DESS AND GARRISON were the last to arrive, and I had to do a double take. I’d seen Garrison in his finery while he was getting ready, but I hadn’t been here when Dess had come out of her room, dressed in that resplendent purple gown. Striding through the room in that get-up, she looked like something out of a dream.
She nodded greetings to the rest of us and ducked into her bedroom to change. Garrison stayed behind, shrugging off his tuxedo jacket and loosening his tie. He took off the vest of his tuxedo and hung it on the back of Blaze’s chair before pulling both of his white undershirt sleeves to his elbows. Then he leaned across the counter of the kitchen island where Blaze was tilted toward the screen of the laptop. “What was so important that you pulled us out of the mission?”
Blaze frowned, his gaze still flicking back and forth as he took in the data streaming by him. “There’s a lot of activity in the criminal underbelly of the city, and throughout the night, it’s been spreading.”
Garrison shook his head. “And? Forgive me, but that’s not exactly a new pattern.”
Blaze nodded and opened his mouth, but then he closed it again. “I’m going to wait for Dess to get into the details. In the meantime, did you get any information at the fundraiser?”
“Would have gotten more if we hadn’t been pulled out,” Garrison muttered, and tipped his head toward Dess’s room. “You’ll have to go through all the phones she pilfered. I have a couple of notes for you to follow up on, but nothing that seems all that promising.”
I held myself back from clenching my jaw in frustration. I’d hoped the fundraiser would get us more of the answers we needed—and it might have if we hadn’t needed to end the mission halfway through. But the activity Blaze had picked up on had felt too ominous to risk leaving our people in the field. Their safety came before anything else.
“Here you go.” Dess strode into the room in her usual T-shirt and sweats and tossed her purse onto the counter. It landed with a heavy metallic thump.
Blaze’s eyes lit up as he unzipped the purse. He started pawing out phones onto the countertop until Garrison cleared his throat. “Are you going to get to the point now?”
“Tell them,” I said. Dess moved to stand between Talon and Garrison, a shadow of worry crossing her expression as she watched Blaze.
The hacker motioned to his laptop. “I’m seeing activity that specifically suggests that several other groups of mercenaries have arrived in this area and are trying to track down our location with the intention of attacking us. A few of them stopped by the meat factory, looking like they were attempting to pick up our trail there. Another two groups found the safe house that was compromised by that idiotic attack by the Cutthroats.”
“We still have to pay them back,” Talon muttered.
“This is what the guy we interrogated warned us about,” Dess said, rubbing her hand along her jaw.
“Exactly.” Blaze exhaled in a rush. “These are crews from all across this part of the country. I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing some from farther abroad once word gets out that there’s a huge bounty and no one has cashed in yet.”
Dess’s arms went rigid where she’d braced them against the counter. “It’s because of me,” she said.
My head jerked toward her. “What?”
She met my gaze steadily but with unmistakable horror in hers. “They’re all trying to track you down because they know I’m with you. That’s why the men at the factory attacked us too. If I wasn’t here, they wouldn’t bother you at all.”
A growl formed in my throat so swiftly I had to swallow it down before I spoke. “It isn’t your fault. You can’t blame yourself.”
She tilted her chin a little defiantly. “Why not? I’m just pointing out the facts. You wouldn’t be in this situation if it wasn’t for me.”
Damn, did that woman have an effect, even when she was just standing there in plain clothes. She gave off such an assured air even now that I had no doubt she was capable of meeting this threat on her own if she had to. Just as capably as she’d moved those skilled hands over my body days ago. A flicker of heat coursed through me at the memory of her leaning back into me, taking my cock with abandon as she sucked off Talon at the same time.
But she didn’t need to be alone to face the threat, any more than she’d needed to satisfy her physical desires alone. As strong as I knew she was, I wanted to protect her. She sure as hell didn’t deserve to go through even more shit than she already had in the past two decades. I wanted to defend her from the pricks who were determined to stick her back in a cage… and I wanted to defend her from her own self-recriminations.
Blaze piped up first. “Technically, we kidnapped you, so even as far as you being in our company goes, that’s our fault.”
I could already see Dess gearing up to argue his point. I stepped in firmly. “And ignoring all that, it’s not your fault that a lunatic has decided he owns you and pulled out all the stops to get you back. You don’t belong to him, and nothing’s going to stop us from helping you drive that fact home to him, no matter what he throws at you.”
She stared back at me, but then she nodded just slightly in acknowledgment. Accepting the help while not compromising her pride. I had to admire her even more for her grit.
“We also need to give you more freedom even from us,” I admitted. “When we’re done talking here, I’ll take you through the tunnels and show you the exact route to and from the street and this building. No blindfolds, no tricky turns. I should have done that earlier. You’ve earned your spot with us, and you should be able to come and go if you need to by that secure route without having one of us escort you.”
A more eager light came into Dess’s cool gray eyes, one that warmed me to the core. “Thank you,” she said quietly, but I could tell she understood what a show of trust the gesture was. She was going to be the first person who knew the hidden route to our main apartment outside of the four of us and Steffie.
I braced myself for Garrison to bicker the point like he seemed to so often when it came to Dess, but he actually relaxed at my offer. “About time,” I thought he muttered under his breath.
A twinge of surprise shot through me. Had something happened to make him suddenly willing to support Dess without complaint? Maybe even he had finally gotten tired of all his grousing, however much it’d always been an act.
Talon folded his arms over his chest, his expression grim. “How are we going to deal with all these opportunists? Assuming we aren’t going to try to simply mow them all down.”
“I think that might be a tad beyond even our ample abilities,” Blaze said. “At least with so many all at once. They’re only following the money like we do most of the time anyway. Hard to blame them for that.”
Well, I certainly could. There were lines I wouldn’t have crossed when it came to those who were our closest colleagues. But then, I know our standards weren’t necessarily typical.
“How secure are we as long as we stay in the apartment?” I asked. We had enough food stockpiled for at least a week in case of emergency, and Steffie could potentially get more to us without being detected.
Blaze’s mouth twisted. “Well, we definitely run a significant risk any time we step outside it, now that so many people are searching for us. I don’t think anyone has software on the level of my facial recognition app, but even if we rely on disguises, I wouldn’t want to be taking many casual strolls.” He paused. “The apartment itself is definitely our most secure location, but I can’t say that it’s impossible that one of these mercenaries could eventually connect us to it. Especially if they start cooperating and putting their minds together.”
“And if we just hide away in here, then we have no chance of finding the prick responsible and putting an end to the whole bounty,” Garrison pointed out.
Yes, that was the problem. I didn’t love the idea of holing up in hiding regardless, but it was a losing game any way you sliced it. We had to cut to the heart of the problem.
We couldn’t track down this criminal kingpin while we had dozens of mercenary groups on the hunt for us, and we couldn’t get them off our tails without ending the bounty. Unless…
Unless we made it clear what the consequences of coming at us would be, in a way so emphatic that no one would think it was worth the risk of tangling with us. We might not be able to take down every crew out there, but if we made it obvious how easily we could take down at least a few of them before we fell ourselves, no one was going to want to be first in line.
I glanced around at my crew. “We have one other option, and I think it’s our best one. We’re going to take a trip to the Funhouse and make a statement.”
Talon took the news in stride as I’d known he would. The trust we shared went back nearly twenty years and across continents. I wasn’t surprised, though, that Blaze blinked, his eyebrows leaping up, and Garrison stared at me as if I’d announced we were going to take the crew to the moon.
They knew exactly what I meant by a statement. It wouldn’t be pretty, and it would certainly be bloody, in expected Chaos Crew style.
Dess took in the guys’ expressions with her penetrating gaze. She turned back to me. “What’s the Funhouse?”
Blaze’s mouth formed a smile that was tight with nerves. “The Funhouse is a sort-of nightclub in Pittsburgh. Very exclusive. Only the best-connected criminal outfits in the northeast know about it and can arrange to get in. People go there to hang out and make deals with each other.”
Garrison was still eyeing me. “And it’s understood that getting into any conflicts there is risky for a whole lot of reasons. But I’m assuming our fearless leader is about to explain how he’s figured out ways around all that.”
“Do you think the hit placed on us came from the Funhouse?” Dess asked.
I shook my head. “Someone this secretive and high up probably doesn’t bother even with venues like that. But most of the crews who’d dare to come after us are part of it. The people there will know about the bounty, and they’ll spread the word about any message we end up sending.”
“Still going to be fucking crazy,” Garrison said.
I gave him an even smile. “Sometimes setting expectations requires a little risk. We lay down the law, show what we’re capable of, and then we’ll be able to continue our investigations without interruption.”
Frankly, I was tired of being on edge and reacting instinctively. The Chaos Crew orchestrated jobs, and we never tackled a problem without my diligent planning. It was why we’d always been so successful and why we’d remained on top for so long. Nothing good came from flailing around without a concrete strategy.
It was time that we took back control and showed our dominance to the underworld. I needed to protect my people, and this was how I could do it.
“If this is what needs to be done, I’m in,” Dess said angling herself to fully face me. “Let’s get started.”
I felt my smile soften as I aimed it at her instead. Funny to think that a couple of weeks ago, she’d kept us at arm’s length, and now she trusted me so fully that she’d stride into any kind of danger as long as I was leading the way.
This was how I liked seeing her most: rising to a challenge, fearless and confident in her abilities—and mine. The longer she was with us, the more certain I became in my assessment: She would make an irreplaceable addition to the crew if we could convince her to stay once all the trouble and mystery around her past was resolved.
My mind darted back to our encounter on the side of the road again, with a deeper wash of heat. Maybe if I could convince her to stay, she could be more than just a colleague.
I’d never expected to find someone I thought it’d be worth trying to navigate an ongoing relationship with, not in my line of work. Not with the bloodlust and yearning for justice that ran through my veins. But Dess understood all of that.
I also hadn’t thought that if I did find a woman who could match me, I might have to share her with Talon. We’d had threesomes with the same partner in the past, but only as one-offs.
Somehow, looking at the woman in front of me, none of that seemed to matter. I was starting to feel like I’d be an idiot not to work her into my plans for my own life.
She was my woman now. She had been since she’d shuddered against me with my cock impaled inside her, and I wasn’t going to let anyone tear her down or rip her away from me.
Which meant it was time to take care of business.
I let a slow grin unfurl across my face. “First, we’re going to need some better guns.”
