Lori dug deep, trying to tap that wellspring of courage hidden somewhere inside her. “Things weren’t quite as Belladonna had portrayed them. The divorce from my ex took a long time. Two years. While we were separated, hashing everything out, I met Dante Vargas at a company party. I knew he represented our biggest client, but I didn’t know anything illicit was happening then. He was a little older. Very charming and debonair at first.” Probably in the same manner Satan had been when he tempted Eve with the apple.
Nick squirmed, his face pinching with a sour look.
“Do you remember the things I told you about my dad?”
He nodded. “How he beat your mother and verbally abused you, called you worthless. The names he called you.” His mouth flattened and his hands balled to fists.
“After I found out that my ex-husband was cheating on me, with so many different women in the office, and I confronted him, he told me it was my fault. For not being good enough. Not being better. That I should dress more provocatively like this one... Or not fight back, when he’d force himself on me.”
Tears stung her eyes, but she had to reel them in, stuff the sadness and pain and grief down. She didn’t want Nick thinking that she was trying to manipulate him by crying. Some women did that. Lori wasn’t one of them.
“I didn’t know.” His voice was brittle. “That he raped you.”
Her heart throbbed in her chest. “Took a long time for me to even see it as rape. I mean, he was my husband. Right?”
“No, Lori.” He reached for her hand.
But she pulled back. She wasn’t telling him to get sympathy, only to help him understand her choices.
“Dante came into my life at my lowest point. He said all the right things. Swept me off my feet with lavish gifts and trips. That part is true. Here was this businessman who made me feel desirable and special. But it was all a facade.”
God, she’d been so stupid, so blind to the truth. As ignorant as Eve.
“Didn’t you suspect that his business wasn’t legitimate?”
“No. A lot of our wealthy clients had personal security, the same as him. There were never any drugs around, no violence. He took his phone calls in private and I was never in his office.”
The waitress brought the food to the table. She set the Reuben in front of Lori and a cheeseburger in front of Nick. “The cook made an extra by accident.” She winked and strutted off.
Her appetite was gone. Nick must’ve lost his, as well, because he pushed his plate to the side.
“How did you get the new position?”
“It was Dante’s idea. He said that the accountant handling their portfolio was retiring. Short notice. Looking back, I think he meant that the accountant was being retired.” With a bullet to the back of the head. She swallowed down the bile rising in her throat. “I told him that with the messy divorce, I didn’t want to rock the boat. He told me he would take care of it. Then my ex said that the promotion would be a part of the divorce settlement along with a lump sum of alimony five times the amount that he’d initially specified.”
“How much?”
“Two million dollars. When I asked him why, he said it was for my pain and suffering.”
“Why did you stay with WCM after you found out about his affairs?”
“I had a good position I enjoyed, but my in-laws convinced me. They said I was still family and that I’d always have a job there.”
He nodded like he got that part. “And you found out about the money laundering once you started the new job.”
“The weekend before I took over the new position, Dante insisted on moving me in with him. It felt rushed, too fast, but he’s the type of person who is so persistent you can’t say no to him.” Her gut clenched thinking back on it. “It wasn’t until we started living together, day in and day out, that I saw he didn’t have relationships with people. To him, I wasn’t a girlfriend. I was a possession. A piece of property. And the only reason he moved me in to begin with—”
“Was to watch you,” he said, finishing her sentence, and she nodded. “Did you confront him about the money laundering?”
She shook her head. “No one confronts Dante. I broached the subject.” Dante wouldn’t even discuss it until he’d stripped her naked and ensured she wasn’t wearing a wire. That conversation had made her top five of all-time most humiliating. “He made it clear the money from my divorce settlement came from him and it was to keep quiet. Then he warned me never to discuss it again. So I didn’t.”
Nick’s eyes narrowed. “Warned you how? Threatened you? With a gun? Knife?”
How could she explain it? “Dante is evil and insidious. He’s like cancer. He didn’t need a gun or a knife. Not with someone like me, anyway. You say the big C. Stage four. I get it. No explanation necessary.”
“Did you keep sleeping with him?”
“I was in a different trap. Playing a different role. Acting in my own life. None of it was real. None of it brought me happiness. Not like what I found in spending time with you.”
He looked away from her. “You call it spending time. I call it WITSEC. A part of my job.”
She put her hand on his forearm. “Was kissing me part of your job, too?”
“No, but it was a mistake.” He pulled his arm back and straightened. “How long did you launder their dirty money? How long did you let him touch you after you knew the truth?”
The heat of shame and embarrassment crawled up her face. “Six months,” she said, low, the two words sour on her tongue.
His mouth twisted in disgust and she saw it again. The loathing in his eyes.
Her skin crawled remembering those six months with Dante the devil. The tense meals with her head in a guillotine, the awkward kisses that tasted of fear, forcing herself to detach as they had sex like she was having an out-of-body experience while her soul screamed for her to get away. Six months of dread ballooning in her chest, trying not to lose her mind, or her life.
“I needed time to come up with an exit strategy,” she said, desperate to explain, for it to make sense to him, “and figure out how to pull it off.”
The quiet air between them was weighted. She felt his gaze on her, his judgment, when she yearned for his understanding.
“Too bad you can’t take all of that money with you into your new life.” The more Nick said, the deeper Lori felt the cut.
She shook her head, her heart bleeding.
Where was her Nick? The one who could be gentle, comforting, compassionate?
“I never wanted their blood money,” she said. “I gave it away. As soon as I found out it had come from Dante, I wrote a check to the Helping Hands Foundation.” Her favorite charity that had kept the darkness from swallowing her when she was a teen. “They needed it. Not me.”
The fact seemed to sober him, but it didn’t soften him. “When I’m in the presence of evil, I sense it. Like an icy finger moving over my spine. How come you didn’t feel it, that Dante Vargas, the biggest drug lord on the western seaboard, was evil?”
She’d asked herself the same question every single day for the past year. Dissecting her choices, analyzing her mistakes, so she didn’t repeat them.
But Lori didn’t think there was any answer that she could give that would satisfy Nick.
TWO HOURS LATER, Nick and Lori were still picking at their food, content not to force the conversation further.
He kept turning it all over in his head.
Lori wasn’t like ninety-five percent of the people who entered the WITSEC program—bottom-feeders. She was trying to get herself out of a bad situation and to survive. But how she’d gotten into that situation with Vargas to begin with niggled at him.
Had a part of her been tempted by his money and his power? Her ex-husband had been the same, but with Vargas, she’d gone from bad to worse. A cartel boss, a reputed psychopath.
As much as it unsettled him, he couldn’t dismiss all the good things about her, either. She was the best thing to happen to him, even with Los Chacales on their asses. And he had never desired any woman the way he hungered for Lori.
He yearned to kiss her again, hold her, have her body molding to his—
But his brain kept spiraling back and snagging on Vargas.
“Hello there.” Bo slipped into the booth beside him, catching him in a headlock and ruffling his hair. “I didn’t expect to find you two moping and wearing matching his and hers outfits.”
Damn it. How had Nick let his older brother get the drop on him? He’d never hear the end of it.
Nick wrangled his head loose. “Get off.”
“You’re slipping. No wonder you had to call me for help.” Bo turned to Lori and extended his hand. “Bowen at your service, ma’am. Have no fear, the smarter, stealthier, more charming McKenna is here.”
Nick rolled his eyes.
“Wow. That rhymed.” She shook his hand. “I’m Lori. Nice to meet you.”
“Listen, there is serious stuff going on,” Nick snapped. “We need to stop shooting the breeze and get out of Dodge. Plenty of time to talk at home.”
AIDEN STOOD, STARING at the charred remains of the Big Bear safe house. “What do you think of everything the sheriff said?”
Charlie shrugged. “It’s hard to say. Nick is taking a big leap by accusing Draper of being the leak without any proof. And he is a hothead.”
Aiden nodded. “And impulsive.”
“And stubborn.”
“But he’s never been unhinged.”
A one-shoulder shrug from Charlie. “It’s not for us to reason why.”
“It’s for us to keep witnesses alive,” Aiden said, finishing her sentence.
“As long as Hummingbird is still breathing and Nick gets her to the office tomorrow, so we can escort her to court on time, I don’t think we should worry about the rest. For now.”
“Agreed.” Aiden’s phone rang. He knew who it was before he answered. “Hello, sir.”
“Did you find McKenna and Hummingbird?”
“Negative, sir. Both birds appear to have flown the coop.”
Draper swore into the phone. “Who the hell does he think he is? Going dark! What is he thinking?”
He’s probably thinking about keeping a witness alive. “I’m not a mind reader, sir.” He exchanged a knowing look with Charlie.
“He’s endangering a witness. If anything happens to Hummingbird, it’s McKenna’s fault. Do you understand?”
Aiden let out a low sigh that wouldn’t telegraph over the line. “Zeeman’s body was found in the safe house.”
“Go to the morgue. Bring his remains home with you. If you have any trouble, give me a call and I’ll take care of it.”
“Roger.”
TO BE SUMMONED was never good.
Dante Vargas had summoned Belladonna.
The director of the cartel’s west coast branch—made him sound like he was a civilized banker instead of a psychotic drug-lord butcher—had packed up his entourage, driven two hours from San Diego to Laguna Beach, and set up shop in three adjacent oceanfront villas at the five-star Montage.
All to receive face-to-face confirmation as soon as possible that Lori Carpenter would no longer be a problem.
Belladonna had failed to deliver, and Dante wasn’t happy.
Smokey pulled up in front of the center villa. “Should I wait for you?”
Translation: Are you walking back out alive or being carried out wrapped in plastic?
“Wait for me.” She was walking back out, even if it meant she had to kill Dante to leave.
Belladonna opened her door and slid out gracefully, wearing a white silk suit she’d changed into. A guard let her inside.
The first thing to greet her was a breathtaking, panoramic view of the ocean.
The second was a squad of armed men. She counted a baker’s dozen.
Dante had obviously anticipated her enthusiasm to keep breathing.
Well, good on him.
Belladonna smiled, aware of the unnatural pull in her cheeks that contradicted the tension surging in her veins. She sauntered deeper into the foyer, her three-inch heels clickety-clacking across the marble floor. The place epitomized relaxed class and stellar beauty. Always nothing but the finest for Dante.
Rapid-fire, she formed an exit strategy.
That was her gift. To assess. To forecast.
Unfortunately, all scenarios she visualized left her wounded. The vast majority mortally, considering she only had one concealed weapon on her. But if she counted her right and left shoe heel each as deadly instruments, that’d give her three.
No matter how many times they patted her down, they never found the third.
Men.
But none of those weapons were as effective as a bullet. She was outmanned, outgunned, but not outsmarted. She’d have to talk her way out of this.
Belladonna raised her hands and assumed the position.
Beefcake Number One patted her down, copping a generous feel of her breasts, butt and had the gall to leer in her face when he cupped her sex.
Compartmentalizing, she stuffed her fury in a box and tucked it in her mental closet right beside a beautiful pair of Louboutins to offset the ugliness.
Then she thought about her innocent daughter, Lily, growing up and one day facing such humiliating treatment from some man who sought to bully and intimidate her.
To hell with that.
Belladonna punched him in the throat and slammed the heel of her palm up into his nose, breaking it with a delicious crunch.
Watching him crumple to his knees, gagging and bleeding, turned her smile from artificial to genuine in a snap.
The others surrounded her, semiautomatic HK MP5s at the ready in their meaty grasps.
She extended her bloody palm. “A napkin. I can’t go in there looking a mess.” Thankfully, she didn’t seem to have any blood on her pristine white suit.
Dante was a stickler about appearances.
Beefcake Two ran and grabbed a napkin for her. She wiped off her hand and tossed it back at him.
“Señor Vargas wants you to remove your shoes,” he said. “Please.”
This shouldn’t have surprised her—Dante had taken over as her mentor and commander when his father passed—but it did.
She slipped off the deadly, stainless-steel spike heels.
The marble floor was cold beneath her bare feet. She welcomed the sensation, hoping it would cool her temper, too.
Beefcake Two escorted her through the villa to the living room.
Dante sat on the sofa, legs crossed, an arm stretched across the back of the couch, sipping a drink. The tall glass was filled with ice, a pale liquid and mottled mint. She assumed it was a mojito.
For a man in his midfifties, time had worked in his favor. Like a fine wine, he aged well. He possessed the fit physique of a man in his prime. From a distance, he oozed sex appeal and charm and had this mesmerizing way of hooking you. But the closer you got to him, the easier it was to see the illusion. It was plain to see how the wolf had fooled the sheep, Lori Carpenter.
“Would you care for a beverage?” Dante asked.
“No, thank you.” She kept her expression soft and her voice polite. “I’m working.”
“Come now. I won’t offer you a last meal. But surely I can give you a last beverage.”
She scanned the floor for a polyurethane tarp. A telltale sign he planned to put a bullet in her head. There was none.
“I insist.” Dante smiled with all the sweetness of battery acid. “What will you have?”
“Calvados,” Belladonna said, brightly.
Dante pointed his finger at her and chuffed out a laugh devoid of humor. “Cheater.” He wagged his finger.
Champagne, single malt scotch, rum, vodka, gin, bourbon and beer, Dante traveled with. He only had Calvados on hand at his home, but never had the apple brandy on the road. And it wasn’t something he could simply send a goon to the local liquor store to fetch.
She shrugged, mustering her most charming smile. If she had to beg, steal, cheat or lie to get back to her family, then she would.
Before she met her husband, Alessandro, her life had been full—of violence and bloodshed—and she’d been fine. Perfectly fine. Then he drifted into her orbit. More like crashed and there was no stopping the collision. She became painfully aware of the emptiness inside, of how he made her ache to be better.
Only fools fell in love, but she’d fallen anyway.
Only those who got out of this bloody business—free and clear—were safe to saddle themselves with a defenseless child. But there was no out. Not for people like her.
And she’d had a kid anyway.
She was still fine, better than before, but if she lost them, or if they lost her...
What had she been thinking? No one could have it all and it had been greedy of her to try. But once you experienced the warm intoxication of love, tasted happiness, it changed everything.
So yes, she stood in front of Dante Vargas, trying to cheat death.
“Why isn’t that bitch dead?” His smile evaporated.
“Nick McKenna has proven to be more formidable and resourceful than expected.”
“But that is why I brought you in, Bella,” he said, making her skin crawl. “You foresee and adapt.”
“It’s not over. I still have time to eliminate her.”
“You’ve lost lots of rooks and bishops, but I don’t see a scratch on my strongest piece. I don’t think my king has seen much action, gotten up close and personal with this Nick McKenna. Why have you been playing it safe?”
Getting up close and personal on other jobs hadn’t scared her. If she had died back then, it wouldn’t have mattered. But now...
The faces of Alessandro and Lily floated up in her mind’s eye. Now she had two miraculous reasons to live.
“I have a contingency plan,” she said with genuine confidence. “But I’ll need more men.”
The USMS was nothing if not predictable. McKenna might be rogue, playing it his way, but Marshal Draper would bring him back in line.
Dante picked up a remote control from the coffee table in front of him and turned on the TV that hung above the lit fireplace.
A video came on. Of her husband, playing with their daughter.
Dante knew about them. Knew where they were and was making a point that he could reach out and touch them. At any time.
Her heart withered and the taste of ash saturated her mouth.
“Your daughter is beautiful. She looks so happy. Carefree. I want her to stay that way. And your husband. Handsome, but I never would have imagined that you would’ve fallen for a college professor. Biology, no less.”
And that was when the game flipped, and hope sparked anew.
Her husband’s cover was intact.
Dante had no clue that Alessandro was deadlier than she was. That meant only one man had been sent to keep an eye on them, two at the most, since there was no perceived threat.
She looked back at the video, playing on a loop.
Their daughter wore the garish two-piece she’d regretted buying, the one Alessandro hated with a passion. Seeing Lily run across the beach wearing it was a message.
Alessandro was aware they were under surveillance and he had it under control. She would’ve taken a relieved breath if not for the fear that Dante would’ve registered it.
“Please, don’t hurt them,” she said as if reading from a script. Alessandro would rip out the carotid artery of anyone who got close to their daughter.
“Believe me, that is not what I want.” Dante stood and walked up to her. He grasped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tipped it up. “Belleza deslumbrante.”
Ravishing beauty.
It made her want to puke.
“Why should I give you another chance?” Dante asked. “Why should I let your family live?”
Fury bubbled inside her, but she masked it with a sly grin. “Because I brought you a gift.”
Dante released her and stepped back. Way, way back like he was afraid.
After threatening her family, he should be.
“Unless it’s Lori Carpenter’s head in a box, I’m not sure I want it,” he spat.
She considered going for her concealed weapon, the hairpin that secured her bun in place. It was as lethal as an ice pick. She’d have time to cross the room and stab him in the jugular before his guards entered. But then she would be stuck.
“Trust me, you’ll want it.” Belladonna raised her palms.
His shoulders relaxed at the conciliatory gesture.
Slowly, she reached inside her silk camisole, into her bra, and retrieved the USB drive tucked under her breast. She was a generous C cup. Between the ample padding in her push-up bra and her fleshy tissue, the guard never would’ve felt it.
Belladonna offered him the drive in her palm.
“What is it?” he asked, taking cautious steps, closing the distance between them.
“The California WITSEC list and the name of every deputy marshal in the Golden State.”
Dante beamed. That was right; she was walking out of there.
“How did you get this?” he asked, taking the drive.
That was for her to know and for him never to find out. “It’s like you said. I foresee and adapt.”
He cupped her cheek and lifted her face, bringing her lips to his, and kissed her. Closed mouth, but nonetheless revolting.
Her stomach cramped and she wished she’d worn her poisoned lipstick.
“There is no one else in the world like you, Belladonna.” He kept his face close, the stench of rum brushing over her skin.
She couldn’t wait to take a shower.
“Kill Lori Carpenter and I will let you go.”
Her heart leaped, but her mind spun like a pinwheel. “What?”
“Kill her for me and I’ll set you free. You can go and live your life with your family without looking over your shoulder.”
He is the prince of lies, a maestro of manipulation.
But what if he meant it? What if she could be free?
“I want that bitch dead before she testifies. Fail me, I’ll make you watch as I skin your husband alive, and then I’ll kill you and take your daughter. Train her to be your replacement. The same way my father took you when yours failed him. I have a lovely name already picked out for her. I shall call her...Oleander.”