I watched the Explorer drive away before climbing into the Mercedes alone. The hard thud of the car door filled my ears as I leaned forward and stabbed the button to start the engine. Three goddamn days it’d been since I’d contacted Harper to hack Rossi’s routers and change the records at The Order.
The latter proved relatively easy…but changing the Stidda’s metadata was proving to be a goddamn nightmare. Harper and his team were the best of the goddamn best. So the fact that it was taking so goddamn long to hack their IP addresses was starting to piss me the fuck off.
Three fucking days.
And I felt every goddamn second like a blade against the back of my neck.
Still Hale had been quiet.
That was concerning, to say the least.
I shoved the car into gear and pulled out of the garage, left home behind, and headed for the quiet, secure block of offices four suburbs away. Vivienne’s smile was etched into my brain, making me strangle the goddamn wheel and drive the car faster. This was the last goddamn thing I wanted to be doing.
I wanted to be with her, to see the smile on her face as she stepped into her first damn mall in her favorite time of the year. I wanted to be the one to spoil her, to show her all the goddamn things she’d missed out on. I wanted to be the one who gave that to her…me, not the sons.
Jesus.
Listen to yourself.
I ground my jaw so hard it cracked and pushed the Mercedes harder. Maybe I could deal with whatever this was and be back at the mall before they even had a chance to make their way inside. I turned the wheel, pulled into the quiet subdivision, and pulled up at the tall black gates, then lowered the window and hit the intercom.
“Yeah?”
I scowled. “What do you mean, yeah?” I snarled. “I taught you better than that, Davies. Now open the goddamn gate.”
A buzzer sounded before the gate rolled open and I drove through. “Yeah? What kind of greeting is that? I swear to God, these damn kids.”
The moment I said the words I stopped. Kids. Like Vivienne was a kid? I pulled into the parking lot, killed the engine, and climbed out. Nineteen was hardly a damn kid. A damn brat for sure, but not a kid. My heart pounded as I thought about her…what we’d done in the basement and the study.
Fuck if I didn’t want more.
Like a whole lot more.
I was falling for her. I knew that. I hated that. Still, I couldn’t stop it.
Her smile. Her laughter. Her fucking body. My heart pounded as I stepped up to the door, lifted my face to the camera, and scowled. Buzz. The door opened instantly, leaving me to walk along the barely lit corridor and climb the stairs.
I smelled them before I heard them. The pungent scent of freshly brewed coffee mingled with the heady scent of three men who hadn’t showered in days. I winced and stepped inside to a mess of strewn coffee cups, open pizza boxes, and discarded jackets and ties.
“Fuck!” The bark came from one of the desks closer to the window.
I looked over and saw Harper shoving back from the desk with a look of pissed off frustration on his face, one he directed my way as I headed toward him.
“I don’t wanna hear it, London,” he growled as he shook his head and practically flung himself toward the desk once more. “I mean, who the fuck is this guy?’
“No one, just the Stidda Mafia boss.”
“No.” Harper shook his head. “I mean, who is this fucking guy?”
I stepped closer to look at the scrolling DOS prompts, and saw a name repeated. The Ghost. The Ghost. The Ghost. The Ghost.
“Never heard of him,” I muttered. “Some kind of hacker?”
“Hacker, my ass. This dude is good, like really fucking good.” He attacked the keyboard and punched in commands that I barely understood. “The thing is, this guy isn’t even there. It’s a secure network…one I can’t seem to fucking gettt throughhhh!”
His face was a mask of determination, illuminated by the screen as he worked.
“We got him!” a scream came from the back of the room.
Harper jerked his gaze toward the sound.
“We got IN!” Brett bellowed once more. “Holy fuck, we got in!”
Harper’s screen changed in an instant, revealing some kind of mainframe.
“Holy fuck” he muttered, his fingers flying furiously across the keyboard.
“Are you changing it?” I stepped closer.
“BRETT!” Harper roared. “YOU READY?”
“Whenever you are, old man!”
“Give you ‘old man’,” Harper mumbled as he punched in a list of commands and stabbed enter. “And we have it. We goddamn HAVE it.”
He had a second of happiness, or pure exhausted relief, before his entire screen went black.
“What the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK?” he barked.
“It’s okay!” Brett growled, drawing my gaze. “I’m still in. Holy shit, this defense is fucking good. Like, seriously…goddamn good! It’s done. Rossi’s has been changed and now I’m just…changing this in The Order’s mainframe nowww.”
The room went still.
I could almost hear a pin drop, then, “Three motherfucking days.” Harper lifted his gaze to mine. In the eerie glow as his monitor came back to life, I saw his blood-shot eyes. “Three…mother fucking days it’s taken all three of us to get through their system.”
“But you’re through.” I checked.
Harper glanced across the darkened room to Brett. “Yeah, we’re through.”
Then it hit me, just what we’d done. No, what I’d done. I’d not only given Hale a false lead away from us, but I’d thrown Benjamin Rossi under the bus to do it. But there was no way around it, no other way to get Hale away from my family.
A wave of relief hit me. I might’ve made a goddamn enemy of one of the most powerful Mafia bosses in the state, but he was nothing compared to the disease Haelstrom was. I’d take guns and violence any day. Anything to keep the sons safe. Now Hale had no choice but to sign the contract. A ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth.
“Well done,” I praised. “Well fucking done. I’ll pay you double.”
“Fuck double,” Harper snapped. “We want you back. They want you back.”
“They don’t want me back, Harper.” I shook my head. “Besides, I’m done with that life.”
He pushed away from the desk, rose, and scratched his balls. “Are you through?”
I narrowed my gaze. “What does that mean?”
He jerked his head toward the monitor. “You’re still a hunter, London. No matter how hard you try to hide it.”
Flashes of memories invaded my mind. The sons. The Order. Ryth and her stepbrothers running for their lives…and at the end was her…Vivienne. “No. Not a hunter. Not anymore. I truly appreciate your effort, you and your team will be well compensated.”
I gave him a nod and turned to leave.
“If you’re not a hunter, then what are you?” Harper called out as I made my way between the desks and past the mountain of pizza boxes and discarded coffee cups.
“What are you, London?”
The words haunted me as I made my way out of the building. What was I? Not a good guy, that was for sure. I grabbed my phone from my pocket the moment I stepped outside and punched in the number I had stored.
“Rossi, who’s this?”
“Benjamin, this is London St. James. We met briefly when I—”
The response was anything but friendly. “I know who you are, St. James. What do you want?”
He was cold, careful. He had good reason to be. “Right now, I’m giving you a heads-up you’re about to come under considerable heat.”
“From who?”
“Haelstrom Hale,” I answered.
There was silence, then a low chuckle. “If he thinks for a fucking second coming after me is going to get him his fiancée back, then the sick sonofabitch is in for a rude shock.” Then his voice turned threatening. “I’d love for the bastard to come after me…give me a fucking excuse.”
My stomach tightened and that tight smile tugged at my mouth once more.
“We aren’t friends, St. James. So why are you really calling?”
“Call it a nagging conscience,” I answered as I stared into the night.
There was a shift on the other end of the line. “That will only get you in trouble.”
“Or killed.”
“Or killed,” he agreed. “Or rewatching the same recording of a certain bloodbath a hundred times over, trying to figure out how the hell a daughter and her stepbrothers were simply handed vengeance on a silver platter. If only they knew, right?”
“Knew what?” I answered, my tone cold.
He knew nothing. If he did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, not here…and not like this.
No, knowing the reputation of the Stidda leader, I’d be gagged, with my hands bound and a gun to my head.
“If they’d only known how close he was. Maybe if she’d searched the house instead of her brothers…”
What the fuck did that mean?
I wanted to push the Rossi leader for answers. But we weren’t friends, and I’d done exactly what I’d wanted…taken the heat off my family and placed it on someone who wanted to go to war with Hale.
And I’d let him.
I hit the Mercedes’ remote button and unlocked the door. If I hurried, maybe I’d find Vivienne and the sons before they make it to the Wonderland display. She’d love that…
Beep.
I yanked open the door, contemplating ignoring it.
Beep.
“Fuck.” I lifted my phone, caught the name on the message, and my stomach sank.
Ophelia…
I swiped my thumb across the screen and opened the first message. It was a picture….
Of Carven’s four-wheel drive, parked behind the warehouse where Hale had sent his men to get Ryth.
The same warehouse we’d defended with savagery.
My heart thundered as I opened the next message. There was no way she should have that footage, no way that she should even know what we’d done that day…if she did—
I didn’t want to think about the consequences.
Ophelia:
You owe me a visit, London. This time, my apartment in Westrock. This way there’ll be no interruptions. So, I’ll expect you in twenty minutes…otherwise Hale will get the entire thing.
Hale will get the entire thing?
I swallowed hard and opened the picture once more, seeing the date and the time and clearly the warehouse with Hale’s men in the background. I closed my eyes and braced my hand on the open door. How much more?
How much fucking more?
Revulsion made my stomach roll.
This way there’ll be no interruptions.
She meant Carven.
This time there was no way to save me.
This time I had to go through with sleeping with her.
For Vivienne…
And my sons.
I lifted my phone, pressed the icon, and waited for it to be answered. “Carven,” I said carefully. “There’s been a change of plans.”
