Hard as You Can (26 page)

“And?” Nick asked. Shane wasn’t surprised the man suspected there was more. Nick Rixey’s instincts were almost always spot-on, and Shane knew that was why the guy had been so hard on himself about Merritt’s deceit. But then, they’d
all
missed that, hadn’t they?

“And . . . things are complicated.” Shane tugged his hands through his hair and remembered the amazing sensation of Crystal’s hands stroking and pulling. “Here’s what I know: Someone is abusing her—probably this guy Bruno—”

“Oh right,” Marz said, retrieving a printout from a stack by his keyboard. “I looked into him while you were gone. Bruno Ashe. Age thirty-four. Known member of the Church Gang. Criminal record. Probable Apostle-level position according to the gang report Becca’s friend lent us last week.”

Shit. Why didn’t that surprise him? Shane nodded and counted off on his fingers. “Okay, so then, a senior Churchman is abusing and controlling her. She’s afraid to meet or talk in her own apartment. Today we overheard her tell her sister she had no choice but to work at Confessions, which is sounding more and more like she’s somehow being forced given Bruno’s position.” Shane shook his head. “And then tonight, I got her to open up a little. She admitted she knows Confessions is filled with gangbangers and drug dealers and killers. And she confirmed—again—that girls are falling down a black hole at Confessions and never being heard from again.”

“Oh, my God. That’s terrible,” Becca said. “This is the waitress who helped you all the other night?”

“Yeah,” Nick said, hugging Becca in against his stomach. He met Shane’s gaze, and Nick’s eyes were equal parts calculating and sympathetic. “I’m gonna say something, Shane, because it needs to be said. I’m not trying to be an asshole or to downplay what is clearly a horrendous situation that Crystal’s caught up in.”

Knowing what was likely coming, Shane gave a tight nod. Tension seemed to thicken the air around them, because they
all
knew where Nick was about to go—at least the team did.

“Molly,” Shane said, saving Nick the trouble.

“Molly,” Nick said with a nod.

Jeremy frowned and looked around. “Who’s Molly?”

“My kid sister,” Shane said, eyes back on Nick. “I’m not gonna lie. She’s never far from my mind, and this whole thing might’ve started out as a chance to make something right that I’d once gotten wrong, but that’s not what’s at play now.” Shane looked each of his teammates in the eye, wanting them to see his sincerity. “Nick.” Shane’s throat went tight, and he had to clear it. Twice. “I
like
Crystal. And, at some point—I don’t know when, she’s been whipped.”

Becca’s gasp joined the men’s low curses.

“Before this thing escalates, and she gets caught in the cross fire, I want to bring her here. If she’ll come.” Lacing his hands together, he waited for the blowback.

Nick inhaled to speak, but Jeremy beat him to it. “This is my house, Shane. I don’t know everything that’s going on, but I’m telling you right now that your friend is welcome, and if you need another pair of hands to pack up her stuff and move it over here, just name the time and place. Because what you just described is some major bullshit. And no one deserves to live like that.” Green eyes blazing, Jeremy crossed his arms and nailed Nick with a stare, silently daring him to challenge.

And just then, Jeremy Rixey became Shane’s brother in every way that mattered.

Nick nodded, anger making sharp angles of his face. “I couldn’t agree more,” he said in a tight voice.

The tension deflated from the room faster than a popped balloon. Relief flooded through Shane’s system. Part of him had been braced for a fight. The more people who stayed here, the more resources they required and the higher the vulnerabilities they possessed. He would’ve understood if the whole lot of them had come at him with a list of totally reasonable reservations.

But they’d been there for him. And Crystal.

“You realize she’s a package deal,” Easy said in a low voice from beside him. “Jenna?”

“Yeah,” Shane said. He suspected Jenna was going to be the sticking point for Crystal. But first things first. Get both of them to safety. And then figure out how to pick up the pieces. That is, if Crystal and Jenna agreed. And he feared it was a big
if.

“Well, so were me and Charlie, but you all took us in,” Becca said. “I don’t see why that would make a difference. There’s plenty of room in this building, isn’t there?”

Jeremy nodded. “The apartment above ours has electricity and water. Bathroom’s in, and the drywall’s mostly up. Floors are all cement, but . . .” He shrugged. “It ain’t pretty, but we could certainly buy a couple of beds for up there and let people spread out a little. It’s not like we’re using the space for anything else—”

“Hold up,” Marz said, gesturing for them to quiet down. He scooped the second earbud back to his ear, pressed his fingers against the little black bud, and leaned toward the monitor he’d been eyeing from time to time. “Say it louder, asshole,” he whispered to himself as he punched a sequence of keys. He closed his eyes and pressed his hands to his ears again. “Pier thirteen,” he said almost to himself, and then his gaze whipped up, wide and excited. “I got a voice saying ‘we’re on for Pier thirteen tonight.’”

Holy shit. Was Marz saying what Shane thought he was saying? “You got the location for the delivery?” Shane asked, moving around behind Marz’s chair. Easy and Beckett joined them, then Nick and Becca, until they were all crowded in together.

Marz’s hands flew over the keyboard of a laptop sitting off to the side, the only machine not engaged in the audio and video surveillance of Confessions. He typed in “Pier 13 Baltimore.” A listing of search results appeared on the monitor. Every one related to the same address on Newgate Avenue, at the northwestern end of the marine terminal.

Running one last search, Marz sat back, and the whole group of them watched as a satellite image of Pier 13 took shape on the screen.

“Right there’s where we’re headed, boys.” Marz pointed at the monitor, his tone victorious. “Right there is where we start to get some answers.”

“W
HY, WHY, WHY
?” Crystal murmured to herself as she peeked in on the bubbling pan of lasagna. Five more minutes, and it would be done. Which meant that she had no more than fifteen minutes before Bruno would be here for dinner. The one she’d invited him to the other night when she’d been trying to gather information about the big meeting at the marine terminal he had in a few hours.

Because she hadn’t wanted him to get suspicious of her questions. And she’d needed him to believe she wanted to spend time with him.
And
because she’d been trying to appease his anger about a man having been in the apartment.

So when Bruno had called after lunchtime and said he’d like to come over after all, there wasn’t really anything she could do but agree.

How was it possible that conversation had only been a few days before? It seemed like a lifetime ago.

Twisting the hot pads in her hands, Crystal thought back over the week. On the outside, she appeared just the same. Same woman. Same job. Same sorta boyfriend. Same miserable reality. But on the inside, it was like there’d been a flood, and when the waters receded, everything had been reshaped and relocated into a totally different landscape.

The buzzer on the oven screeched. Crystal flinched from her thoughts and shut it off, then she very carefully removed the glass dish from the wire rack and set it on the stovetop to cool.

Lasagna was Bruno’s favorite. It was a shame, really, because as much as she liked it, if she ever got away from him, she might never eat it again.

As the scent of warm cheese, spicy sauce, and garlic bread filled the air of the small apartment, Crystal could reduce every bit of the raging storm that was her life right now to two words: Shane McCallan.

The man for whom she’d asked the questions.

The man she’d gone and fallen for. Like an idiot.

The man she could never, ever have.

Not that he’d want her after he’d felt the ruined mess that was her back. If he hadn’t thought her a spineless loser before, he surely would now.

The backs of her eyes stung with regrets and grief, and Crystal let herself wallow in those feelings for exactly one more minute. When the LED on the stove clock flickered from 4:58 to 4:59, she forced herself to box that crap up tight and put it away. For good.

She needed to be a convincingly adoring girlfriend tonight, in every way Bruno expected. In
any
way Bruno expected. Which was why she’d worn her skinny jeans and the black shirt she’d made with the deep vee in the front that he liked so much. Tonight was all about pleasing Bruno. Grabbing a Sprite from the fridge, she gulped down a large swallow, washing away the sour bile that crept up the back of her throat when she thought of what that likely meant.

You can do it, Crystal. You’ve survived worse.

True. But using that as a benchmark was a helluva way to have to live your life.

Eight months.
The hustle and bustle of New York’s Seventh Avenue popped into her mind’s eye. She’d been there once for a long weekend her freshman year of college, and the dynamism of the city had imprinted itself on her forever. Surely, she and Jenna would be safe in a place so large, so busy, so crowded with people.

A key sounded against the door handle, then the door opened.

She pushed the musings away. Showtime.

Crystal swept out of the kitchen with a big smile on her face. “Hey. You’re here.”

Bruno smiled and grasped her face in his hands. “Yes, I am, baby. And something smells good,” he said, kissing her roughly and walking her backward into the kitchen.

Too wet, too much tongue, too much alcohol on his breath,
she thought, completely aware she was using a very particular point of comparison in the form of a sexy former soldier with the most charming smile she’d ever seen. But none of that mattered right now, so she threw herself into it and laughed as he backed her into the counter. “Me?” she said, laughing.

Bruno pulled a piece of cheese from the corner of the dish and popped it into his mouth. “Well, you’re okay, too.”

She smiled because since he thought that was funny, she had to react like it was. “You hungry now? Because everything’s ready. I can dish it up right away.”

He stepped back and whipped off his leather jacket, revealing the double holster hidden underneath. “Yeah. Starving,” he said, leaving the kitchen. His coat and guns fell on the couch with a heavy thump. He sat at the small dining table and tapped out a message on his cell phone. Waiting to be served.

Despite the fact that Crystal’s stomach was seriously flirting with a full-scale rebellion, she plated two servings of lasagna and bread and carried them to the already-set table. “What would you like to drink?” she asked, realizing as she said it she’d slipped into her waitress voice. Which when you thought about it made a lot of sense. She lived to serve.

Thumbs still moving over his phone, Bruno shrugged. “You know what I like,” he said without looking up.

She returned to the kitchen and grabbed a can of Natty Boh from the fridge for Bruno and her Sprite. Back at the table, she set the drinks down with a smile and joined Bruno at the only other chair.

Bruno dove right in, taking big forkfuls despite the fact that the sauce was too hot, causing him to suck in mouthfuls of air and gulp down swallows of beer.

“Is it good, baby?” Crystal asked, not yet having touched her own.

He grunted affirmatively and forked in another mound of noodles and sauce. God, he even
ate
aggressively. How had she never before noticed? With the sounds of Bruno’s eager eating filling the room, Crystal sliced the edge of her fork into the corner of her portion of lasagna and scooped a small bite into her mouth.

It must’ve been good, because Bruno was absolutely hoovering it down, but it tasted like cardboard in her own mouth.

“How was your day?” she asked.

“Um,” he said around a swallow. “Okay. Busy getting ready for tonight. You know how it is.”

“Yeah. You always have so much on your plate.”

He sucked a bit of sauce off his thumb. “That’s why I have you. To relax me. Help me blow off steam.”

Yes, that’s what Crystal was good for. At least as far as Bruno was concerned. She smiled and tucked into another bite, but all she could think about was Shane’s wanting to talk to her, wanting to get to know her. For an instant, she wondered what it would be like to cook dinner for Shane, to have him over to her apartment, to go out on a date with him. Would he hold her hand again? Would he want to hold
her
again? Would they talk all night or just sit in the quiet peacefulness of one another’s arms?

“Crystal?
Crystal?
” Fingers snapped in front of her face. “Where the hell’d you go?”

“Oh, sorry,” she said as warmth crept into her cheeks.

“More,” he said, pushing his plate toward her.

She scurried out of her seat and grabbed the plate. “Of course. Coming right up.” She nearly collapsed against the counter.
Get your head in the game, Crystal.
With a deep breath, she got Bruno’s seconds and ran them out to him. “Here you go. I’m so glad you like it.”

He grunted around a bite. God, was he always this much of a cretin?

Probably. Definitely. Now it was so prominent because she had something—someone—to compare him against.

Pushing away the thought, Crystal forced herself to eat more than half of her portion of lasagna while he responded to another series of text messages. She didn’t want to do anything to draw Bruno’s attention and make him wonder any more about her behavior.

“Jenna around tonight?” he asked, wiping his mouth on the paper napkin and throwing it onto his empty plate.

“Not ’til later,” she said, knowing where this conversation was going. “She’s staying on campus to do some research at the library.” And thank God for that. Because after the way they’d been fighting the past few days, the last thing Crystal wanted was for Jenna to witness her little performance here tonight.