32
Rhys studied Turo DeMarco and nabbed him on the tenth day. He had his chest and legs wrapped in plastic to a chair on the roof of a building in Serena’s old neighborhood. Turo finally came to from the drugs Rhys had shot him up with earlier in a coat check room at a restaurant.
I stood over him. His hair was mussed, his pretty face unbruised.
So far.
DeMarco blinked, his head straining. “What the fuck is this, and who the hell are you?”
Rhys faded into the darkness. I had the floor.
“Ashley,” I said.
His cold light-colored eyes betrayed nothing.
“I need to find her.”
“I don’t know any Ashley.”
“I know a Ciara,” I said and his jaw tightened ever so slightly. “Shouldn’t you be at The Vine right now listening to her sing her cabaret songs? Don’t worry, one of my men is there, hanging on every note that comes out of that mouth.”
His eyes hardened and went to my patches. “Why should I talk to you? Are you after Ashley to kill her?”
“Did you force her to rat for you?
“I never forced her to do anything.”
My pulse ratcheted up a hundred notches. “I’m sure you laid all sorts of pretty words on her. Threatened her. She isn’t stupid, but she’s vulnerable.”
“She’s made of steel,” he said, his voice clear, sharp. Did he think he was telling me something new? Something I didn’t already know?
I took in a deep breath against the idea of this douche knowing my woman. Knowing her in any way at all.
My hand snaked around his throat and tightened there. “She’s disappeared, and I think you helped her get new ID and take off.”
Turo’s forehead wrinkled, his eyes sheets of tinted glass. “Who the fuck are you?” His tone was cold, it was hard, but it wasn’t defensive. It was protective. He was protecting Serena.
I got in his face. “I’m the one who got her out of that shithole. I’m the one who got her to Chicago.”
His eyes flared. “You’re the one?”
Had I answered a mystery he’d been wanting to solve?
My hand fell from his throat. “I’m the one.”
“I’ve been wondering who was crazy enough to go in there and get her out.”
“Someone with nothing left to lose.”
He smiled at me, his eyebrows lifting, his features relaxing for the first time. “I don’t know where she is. She didn’t tell me where she was going.”
“Her new name. That’s what I want from you. I want her name. You put her in danger by having her rat. If I figured it out, I’m sure her old club isn’t too far behind. Were you going to protect her once they came gunning for her? I doubt it. Would’ve gotten your suit messy. I figure you would’ve left her hanging in the wind. She took a risk, and it paid off for you big, didn’t it? For her? Not so sure.”
He gestured at me with his chin. “They did that to you? You were there with her, and they—”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.” He studied me.
“Believe me, I’m glad you’ve been making Medicine Man tap dance to your beat. Like it a lot. That sick fuck deserves that and much, much more.”
“It’s been a long, joy-filled ride. I wanted him to suffer first, have him watch his little paper kingdom rip and burn around him. Now his time is up.”
“I need to make sure she isn’t your collateral damage,” I said.
“I’ve had eyes and ears on Med’s crew for a while. There’s been no chatter about Rena. None. She’s good. Wherever she is.”
“I’m supposed to believe you give a shit.”
“I give way more than a shit. Where were you when she needed help?”
My vision went red, and I roared, “I’ve been in jail the past three years!”
His brow wrinkled again. “They came after her. That’s why she came to me, to clean it up. Her wanting new ID came later.”
My heartbeat skidded to a halt. “Who came after her? Clean what up?”
“She killed a Smoking Gun. He attacked her in her apartment. She got him with his own knife and didn’t want to call the cops.”
A cold sea sloshed through me, jagged rocks of ice ripping at my veins. “She went to you?”
“Yes.”
He told me.
My insides twisted. Images of her alone, covered in that fuck’s blood. Struggling with his corpse, gulping it all down to stand up and keep it together. The fear, the fucking tidal wave of fear at being dragged back to Kansas.
Feeling she had no choice but to go to Turo DeMarco.
He eyed me. “It was a mess, and I handled it for her.”
“And what the hell did you want in return, huh?”
“Information on Med.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. And that was plenty.”
I leaned my head back, facing up at the dark sky. The clouds had smudged the ink of the nigh. There were no visible stars, not with the insistent glare from the city lights either. This wasn’t Nebraska. I gulped in the cold air, but the lightheadedness remained.
“She handled it all very well. She’d made up her mind and took care of business.”
I stared at the blurry cityscape of lights and dark outlines. “Thank you,” I muttered, the words leaving ash in my mouth.
His chin lifted. “They did that to you, didn’t they? Your face, your fingers. I remember it. What a fucking story.”
“It isn’t some story. This is my life.”
Holding my gaze, he took in a breath, the sudden silence stretching between us. “Are you and your buddy going to finish me off or what? If not, I need to go. I have an important meeting at midnight, and if I don’t show up there’s going to be trouble. I detest being late.”
“So do I. Give me her new name.”
“Lenore Yaeger.”
Lenore.
Turo had helped her, watched out for her. We both shared an admiration for her. I wasn’t sure if anything had happened between them, but I was fucking positive he’d tried. He wouldn’t be a man if he didn’t.
No, I wouldn’t kill him. I’d wanted to, that had been my rabid intention, but Turo DeMarco would be a useful connection. High level Guardino. A link to the most powerful family in Chicago. No, you didn’t kill somebody useful. I swallowed down the bloodlust that had coated the back of my throat, pooled in my mouth.
“You ever heard of Reich Malone?” I asked.
Reich had been looking to break into Chicago organized crime. He kept trying to court different families at different times. He was all for having a big organization at his back, the Flames back. That’s what his skinhead underling had been up to when I’d seen him in town that time. How far had that gotten?
“Flames of Hell from Ohio. Tries hard. Pompous pain in the ass,” he replied.
I squatted in front of him, so we were eye to eye. “He’s the one who put me in jail. I’ve known him since I was a boy. Ultimately, he’s the one responsible for this too.” I gestured at my face, with a maimed hand. “We have a healthy disregard for each other.”
“I’ll bet.”
“You ever worked with him?”
“I’ve met him, heard his pitch one too many times. I don’t care for his...style.”
“He has no style.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “No, he doesn’t.”
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, goes the old saying.
I slit the plastic and cut the ties on his wrists. “I’m grateful that you helped Rena. She trusted you, and you delivered.”
He rubbed his left wrist, his right, his eyes on mine. He was waiting for more. I’d give it. It was worth it.
I slid my knife back in my leathers. “I may have been…zealous in my approach this evening.”
He arched an eyebrow, a stiff smile etching his lips. “She’s worth it. Now you have something to lose, don’t you?”
I didn’t answer. Whatever happened between them, whatever they’d shared, I knew that when I found her, once we stood before each other, our eyes locked, the unmistakable, undeniable, unforgettable would boil between us as it always had. Everything that had come before would be rendered unimportant and obliterated.
“I won’t lose her,” I replied.
Turo rose to his feet, smoothing down his suit jacket. “Don’t ever fucking touch me again,” he said on a malicious hiss. A reptilian threat.
“I won’t,” I said. “You ever need anything under your radar, I can be of help.”
The muscle along his jaw clenched and unclenched as he adjusted the cuffs of his shirt. “I have a special delivery coming from New Mexico next week. A new shipper an associate brought in is suddenly playing hard ball, and it’s pissing my boss off. In fact, that’s what tonight’s meeting is about. I was asked to get involved to resolve the problem.”
I had no doubt he would.
I checked my watch. Eleven o’clock on the dot. “You’ve got plenty of time, but you’d prefer to walk in there with your own solution, wouldn’t you?”
His lips tipped up into an odd crooked grin. I’d figured him out, and he liked it. “Always optimum,” he replied.
“I’ve got my own system from California through Utah. You arrange for pickup in Nebraska, I’ll have it ready.”
“Your own system?”
“Carefully calibrated. I may have been in jail all this time, but I kept my shit up and running. Improved on it.”
“How can I be sure this isn’t you being pompous?”
“I gave you your life back just now, didn’t I? How many people take the great Turo DeMarco for a little rooftop Q & A? My friend here—” I gestured toward where Rhys stood still in the dark shadows. “—is an independent contractor and local. He can be your go-to man for the operation. Any operation, in fact. No one knows he exists. He’s a specialist. Has talents you’d appreciate.”
“You got a cigarette?” Turo asked. “I quit last week.”
I handed him my pack and lighter. He lit up and took in a deep drag. “It’s Reich.”
“Reich?”
He handed me back the lighter and my cigarettes. “Tonight. My problematic shipper.”
Yes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
“Give me the details and I’ll have a plan in place within thirty minutes,” I said.
He expelled a long stream of smoke, his eyes lighting up. “Impress me.” He gave me that crooked grin once more.
In that grin, my father’s words washed over me. “You got to consider the timing, the spectacle, and the afterwards…Know your opponent, be conscious of the blow back, where the particles will fall.”
I grinned back at Turo and flicked my lighter on. Off. On.
Yeah. Couldn’t wait to see those flaming particles fall.