CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Liam held Piper back from barging into Gavin’s bedroom. From this angle, the room looked clear, but his instincts screamed that something was off. This whole thing was too easy. He’d expected some resistance to their plan. Maybe they were just lucky.
He frowned. Maybe they were being lulled into thinking no one watched.
Liam turned on his electronic signal detector again and watched until the green light appeared. He still didn’t like it. “Let’s go. We need to hurry. Someone from security will be checking on us soon.” If they didn’t, the security team needed to be fired.
Piper went to the wall of video games and movies. She scanned the titles for a few minutes until she came to one near the end of a shelf crammed with movies.
She pulled the movie off the shelf and opened the cover. The silver disk gleamed in the dim light of the lamp Piper had turned on.
“How did you know which one to choose?”
“This is my favorite movie but Gavin wasn’t fond of it.” She frowned. “I don’t understand. The information should be here.”
Liam walked up behind her. “Check behind the disc,” he murmured. He glanced around the room, uneasy. He needed to get Piper out of this house.
Piper popped the disc free. She turned it over and there, taped to the back, was a folded slip of paper with her name on it.
Liam snapped a picture of the writing on the paper and sent it to Zane and Maddox. “Come on.” He turned off the lamp and propelled her from the room.
Gino sat up. “Well?”
Piper gave him a short nod. “Ready to go?”
“I’m better now.”
She and Liam helped Romano to his feet. When she’d retrieved her tea mug, the older man slid his hand into his pocket and walked from the sitting room ahead of them.
As Liam suspected would happen, they were met in the hall by a security guard, suspicion in his gaze.
“Everything all right here?” he asked.
Romano clapped the man on his shoulder. “Matteo kindly allowed me to lie down for a few minutes. Cancer is taking its toll, I’m afraid.”
A scowl. “This is Gavin’s suite. You shouldn’t be here.”
“I was walking to a guest room when my legs gave way. Gavin’s sitting room was the closest place for Liam to take me. We disturbed nothing. Check for yourself.” With that, Romano moved toward the staircase. “I think I should return home now, my dear,” he said to Piper. “Feel free to stay and visit with your Hartman friends if you wish.”
“I’ve already expressed my condolences to Gavin’s parents. There’s nothing more for me here. Besides, I don’t want to leave you alone.”
Liam gripped Romano’s arm and assisted the older man down the stairs. As much as he tried to hide his weakness from Piper, Romano was trembling with fatigue and weakness.
He needed to talk to Matt about Romano soon. Liam had a feeling Piper’s uncle wouldn’t last as long as the doctors projected.
As they entered the stairwell, Liam glanced back to see the guard slip into Gavin’s sitting room. After returning the tea mug, Piper, Liam, and Romano left the mansion.
Outside on the stairs, Liam turned to the older man. “I’m parked two blocks away. Can you make it or should I bring the SUV to you?”
Romano walked down the stairs. “We shouldn’t remain on the grounds. More chance to be stopped and searched if security becomes more suspicious.”
Ten minutes later, Liam drove toward the Romano estate. He activated his Bluetooth and called Zane. “You’re on speaker with Piper and Gino Romano, Z.”
“Copy that. I checked the information you sent. It’s enough to take care of your problem.”
Thank God. The ball of ice in his stomach melted. “Can it be sent to the feds without involving Piper?” The one thing he didn’t want to do was trigger a situation where she’d be sent to a safe house, especially now that Liam knew how sick her uncle was. Liam didn’t want to be separated from her and if she went into a safe house, Piper wouldn’t be able to see Romano.
His gaze shifted to the rearview mirror for an instant. Liam also didn’t want Romano caught in the crossfire from Barone.
“Maybe. I can arrange an anonymous tip.”
“Do it. The sooner, the better.”
“I’ll run this through the boss. He’ll know who to pass the information to. Anything else I can help with?”
“Liam?”
He glanced over his shoulder at the older man. “Yes, sir?”
“The information in our possession would hold more weight if a witness came forward with it.”
“If Piper takes the information to the feds, they’ll put her into witness protection until Barone’s trial. We’re talking months, maybe years. In the meantime, Piper will be in seclusion without a life of her own.”
“I wasn’t talking about my niece. I was talking about me.”
Piper twisted in her seat to stare at her uncle. “You can’t. You’re under a doctor’s care. You don’t have long to live, Uncle Gino. You should spend your final days in comfort with your friends close by, not sequestered in a safe house with US Marshals keeping watch over you.”
“I want you safe. Matteo has a long memory and is a dangerous enemy to have. I don’t have long to live anyway. It doesn’t matter to me whether my old friend is trying to kill me or not.”
“What do you think, Z?” Liam asked.
“Let me see if the anonymous tip will work first. If not, we’ll talk again about our options.” A pause, then, “Don’t do anything foolish, Mr. Romano. This is not the time to rush. We don’t want to tip our hand before we’re ready. The result could be deadly for Piper and Liam.”
“You speak with wisdom, young man.”
“Not wisdom, sir. I speak from a wealth of experience. We care about Liam and Piper. We’ll take care of all of you. Liam, I’ll touch base with you later.”
“Copy that.”
Piper reached back and gripped her uncle’s hand. “Thank you for offering to help.”
“I want you to live life without constantly looking over your shoulder.”
When they reached Romano’s house, Piper’s uncle paused at the front door. “Do you want to take the information?” he murmured to Liam.
“It’s safer to do it here, Mr. Romano. Your security is compromised.”
A scowl from the older man. “You need to do an evaluation of my system when this situation is resolved.”
“I’ll either take care of it myself or ask someone I trust to do it for me if I’m not able to.”
“What would prevent you from completing the task yourself?”
“I won’t let Piper face witness protection alone. If that’s the best option to keep her alive, I’ll marry her immediately and go with her.”
He held out his hand to Liam. “Thank you for putting my niece first. She a lucky to have such devotion from her mate.”
After a handshake, Liam slid his hand into his pocket. “I’m the one who’s blessed, Mr. Romano. I don’t deserve your niece. I give you my word that Piper will always be my top priority.”
A slow nod. “Yes, I see that she will be. I regret that I won’t have the opportunity to see your marriage flourish or hold my great niece or nephew.”
He turned and kissed Piper’s cheek. “I’m going to bed now. See you in the morning, my dear. Oh, I sent the list of candidates for your management team to your email. We’ll talk about them tomorrow.” With that, he turned and walked inside the house.
“Can we walk for a few minutes?” Piper asked Liam, voice soft. “I’m not ready to go inside yet.”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and started them toward the garden at the back of the house. “Too many people at the Barone estate?”
“Wall-to-wall people made it hard to breathe in there. I’m also not ready to face the cameras and listening devices in this house. I’m not a good actress.”
“It’s hard to act normal under scrutiny.” You couldn’t relax, knowing a screwup would bring the enemy down on you with a weapon drawn. While Liam didn’t think Gino Romano was spying on him and Piper, someone in his household was.
He led Piper to a garden bench and bent to retie his boot. While he dealt with the shoe lace, Liam slid the piece of paper Gino had given him into his boot. As he finished tying the lace, he scanned their surroundings, noting two people in the shadows at the edge of the property, watching them. Guards or someone else?
Not sure what they were dealing with, he pressed a button on his watch, alerting Zane that he might need assistance soon. If he didn’t call off the alert within the next fifteen minutes, Z would notify Trent.
When he sat on the bench beside Piper, he gathered her against his side. “We have company.”
She groaned. “I’m thinking about asking you to find a deserted island to take me to when we leave here.”
Liam chuckled. Sounded like a great plan to him. Sun, sand, surf, and Piper. A perfect way to pass his leave time. “I’ll see what I can find.”
“Thanks for coming to Hartman with me, Liam.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “I meant what I said before. I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
Piper brushed his lips with hers. “I love you, Liam. I’m looking forward to being Mrs. Liam McCoy.”
Before he could do more than tell her he loved her, heavy footsteps hurried up the path toward them. Recognizing one of the two security guards approaching, Liam stood and placed himself in front of Piper.
“You need to come with us,” said the guard named Moe. “It’s Mr. Romano.”
Piper stood. “Is he all right?”
“I don’t know, ma’am. I’m supposed to take you to him.” He turned to Liam. “Just the lady. Mr. Romano said she’d be back in a few minutes.”
Liam caught Piper around the waist and held her against his side. “That’s not how this is going to work. Either I go with Piper or she doesn’t go inside that house.” And that was something Romano knew.
That knowledge plus the body language of the two men indicated they had a different agenda, one that didn’t bode anything good for Piper.
He eased Piper behind him again. “What’s going on here, Moe?”
The guard shook his head slowly, holding up an empty hand. “Look, I just know what I was told. The lady won’t come to no harm.” He and the other guard moved forward.
The second man lunged at Liam who shifted so the roundhouse punch thrown at his jaw missed, throwing the guard off balance.
Liam countered with a rabbit punch to the ribs. As his opponent dropped to the ground with a gasp, he caught movement from Moe in his peripheral vision. Liam turned to face off with the other guard when Moe pressed something against his side.
Liam heard the snap and knew he would be too late to escape. An electric current ripped through his body. He dropped hard when his muscles locked and refused to obey his mental command to move and protect Piper.
Moe pressed the trigger again and Liam’s body jerked with the second jolt from the stun gun. As the darkness closed in, Liam felt Piper’s arms around him and heard her begging the guard to stop.