Cocky

  His voice calmer, but no less strained, he said, “I think I know how to get us out of this.”

  twenty-four

  Blake “Quick” Mahone wasn’t feeling very quick. Tired was more apt a word for his emotional state. Of course there was another problem. Of course it had to involve one of his men and his woman. Of course they all had to get involved, because that was what a brotherhood was for. But honest to God, would they ever reach a truly peaceful state of living, where they could go back to a simple life of watching out for one another and their families, as well as their community? Shit these days was off the hook and downright crazy. He needed a fucking break.

  “So homeboy has possession of Moose’s girlfriend’s sister, and he wants us to go in there, guns not blazing, and, as civilized folk, request that the dude release the willing hostage, pack his shit, and get the hell out of Dodge before we break a toe off in his ass. Am I getting this right?” Repo asked, eyes swiveling around the table.

  Within an hour of the call from Moose coming in, Blake had assembled the team and, at the ass crack of dawn, grouchy, red-eyed, and in various states of cleanliness, the lot of the Spartan men had shown up around the table for a brief church meeting to discuss the matter at hand, what Blake was calling: Operation Investigate the Latino.

  “That’s the basics of it, yeah,” Moose agreed, hopeful.

  Blake wasn’t convinced that the girl was in any real danger, seeing as she had apparently chosen to engage and involve herself with the guy, but she was family to a woman that his brother intended to claim for his own, so that meant everyone was involved because family was family was family, no matter how far removed. Right? Right.

  So in they were going.

  Blake sighed. There wasn’t enough booze in the entire state for a day like this.

  “Then we’d better get packing and on the bikes,” he instructed. “I have a two o’clock at the dentist, and Gabby said if I don’t make it to this one, she’s getting the pliers out. I don’t think she was playing.” He grimaced, thinking of that woman and her threats. He’d like to say they were idle, but she was pregnant and a touch on the crazy side. She’d rip his teeth out in a heartbeat, then go after his balls for that whole vasectomy thing she kept talking about.

  Jesus, no more kids. Three was enough for both of them. Once this kid popped out, he was driving himself to the doc for a little snip and clip.

  The guys were all looking at him like he’d lost his ever-loving mind, which he likely had. Losing sleep at night due to babies and a wife who flipped back and forth from wanting sex to craving middle-of-the night snacks was wearing him down to the bone. He’d be glad to get back to some form of normal again.

  Parties, gatherings, a nice, leisurely ride down the countryside was where it was at. That was the stuff dreams were made of.

  “Lost ya again, Prez,” someone said, and Blake snapped himself out of his thoughts to look around at his men.

  “Let’s get moving,” he said with a grunt as he pushed away from the table and stood.

  They all rose, the plan that was discussed fresh in their minds: They were riding out to the Contreras Estate, formerly the Cruiz abode, both twisted as fuck people with sordid and violent pasts, to talk shop and negotiate shit.

  Moose said he’d already told the guy they were coming, and apparently coffee was on and waiting. Good. Blake needed a few shots of caffeine this morning. The guy was rich, so that probably meant the beans he bought were quality. He hated the guy, but he’d take advantage of high-quality, expensive-ass-coffee any damn day, believe that.

  The sun was almost overhead by the time they rolled up to the tall wrought-iron gates. The guards must have been waiting for them because as soon as they pulled up on their bikes, the gates whined their way open to let them pass.

  Blake led the way down the dappled sunlit path into a circular courtyard surrounding a giant fountain, parking his bike dead center in front of the stone steps leading up to a door that was at least eight feet tall and had bigger handles on them than his feet were long.

  Again, they were expected. One by one, Blake and his men dropped their kickstands and dismounted their bikes, climbing those steps with confidence none of them felt but had to ignore. This was uncharted territory, attempting to make peace with a monster. The house, however, had already been mapped—at least the first floor—from the last time they’d been in it.

  The moment they stepped inside, Blake’s attention was drawn to a stunningly beautiful woman descending the staircase. Dressed in a flowing white cotton jumpsuit with spaghetti straps that pulled the eye to her naturally tanned skin and up to her long, dark hair that caught and reflected the sunlight coming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, he and the rest of his crew paused, momentarily stunned by the sight.

  “Heath?” She cracked a tiny but hesitant smile that was full of questions. Questions that Blake had as well…until he glanced over to catch Cricket’s warm and completely adoring smile. Putting two and two together from there wasn’t hard.

  So this was the toothpaste chick. The one he’d been spending his time with, going on dates, yadda, yadda. And from her coloring and where they were standing right now, she was also a heap of trouble. Blake cast a look to Repo, and his VP’s expression seemed to agree.

  Just what they needed: A brother hooking up with the enemy’s kid. Fuck him, but even without Moose’s woman’s sister drama, they were all screwed seven ways to Sunday.

  Reserving his words for the battle he’d come there for, Blake left Cricket to do whatever damage control he had to do and bypassed the waiting butler or whatever he was, ignoring his “sir” and “please, let me call ahead” and arrowed a path straight to the office he’d found the guy in last time.

  And just like last time, there the devil sat, on his throne, behind a table made of wood so dark, he wouldn’t be surprised if it’d been forged in the fires of Hell itself.

  Okay, he was being dramatic. See? He needed coffee.

  “Ah, you’re here. I wasn’t sure of what time, so I’ve had coffee waiting if you—oh, okay then. Help yourselves,” the man of the hour said as Blake ignored him and went straight to the side table pushed up against a wall covered in what looked like blue and cream silk patterned wallpaper where a buffet type setup had been made, consisting of mugs and a big, fancy silver pot on a warming disk, creamers of various brands and flavors, a sugar dish filled with perfect sugar cubes, and an assortment of cookies.

  “How sweet of you to think of us,” Taco commented as Blake wedged a hard cookie between his teeth and poured himself a cup of Joe, taking a minute to doctor it up just the way he liked before claiming the seat across from Contreras’s desk that put them eye to eye, man to man.

  Chomping at the cookie, he unapologetically brushed the pile of crumbs that fell onto his chest to the floor. The maids would clean it up, he was sure of it. Didn’t mean the guy liked the mess, which he didn’t, clearly by the way his jaw popped, but that just put Blake back in good spirits.

  Jacking a boot up onto his knee, Blake regarded the man seriously. “So here’s the deal. We need the girl outta here and back home with her sister, for you to forget she exists, and to get the fuck out of our county.”

  Contreras’s bored expression and the way he tapped the fingers of one hand on the desktop made him think he’d been expecting Blake’s generous offer and had already planned a counter offer. “That doesn’t work for me. How about the girl decides what she wants for herself, and if that’s me, you people will forget we exist, and I stay right here. I have roots in this county now, and I plan to stick around.”

  “Over my dead body,” Repo snapped.

  Contreras shrugged as if to say that it could be arranged. “The problem here is you’re trying to control lives, and that’s not how things work in this world. Not in my world, anyway. Rena has made her decision.”

  “I’d like to hear that from her mouth myself,” Blake told him. He hated that the man had a point
, but he wasn’t going to leave these grounds until he heard it with his own ears—and believed it—that she was here by choice and didn’t need their help. Beyond that, Moose and his girl needed to understand that was the limit of his ability here. He wasn’t going to wage another war over something that wasn’t even wanted.

  Leaning forward, Contreras hit a button on the phone which turned out to be some kind of intercom. “I need you in the office.” To Blake, he said, “She’ll be right down.”

  They waited a few minutes, and by the time Rena appeared, Blake had finished his cup of coffee and had fixed himself another. She was wearing black leggings and an oversized, off-the-shoulder green sweater, her hair flowing down around her shoulders, and she looked…happy enough.

  He watched as she went right to the guy and stood at his side. The hand that reached up to stake its claim on her back was automatic, not intended for show, which told Blake all he needed to know. But he waited anyway.

  “Tell them what you want,” Contreras urged softly, not threateningly at all.

  Looking at each of them, Rena said, “I know my sister wants what’s best for me, and she thinks she knows what that is better than I do. She doesn’t really. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, which is probably why she’s overreacting now and why you’re all here, but even if I am making a mistake” –she looked down at the man beside her and gave him a half-smile that Blake couldn’t dismiss—“it’s mine to make. I’m sorry, Kade, if that puts you in a bad position, but I’m a woman now with my own thoughts, and I can make my own choices, even if she or any of you don’t agree with them. I’ve made my choice. This is where I want to be.”

  Stonily, Moose asked, “Are you sure you’re sure about this? You can’t possibly know this guy. The things he’s done…” He shook his head. They all knew he’d lost the argument well before he walked through the door.

  “I’m positive. I’ll talk to my sister later, but if you see her first, then please tell her I’m okay and not to worry. She doesn’t have to look out for me anymore. I can handle myself.”

  Blake had seen all he needed to. He just had one more order of business to take care of. “Good. Now that we have that sorted, when are you leaving?”

  Contreras cast Rena a soft but commanding look, and with a gentle pat on the back, she smiled and left the room. The look he gave them next wasn’t nearly as nice. “I already told you, I’m staying right here. This is my home now.”

  “You mean this is where you conduct your business. Which we don’t want. At all.”

  “And we’re going to burn it to the ground before we allow you to sink this county and its people into the ground any more than you already have,” Moose backed Blake up.

  “Ah, so I see now what the problem is here. You think I’m to blame for the influx of drugs and prostitution?” Wasn’t he? “No. That would be Victor. I sell him arms, and when he comes through, he does a little business of his own. I don’t like the impression he leaves any more than you do, which is why I have been working on a plan to sever my ties with him, permanently.”

  “I don’t want another war on my turf,” Blake warned.

  “If everything goes to plan, then it won’t come to that.”

  Blake didn’t like the sound of that, but he didn’t like the options on the table either. He already knew the sister thing was a longshot, and it had gone about the way he’d expected. He hadn’t banked on the whole daughter-biker-dating angle, though, and he didn’t want a shootout over that whole can of worms happening today. Or any day, even though it might come to that. There was no way to know for sure if Contreras knew Cricket and his daughter were involved, but he wasn’t about to ask. That was potential suicide. Let the daughter work that shit out. A man’s little girl only had to beg a little to make her daddy fold, and he didn’t care who Contreras was, if his baby girl asked nice enough, he was gonna turn into a house of cards on a windy day.

  “All right,” Blake drawled, “I’m listening.”

  twenty-five

  Talia signed off on the last of the paperwork, amazed at the crazy turn of events the case had taken. When Rena Grace climbed into the back seat of her unmarked Crown Victoria and told her she had something better to give them than Manuel Contreras, she hadn’t believed it possible.

  Victor Rubio. He was the Great White in a tank full of stingrays.

  The whole reason the FBI had never gone after him was because he was too hard to take down. In a pyramid, he’d be the point at the top. He fed all the other dealers, kept them in supply, while mostly sitting on his throne and basking in all of the glory.

  But in recent years, he’d been leaving his hiding place in Mexico and getting back into the fray, meeting his buyers personally, doling out his product more organically. Almost as if he missed the old days when he was still young and trying to work his way in and to the top.

  Must be lonely up there, Talia mused as she rose from the chair opposite her superior’s desk and reached across the top to shake his hand.

  “Good work, you two,” SAC Ingram grunted, a wide smile permanently in place since the moment they’d stormed the castle, cuffed the bastard and all of his men—those who were willing to be taken alive—and hauled their asses in. Currently, they had Rubio and fifty-two of his men in holding downstairs with round the clock armed security waiting for the DEA, CIA, and other departments who’d been working his case for years to come down and help tie up loose ends so they could get the bastard locked away permanently.

  “Thanks, boss,” Marley beamed, her bob swinging around her ears, she was shaking his hand so damn hard.

  “Are you sure you want to step down?” Ingram asked Talia, he and Marley turning their full attention on her now. “You did fine work out there today.”

  “Well, I’d like to make sure that I have a home to return to first, but yeah, I’m pretty positive this is it for me. I love my job, and I always will, but it’s not where I want to be anymore.”

  She’d paid her dues and settled some things within herself that needed attention, and now Talia felt like she could finally walk away from the bureau in peace, knowing that she’d left it on a good note, rather than how she had the first time. To her, it was no different than how Tucker would feel if he’d been dishonorably discharged. She had to part with it on her terms. It helped that she was also leaving the world a better place than when she’d signed on as an agent with the FBI in the first place.

  They hadn’t gotten Contreras—yet—but they’d taken down the biggest fish with his help. In exchange, they had to leave him alone. At least, on the charges they had stacking up against him so far. They weren’t enough to put him behind bars for years, so it was an easy deal to make—big guy for the little guy. But just because they weren’t slapping cuffs on him today didn’t mean he wouldn’t give them enough to do it tomorrow. The FBI was going to keep an eye on him, and one day, he would give them enough to land himself in a cell right next to Rubio.

  And then there was Rena Grace, who’d made it all possible. She’d put her ass on the line, and in exchange, she’d been given full pardon. Her record was already in the process of being expunged, and by the end of the week, she’d be clean as a whistle. Now, as far as her future? That was something Talia wasn’t so confident about. It was clear she’d gotten in too deep with the mark, so Talia wouldn’t be surprised if, in a few years, she saw the girl pop up again on the nightly news as an accessory or, heaven forbid, a victim. She prayed that it worked out for her as well as it had for Talia and Tucker, though.

  “Well, I’ll hold onto your shield and weapon until you call and tell me otherwise,” Ingram said, and she could see in his eyes that he truly wanted her to stay.

  They’d hit a few bumps in the road because of her relationship with Tucker and the Spartans, but she’d regained his trust with this assignment. That was enough for her.

  “I hope you’ll be waiting by the phone,” she told him, “because I might be calling before the day is out.”


  He nodded his understanding, and Talia returned the gesture to him as well as Marley before turning on her heel and walking out the door.

  The drive back to the home she’d left was long and yet not long enough. She was nervous. It’d been so long since she’d stood before Tucker and looked him in the eyes. And now she was going to have to do that with the knowledge that she was also a liar.

  At least she’d had the guts to call him and tell him everything beforehand. Knowing that she was following her colleagues into a hot zone, she’d sat there in the locker room, outfitted in black tactical gear and armed to the teeth, she’d made what might be her last call.

  “I just need you to know that I love you. I never stopped.”

  “I don’t care what your reasoning was, you’d better get your ass back home,” Tucker barked, fear evident in the tremor and sheer anger in his voice.

  It was that fear that was giving her so many doubts. What if that was the only reason he’d forgiven all of her sins? What if his sheer desperation made him say things he wouldn’t mean now that the danger had passed? If he rejected her, she’d deserve it—completely—but it would kill her. It really would.

  Rolling into the parking lot outside their shared apartment, Talia spotted the motorcycle Tucker had bought her for her birthday. It was big and purple and sparked some amazing memories. And it had a new few broken pieces and scrapes she imagined were probably the result of an angry outburst or two. His bike was sitting right there beside it as if it were a placeholder, a representation of everything they were supposed to be. She had a ghostly sense come over her, almost as if the life she left behind was just waiting for her to pick it back up, dust it off, and continue on as if nothing ever happened. Of course, that was impossible. So much water had passed under that bridge. Nothing could be the same again…but maybe it could be better?