Dynasty

by Jen Davis et al.

  With no other outlet for his mixture of sorrow and anger, Hunter turned and punched the window out of the SUV, leaving shards of glass embedded in his now broken hand.

  As the paramedics rounded the corner, Jack started to walk toward the coffee shop, then stopped and turned to Hunter. “Get your hand taken care of, then go home.”

  Chapter 54

  Chloe had heard about the shootout between federal agents and a suspected member of an organized crime family, as well as the death of an innocent woman and an unnamed gunman. It had been all over the news for the past few days and she did everything she could to keep busy and keep her mind from the worry. She instinctively knew one of the agents was Hunter. She tried to call Jack for confirmation, but couldn’t get through. She had tried to contact David several times, but couldn’t get a hold of him either. She felt like she was dying inside with each passing minute. If she could just find out if Hunter was okay, she could breathe easier.

  Chloe decided to occupy herself in the conference room, reviewing various papers, when Matthew and Crescent entered. She ignored them as Matthew took a seat across from her, while Crescent stood behind him. Matthew had a cigar in one hand and a small metal box in the other, placing the box on the table in front of him. Chloe knew what that cigar meant and suddenly felt nauseous as she glanced at the box. She raised an eyebrow at him, waiting for him to talk first.

  “What’s all this?” Matthew asked, waving his hand at the papers on the table.

  “Most of this is the scheduling and notes for the meeting, which will be held Tuesday after next, but I’m still waiting to hear back from Kansas City and Albuquerque. I have a block of rooms reserved for everybody and—”

  “Tuesday after next?” Matthew asked. “Why so long?”

  Trying not to look at the box, Chloe answered, “Because David won’t be available until then. I also chose that day because it’s your birthday. By planning a birthday party to coincide with the meeting, the visiting Family members and all of your admirers will be here. Afterward, the meeting can be held.”

  Matthew tried, and failed, to maintain a graceful tone. “I’m surprised you even considered planning a birthday party for me.”

  “Don’t read too much into it. I know how much you love to celebrate yourself,” Chloe said, disgusted, as Matthew’s eyes began to crease in loathing. “It’s just a coincidence.”

  Matthew cast a glance at Crescent, then turned back to Chloe. “You heard about what happened in New Orleans a few days ago?”

  Chloe casually shifted in her chair in an effort to give the impression that she didn’t care when, really, her heart was heavy with a worry she desperately tried not to show. “Of course I’ve heard about it. It’s been all over the news.”

  Matthew leaned forward, wrapping his hands around the box as he spoke quietly. “Renee, I don’t think you have been completely honest with me.”

  Right back atcha, she thought.

  “This agent that was killed in New Orleans…” Matthew didn’t bother suppressing a smile as Chloe’s entire posture froze in horror, “…you knew him, didn’t you?”

  Did she hear him right? An agent was killed? How did he know that and why was she just now hearing about it? Most of all, was it true? Her thoughts were beginning to blur, but her response was cool. “I know that New Orleans was your doing, but there has been no word of an agent, or agents, being killed. If that were the case, it would be breaking national news.”

  “Sometimes the news isn’t always the best source for information. Yes, an agent was killed in the fight. The news isn’t reporting it because Jack Lawrence is very good at his job and isn’t overly happy that one of his best men was a possible liability to the Family.”

  Chloe kept her breathing even and her composure still as her chest tightened and terror began to flow through her. The feeling of loss she swore she would never experience again was happening and it scared the hell out of her.

  “As a matter of fact,” Matthew continued, “I have it on good authority that not only do you know him, you fell in love with him.” Matthew took a long pull off his cigar as he leaned back in his chair with a sinister look on his face and said, “Chloe.”

  She froze, horror replaced by genuine fear for her life. Finally, she was able to speak, but only in a whisper. “How…”

  “How isn’t important. What is important is the fact that I have you exactly where I want you and nothing you do or say will change that.”

  “Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with?”

  “Because I’m not done with you,” he answered as he pushed the metal box across the table to rest in front of Chloe. “I am far from done with you.”

  She swallowed a lump in her throat the size of a boulder and stared at the box, terrified of what she would find inside. “What’s this?”

  “A reminder that I always follow through on any promise or threat I make.”

  Chloe inadvertently glanced in Crescent’s direction. He was watching her carefully and giving her a threatening look to let her know that if she didn’t open the box, he would be the one doling out the consequences. She slowly reached for the box with trembling hands and pulled it closer to her, breathing deeply to steady herself and taking a few seconds to try to prepare for what she would find inside.

  Matthew gave her a forceful glare and in a demanding tone said, “Open the box.”

  Chloe jumped out of her chair in revulsion as she saw a human heart resting inside. She covered her mouth in an attempt to keep the bile from rising, but failed as she found the nearest garbage can and released all of the contents in her stomach.

  Matthew stood and turned to Chloe, who was now bracing herself against the wall, shaking, gasping for air, and tears gushing from her eyes. “Nobody will ever be able to love you again. Do you understand that now?”

  Matthew opened the door to leave and she couldn’t help herself. She took the box off the table and threw it at Matthew with all of her strength, hitting him in the back.

  “You sadistic son of a bitch!” she screamed. “How can you be so evil?”

  She ran toward him with the intent of doing whatever she could to make him bleed, but Crescent was faster. He grabbed Chloe’s arm, forcibly yanking her away from Matthew, and when she fought him and tried to pull free, Crescent flung her across the table like a rag doll, her body slamming into the wall, where she fell unconscious.

  Chapter 55

  Chloe opened her eyes to find herself face to face with Dr. Michaelson, who was taking her blood pressure and giving her a sympathetic smile. Her entire body pounded with pain as she turned her head and saw David sitting in a chair beside the bed, eager for her to wake up.

  “Stay down,” the doctor said when she tried to sit up. “Nothing is broken, but you hit that wall pretty hard.”

  She turned to David. “Do you know what he did?”

  David nodded, fury on his face. “Yes.”

  “How could you let that happen?”

  “It’s not what you think,” David said. “I’ll explain—”

  “Not what I think?” Chloe screamed, hysteria taking over. “He gave me a box with his fucking heart in it!”

  Chloe couldn’t stop sobbing. David and Elias gave her a few minutes before David rested a hand on her arm in an effort to comfort her.

  Like flipping a switch, she stopped crying and jerked her arm away from David. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed.

  “I’m sorry, Renee. I’m sorry for everything that has happened over the years—for everything that I have allowed to happen—but this situation is not what you think. Hunter is alive.”

  Chloe slowly gained control over herself and listened carefully as David explained what had transpired before, during, and after Tucker went to New Orleans. When David finished, Chloe sat up in bed, batting away the doctor’s hands as he tried to keep her down.

  “Is everything you just told me true?”

  David tried not to take offense to her q
uestion. “You can ask Jack if you’d like, or Elias, but you have to keep in mind how imperative it is that Matthew think he’s won.”

  “He has won. He has done to me exactly what he said he would do. I can’t do this anymore.”

  “You can’t mean that. You’re stronger than that. You’re better than him.”

  “Why can’t that bastard have a heart attack and die already?” David and the doctor exchanged a knowing glance that did not go unnoticed by Chloe. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  David smiled. “It turns out that Matthew’s heart condition is worse than he thinks it is.”

  Chloe’s eyebrows creased. “What do you mean?”

  “I told you that he takes medication to help control it,” Elias stated, “but the truth is that Matthew hasn’t taken his medication in almost nine months.”

  “But I’ve seen him take his medication.”

  “He’s been taking a medication,” David said, “just not his medication. I think it would be in everybody’s best interest if a heart attack in the near future was a very real possibility for Matthew.”

  “And there is the possibility the attack could be induced,” Elias added.

  “There are just some details that we will need to discuss so that we are all clear about how to accomplish our end goal,” David said. “Unfortunately, you are still the key.”

  “Hunter is alive,” she said to nobody in particular, “and Jack is with him.”

  “That’s right,” David confirmed while he patted her arm with a smile. “But right now, you need to get some rest. We have a party next week and it’s vital that as many of Matthew’s people are there and at the meeting afterward.”

  She carefully slid back under the covers and stared at the ceiling. Then something crossed her mind that she should have thought of weeks ago. She looked suspiciously between the two men before they could leave the room. “Where is Christopher?”

  Chapter 56

  Hunter sat across from Christopher in Jack’s hotel suite, analyzing him in silence, desperately wanting to find anything about him that would make Hunter hate him. He could see why Chloe fell for him in the first place all those years ago. He was good looking, quiet, respectful, and considerate of everyone around him. Despite what Christopher did for a living, Hunter had to admit that Christopher was a good guy.

  Christopher leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, giving Hunter a hard stare. “Do you really think the two of you can be together? You are a federal officer and she lives in the world of organized crime. She’ll never be able to leave it.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “What if Matthew kills her? Then what?”

  “He won’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He won’t,” Hunter repeated with an unrelenting tone. “He needs her. As long as David Lundy is still breathing, he won’t touch her.”

  “You seem awfully sure of that.”

  “It’s all I have to hold on to,” Hunter replied.

  “You need to know that Matthew Parnell is not like other made men in organized crime that you know about, read about, or see on television. He’s unpredictable and dangerous. If evil incarnate had a twin brother, Matthew would be it. I mean, Jesus, he cut off a woman’s head; a woman, I might add, who worked for him and was loyal to him for over ten years.”

  “What did you do for him?”

  Christopher sat back on the couch. “I’m not proud of what I’ve done, but I did what I did for Renee. It wasn’t what I thought I signed up for when David sent me to Boston, but I had to do what I was told or risk losing everything.”

  “Including Chloe,” Hunter stated.

  “I guess what I’m trying to tell you is that you can hold onto whatever hope you want, but you have to prepare yourself for what might happen.” Christopher gave Hunter a hard, serious look. “Everything she has done over the past eight years has been to protect herself, and now she’s back, she’s alone, and whether or not she wants to admit it, she’s scared. She had to build this impenetrable titanium wall around her heart so she would never have to feel the loss of love ever again. Then she met you. She loves you and wants nothing more than to be with you, but in her mind, she has lost you forever. I will always love her, but know I can never have her again. You are the only one who can give her what her heart desires. If all of this turns out to have a happy ending, you’d better be good to her and treat her right, make sure she never cries and always smiles. I’ve already broken her heart once, and I know she couldn’t live with it happening again.”

  Defeated, Christopher walked out of the room, leaving Hunter to stare out the window with an unexpected smile on his face.

  ***

  “That’s all I know,” Jack said when he finished his story. “Matthew has eyes wherever she goes and nobody will talk to her unless they have to.”

  Hunter saw the raised eyebrow look from Christopher that said, Told ya, and turned to Jack. “We have to get her out of there whether or not she can get us the evidence we need.”

  “Christopher and I are going to Boston next week. I don’t know all the details, I’m just doing as I’m told,” Jack said.

  “Wait,” Hunter said, trying to understand, “he’s going to Boston? He’s supposed to be dead. What if he’s spotted?”

  “As I said, I don’t know all the details,” Jack replied. “I was told to bring him and that’s what I’m doing.”

  Frustrated, Hunter asked, “And what do I do in the meantime? I can’t do anything until this asshole is either dead or in jail. I’m being babysat while he—”

  Jack cut him off with a terse tone of voice. “You are being ‘babysat’ for your own protection. You should be grateful that you’re being extended the courtesy instead of being six feet in the ground.”

  “What do Judd and Dennis know?”

  “What I told them.” Jack pointed to the cast on Hunter’s hand. “Medical leave until further notice.”

  Feeling frustrated and trapped, Hunter desperately wanted something heavy to throw or, if Jack would let him, which was doubtful, go to the shooting range to release his anger. “I’m a federal officer who has been chasing a ghost for years, and now that we finally know who this ghost is and where to find him, there’s nothing I can do. I’m sworn to secrecy and caught in the middle of the mob and possible murder of the boss himself. How am I going to do my job from now on? Every time I get a file on my desk that could be or is related to organized crime, I’ll have to ignore it.”

  “You have options. You just don’t know it yet,” Jack said. “Look, this obviously isn’t the way things were supposed to happen, but it’s out there now and you now have a choice to do something about it.”

  Hunter stood and faced Jack. “You’ll let me know what you find out?”

  “I’ll tell you what I can.”

  “You mean whatever you’re allowed to tell me,” Hunter stated, and walked out of the room.

  Chapter 57

  Chloe had put together a grand birthday party for Matthew. Since nobody would tell her who was friend or foe, she simply invited everybody she could think of.

  All twelve regional underbosses from were in attendance, sporadically arriving at the hotel over the past two days and enjoying any and all amenities that Matthew had to offer. Maybe two out of the twelve men actually liked Matthew, while the rest of them simply tolerated him, but they were there for David, and David alone. The thought of celebrating anything having to do with Matthew made her nauseous, and after a meeting with David, Elias, and Christopher earlier that afternoon, her nausea wasn’t improving.

  “I cannot guarantee success,” the doctor said, “but given the right circumstance and timing, it very well could work.”

  “Whether or not we succeed makes no difference,” David said sternly. “It will happen tonight either way. The outcome we want, however, is preferable. He is much too admired by the public. It’s better to have a medical tragedy than a heinous murder.”


  “What about Crescent?” Christopher asked. “He’s going to be watching very closely. He’s a suspicious fucker.”

  “You can count on the fact that his fate won’t be far behind Matthew’s,” David answered. “You understand your role?”

  “Absolutely,” Christopher replied. “I’m more than happy to play it.”

  “Then there is nothing left to do until the party.” David turned to Chloe. “You’ll be fine.”

  David gave her a brief kiss on her forehead and left the room, followed by Dr. Michaelson. Chloe and Christopher gave each other a skeptical yet slightly confident look.

  “It will be okay, you know,” Christopher told her.

  “I don’t know, but I have to believe it will. It’s all I have to hold on to.” Chloe could see the hurt in Christopher and tried to ease some of his pain. “I purposely haven’t asked you because I know this whole thing isn’t easy for you.”

  Christopher gave Chloe a defeated smile. “He’s okay. Frustrated, angry, confused, afraid…”

  “Afraid?” Chloe asked, surprised.

  “He’s afraid he’s never going to see you again. He loves you. He’s a good man, just a little uncertain at the moment. He’s definitely a man who doesn’t like it when he doesn’t have the answers to his questions, but whatever you decide to do, do it knowing he would pull the moon out of the sky if you asked him to.”

  Christopher sighed and stood to leave the room when Chloe grabbed his hand and held it tightly. “Thank you, Christopher.”