Chapter 6
“What do you mean, a contract?” Avery purposefully said it as if she’d never heard of the word, widening her eyes and doing her best to project an affable innocence. They didn’t know her, though they obviously thought they did, and this conversation was being conducted for one reason only, to help the FBI, not to save her sorry ass, so she knew to do the exact opposite of anything they told her to do. He said “up,” she’d say “down.”
Vincent didn’t seem to believe her ignorance, not that she cared. If Dante’s men were on the move, the Feds, the cops, and anyone in their way were screwed, too, and Vincent knew it. “You don’t add up, Mrs. Coppola.”
“Don’t call me that.” The name made her skin crawl.
“Well, I can’t call you Miss Whitman. Patty. Because that’s not your name.”
“And you’re not a backcountry hiker on vacation. You’re a Fed.” She leaned forward, making a big show of sniffing him. “The smell should have tipped me off.”
Vincent threw a glare at the women standing just outside the room, the one wearing the expensive suit. Special Agent Deming. The blond was clearly amused and watching their exchange with great interest, reminding Avery to be on her guard. Vincent was so charismatic he kept making her forget they were in a Plexiglas fish bowl. The Feds were watching.
“We know you’ve been hiding from your ex-husband for three years, and you took something when you left. Something he’s willing to kill you over. Give us those files so we can keep you safe.” So reasonable, so smooth, as if he only had her interests at heart. Well, Avery wasn’t so easily moved. She’d lived with Dante for five years, and he was a man who understood true coercion. His brutality had kept her with him long after she should have run. “I’m worried about you, Avery.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Were you worried about me when you kissed me?” She turned to look at his fellow agents’ and saw reaction . It made her think they were either okay with Vincent playing with his food, or they’d whored him out, desperate for any leg up in a case against her ex.
“You liked it.” His smile, and the memory of their kiss made her flush.
“You took it,” she said. He’d kissed her when they’d realized they weren’t going to die. And yeah, she’d like it. The man was thrilling. His kiss had been thrilling.
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You liked it…a lot.” A gentleman shouldn’t force a woman to admit such things, but she suspected Vincent didn’t identify as a gentleman.
Fact was, he’d deceived her from the start, and no, it didn’t count that she’d been using an alias, too, and would do her best to continue deceiving him, because she wasn’t the Fed in the room. She was the woman who couldn’t seem to escape a syndicate life no matter how hard she tried. Why didn’t that earn her points? Instead, she kept receiving punishment for her efforts.
“We’re the good guys, Avery,” he said. “We’re the people who can protect you, put a stop to Dante Coppola. All we need is your compliance. Just ask, and we’ll help you.”
“You just served me a warrant.” Avery stood, stepping away from Vincent and the platform, throwing a resentful glare at their audience of Feds. “You can’t now say I have a choice.” She slapped the door’s casement with her palm, daring the Feds outside to ignore her. “Let me out.” She locked gazes with the intense one, the guy with the black hair, and blue eyes, the guy who watched her like a hawk. He stood no more than three feet from her, returning her gaze as if they were in a primate house, and she was the gorilla on the wrong side of the glass. “If I have a choice, I choose freedom. Now.” She grabbed the door’s handle and rattled it, holding the blue-eyed devil’s gaze. After a quick, exchanged glance with Vincent, the man walked away, and the blond Fed followed. Shit.
Vincent followed her to the door and leaned his palm on it, his face close enough to warm her cheeks with his breath. She saw strain around his eyes, and decided he wasn’t feeling as cavalier as he behaved. The FBI had been dogging her family since they’d come into power in the 1950s, and there’d been plenty of snitches along the way. What happened to them acted as a deterrent to others. Avery wanted to be free of that life, but snitching was a death sentence. Vincent had to know the danger they were in, that her ex-husband’s people were insane, or worse, intelligent without conscience. If Dante’s contract killers were nearby, staying here was a death sentence for them all.
“Let me help you,” Vincent said, his words a mere whisper. A lock of her hair had fallen from its bun, and draped next to her eye. He nudged it behind her ear with a tenderness that surprised her. Not that he’d done it, but that she’d allow the intimacy, and that it caused butterflies in her stomach. Her reaction indicated how rattled she was. “You’re so fierce, Avery, and…delicate at the same time. I know you’re tough, believe me. I’ve seen you in action, but you’re flesh and bone, just like the rest of us. You need help. Let’s help each other.” He leaned closer, blocking her view of the office and its hustle and bustle. All she saw now was him. All she felt was his heat. Then he lifted his chin and inhaled sharply, as if smelling her, and his eyelids lowered a bit. That simple “tell” clarified much. He hadn’t been pretending that he wanted her, he did. It was information she could use. “Just nod and I’ll be your best friend, bodyguard, whatever it takes,” he said. “I’ll keep you safe until your bastard of an ex-husband is behind bars.”
“Whatever it takes?” she whispered, her eyes focused on his lips. She wondered if he realized he’d just promised more than most did in their wedding vows. There was no mention of love, but she had a feeling Vincent had as much respect for that emotion as she did.
He bent his elbow, making his body press against hers, branding her with his hard length. They were still in a Plexiglas-fronted room, within full view of any that would look, but Vincent didn’t seem to care. He was in full seduction mode, daring her to take him on.
His eyes lingered on her mouth. He bit his lower lip. Did that tempt her to want to kiss him? Sure. Would he welcome her kiss? He was giving her every indication that he would, but, damn, she wasn’t an exhibitionist. What the hell was he doing? Did he believe a set of bedroom eyes would make her produce the files? If so, he was about to receive a hard truth.
The files didn’t exist.
“Sweetheart.” He tipped her chin up and held her gaze. “It’s okay to be afraid.” It could have been the intensity of his expression, or maybe his tone, maybe even the endearment, but Vincent’s words triggered Avery, and not in a good way. She felt her chin quiver, she trembled, and suddenly she was fighting tears. Yes. She was afraid. But it was not okay. Fear weakened you, and when it came to her ex, weakness got you killed. It was being locked in this damn room that was freaking her out. His mouth tightened as she fought her emotions, then he swore under his breath, and pulled her into his embrace. Embarrassed, Avery hid her face against his chest. “Oh, Avery. What am I going to do with you?” She felt his warm lips against her temple.
“Me? It’s you that you should be worrying about. They’ll kill you.” Her words came out in a whispered rush, muffled by his chest. “And I won’t be able to stop it.”
He made her look at him, and his expression was hard, unyielding. Whatever he saw in her eyes had him releasing her, and moving to the platform again, sitting. Using his fingertips, he moved through the pictures, until he found the one he sought, and slid it from the pile. “Sit.” He indicated the photo with a wave of his hand. “Tell me about this.”
A glance at the photo had Avery flinching. The last Toner family reunion. It had been a massacre, and this picture documented the moment that had defined her. Bullet-riddled bodies hung over tables covered with copious, overflowing bowls and platters of spilled food. The dead were everywhere, sprawled on the lawn, huddled together, mothers clutching children. Old, young, able, and ill. So much blood spilled that afternoon, that it covered the patio and bled into the pool, staining it red. The forensic photographer captured Avery’s shock as she looked at the carnage, holding two-year-old Millie. Someone had draped a reflective blanket around her shoulders. That was the day Avery’s eyes were opened to the real world.
She sat on the platform as memories buffeted her, not wanting to reveal that her legs were about to buckle.
“You lost your family, Avery, but you and your sister survived. That’s a miracle. It’s going to take another one to survive the men coming for you. You need our help. Give us the files so we can help you.”
Bile tickled the back of her throat, and she found it difficult to remain calm. It’s a picture. Just a picture capturing a moment out of time. That she relived it in her dreams shouldn’t matter. This was just a picture. Lifeless and flat. It couldn’t hurt her.
But Vincent could.
She glared at him. “Am I supposed to thank you for this walk down memory lane?”
Had he expected tears? Maybe rage, resentment? She glanced out of the room, seeking curious eyes, and caught Benton, sitting at a desk, staring at her. Those emotions were all alive and kicking inside her head, compartmentalized, never to be taken out, too dangerous to be unleashed lest they tear her apart. It didn’t mean Vincent got to know that, that she was willing to give these Feds even that much. These strangers knew nothing of her, and she’d be damned if she changed that and beefed up their files.
“Their murders are still a cold case,” he said. “No one claimed responsibility, and what witnesses survive remain silent, but we kept digging. The FBI didn’t give up. Do you want to know who killed your family?” Avery wanted him to stop talking. She drew her thumbs across the smooth surface of her rings, hoping to still her mind as she weighed the odds of whether the Feds did know who killed the Toner family. She thought it unlikely. “All you have to do is ask me, and I’ll tell you.” His gaze became intense, no longer pretending to be sympathetic. He nudged the thick file toward her. “It’s all there. Enough to curl your hair.”
She didn’t need to look. She already knew who’d killed her family, and she didn’t care if the Feds knew or not. All that mattered was them releasing her from this room. That had to be her focus.
He pulled a slim file from within the larger one, and then opened it. “It says here, ‘She married soon after the deaths of her family, and then nothing else on Avery Toner Coppola and her sister, Millie. They went missing five years after the Toner massacre—’” Vincent paused, studying her face. “That’s the official name for what happened to your family. The Toner Massacre.” When she didn’t respond, he returned to the file. ‘“—they went missing five years after the Toner massacre, after a contract was put out on Mrs. Coppola.’” He grimaced. “A contract. Your husband put a contract out on you. What were you? Twenty-two at the time?” He lifted his brows, shaking his head. “One slim page with a few grisly photos. Kind of sad, but that’s what we’ve got on you. This,” he held up the page and photos, “will continue to be the totality of your life if you don’t allow us to protect you.”
“Your warrant”—she used her fingernail to flick it away from her—“is bogus and you know it. Did the judge know you were using it to keep me here for an unrelated case? Your superiors okay with that?” Vincent glanced toward the blue-eyed man. Benton. Whatever secret signal was given had Vincent smiling.
Damn. She was going nowhere.
“I think three years ago you discovered your ex-husband was behind the murder of your entire family and you ran with your sister to escape him, taking the files as a safety net.” Avery closed her eyes, feeling helpless. “And Dante Coppola didn’t like being left, and felt threatened by the evidence you held over his head, so he put a contract on your life.” When Avery opened her eyes again, she saw sympathy in Vincent’s gaze. “Tell me what happened.”
“Dante saved me and my sister when we needed to be saved. Our marriage didn’t work out, so we divorced. It happens.”
“He was your father’s right-hand man.” Vincent folded his arms over his chest, slouching back in his seat, studying her. If he wasn’t so damn handsome, so sexy, he’d be intimidating. Large, muscular, she’d fought trained men his size. It took a special mixture of superior technique and ruthlessness to win, but it could be done. She hoped it never came to that between her and Vincent. He was an ass, but she liked him, and didn’t want to hurt him.
“Dante saved us,” she repeated. To admit anything else was to give the Feds something, and something would make them want more.
“Your marrying him was tantamount to a gold seal, and signaled to the syndicate that you believed he was innocent, that he didn’t kill your family. Even at seventeen, you had to know that. It was a lie, but you married him anyway.”
Was Vincent trying to understand her? If so, he was doing a piss-poor job of it, and she feared if she allowed him to flounder longer, he’d define her in a way that kept her behind bars. It was time to shake things up a bit, but how? Avery ran her hands over her face, trying to think, trying to buy time.
“Avery?”
“Stop. Just stop. It’s not simple. None of it is simple.” She fidgeted, attempting to find a comfortable position on the hard platform.
“Sounds simple enough,” he said. “You married him, and then you left him.” He said the words as if that was the worst thing she could do, and there was a flicker of something in his gaze… Was that hurt? As soon as she saw it, Vincent shut it down, which told her it was important. He’d been triggered. So… Detective Vincent Modena had been hurt by a woman who’d left him. Watching him closely, she tested her assumption.
“Yes,” Avery said. “Sometimes we leave.” He couldn’t hide his discomfort. It surprised her a bit. Who would leave a guy like this? A fool.
“So, what happened?” Vincent said.
Avery would have loved to ask Vincent the same question, but she was nearly positive whatever had happened with his ex still baffled him. He didn’t seem the type to do post mortems on relationships. “Like I said. It didn’t work out.”
“He put a hit out on you, Avery. Why?” When she didn’t answer, Vincent pulled out more pictures and placed them in front of her. The first photo was of her ex walking into a restaurant with syndicate contract killers. She knew them all too well. “Coppola’s men,” he said. “They used to work for your father, and when he died, they stayed on and worked for your ex-husband. They’re dead now, but I have a feeling you know that.” The way he said it made her blood run cold, like he knew things he shouldn’t. “We had our forensic accountants pull their financials, so we know they were on your ex-husband’s payroll.”
“Yeah?” Accountants. They were relying on accountants to take Dante down. Ugh. Dante was playing chess, and the FBI was playing checkers.
“We believe these are the men that killed your family. Rumor has it The Stinger killed them.”
“Rumors. Accountants. Next, you’ll be telling me you’ve got a team of Ouija Board enthusiasts on your payroll. Are you being stupid on purpose?” Her words tripped off her tongue in one long ramble, because she was nervous. He’d taken her by surprise. She was almost positive Vincent was fishing, because no way he knew about The Stinger. Only two people did.
Vincent lined up six gruesome morgue photographs. “Six men. Killers. Stabbed in the shoulders and back of the knees, severing the ligaments, immobilizing them before the kill shot to the head.” He watched her closely as she studied the photos. “Injured like that, those men were defenseless by the time they were shot in the head.” Avery looked away from the pictures. “We have a credible source in the syndicate who is convinced these men killed your family. Does seeing them dead give you any kind of closure?”
Avery glared. “Excuse me? You think murder will give me closure?” She picked up the photo of the aftermath of the Toner massacre, and threw it at him. It floated to the floor, devoid of the fury that had propelled it there. “I don’t get closure. There’s no peace to be had for me. And the person who did this”—she glanced at the morgue photos of the men, taking a moment to control herself— “is a monster. No better than the men he killed.” She swallowed hard. “I haven’t seen Dante in three years. I have a sister to protect. Don’t bring me into this.”
“You brought yourself into this when you married him, when you stole incriminating files, and you have the power to end this. Him.” He pressed his finger over the image of Dante walking into the restaurant with the killers. “Taking them down might not give you closure, but you could move on. You and Millie. That’s not on the table while Coppola is out there, trying to kill you. I don’t understand why you remain loyal to him, Avery. Help me to understand.”
She wasn’t loyal to Dante. She hated him. Vincent deserved answers, sure. He was just trying to do his job, to save people, to make the world a better place. She applauded that, but in this one instance, he needed to back off. Avery slapped her palm over the photograph, and her rings made loud clacking noises on impact.
“Stop acting like you know me,” she said. It was making it hard to fight back.
“I can make this go away.” His hubris was awe-inspiring and her composure was slipping. “Or I can convince a judge you’re the one to hand us Coppola’s head on a platter.” In other words, the Feds were stirring a bee’s nest and forcing her to stick around for the show. “It’s not you we’re interested in, Avery. It’s your ex. We need the files.”
The files. That the FBI even knew about them, and The Stinger, proved Vincent’s assertion that Dante did have a snitch working on the inside. “You think you’re being smart, but I’m telling you, you’re going to get us killed.”
“If you’re so afraid of Coppola, why’d you marry him?” He said it like she’d had a choice.
“I told you. Dante offered protection.”
“You were using him.”
“Yeah. I used him.” And he’d allowed it, reveled in it, in fact. The man gave her enough rope to hang herself and she’d jumped with enthusiasm. “He used me, too. A lot.”
Vincent flinched. “Give me the files so I can take him down, Avery.”
“There are no files. Never were. Dante spread that rumor, because it gave his people the excuse they needed to kill Ralph Toner’s little girl. Me. His ex-wife. That isn’t an order someone can give unless there’s something heinous to support it, like betraying the syndicate.” That she told him information he hadn’t already had was unfortunate, but he’d made it clear she wasn’t going anywhere while they believed she had these files. Somehow, she needed to convince him of this truth.
“Your ex made up files to excuse ordering your death?” Vincent glared. “What did you do to piss him off?”
She refused to love him.
When she didn’t answer, Vincent nudged the picture of the contract killers walking into the restaurant. “Tell me about The Stinger.”
She snorted. “He’s like those monster stories people tell children to make them obey. A fairy tale. You obviously have a snitch, but he’s fed you bullshit. Sure, these stories swirl around the syndicate, but that doesn’t make them true. The Stinger doesn’t exist. Never existed.”
“Like the files that don’t exist.” Vincent’s irritation spilled over. “This guy that doesn’t exist killed these men.” Avery glanced at the photo and felt and thought many things, none of which she was willing to share. “The Stinger disappeared after they turned up dead. In my circles, “disappeared” is code for dead. Coppola cleaning up?”
She shook her head, disgusted. “You know nothing, but jump in with both feet anyway, with what evidence? Some fairy tale.” Desperate to make him understand, Avery took his hand, squeezing it. “I am not your solution.”
Vincent squeezed her hand, too, and then ran his thumbs over her rings as she’d done herself more times than she could count. It disconcerted her, felt threatening. She pulled her hand from his grasp, saw his curiosity, saw that he knew he was missing something.
It made Avery feel trapped, cornered. She bolted for the door, found it locked. Still locked. Of course, it was locked! She couldn’t breathe. Avery attacked the Plexiglas, unleashing all the frustration and fear she’d bottled up since the bell chimed over the diner’s door and death walked in. She pummeled it, finding relief in the violence, and then kicked it hard enough to split the wooden casement near the locking device. Her foot went numb. Her battered hands pulsed with renewed pain, and still she was on the wrong side of the door.
Vincent grabbed her from behind. Avery head-butted him, knocking him onto his ass. Disoriented, his eyes watering, Vincent sat up and pinched his nose to stem the bleeding. Avery fell on him, and used her attack to hide her lifting the key from his pocket, and slipping it into hers. Outside the room, the cops and Feds rushed the door, distracting her. Vincent took advantage and muscled her onto her back, using his weight to restrain her, tucking his head, prepared for a fight. Avery happily obliged.
It took her thirty seconds of maneuvering to work off some steam while the cops got their act together and opened the door. Vincent was highly trained, so he countered her every move, and when she ran out of breath, and he had her good and pinned, she gave up, content to lose the battle when she knew she’d won the war.
She had his key.
All eyes were on them, staring from the other side of the open door. Vincent lifted his head, glaring at them. “No,” he said. “Back off. I got this.” When his weight shifted, she bucked her hips, dislodging his weight enough to turn on her side and get a breath in. She’d been moments from passing out. Vincent tensed, and she realized he thought the fight was still on, so he muscled her, attempting to pin her again. The officers surged forward, triggering Avery. She shrimped her hips to the side, grabbed Vincent’s wrist, swung her legs over his chest, and within seconds, had him positioned for an arm bar. He slammed his palm on her leg, tapping her off, and jumped to his feet. Arms spread wide, he stopping the officers mid-surge toward her, allowing Avery to scurry away.
Crouched in the corner, teeth bared, she sucked in gasps of air, waiting to see what they’d do. Vincent kept them back, blood dripping from his nose. He smiled.
“You play for keeps,” he said, waving the officers out of the room, keeping his eyes on Avery.
“You’re a bunch of idiots.” When the door was closed again, she sat back on the platform, resting her forearms on her knees, doing her best not to pass out.
His smile widened, and he was all charm, bloody nose and all. “Lady, where have you been all my life?”
She straightened her back, furious. “This isn’t funny! Get on the wire. Tell everyone I’ve escaped and put a BOLO out on me.”
“Why would I do that?” He shifted his weight, and sniffed, blinking past his watering eyes.
“They’ll be monitoring the police frequencies. Stop Dante’s men from showing up here. Buy time for backup to arrive.” She saw the flicker in his gaze, and read it to mean he didn’t want to buy time. He wanted to keep the pressure on, to force her to give up the files. “But you’re not going to do that, are you?”
“Because I’m an idiot,” he said, proving he was the only person on the planet that could make a broken nose look that sexy. The man was having too much fun.
“You’re doing it again,” she said.
“Doing what?”
“Putting your gun on the floor, hoping the shooter won’t kill you. Eric. Remember him? Remember how well that ended? Remember who had to save your ass? This time, you’re playing chicken with Dante. You won’t win that game with him.”
“Like I said before, that was bait and switch.” He slapped his tattoo on his forearm. “Sniper, remember? I never intended to put my gun on the floor.” He folded his arms across his chest, still wearing that flirty smile. “So. About those files.”
In her mind’s eye, Avery saw a prison cell closing on her forever. The FBI were digging. They would discover Avery trained with Dante’s dead contract killers, all six of them, and that Dante was the one that named her The Stinger. They would discover the rings on her fingers belonged to those six killers, were proof of their deaths, a reminder of what had been done to her family, and that justice had been served. Could she burn the whole Coppola Syndicate down? Sure, but not without implicating herself. Vincent and his team had enough of the threads to unravel the whole skein. She had to make sure she was nowhere to be found when they did.
Not an easy task. She didn’t know what to do, so she curled into a ball and leaned against the wall. Ten minutes later, still silent, unwilling to speak no matter the provocation, Vincent stood to leave, and she had a moment of panic. He’d need his key to get out, but luckily, the officers hadn’t locked the door after her outburst. He exited, and allowed a passing officer to lock it after him.
So, she prayed, knowing she’d lost that right three years ago, but she did it anyway, because she was desperate. She prayed for that miracle Vincent mentioned earlier. Avery didn’t know what else to do, and nothing short of divine intervention would save them, because Dante’s men were coming. Death was coming, and she was afraid.