Queen's Ransom: A Fog City Novel

by Layla Reyne

  “Preliminaries.” Helena lowered herself in the chair across from him. “How much do you want to know?”

  “Privilege.” He took a healthy swallow. Wise man. “I know your family’s skeletons.”

  Or maybe she gave him too much credit. “You don’t know the half of them.” She sipped her whiskey. “Last chance to save yourself.”

  He drained his glass, refilled it, then tipped it toward her. “Go on.”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  She gave Oak the thirty-thousand-foot overview of the shooting on Friday, the evidence linking it to Griffin, and how Maricopa County had stonewalled her today on getting the probate information for Herman Mosley.

  “I can help with the last bit,” Oak said. “The title to the car came across my associate’s desk after Mosley died. He was Griffin’s last foster father before Griffin aged out of the system. Mosley left every one of his kids something.”

  “If Griffin was in jail, where’d the car go?”

  “Storage unit in Bayview with the rest of his personal items.”

  “Who pays for that?”

  “Ex-wife. Condition of the divorce.”

  Helena would have spit out her whiskey if she weren’t already familiar with the hypocrisy of the law. There was a reason she did what she did—at both jobs. “He’s the asshole in jail.”

  “I didn’t make the community property rules.” He sipped his second glass of whiskey more slowly. “It was either three hundred a month or half the other marital assets.”

  She sipped and stewed in silence, rearranging the evidence in her head, sure Oak was doing the same. “So assuming he wasn’t suddenly out of jail—”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Then someone else accessed the unit and the car.”

  “I’m guessing you want me to find out who,” Oak said.

  “I’ve got a few guesses, and if you give me the details, we can get the surveillance from the facility.”

  “Don’t tell me your guesses. Let me see what I can get out of Griffin. As for the other…” He stood, ambled to the desk, and snagged a Post-it and pen from the fancy setup on his immaculately kept desk. He scribbled on the paper, then put his pen back in the holder and brought the neon pink note over to her. “That’s the name and number of the facility.”

  “You remembered that?”

  “There’s a reason I’m the best criminal defense attorney in the city.” He added a wink as he sank back into his chair.

  She muffled her laugh in her glass, finishing her whiskey.

  “How do you want to play this?” Oak asked. “I get this info, then I claim conflict and get removed?”

  “No. I don’t want us to lose control over this, but it’s just you and me. Don’t involve the associate who handled the case originally. Bratva could be involved.”

  “Fuck.” He reached for the decanter again, offered her a refill, which she waved off, then refilled his own glass and took another healthy swallow.

  “We all have to tread carefully.” She wasn’t only concerned about Oak and his legal associates. The more they learned about this case, the more Helena wondered if she’d made a mistake by rekindling her friendship with Celia, by letting Hawes’s words provide the justification for falling into the kiss Celia had initiated yesterday, for visiting her when she’d arrived home, for tossing and turning the rest of the night as she considered following that amazing kiss and those softly spoken midnight words into something more than friendship. As much as her body and heart wanted to get tangled up with Celia Perri, her head was telling her that maybe she shouldn’t have taken the bike to the shop. Maybe she should have let Mel continue to train Celia while she maintained her distance. Maybe Celia, Gloria, and the kids were safer without her in their lives. The Perris were already risking enough with Chris tied to the Madigans. Why should she double that risk?

  “All right,” Oak said, jarring her from her thoughts. “I’ll find out what I can.”

  “We’ll continue to gather evidence and organize on our end as well.” She crossed one leg over the other and rested back in the chair. “And don’t let on to Griffin about the Bratva. He may have no connection whatsoever, and prison walls have ears.”

  He nodded. “You think the Bratva are trying to start something?”

  “Fuck, I hope not.” She raised a brow. “Privilege?”

  “Privilege,” he confirmed.

  “I don’t think us or them would want to. We’re in a good place, and so are the Bratva as a result of our scale back.”

  “Scale back?”

  She considered her words carefully. She’d already stretched the bounds of privilege, which wouldn’t prevent Oak from alerting law enforcement to future crimes. “Let’s just say we’re more discriminating in selecting our projects. As a result, our operations are narrower than they used to be.”

  He rolled his empty glass between his hands. “I realized things were changing. I just didn’t know the extent.”

  “You looking for a career change?”

  “Lord no.” He pushed his glass to the center of the table, and his gaze strayed over her shoulder, staring out the window into the twilight. “I already had one heart attack. I don’t need another.”

  “Oh, come on. Getting knocked out wasn’t that bad. And I’m sorry.”

  His gray gaze swung back to her, amused. “While I appreciate the long overdue apology, I’m not talking about last July. I’m talking about ten years ago when I almost worked myself into an early grave.”

  She nearly choked on her whiskey. “For real?”

  “I was a senior associate, second chairing firm cases and first chairing pro bono cases, trying to make partner and get all the trial experience I could while also taking care of a sick parent. I stopped taking care of myself in the process.”

  “Shit, Oak.”

  “Sound familiar?”

  While the details weren’t exactly the same, the stress load sounded eerily familiar. Multiple jobs, family obligations, all the juggling, all of it high stress. She’d never considered health reasons as something that would take her life at an early age. Those weren’t the kinds of risk factors she dealt with on a daily basis. But that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

  “The heart attack and my husband turned things around for me.”

  “You met him after?” Helena said, relieved not to be the center of attention again.

  “He was my nurse.”

  Helena stretched a leg out under the table and nudged his shin. “Well played, Counselor.”

  Oak grinned, a rare, true thing, and it was like seeing a whole new person. “Do you have anyone, Helena, besides your brothers?” Except he wasn’t. Oakland Ashe was still the too smart defense attorney who wouldn’t let witnesses—or her—off the hook.

  “You know how I don’t want to bring an associate into this—” She waved a hand in front of her face, as all-encompassing a gesture for the Madigans as she could manage. “Well, a relationship would bring someone even closer. Too close already.”

  “Hawes made it work.”

  “Chris was law enforcement. He knew the score. He was inside, just in a different way.”

  “Ho—”

  “Amelia was inside too, and so is Brax, similar to how Chris used to be, though he’s been family even longer.”

  Oak hmmed and made what Helena recognized as his problem-solving face. After a few seconds, he leaned forward, and with his index finger, drew a circle on the surface of the table. He traced a line from the circle’s outer edge to the middle. “You’re at the center now, correct?”

  She nodded, confirming his deduction.

  “Maybe you need something different.” He lifted his hand and tapped a knuckle outside the imaginary circle. “Someone who’s fully on the outside to balance things out.”

  Someone like Celia, who was fully outside, but also knew the score and seemed to have accepted it already where her brother was concerned. Who carried
with her a sense of comfort and peace that Helena craved. But still… “It’s too dangerous.”

  “I don’t know.” He relaxed back in his chair. “I think you could protect them.”

  She smiled, equal parts wistful and melancholy. “There is someone, but she’s way out of my league.” Celia juggled far better than her—the shop, kids, family—and she’d had to do so from such a young age. Hell, Helena had still been in her acting out phase when Celia became a mom. Granted, Helena was still grieving her parents’ death, but the privilege and advantages she’d had were staggering in comparison. Celia had come so far, had so much to offer someone, and what did Helena have to offer other than snark and danger?

  Oak’s shoe nudged her shin. “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Are you a card-carrying member of the Helena fan club again?”

  He chuckled as he straightened in his chair. “I haven’t laminated it yet.” He grabbed the whiskey bottle and poured them each another shot. “Why are you talking to me about this and not your brothers?”

  She sloshed the amber liquid around in the glass. “Well, one’s about to marry her brother and the other has his own crumbling relationship to deal with.” She lifted the glass and tilted it toward him again. “And because you seem like a pretty strong tree.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Celia heard Helena coming a mile away. The angry roar of the Ducati pushed too hard, the screech of tires as she skidded the bike to a halt in the garage yard, heavy footballs splashing through parking lot puddles, short clipped words exchanged with Victoria outside the bay door. Then retreating footsteps in a different now familiar gait, Victoria’s, the Ducati restarting and growling as Victoria exited the lot on it. Finally, two slaps against the gate and door button. All that racket, caused by someone who had snuck up on her yesterday without a peep, meant two things: Helena wanted Celia to know she was there, and she wanted her to know she was hella pissed.

  Celia rolled her head on the dolly’s padded headrest, eyeing a pair of black leather boots spread shoulder width apart at the rear of the Bentley. Racket and movement beyond Helena’s feet drew Celia’s attention to the yard where the flood lights reflected off the newly lined metal gate rolling closed. Seconds later, the clanking bay door cut off Celia’s view of the dark, drippy outdoors entirely.

  “What the fuck are you doing here, Celia?” Oh, not even a Cee. Helena’s words were as sharp and angry as her movements. Nothing like the softness and warmth of yesterday. Cold even, like Celia had heard in Hawes’s voice at the station, but that wasn’t all there was in Helena’s. It was more like a cold front holding back the heat, like the last gasp of foggy midsummer in the city before late summer arrived with a triple degree heatwave. Fire simmered beneath Helena’s clipped question.

  A fire Celia had knowingly put there. She wasn’t a fool. She knew coming to the garage would piss Helena off, yet she’d done it anyway. She couldn’t magically reverse the last two hours, and she wouldn’t even if she could. She cringed at the wrath she’d wrought, but she wasn’t going to back down. In for a penny, in for a pound. “What’s it look like I’m doing? And that’s five dollars to the swear jar.”

  “You’re responsible for that?”

  “I am.”

  “Good, we need all the help we can get there. And I thought you said you had all the help you needed to cover here today.”

  She rolled her face away from Helena’s feet, focusing on the underbody above her, and finished the checks on the Bentley. “I did.”

  Helena stalked from the back of the car to the driver’s side, closer to where Celia was wheeled under. “Then why are you here?”

  “Because I promised Bill his Bentley tomorrow, and I needed to do the final checks.”

  “Lorenzo couldn’t do it?”

  She tightened the last bolt and rolled out from under the sedan. Directly between Helena’s spread legs. She stared up at the fetching woman in dark denim, blue cashmere, and a rain-dappled leather duster. With her blond hair and fiery blue eyes, she looked like an avenging angel. The sexiest one Celia had ever seen, and it only made her want to draw Helena closer, fire be damned.

  “It’s my name on this shop.” She pointed with a wrench to the roof near the front of the shop where Perri Auto Works was installed on the fascia outside. “It’s my reputation, my family’s reputation and livelihood, and the livelihood of everyone who works for me.”

  Helena flicked out the ends of her coat and shoved aside the lapels so she could plant her hands on her hips, one of them cocked. Oh, she was mad, and fucking gorgeous. “None of which will matter if you wind up dead.”

  “Victoria was on guard.”

  “That’s not the point, Cee.”

  Celia felt a little remorse for the worry that seeped into Helena’s voice, but she wasn’t done making her point. “No, it wasn’t.” She set the wrench aside, wiped her hands on the shop rag in the pocket of her coveralls, and levered up onto her elbows. “You want to know why I’m here?”

  Helena ditched her jacket altogether, jerking it off and hurling it onto a stack of tires. She lowered into a crouch, holding herself inches above Celia’s middle. “Can’t wait to hear this one.”

  If the heat had been simmering before, it was boiling now, and flowing directly Celia’s direction, ratcheting up the pulse pounding between her legs. She was past the point of no return, and she had no intention of turning back. The hummingbirds in her stomach were going wild, spinning and fluttering, but at this point, Celia didn’t see a way to calm them other than to feed them, and the best shot at doing that was to give Helena the pure unvarnished truth. “Because after spending all day knocking around your house, wondering what it would be like to kiss you in this room or that, I had to get out of there.”

  What little frost remained melted away, Helena’s smirk and her crouch deepening. She braced her forearms on her knees and leaned her torso more fully over Celia’s. “You could have gone to your house. We’ve cleared it. All the security is set up, and you’d have guards.”

  “But then I’d just wonder what it would be like to kiss you there.”

  Helena’s blue eyes flashed icy hot and the corner of her mouth hitched higher. Celia wanted to lunge up and capture those twisted lips, wanted another taste of the woman she couldn’t get out of her mind, sure the flavors would be different yet no less amazing today. But before she could make her move, Helena grasped the zipper tab of her coveralls and slid it down. She let her fingers linger above where Celia wanted them most, and Celia bit back a gasp, the boiling heat inside her barreling south on a tidal wave of lust. “For someone who’s only dated one other person, you’re awfully good at this flirting thing.”

  “Have you met my brother?”

  “Let’s not bring him into this.”

  She gently clasped Helena’s knees and tugged. “Admit it, you like him.”

  Following her cue, Helena lowered one then the other knee onto the garage floor on either side of her, bringing their bodies into direct contact. “Not as much as I like you.”

  “Thank goodness for that.” Celia was dying to thrust up, aching for friction and the warmth she could feel through layers of clothing. As if reading her mind, or just wanting the same as much as she did, Helena braced a hand on the door of the Bentley and canted her hips.

  The roll of the dolly made it both better and worse. Better in that Celia moved effortlessly with Helena. Worse in that she needed to move against Helena’s body for the friction she desperately craved. Celia bent her knees, planted her feet firmly on the ground, and tried again. Better, but… She coasted her hands up Helena’s thighs and grasped her hips, holding her exactly where she needed her. She rolled up and… oh, what sweet relief. Not everything she wanted, but better.

  Not enough for Helena though, who snuck a hand inside Celia’s coveralls and with her thumb, teased the side of Celia’s breast through her tank and bra. Her other fingertips were soft and cool against Celia’s underarm, ex
posed by the sleeveless tank. Celia shivered, her eyes fluttering closed, her breaths coming shorter. It had been years since anyone had touched her so gently, so intimately. Helena’s hand drifted down, then back up, under Celia’s tank, gliding across her overheated skin. Those same cool fingers splayed over her ribs, Helena’s thumb and forefinger framing the underside of Celia’s breast. The light squeeze made Celia gasp again and open her eyes.

  Helena grinned, wicked and gorgeous, and wetness joined the pounding heat between Celia’s thighs. Helena rolled her hips again, and Celia wondered if she could feel the dampness, if Helena was as turned on as she was. “So you came here to not think about me?”

  “No.” She lifted a hand off Helena’s hip and raked it through the blond hair that cascaded around them like a curtain. “I came here so I could put my hands on something besides my—”

  Helena came down fully on top of her—lips, hands, body—and fuck yeah, Helena was as turned on as she was. If yesterday’s kiss had been sweet tinged with heat, this one was heat tinged with overwhelming hunger. Nothing sweet about it on either of their parts. Celia parted her lips and Helena plundered her mouth, sweeping in and over teeth and tongue. Celia groaned, loving the slide of Helena’s tongue almost as much as she loved the slide of Helena’s hand fully onto her breast, cupping and squeezing it, thumb teasing her nipple. Almost as much as she loved the slide of Helena’s other hand down her torso and inside the bottom of her coveralls.

  Helena cupped her between her legs, over the yoga pants Celia had on under her coveralls. “How about I put my hands on it instead?”

  Celia rocked into the touch. “That’s a start.”

  “You’re right. It’s a start.” Helena kissed a path over her chin and neck and pressed more firmly with her hand, the heel of her palm applying delicious pressure on Celia’s clit, her fingers teasing her labia through the thin fabric. No way she could miss the wetness now, the crotch of Celia’s pants and barely there thong becoming more drenched by the second. “My fingers, gliding through all that wetness.” Oh yeah, she knew… and aimed to make it worse. “My thumb torturing your clit, as the rest of my fingers sink deep inside you.” She shifted her hand and her thumb landed right on its target, circling in time with the thumb rolling her nipple.