Colin’s lips peeled off his teeth in a silent snarl. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?” Harden said glibly. “Karpovilov didn’t get you paroled to sip vodka and play golf.” Harden tightened his grip on the gun in his hand. One bullet between his brother’s wide spaced eyes and Karpovilov’s plans would splatter over the leather-bound books lining the walls. It would be too fucking easy.
“Yeah. That’s probably why. Not that I agreed to it.”
“Don’t spit in my face and tell me it’s raining. Karpovilov got your agreement before he got you out, got you that new suit, a place to stay, and guards to protect your ass. And before you got invited to the wedding of the year. If he worked his magic a few months earlier, he would’ve got you the bride too. Isn’t that right, Maroni?” The man was a statue. “But don’t worry, Maroni and Pagano have some prospects waiting in the wings for you to say I do to.”
He turned back to the Bratva and Maroni. “I’m going to take a guess. Check me if I’m wrong. Karpovilov reached out to his comrades and ordered you to strike at me. Instead of manning up and coming at me hard, a blitz attack—which may have worked—you three pussies hid behind Maroni. Make him your fall guy in case shit doesn’t work, your dirty hands are metaphorically clean.”
Nick’s phone chimed. He ignored it.
“That was a question and I’m not going to wait for an answer.”
“We didn’t hide. Using Maroni kept you off balance long enough—”
“For what?” Harden snapped. “You’re still here. All the hiding, skulking in dark corners, stealing from me,” he whispered with a smile. “Got you nowhere except my attention.”
A split second of fear entered Fedor’s eyes, fear the pakhan failed to hide. It made Harden incredibly happy. “You three owe me, and I collect, in blood.”
“Harden,” Nick called his name only to be ignored because Harden was busy.
“Settle in, gentlemen. It’s gonna be a long night.”
“Harden!”
His head snapped that way. “Don’t you see I’m involved here.”
Nick stepped close. Harden bared his teeth. Friend or not, he was about to be fucked up.
With his back to Colin, Nick whispered, “It’s Allie. They’re rushing her to the hospital.”
“What?” Harden snatched Nick’s phone away and read the text. It didn’t say what happened. This was unacceptable. He needed to know, and he needed to know right goddamn now.
“Problem?” Colin smirked as if he knew something, which just ratcheted Harden’s anger further into the red.
Gaze locked on his brother, he called the sender of the text. “It’s me. Tell me exactly what happened.” She had a fever, was limp and borderline responsive. They weren’t waiting for an ambulance but taking her to the hospital. Jentry was holding it together…for now.
Harden tossed the phone back to Nick. Decision made, he pointed and fired three times. Two head shots, one shot to the throat, and the Bratva were dead. Next, he zeroed in on Colin. Another squeeze of the trigger and he too would be dead.
“Bring him. He’s coming with us.” Harden wasn’t done with his brother, or Maroni and associates. Nick pulled out a zip tie and secured Colin’s hands behind his back while Harden faced the rest of the captive audience.
“Gentleman. An emergency has come up. Tripler, I will call on you soon. Maroni… Give me a reason to keep you alive or the next time you see me you’ll end up like them.”
With his brother in tow—and not putting up a fight—Harden stormed from the house. No time to track back to their Impala, they hopped into Maroni’s Bentley. Harden, Bruno, and Colin in the back, Nick up front with one of their men in the driver’s seat.
“Extraction point A.” Bruno ordered, which meant a helicopter ride back to the city. It was the fastest way to get there. But would it be fast enough?
Harden studied his underboss, remembering the moment his phone buzzed. Bruno glanced at the screen and put it away. A few minutes later, Nick’s phone did the same. This time with different results.
“They texted you first.” It wasn’t a question when Harden already had the answer.
“Yeah.” He didn’t hesitate to respond. “Like you told Nick, you were busy. Once you weren’t, I would’ve brought you up to speed.”
Harden’s hand twitched. Bruno noticed and didn’t say a word. Good, because nothing he could say would clean this shit up. Harden didn’t have many friends, and he counted Bruno as one of his closest. “If you ever do that again—”
“What? You’ll kill me over a sick kid and a woman you just met a few months ago?” He deadpanned. The thought was unbelievable to him, not after all they’d survived together.
As unbelievable as it was to Harden. “Yes. I will.”
“Finally met someone after Aida, huh? And she has a kid. What’s her name?” Colin fished so he could destroy her like he did Aida. Harden would never let that happen. Not again.
“Where you’re going, you will never need to know.”
∞∞∞
Jentry looked over her shoulder at her daughter, who was slowly coming around as her temperature lowered, and steeled her spine. “Watch her, Gerard. I’ll be right back.” She slipped through the curtain to find Quincy and Victor blocking the entrance to the room. She tapped their shoulders. “Let me through.” Though they didn’t like the order, both parted enough for her to see Allie’s sperm donor.
Quincy hiked a thumb at the man standing by the nurses’ station. “Say’s he’s Allie’s father. That true?” He’d lowered his voice to a whisper, which didn’t hide his disgust.
“Unfortunately,” she murmured. Damn, she had bad taste in men. “Who told him where to find us?”
“Don’t know, but that idiot’s fired when I find out,” Quincy growled.
“Not their fault. For all we know, he could’ve followed the cars. Even if he didn’t, it’s not rocket science to go to the nearest hospital and ask if she’s here. I would’ve done the same if the shoe were on the other foot.”
“Take me to my kid or I’m suing all of you. Allison Playne, where is she?” Spittle flying, he pounded the desk at the nurses’ station.
Jentry walked up to the desk. She wanted Harden here, but, as she looked at the men guarding her, she wasn’t alone. Her short walk ended at the desk. Now she waited for him to cease his rant and notice her.
With all his ranting and threatening, it took a moment for him to realize she waited a few feet away. His gaze cut her way, then his head cranked her way slowly. The last time he saw her she was exhausted after spending hours in the kitchen at Denizen at the engagement party after the photo shoot with her mother and sisters.
Today, she wore a pair of gray straight-leg wool slacks tucked into a pair of gray boots, and a cream-colored V-neck cashmere sweater that hugged her breasts and showed enough cleavage to make a man’s eyes drift south. She’d cut her hair in favor of short curls so no man could ever use her hair to pin her down and control her again. She’d gained some weight, mainly in her tits and ass. That happened when you got to eat three meals a day. All in all, she looked damn good and knew it. That should’ve boosted her confidence. It didn’t. She was terrified but learned how to mask that terror well because Carl fed off her fear. It was how he’d kept her in line until she didn’t give a shit anymore. That was before Allie gave her a reason to live.
“How did you find me?” She waited for his gaze to unglue from her breasts to get an answer.
“I ain’t an idiot! Nearest hospital.” His eyes narrowed and his head cocked. “It worked. Just like I wasn’t an idiot when I went to Split-Tail looking for you.”
Her head nearly exploded. “That’s how you knew to find me at Denizen?” She was too blindsided to ask when she first saw him at the club.
“Yeah. Tyler pointed me in the right direction.”
“How kind of him.” But didn’t tell him everything otherwise, no way would he consider scamming Harden. No fucking way.
>
Carl invaded her personal space and loomed over her, trying to intimidate, resuming old patterns, patterns forever broken.
Quincy stepped between them, hand out, shoving him back several feet. “Touch her and I’ll break your arm.”
They were the same height, roughly five-eleven. Carl seemed heavier, more muscular, but Quincy exuded a calm certainty. Jentry had no doubt he would fuck Carl up. By the way Carl paused and studied Quincy, he knew it too.
“You think you’re a tough guy? A pretty bitch like you would get shanked in the ass in prison,” he said low enough for just the three of them to hear.
“And you would know about being someone’s bitch, wouldn’t you?” Quincy replied just as low. “Knees hurt, don’t they. Ass still sore from staying bent and passed around?”
Carl’s upper lip peeled off his teeth in a silent snarl. Security arrived and Carl stepped back, his hands in the air. “I want to see my kid, that’s all. I swear. I see my kid and I’m outta here,” he pleaded quite reasonably. “Or I can see my kid in court.”
What was she thinking giving him access to Allie? He was right. He wasn’t an idiot. She was. His name wasn’t on Allie’s birth certificate. He literally donated sperm and nothing else. He didn’t carry her for nine months, survive twenty hours of labor, went on welfare to make sure she had food, then found a job because it wasn’t enough and her daughter deserved more. He wasn’t there for the colic, or the shots that left her with a fever. Not the first smile, first wet kiss, or the first crawl. Nope. He wasn’t there for any of it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was in prison, but even if he were free as a bird and walking the streets unencumbered, he still wouldn’t have been a part of Allie’s life because he’d told her to get rid of it.
It.
He’d called her baby an it. He didn’t want her. Though she hated his guts with a nuclear passion, she wanted her baby. Suddenly, he wanted her too. Yeah, right. The courts wouldn’t care. They only cared about the DNA results, and though she wished he wasn’t, Carl was the dad.
This wasn’t a fight she wanted to play out in public. “Follow me.”
She led the short distance back to the room, pausing to let the X-ray technologist and their bulky equipment leave the room before they entered. Gerard was inside, holding Allie, who looked a lot better than she had moments ago. She was alert and looking around the room, discovering a new place and not happy about it. She whined and sniffled and rubbed her ears. Her breath was still labored, her movement listless.
“There’s mommy, Allie.” Gerard cooed to her.
Allie took one look at Jentry, wailed, and reached for her mother.
“Who the fuck are you?” Carl blew into the room behind her.
Gerard’s eyes darted between the two of them, confused.
Jentry took Allie into her arms, trying to calm her sick baby. “Gerard. This is Allie’s father.”
His eyes widened and he visibly swallowed.
“Can you give us some privacy, please?” she asked.
“Of course. I’ll be right outside.” Gerard gave Carl a wide berth. He didn’t have a choice since Carl stood in the middle of the room.
“Is that him?” He thumbed a finger at Gerard’s retreating back. “That your new sugar daddy?”
Ew! “No. He’s the butler.”
Carl snickered. “The butler. Wow. And you got bodyguards now, huh. You livin’ the high life now, huh. Got fancy clothes. You Park Avenue now. No more slummin’, huh.” He stepped closer, forcing her to retreat until her back pressed against the wall and there was nowhere else to go. “I hear you some guy’s bitch now.” His head bobbed, nodding to himself. “You did good, Jentry. I’m proud of you. You gonna make me a rich man.”
Though vomit climbed her throat, she knew exactly what he meant, for the sake of absolute clarity, she had to ask. “What are you babbling about?”
“A man can’t serve two masters, and neither can a woman. Your old master is back. You’re mine, Jentry. Property of CDJ.” He grabbed her chin between hard fingers.
This entire scenario was why she planned to not be in New York City when he got out. The man was vicious, sadistic, and greedy. The world owed him, and he was going to collect, by any means necessary.
“You gonna make me earn my money on my back again, Carl? That’s what you been dreaming about while you were locked up?”
Even white teeth flashed in his broad grin. “Yeah. How’d you guess?” He chuckled, actually chuckled at the prospect of earning a paycheck on her blood, sweat, and tears. It shouldn’t’ve surprised her, yet it did. “But, instead of earnin’ my money with a bunch of men, you gonna earn my money with one rich one.”
You idiot. “Do you even care who that man is? Do you even know who you plan on swindling?” she asked already knowing he didn’t. Carl had never been brave, and she was certain his cowardice hadn’t vanished in prison.
He scoffed. “Some old rich guy is what I heard.”
What? “From whom? Who told you that, Carl?” Who sent you here, a lamb to the slaughter?
The curtain covering the entrance to the room shifted. Jentry saw him, but Carl didn’t. What she saw was salvation in a Brioni suit under a cashmere topcoat flaring open like a cape, the flash of his Greubel Forsey time piece worth five times her annual income, the ring on his right pinky. What she saw was a clean-shaven jaw, hard as granite yet dimpled.
Relief was sweet. She was safe because Harden was here, and everything would be alright.
Then she saw the dead glare in his eyes and felt the deep chill rolling off him like a Canadian cold front. Those frigid blue eyes shifted her way. A dip in the arctic sea would’ve been warmer. Shivering, she backed away even as his gaze warmed when they landed on Allie, only to drop to sub-zero when they shifted to Carl.
Harden stepped into the already crowded room, turning it into a coffin. His smile leeched even more warmth out of the room until she swore her breath frosted in the air. Fear stiffened her spine, making her glaringly aware of her precarious situation. Jentry was afraid, and not only for Carl, but for herself too.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Give me what info you can,” Harden yelled into his phone.
“We’re just arriving at the hospital, sir. I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”
“Fine,” he said, feeling impotent because that was all he could say, and there was nothing he could do. “Quincy, do not let anything happen to them. Understand.” He didn’t tack on “because your life depends on it” because the man already knew. Anything happens to them, whether his fault or an act of God, he was dead.
Harden ended the call and barely quelled the impulse to crush the device in his hand. Deep breaths steadied the tremor in his hands. He couldn’t lose them. Couldn’t. Not like this.
“Let’s go!” Bruno shouted to the pilot.
“Nice extraction plan,” Colin said as the helicopter started.
Harden sat opposite his brother to keep an eye on him.
The threads were Armani. The shoes, Cole Haan. The watch, Omega. Karpovilov had spent money on him.
“Fedor pick you up from prison?” Questioning Colin was better than thinking about Allie.
“One of his lackeys. The kid’s not yours if you’ve only met her a few months ago. The mother must be special for you to be this concerned about a kid that doesn’t have our DNA.”
Our DNA. Harden palmed his gun, fighting temptation. Now wasn’t the time for him to die. Not yet. Not in a public helicopter, only because it would’ve been too much to clean. When he died, Colin’s death would be bloody, messy, and glorious.
“Our DNA. Now I’m your sibling? Where was that DNA speech when you found me in Scarsdale?” Colin opened his mouth for an answer Harden didn’t want to hear. “I was fourteen. You, eighteen. Brought your friends to witness you beating the bastard.”
Colin’s answer. “Kids will be kids.”
Calmer now, Harden laughed, which eased him off the edge.
“Let me not rehash the moment when you sent me to prison in your stead.”
Colin rolled his shoulders. “I sent you. You sent me. I say we’re even. I didn’t set you up.” He deadpanned. “That was Father.”
“And that was you not taking the stand in my defense. You not taking ownership for the cargo stashed in my SUV. Cargo easily traced back to a hijacked shipment stolen at gunpoint, leaving two dead security guards they couldn’t pin on me but damn well tried. Five years of my life, gone.”
“Not gone. Repurposed. You wouldn’t’ve met your right-hand man if you hadn’t—”
“Don’t give me that bullshit.” Harden snarled.
“That was a bullshit line.” Nick snickered. “That was a, ‘I’m trying to save my ass,’ line.” He broke out in laughter.
Colin had the balls to chuckle in agreement. “This chick, I heard she’s Black.”
Anger crept back into the red zone. “Yeah. Who told you that?”
“Fedor.”
The name wasn’t a surprise, and Harden hadn’t been discrete. Still, it rankled a nerve. Denying it was moot when he’d dropped everything to rush to her side. “You got an issue?”
“Father would’ve.” Colin’s gaze dipped to their father’s ring twinkling dully on Harden’s finger in the dim interior of the helicopter. “He would’ve said you were diluting the bloodline. Black and Whites shouldn’t mix. Keep our line pure.”
Seething, Harden nodded once. “Yes. He would’ve said that.”
“I got to agree—”
Harden shoved their father’s ring down Colin’s mouth. He pulled back and connected with Colin’s nose, pulled back again, and buried his fist in Colin’s right eye. He beat the crap out of his purebred, asshole of a brother. The helicopter rocked; instruments screamed along with the pilot. They were falling out of the sky and everything was right in his world—until he remembered Allie was sick and Jentry was alone.
Plain Jane and Mr. Wrong (Plain Jane Series Book 4) Page 24