she sustain that loss? I'm willing to back her financially. I'm also willing to find a baker and help for her, to step in while she's recouping, if you think that's the best idea, Alonzo."
He'd given Alonzo respect by asking his opinion instead of the opinion of the council or just arbitrarily deciding because Evangeline was his first cousin and he could make decisions for her.
"She wouldn't want anyone running her bakery, Joshua. She's very proprietorial over her business. I've tried to get her help and she didn't want anyone else in there yet. She said she wasn't ready. I did manage to get her to agree to a cleaning crew . . ."
Timur coughed. Alonzo sent him a "shut up or die" look. Timur coughed again and muttered something in Russian that sounded suspiciously like bullshit.
Sevastyan and Gorya turned their heads to keep grins from showing. Alonzo didn't know whether to drag Timur to him in a bear hug that was a little too enthusiastic and maybe broke all his ribs and cut off his air or ignore him.
"The financial help will come from me. I plan to put a ring on her finger as soon as possible. My money will be her money."
"She might not go for that," Drake warned. "The money, not the ring. Saria tells me Evangeline is very independent."
Alonzo shrugged. Evangeline could be as independent as she wanted to believe she was, but she was going to be his wife. He took care of his wife. She wanted the bakery, then she would have the bakery, but he wouldn't argue about whose money paid for what.
He lifted his gaze to Timur, the one man in the room who knew him best, knew he would do what he deemed best for Evangeline. They'd talk it out because he knew he was supposed to do that. He saw Jake trying to do that with his woman. He'd seen Elijah doing the same with Siena. The thing was, neither seemed particularly successful at it. The more they talked, the more the woman won the argument. Emma got pregnant and nearly died. Siena was pregnant with triplets, and all of them knew that was risky. No, talking didn't do much for the man other than lose him the battle.
What was there to say? Evangeline didn't like his protection, too fucking bad, she was getting it. She wanted to keep the bakery and needed money, it was going to be his money, not her cousin's. He was compromising by letting her put herself in danger every damn day going to that bakery.
You like the bakery.
Shut the fuck up. You got us into this by being so bad tempered.
His male yawned. I'm not the one with the bad temper now.
Evangeline's female was having a bad effect on his male. Alonzo preferred the claws and teeth to his smart-ass comments. He was so over talking. He wanted to go back to the waiting room. He actually wanted to go into the operating room and stand guard over her. He stood abruptly.
"I'm done. Thanks for coming, all of you, but I've got to work this out with my people. When you hear something about the hit, please let me know." He took one more look around the room at the men there. Men he knew he could count on as friends if he'd allow them to be. He didn't have friendships. He didn't know how to have them. Looking at the men, every single one a hard, tough, battle-scarred leopard, but a good man, he wanted to belong with them. He just--didn't.
Elijah Lospostos was probably the man who came the closest to being like him. He knew Elijah had killed his uncle to protect his sister, but he hadn't wiped out a lair. He hadn't killed his own father. He hadn't committed the unspeakable crimes Alonzo had committed. His soul wasn't so black that there was no redemption. Alonzo didn't want Evangeline to pay the price for his sins and he feared, in the darkest recesses of his mind, that was exactly what the Universe had in mind.
I don't expect redemption, he whispered to anyone listening. I'll live with what I did. She's innocent. Don't take her away from me. Don't do that. Because he wouldn't want to maintain anymore. He would be as crazy and as vicious as his leopard. He wasn't a good man. He didn't know how to be, but for her sake he would try. Without her, what was the use of trying?
He found himself making promises to the devil with every step he took back down the hall toward the waiting room just outside of the surgery. Just save her. That's all. Just save her. His soul was already gone, so what was the point in taking her?
Sevastyan and Gorya stepped through the doors of the waiting room before Alonzo, taking a quick but thorough scan of the room before moving aside and allowing him entrance. The moment he walked in, his male went insane, raging and clawing, bursting toward the surface so hard and fast, Alonzo could barely contain him. He inhaled and knew immediately why his leopard had gone so crazy. The three undercover cops were there in the waiting room. Brice Addler paced back and forth as if so distraught he couldn't contain his energy.
Crispin Phillips and Reeve Hawkins lounged against the wall, talking quietly. They straightened abruptly when he walked into the room. Brice spun around, glared at him and strode toward him, his fingers curled into two tight fists.
"You did this," he snapped. "You had no right being anywhere near her and you got her shot."
Timur, who had brought up the rear, guarding him carefully, made a move toward Brice. Sevastyan and Gorya shifted smoothly around to put their bodies between the three cops and Alonzo. Alonzo held up his hand and all of them halted, but none of them liked it. They wanted action. Their leopards demanded it. Their leopards were every bit as savage as his, and he knew what it took to fight the big temperamental cats daily. Now, when everything had gone to hell and there was no one to challenge, the cops were making it easy to view them as targets.
Silence stretched along with the tension. If the three wanted to blow the fact that they were undercover, they could demand permits for the weapons his bodyguards--as well as Alonzo--were all obviously carrying. Alonzo didn't speak. Didn't react. He merely stared at Brice with his glacier-cold eyes, freezing him out. He was good at that. He'd perfected the look by the time he was thirteen. He scared grown men with that look back when he'd been a teenager. Brice wasn't any different. He could see the killer in Alonzo and it brought him up short.
"Why couldn't you just leave her alone?"
There was genuine grief in the cop's voice. He hadn't been playing her to get at Alonzo. He'd actually wanted a chance with her.
"She's mine," Alonzo said quietly. "She's always been mine. She told you, but you couldn't hear her."
"She's lying on a damn surgery table because of you."
Alonzo didn't reply. What was there to say? It was the truth. He didn't have to like it, but it was still the truth. He didn't owe Brice Addler an explanation, nor was there an explanation good enough. He just turned his back on the man and walked over to the window to stare out over the city. Waiting. His heart beating. Frozen inside.
He could see the other two cops move in on either side of their buddy, afraid he'd do something crazy. His leopard still raged and clawed, but he was used to it, that continual fury that seemed endless without Evangeline. He was weary of it, weary of the cat wanting to kill.
You are not worthy of your mate if you continue. It was the first time he'd ever rebuked his cat. Ever. He'd always known the leopard was reacting to the things done to him. The violence surrounding them. The kills and the battles and the blood. He'd never blamed his leopard until that moment. If he could find the discipline to stay still and quiet waiting for word on his woman, the leopard should be able to as well.
I hate the smell of him.
He cares for her.
Not him. The other one. Deceit. Treachery. He smells like the men surrounding your father.
Everything in him went still. His heart beat in his ears, thundered there. Of course. Why hadn't he even thought of it? Why hadn't Timur or Gorya? Elijah or Joshua? Drake should have
considered the possibility. All of them should have. A cop. A dirty cop. One on the payroll of a mobster.
All three had been in and out of the bakery nearly every day. They had surveillance set up. It would be easy enough to interfere with the outside alarm. To tamper with the little bell over the door. To shave the lock so that it was no longer functional. Who else hung around watching Alonzo and his men? The undercover cops frequented the bakery more than he did, so much so that he hadn't thought much about it beyond that Brice was attracted and making a move on Evangeline.
"Damn you anyway," Brice raged at him, taking another step toward him, his fists balled tight. "You stand there like she doesn't matter. Like none of this touches you."
The male leopard switched his attention from the dirty cop to the man who cared for Evangeline. His two friends caught at his arms, pulling him away from Alonzo and toward the door.
Just then the double doors opened and a woman came out, her scrubs stained with blood. She looked tired. "Who is here for Evangeline Tregre?"
"She's my fiancee," Alonzo said before Brice or anyone else could interfere. The doctor beckoned to him and he followed her over to a corner of the room, his bodyguards behind him.
"She's doing fine," the surgeon hastened to say. "She lost a lot of blood, but her wounds were surprisingly not life threatening. One bullet skimmed her head, took a chunk of skin. Head wounds bleed but that one only required a few stitches. She'll have a headache for a few days."
His belly knotted. She was giving him the good news first, he was fairly certain of it. He braced himself. For the first time in a very long while, not since he was a boy, he felt the soothing stroke of his leopard, trying to ease his fear. On the outside, he was as cold as ice. On the inside, he was as terrified as he'd been when he'd held the gun in his hand and pointed it at a man's head for the very first time at age six.
"The bullet in her arm didn't hit anything major, so we lucked out there. Her muscle will take a little time to heal, but no bones, no major arteries hit, so it was the best case under the circumstances." She wiped at the beads of sweat on her face and looked around carefully, lowering her voice even more. "The other bullet nicked an artery in her leg. I was able to go in and repair it, but she lost a lot of blood. She must have angled her body to protect her leopard. The female wasn't hit, but Evangeline's thigh was mangled. The bullet was a through and through and it tore her up, although, again, it didn't hit bone."
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