Plain Jane and Mr. Wrong (Plain Jane Series Book 4)

by Tmonique Stephens

  “Liar.”

  She shrugged. “The point is…” What was the point? Oh, yeah. “I’m not his girlfriend.”

  “You sure he knows that?”

  She swallowed. Knowing Harden’s mind, what he thought of her… “If I say I’m not a man’s girlfriend, then I’m not his girlfriend.” She went back to the coffee pot.

  “Are you trying to say you and him are not screwing each other?” The hint of incredulity hung in the air.

  She came for coffee, not an interrogation. “A lady never tells.”

  “Is that what you are now? A lady?” he said with an abundance of incredulity.

  He was lucky he was across the room, because friend of Harden’s or not, second in charge of the syndicate, she would’ve decked him. “I’ve always been a lady.” Unafraid, she moved closer because she had a point to make. “When I was on a stage, swinging my ass around a poll, and other things you don’t need to know about, I was still a lady.” Her voice trembled and she hated it, but that’s what happened when you were so furious and you couldn’t do anything about it. Forget the coffee, she needed out of the lounge and away from him.

  “Look.” He stood but didn’t approach. “I know you didn’t ask for any of this, but the situation is what it is. You’re here, and you’re fucking the boss.”

  Halfway to the door, she whipped back around. “He wasn’t a virgin.”

  Bruno snorted. “He also never kept anyone around. Moved them in. Rushed back from a mission to stay up all night with their kid.”

  “You make that sound like it’s a detriment. Oh, yeah. It’s a detriment for the head of the syndicate. He’s changed and you don’t like it.”

  Bruno folded his arms across his broad chest. Guess she hit a nerve. “A mob boss with a heart doesn’t play well on the street.”

  “That’s what he has now? A heart? Because he cares about a sick child and had sex with her mother, and you’re threatened by that. You’re threatened by a nine-month-old and a one-hundred-and-thirty-pound woman.” She turned her back on him and finally, she poured two cups of coffee because returning without them would raise questions. “I’ve never felt more powerful.”

  He blocked her path when she turned. “You are powerful and now you know it. What are you going to do about it?”

  “Power of the pussy, huh.” She shook her head. “That’s a myth. A man only does what he wants to do, and no amount of pussy can make him do otherwise.”

  He grinned. “You want to believe that, fine, I won’t dispute it.”

  Yeah, her pussy had magical properties that made Harden come running. Bullshit. “Now, I’m going to bring a cup of coffee to Harden and relieve him from baby duty.” She moved around him and headed for the exit. Unfortunately, she wasn’t fast enough.

  “Jentry.”

  She paused as he cut across to the lounge door, blocking her path again. “You need to leave Manhattan and go to the beach house with your family. You’ll be safe there.”

  Fear snaked down her back. “Is that a threat?” She never felt threatened by Bruno, until this moment.

  He shook his head. “Never. But think about your daughter and what’s best for her. We’re in a war. Babies and bullets don’t mix.” He stepped aside and opened the door for her.

  Thoughts in a riot, she exited quickly and was happy when the door clicked shut behind her. And ran into Leonid. He hadn’t been around much, but neither had the rest of the inner core.

  “Bruno playing big brother, huh?”

  Not to her.

  “He’s really protective of Harden.”

  She raised an eyebrow because what the hell did that mean?

  He held up his hands. “Not in a weird way. They have history. Been through the trenches together. The trust is deep between the two.”

  Except when it came to her. She didn’t care about Bruno’s trust. Did she care about Harden’s? …Yes. She did more and more each day.

  “Don’t take it personal…and don’t take this personal. You seem nice, nice kid too.” Leonid invaded her personal space and leaned close to whisper, “Get out while you can, before you can’t. This life, it ain’t for the weak, the vulnerable. You and your kid are both.”

  She swallowed painfully. That was a threat. Subtle, yet still. A. Threat. “Thanks for the concern. I’ll take it under consideration.”

  One foot in front of the other, she made it back, balancing two paper cups of worthless coffee. The only reason she still carried them was because she couldn’t return without them. The point was moot when she found the pediatrician inside the room. Allie was stable. She’d responded to the medicine incredibly well. She could go home with another round of medicine for her to finish and with an appointment to see her primary pediatrician within the next forty-eight hours or less.

  “Are you sure?” Jentry asked.

  “You better be sure,” Harden said, not adding his life depended on it.

  “Y-y-yes, I’m sure.” The sloped differential position of his body changed. His spine straightened and his shoulders squared. “Who’s Allie’s doctor? I’d like to follow up with them.”

  “We go to a clinic in the Bronx. It has rotating doctors. A different one each day.”

  “You’re her doctor now.” Harden stood with a sleeping Allie in his arms. “Twenty-four hours we will be at your office.”

  Not about to disagree, Dr. Yarly swallowed once and nodded. “I’ll get your discharge papers and prescriptions prepared.”

  She felt for the doctor, but she wasn’t sorry. Allie needed a pediatrician, and now she had one. However, she said, “I don’t have insurance. That’s why I go to a clinic.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Harden laid Allie in her crib.

  Don’t worry about it, he says. It wasn’t easy when Bruno’s and Leonid’s words reverberated in her ears. “I-I, um, don’t want to owe you more than I already do.” The words felt weird coming out of her mouth because he didn’t make her feel like she owed him anything. He’d never made her feel that way.

  It was the silence that brought her head up from being buried in her chest to find those eyes of his pinned to her. “Owe me?” he said angrily. “That’s what you think this is? You owing me. Me doing this”—he waved a hand at Allie and in the general direction of the hospital—“any of this because I want you to owe me?”

  “I—”

  “You owe me for a roof over your head, the food in your stomach, the job you haven’t been to in days, and now a hospital bill. I’ll set up a payment plan.” He stormed out of the room.

  ∞∞∞

  Harden spotted Nick exiting the elevator. The man had seen better days. He sported stitches on his scalp, a shiner to his swollen right eye, and his left arm was in a sling. But he was upright with fire in his one good eye.

  He walked right up to Harden. Roughly the same height, they eyed each other in the hallway in full view of the staff and patients.

  “You think I did this shit?” he shouted. “Think I pulled this bitch-ass stunt and betrayed you?”

  Silent, Harden waited Nick out.

  “You think I did that?” he growled with his head cocked to the side and his mouth twisted into a snarl. “Put a bullet in me then and be done. You pull the trigger. No one else.” He opened his coat, showing he wasn’t locked and loaded. Next, he lifted his sweater, spun, and showed the small of his back. “I ain’t armed. It’ll be easy. We leave and get it done…or I put a bullet in you.”

  Harden had his hands around Nick’s throat. Nick struggled to break free, but it wasn’t easy with one hand. Harden slammed him into the wall as his head snapped back from a vicious uppercut. Bell rung, Nick broke free. Hand to the back of his head, Nick brought a knee up at the same time he yanked Harden down. At the last second, Harden shifted and managed to deflect the knee to his forehead. He shoved Nick away and regrouped, but Bruno jumped between them. He used his three-inch height advantage and broad body to keep the two from tearing each other apart, with a d
amn audience snapping goddamn pictures on their cell phones.

  “Get him outta here,” Bruno yelled at the guards. “And make sure he’s living when you toss him inside his car.”

  “You think you doing me a favor? Temporary reprieve, fuckers. I’m coming for both of you.” He struggled against two guards, fighting to the last, even as the elevator door closed.

  Harden shoved Bruno away, not an easy feat given the man’s size. “What? Can’t I have a fucking moment of peace?”

  Bruno cocked an eyebrow and eyed Harden like a grenade with a missing pin. Wise man. Contingency A was in effect. Now, he wanted a moment to himself. “Did you come here to stare at me, or you got something to say?”

  Bruno leaned in to murmur for Harden’s ear alone to hear. “They took a hit out on you.”

  Harden snorted. There went his moment of solitude. “Another one?”

  “Two killers supposedly already here in New York, but I can’t confirm.”

  Well, Harden had spent almost the last two days in the hospital, but he and his men hadn’t spent all that time with their thumbs up their asses. “Everything secure? Prepared?”

  Bruno nodded. “We got men coming in and got some surprises for them.”

  Good. Wouldn’t want to make it too easy for his enemies to kill him. “Who manned up this time and joined Colin and the Russian?”

  “All of them. None of them. No one is talking. Their silence is deafening. They all want a piece of you, but can’t spare a nut to say it. We’re at war.”

  Harden sighed. This was what he got for trying to play nice. “We were always at war, Bruno.”

  “True. But now, we got a woman and kid in the crosshairs too.”

  A knife to the chest would’ve been just as painful as Bruno’s words. Because, damn it, it was the truth.

  “She’s got to go, Harden. She and the kid have to go, now.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Carl shuffled up to the back door of Split-Tail, his ferret-like gaze darting back and forth, searching the darkness. The man wasn’t a fool. He’d just taken on the head of the syndicate and lived—for the moment. Tyler had set him up. Sent him there to be killed, that fucktard. Harden-fucking-Gage. The man was a legend on the streets. He took on his father and brother, the head of the Irish mob, to rise to the top of the heap. Then he took on everyone else to be named head of the syndicate, head of four families controlling New York.

  Word on the street was he wasn’t done. And that’s why he—Carl Jones—was sent into the lion’s den, a lamb to the slaughter. The powers that be wanted Harden Gage rattled. Carl was rattled after facing the man. They called Harden Iceman behind his back. Nah, there was nothing cold in the stare coming out of the man. He wanted Carl dead, buried. Never born would be more accurate.

  He hadn’t spent that time in prison and got blessed with early release to end up in the Hudson. To hell with that. He liked freedom and living with all his limbs intact. Harden’s penchant for removing limbs was well known.

  He fell right into their trap, couldn’t wait when Tyler told him Jentry had a sugar daddy, and where to find her. How the hell had she landed Harden Gage? She had a nice body, adequate features, but she wasn’t a dime piece. She was barely an okay lay. He had to beat her ass to get her to do her job and make him money. Her game must’ve improved after he went to prison. It wasn’t fair, but he liked to live. He did what they wanted and walked into that hospital like he owned stock, demanding to see a kid he didn’t give two shits about. He was at Split-Tail to curse Tyler to his face and then leave town. Miami was nice this time of year. Sun, sand, drinks, and plenty of pussy.

  He banged on the back door until it popped open and one of the bouncers popped his head out. Normally, the man would’ve had a list of questions and he still wouldn’t let just anyone inside. Tonight, he grabbed Carl by the jacket and hauled him through the back door and into the dim interior with the pumping music.

  “Lemme go!” This wasn’t how the night was supposed to unwind. He tried to fight the bouncer off. Hard to do when the man had five inches and one hundred pounds on Carl. He got toned in prison and learned a few more skills on how to protect himself, none of which would help him right now. He settled down and conserved his strength for later in case he survived the next few hours.

  An easy breath escaped when he was hauled to Tyler’s office. Seated behind his desk on a damn throne, the Pussy King was in attendance and summoned him forward. But he wasn’t alone. One man was with him. A big guy with expensive clothes and more expensive bling. And a face that looked like it had survived a date with a pulverizer. Shit, whoever the fuck or what the fuck chewed him up, didn’t like the taste, and spit him out. Carl didn’t recognize him, but he was familiar. He had to be a player. Not a small-time player either. Damn, the streets had changed in the year and a half since he’d been gone.

  “I can wait ’til you’re done with your guest.” Carl offered. A bug under a magnifying glass in the blazing sun had less scrutiny than he did since he entered the room.

  “Did you see her? Jentry?” Tyler demanded, rather than ask.

  “Well, yeah. She surprised me and invited me to the penthouse, but I never made it inside it.”

  “Why is that?” Tyler asked.

  “We ended up at the hospital.”

  “Hospital? Who’s hurt?” The man planted his fists on the desk and leaned in.

  He looked so damn familiar, but the raw hamburger his face resembled was hard to place. “The kid—my kid. Something’s wrong with her.” He should’ve stayed and found out, but he didn’t feel safe with Gage there. Leaving was wise even if it showed cowardice. Neither did here feel safe. New York wasn’t just dangerous, it was dangerous to him specifically.

  The man said nothing, just stared at Carl until he squirmed. He wanted to leave. He shouldn’t have come here. He should’ve gone to Florida and shacked up with his brother. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Please, don’t let it be too late. Come on, God. Do me a solid.

  Abruptly, the man stood and limped around the desk to him. He may be broken and glued back together, but he was dangerous. On a fundamental level Carl felt it and retreated until he had nowhere to go. His back pressed to the wall, he had no idea what the man wanted, but by the holstered weapons under his arms, Carl would give it to him. Anything as long as he got out of here alive. Small fish, big damn pond, he just wanted to survive.

  “What do you want? Whatever it is, I can get it for you. Just don’t hurt me,” he pleaded.

  The man clapped him on the shoulder. Carl felt it through his entire body, though he dared not complain.

  “Hurt you? No. I’m not going to hurt you.” The man shook his head and grinned. “I’m gonna use you. Through me, you just became dad of the year.”

  What the hell did that mean? “And who are you?” Carl asked.

  “Colin O’Rourke, your new boss and benefactor.”

  Ah, shit! He wasn’t between a rock and a hard place. He was stuck between an immovable object and an irresistible force. In other words, he was fucked. “What do you want?” he said slowly and with much care.

  Colin stretched his split lip into a tight grin. “I want everything you have on Jentry and her family.”

  Carl swallowed, but all the spit in his mouth had evaporated. He didn’t need to know why; it was written all over his face. “Alright, boss, I’ll give you what you want. Jentry, she has three sisters: Jane, Josette, and…” What was the last one’s name? “Jessy? Jessica? Jesenia!”

  Colin snapped. “Find them. I want those women.” He turned to Tyler, who turned to Carl.

  Carl nodded. “Yeah, sure. You got it.” He had no idea how to find them, but he would. He’d do whatever they wanted if he kept breathing.

  “That’s not going to get you what you want.” Tyler spoke up. His gaze latched onto Carl, drilled into him. “Jentry’s kid, it’s yours, right?”

  No secret there, yet a chill raced down Carl’s spine. “Yeah, the kid’s
mine.”

  Tyler’s gaze cut to Colin. “That’s your in. Control the kid, control Jentry, which gives you control over Harden.”

  “But the kid ain’t his,” Colin snapped, then calmed. “But he acts like it is. He cares about the brat.” A gleam entered his eyes.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Harden wouldn’t look at her, never mind speak to her. Jentry couldn’t decide which was worse. At least Allie was in the car seat between them, awake and demanding attention. She wanted freedom. Thankfully, the drive back to the penthouse was short.

  Harden disappeared into his office as soon as they arrived, leaving her, Gerard, and Ms. Vicki to get Allie settled. Her daughter didn’t want to be settled, she was rested and wanted to play. She even stood up and took one unsteady step while using the end table for balance. In the end, after a bath, a bottle, and another dose of medicine, she was down for the count.

  Dinner with Gerard and Ms. Vicki was nice. Beef Wellington, French string beans, and the creamiest mashed potatoes on the planet. No sign of Harden. The gang stopped by, Bruno, Pavel, and Leonid. The last two waved hello as they headed for Harden’s office.

  Jentry took a long soak and secretly hoped he’d invade her space again. He didn’t and that stuck in her craw like a kernel of popcorn between her teeth. She dressed in a silk nightie and matching gown, her motives unknown. It could be she wanted to feel the silk against her skin. This was her first experience with the material, and it felt luxurious. It could be the silk, gliding across her flesh, stroking her nipples, her abs, ass, and thighs sent her thoughts in a lascivious direction. Could be all that stroking reminded her of Harden’s hands and made her wish for what she shouldn’t have.

  The house was silent and so was she as the plush carpet cushioned her bare feet. The two guards stationed at the front door said nothing when she strolled past the foyer. The nightie was short, skimming her ass, but the robe was long and belted. Nothing showed except a hint of her curves, though one could use their imagination. She didn’t hang around to see if they did.