by Stormy Glenn
"What?" I asked, almost afraid to.
"I believe the men hunting you may have found us."
My shoulders slumped.
Now, what were we supposed to do?
"Come on." Jude grabbed my arm and tugged me down the other direction. "I know a back way out of here." He glanced at Vinnie. "Sir, can you meet us two blocks east of here? There's a small park between two old brick apartment buildings."
Vinnie's eyebrow arched. "Are you sure?"
"He knows his way around," I told Vinnie. I'd seen proof of that. "If he says he knows a back way out of here, then he does."
"Very well." Vinnie gave a curt nod before turning to Barak. "Let's get to the car then find me that blasted park."
"I'll go with Lyn," Clarke said. "We'll meet you at this park Jude mentioned."
I grabbed the edge of his shirt. "You can't. If they saw you come in here, then they need to see you leave."
"Lyn's right, Clarke," Vinnie said. "If they had someone watching this place—and they most likely did—then they saw us come in and they need to see us leave."
"I can't leave Lyn on his own," Clarke insisted. "He's injured."
I bristled at Clarke's words. I yanked my arm out of his grip. "I'll be fine," I snapped before storming off down the hallway. I was getting really tired of Clarke thinking I was some damsel in distress.
I was no damsel.
I might have been in distress.
God, I hoped I was going in the right direction.
I kept walking down the hallway until Jude tugged on my arm and nodded to another shorter hallway.
"It's this way."
I waved my hand toward the smaller hallway. "Lead on then."
When Jude hurried down the hallway, I followed. I was starting to feel like an over-eager puppy. Everywhere Jude went, I followed.
This time, I followed him to a door that led to a small courtyard. After working our way through the neighborhood by way of the basement tunnel system, I was kind of surprised we were using a street-level escape.
Jude led me through the courtyard to another alley.
I wasn't fond of alleys.
He stopped at the end of the alley and peered down the street in both directions then darted around the corner. I hurried to keep up. I was pretty sure two people walking down the street would garner less attention than one.
They were looking for one.
They were looking for me.
"Do you think they are after whatever is in that briefcase?" Jude whispered.
Damn, I'd forgotten I still had the briefcase in my hand.
I'd been too caught up in seeing Clarke for the first time in weeks. The man was just as gorgeous as I remembered, and I hated that. It just wasn't fair. He should have gotten really fat, had his butt droop, and his nose grow horribly huge. Maybe a unibrow.
Yeah, definitely a unibrow.
"Probably," I replied, "but at this point, it could be anything."
"Do you think it's drugs or money?"
Considering I worked for the FBI's cyber crimes division, I was going with neither. I was leaning more toward some sort of top-secret intelligence. That made more sense to me than anything else.
"Anything is possible," I told Jude simply because I didn't want to tell him I worked for the FBI. Considering his stance on cops, I didn't think it would go over well.
"The park is just down the street there." Jude pointed.
I really hoped the vehicles coming down the street toward the park were Clarke and Vinnie, but I wasn't going to place my life on that hope. I grabbed Jude's arm and pulled him into the shadows of a doorway.
"We need to make sure that's our friends in those cars," I explained when Jude frowned at me. "I don't know what they are driving, so until we are positive it's them, I'm not taking any chances."
I preferred not to have any extra holes in my body.
When the lead vehicle slowed, I held my breath, praying and hoping, and using every birthday wish I'd ever had.
Obviously, my birthdays sucked.
I pushed Jude to the ground and dove over the top of him when a window lowered and the barrel of a gun appeared. I couldn't believe that these morons were firing a weapon at a kid. I had to do something to get them to stop shooting at Jude.
I shoved the metal briefcase in Jude's hands. "Get this to Clarke and Vinnie."
I knew this was not my brightest moment when I jumped up and started running down the street away from the park just as fast as my feet would carry me. The sounds of tires squealing as they took off after me was drowned out only by the hail of gunfire. Pieces of shattered brick sprayed me in the face as I went around a corner.
If these guys were cops, they needed to go back for firearms training. Clarke never would have missed what he was shooting at. No one on the SWAT team would have missed.
I mentally rolled my eyes at myself. I was arguing in my head because these asshats weren't shooting me.
Wait.
Why weren't these guys shooting at me?
They were supposed to be cops, and even bad cops had to take special training. The courses required to be a police officer and the continued training throughout a cop's career were pretty intense.
They didn't just graduate you from the academy then let you go. You had to train and retest every few months. You had to stay up on the latest innovations and technology. You had to know what the bad guys were using and how to keep you and others safe.
My stomach was already one big knot, so when I began to get a queasy feeling, I knew my gut was trying to tell me something.
I zipped around another corner then screamed when I was grabbed and pulled into the shadows. A hand covered my mouth, and a band of steel wrapped around my waist. I tried to remember the things I'd been taught as I began to struggle and fight back.
"Baby, it's me."
I stilled instantly.
Only one man called me baby.
"Come on, we need to go." Clarke grabbed my wrist and started pulling me farther into the shadows. It took me a moment to realize we were in a narrow passage between two buildings.
"Did Jude get to you?" I'd be devastated if I'd left the kid only for him to get caught.
"He's with Vinnie."
I sagged in relief.
I knew the former mobster would keep Jude safe. I don't know what the two of them saw when they looked at each other, but they both seemed fascinated. Maybe Vinnie would help me get Jude off the streets. He had to have the connections.
I cried out when Clarke grabbed me and shoved me into an alcove made by the back entrance of a brick building.
"Sshhh."
Clarke leaned into me, pressing me back against the brick wall behind me. My fear level skyrocketed when a vehicle slowly drove by our position.
Had they found us?
I inhaled a shaky breath when Clarke nuzzled the side of my neck. Every part of my body hardened in an instant. I was unable to control my reaction as I tilted my head to one side to give Clarke better access.
This was a really bad idea.
Colossal.
"Clarke, what are you doing?"
Chapter Nine
Clarke
This was a really bad idea, but there was no power on earth strong enough to keep me from inhaling Lyn's heady scent or rubbing up against him.
"It's been forever, Lyn."
I'd been cold for weeks.
I pressed my nose to the soft skin right behind Lyn's ear and inhaled again. God, he smelled so good. I gripped Lyn's hips to keep him exactly where I wanted him. Pressed up against me.
"I missed you."
Lyn stiffened in my arms and I knew that was the wrong thing to say, but it was the truth. The last six weeks had been hell. At least when he was part of the team, I could keep an eye on him, see him every day.
"Not knowing where you are or who you're with is killing me, Lyn."
I had no idea why I was speaking the words swirling around in my head. I sh
ould just keep my big fat mouth shut and do my job. Keep Lyn safe. Telling the man of my misery was not going to end well for either of us.
"You need to come back to the team."
"No," Lyn said as he gave me a shove.
I snickered when the force of his push didn't even make me take a step back. There was nothing in this universe that could keep me from Lyn if that's where I wanted to be, not even Lyn.
"Clarke—"
"Sshhh!" I turned my head when I heard a vehicle stop down the street then the sounds of doors opening and closing. I quickly glanced around until I spotted the large industrial dumpster.
Lyn was going to hate me.
"Come on," I whispered as I pulled him toward the large green container. I flipped back the lid then turned.
Lyn instantly took a step back and started shaking his head. "I'm not going in there."
"Oh, yes, you are." I grabbed Lyn and swung him up in my arms. Before he could cry out in protest, I tossed him in the dumpster and pulled the lid back down. A moment later, I was leaning against the brick wall, staring down at my phone.
I lowered my arm and pushed away from the wall when three men walked around the corner. I placed my hand on the butt of the gun in the holster at my hip. Any cop worth his salt would know I was armed.
"Can I help you, gentlemen?" I asked loudly, praying Lyn wouldn't make a sound.
All three stopped and stared at me.
I lifted an eyebrow. "I believe I asked you a question."
"You on the job?" one of them asked.
I narrowed my eyes. "Who wants to know?"
The guy flashed his badge. "Detective Franklin out of the Thirty-Fourth Street precinct." He nodded his head to the other two men. "These are Detectives Bradley and Johnson."
I let my shoulders sag as if in relief, giving the look of no longer being on-guard, except I was. I was watching every move they made. "Sergeant Clarke, SWAT."
"What is SWAT doing in this neighborhood?"
"I'm supposed to be meeting my CI." I glanced down at my cell phone. "But the little shit is late."
"SWAT has confidential informants?" Detective Johnson asked.
"We do if we want to know what the word on the street is."
"And just what is the word on the street?" Franklin asked.
"Hopefully nothing," I replied with a straight face, "but we've heard rumblings of something going down in the Castellano Syndicate since Vinnie Castellano retired. No one is quite sure who took over, and my commander wants to know."
Of course, all Sal would need to do would be to call Vinnie and ask, but these morons didn't know that, and they wouldn't if I had anything to do about it.
"The Castellano Syndicate runs the lower east side," Franklin said. "Why are you meeting your CI here?"
"Because here is where the shithead told me to meet him."
"What's his name?" Franklin asked. "Maybe I know him."
"You sure have a lot of questions."
Franklin shrugged.
I didn't like it.
"These are our streets," Franklin said. "If there is something going down, I want to know about it, too."
"Well, I don't know for sure that something is going on," I said. "My commander is trying to get ahead of things so we don't walk into a shit storm the next time we go on a raid."
I could tell that Franklin was skeptical of what I was saying. Considering the situation, I would be too, but I was a paranoid bastard. I was skeptical of everything and everyone.
"Look, I'm sure we can all stand around and chat some more, but my CI won't show his face if there's other people hanging around. He's jumpy. So, if you don't mind?"
Lyn hadn't made a sound, but I couldn't depend on that continuing. The man was in a nasty ass dumpster after all.
Man, he was going to be so pissed at me.
Johnson slapped a hand on Franklin's shoulder. "Come on, man. We have places to be."
"Yeah," Franklin said. "What precinct did you say you were out of?"
"I didn't." I smirked. "But I'm out of the bunkhouse down on Fifth Street." I didn't feel too bad about giving them that information. There were several SWAT teams that used that facility, all of them badass.
Franklin nodded a couple of times before starting to turn away, but he stopped then glanced back at me. "You didn't happen to see anyone come by here did you? We're searching for a burglary suspect."
Burglary suspect my hairy ass.
"About five foot ten? Brown hair?"
Franklin's eyes narrowed, giving himself away. "Might be."
I pointed back the way the detectives had come. "He ran by there about five minutes before you all showed up. If he's your burglary suspect, you're going to have a hard time catching him. He was running full out."
"And you didn't think it was weird that someone would be running like that?"
I lifted my eyebrows. "In this neighborhood?" I let out a loud snort. "If you're not running, you're dead."
Franklin chuckled. "True enough."
"Have a good night, Detective." I couldn't wait for them to be gone.
Still, I waited for them to disappear around the corner then walked down and peeked around the building just in time to see their vehicle pull out and move down the street. I watched them until they disappeared then hightailed it back to the dumpster.
When I flipped open the lid, Lyn glared up at me from a pile of trash. "I hate you."
I grinned as I held out my hand. He didn't really hate me. He was just mad like I had suspected he would be. "Come on, baby. Let's get you out of there."
"I stink, Clark."
"Oh, I know."
He reeked.
I wasn't sure what was in that dumpster, but it could double as a science experiment in the making of weapons of mass destruction. I helped Lyn climb out of the dumpster then pulled the lid down. I didn't want whatever was in there to escape.
I led Lyn toward in the opposite direction I'd sent the three detectives off in. We needed to meet up with Vinnie, and then get Lyn a bath.
On the upside, we now had three names to look into.
"Have you ever heard of detectives named Franklin, Johnson, or Bradley? They work out of the Thirty-Fourth Street precinct."
Lyn shook his head. "No, not that I know of."
That didn't really mean anything. There were upwards of a thousand officers in the city at the very least. It didn't make sense that Lyn would know each and every one of them. The city was a big place.
"Where's Vinnie and Jude?" Lyn asked.
"They're waiting a couple of blocks away. I'm supposed to call them when we're in the clear."
"Well, call them. I want to get out of here."
That wasn't a bad idea.
I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Vinnie. "We're headed back to the park," I said when Vinnie picked up. "Be ready to go when we get there. These asshats are right on our tail." I quickly hung up and started scanning the streets again.
When Lyn glanced behind us, he tripped. I caught him by the arm before he fell to the ground. "Careful, baby."
"Man, I just want to go home."
"Where is home now?"
I didn't know, and I didn't like that.
"I bought a house over in the Abernathy neighborhood."
Oh, that was a nice neighborhood. A lot of older homes, but they all tended to be well cared for. The crime rate wasn't that high, and they had a top-notch neighborhood watch program.
"Nice neighborhood."
Lyn grinned. "I thought so."
I wanted to ask more, like why had Lyn decided to buy a house and move, but now wasn't the time. Those questions would lead to more questions which would lead to my burning need to know why Lyn had never said anything to me about his plans.
And I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer.
"There's Vinnie." I had never been so glad to see the former—alleged—mobster in my life.
The man was going to have a stroke when he got a whiff
of Lyn. The stench coming off the man was unbearable. Still, there was no help for it. The alternative was Lyn being hurt or worse, and that just wasn't acceptable.
"It's just a couple of more blocks. Do you think you can make it?" I was worried about Lyn's pallor. His skin was ashen white.
"I'll make it."
Stubborn little shit.
I admired that about him, and I hated it.
I certainly didn't like the way my gut clenched every time Lyn winced. I had done everything possible to put a wall up between us, and I was finding that there were more cracks in that wall than I was comfortable with.
I wasn't sure what to do about it.
Leaving Lyn to his own devices was out of the question. It was clear to me that the man needed a keeper something fierce. Just look at what happened to him when he was out of my sight for a few weeks.
My nostrils flared as I tried to rein in my temper. I wanted to scream and shout at everyone who had told me to let it be, to let Lyn do what Lyn needed to do. That it was Lyn's life. Look what happened when I did.
The man was almost killed.
It was unacceptable.
I was so relieved when I saw Vinnie's SUVs, my legs shook. The hairs on the back of my neck had been standing straight up for the last couple of blocks. If those asshats weren't following us now, they soon would be. I don't think they'd give up until they caught Lyn.
I just needed to figure out why.
"There's Vinnie, baby."
Lyn jerked his arm out of my grasp then glared at me. "I'm not your baby."
"We'll see about that," I grumbled under my breath.
Now was not the time to argue with Lyn, not when I needed to keep my attention on our surroundings, but we would when we were safe. I had a few things to tell the man, and he was damn well going to listen, even if I had to tie him down to make it happen.
As soon as we reached the SUVs, the back door of the one in the back opened and Vinnie stepped out. He held the door open as I helped Lyn into the backseat then walked around to the front passenger seat. I climbed in next to Lyn and shut the door.
I wrapped my arms around Lyn and pressed his head into my neck then looked toward the front seat. "Go!"