Protected by Shadows (28 page)

Trevor stroked his goatee. “To deal with the issue of his death. And I thought I would check in on you. See how you were doing.”

The smell of fear permeated the air. All members knew Trevor didn’t ‘see how you were doing’ for any of his people. That usually meant someone was about to die.

Good.
“Now handle this for me.” He held out a folded sheet of yellow paper. Trevor watched John’s expression as he took and read the instructions. The man swallowed a few times before nodding.

“I understand.”

Trevor walked to the door. “Don’t ever forget me again. And John?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Clean this place up.”

“Yes, sir.”

He left, blew an annoyed breath then walked down to the waiting white Benz. “Go,” he ordered, as he slid into the back to be met by the refreshing coolness of the air conditioning. The driver listened.

* * * *

Four hours later, he walked through the dark and into the old warehouse he’d been driven to. The farther he progressed in, the louder the whimpers became. Eventually he reached his destination.

John and another man stood behind the woman tied to the chair with a bag over her head. She whined and continually worked her wrists as if she’d find a way to free herself.

He popped in a piece of gum and yanked the bag off her head. Her reddish-brown hair, tousled and mussed, framed her face as she blinked up at him. There was a gag in her mouth and he withdrew his knife. Her screams grew as her eyes widened. She tried to squirm away when he flicked the blade free.

“Don’t be so dramatic.” He sliced through the material, briefly admiring the look of his shiny blade against her overly tanned skin. She spent too many hours in a sunbed. “I have some questions for you and I want instant and honest answers.”

She was trying to be brave—he could see she wanted to be, she just couldn’t quite pull it off. Had she been able to, he might have been almost proud. As it was he felt nothing. Never did.

Correction,
his brain popped in.
You did when you confronted Valentino Cassano.

That was an extremely honest statement. There’d been a thrill building in him as Valentino knelt before him, begging for the life of his son. A feeling that put sexual experiences to shame and one feeling since then he’d never been able to duplicate.

When he’d been interrupted on that fateful night with Mr Cassano, he’d been unable to finish his fun. Having been unable to complete his objective, he’d been overtaken by another emotion. Anger. Raw, unchecked fury had pulsed through him with every solitary heartbeat.

How dare that man get away! He had so much to atone for.

As the years passed, Trevor had taken over as the undisputed leader of The Watchers. No one knew he’d also been the one to poison Marcell Wingo, their previous leader. He supposed some might have wondered but none challenged him. All they knew was that Marcell had died a horrible and painful death. Some had been shocked and disgusted by Marcell’s looks before he’d finally found solace in death. Trevor had only been intrigued.

He still wished—to this day—he’d taken more time administering poison so he could have watched him suffer longer. It wasn’t meant to be.

Trevor in this position was meant to be. He was everything Marcell couldn’t be. Trevor had made them wealthy. Put them on the map—more than they had been. Now, they were a group the government both feared and hunted.

The Watchers didn’t worry about petty crap like the white supremacist groups did. The country hadn’t been founded by whites, so their claim of putting it back to how it was made held no logic—that argument meant they had to leave as well. No, this was about the government and remembering the reasons they settled here. Remembering and honoring the words of the Constitution.

Currently they were setting up for a huge statement. His only problem was John and his obsession with Lexy. He’d allowed the man to think they could use the woman and perhaps in the future they could. Right now, however, it was more of a test to see if he could control her. Something he wasn’t sure John could do at all.

I have one too.
Although his was more the one who got away. It did appear that Lexy was a direct link to that man.

With a sigh, he focused back on the woman before him. He picked up some cutters and dragged a stool up to her. “I ask. You answer. Any hesitations and this happens.”

He cut her middle finger off at the knuckle closest to her hand. Her scream wasn’t loud, given she probably had very little moisture in her mouth or throat. He held up her finger before her face.

“Nine more and ten toes before I get to be inventive.” He dropped the digit. “How did he die?”

She wouldn’t stop crying so he did the thumb on her other hand. “I am not”—he released the bloody item and it bounced on the floor only to land in some more of her own blood—“one to repeat myself.”

“Th…th…they said he just died. His heart stopped.”

“Could it be a lie?”

She vehemently shook her head. “No.” Her word was nearly impossible to hear.

He tapped his upper lip, the cutters right in his face. “So the siblings’ reaction seemed heartfelt and real? Not contrived?”

Her head made more of a circle, but he waited and gave her a chance. Feeding false hope to them tended to make what he got to do last longer. “Yes. Hector arrived first then Lexy with her husband.”

His heart fluttered. Getting closer.

“Is he still an investment banker?”

“Hector’s a vet.”

“No, not Hector.” His voice showed emotion and he took two fingers this time as she cried in agony. “Never Hector.”

The moment he realized how he sounded, he took a deep breath and willed himself to calm down. Flicking a glance up, he noticed both John and Allen were studiously ignoring him and standing there with blank expressions on their faces. They were smart men, pretending they didn’t see his cool slip.

“Please,” she begged. “Can’t we work something out? I did the best I could. I didn’t fail him.”

Trevor crossed his arms and leaned back. “Didn’t fail who?”

“Mr Mansfield.”

There was a bit of awe in her voice when she spoke the name. Trevor tilted his head to the side and studied her.

“You did. Eugene is dead.”

“But it wasn’t my fault,” she protested. “I’ll do anything, just don’t tell him you found me.”

He leaned forward and smoothed some of her sweaty hair from her face. “What are you offering?”

“Anything.”

“Where would you go? He has his people everywhere.”

“Somewhere he wouldn’t think to look for me. He doesn’t know what I look like. Just let me go, I promise I won’t go to the cops.”

“What do you think he’d do to me?”

“You could run away as well.”

“And the men against the wall?”

Her eyes were wild. “I don’t know. Just let me go!” She rocked back and forth in the chair in a frantic attempt to get away.

“I can’t do that.”

“Please!” Tears streamed down her face.

“Nope. And I’ll tell you why. Because he does know what you look like.”

“How?”

He leaned closer. “I’m Trevor Mansfield.”

She paled beneath her tanned skin and shook her head as she slumped in the chair, her fate having been realized and accepted.

* * * *

The paper dropped in front of him and Valentino looked up at Lexy who stood there with a frown on her face. It was the first he’d seen her since they’d made love earlier. After the nightmare, which still lingered, wounds had been reopened and he wasn’t sure how to sew them back up.

“Yes?”

“Read that.”

“Which article?”

“The one where one of Eugene’s nurses, Sally, was found in pieces in a warehouse. Pieces, Val! Each finger and toe removed. The tips of her breasts and even the nose on her face.”

“Let me read,” he ordered.

It didn’t take him long then he lowered the paper to the table. Disgust roiled through him and he glanced back up to see Lexy watching him with an indescribable emotion on her face.

“You knew Sally well?”

“More once Eugene was admitted, she was there every morning. She was bubbly and a good nurse as far as I know. Who the hell would do this to her? Does it have something to do with The Watchers?”

“My first response would be yes. Someone wanted to make an example of her but that doesn’t match the emotionless tag which is tied to Trevor. Maybe one of his men went out on their own and did this, I’m not sure.”

“They had to ID her from dental records. Dental records! That’s how mutilated her body was.” She rubbed her arms and he knew she felt guilty for this.

He reached up and drew her to stand between his legs. “Don’t blame yourself for this, Lexy.”

“How can I not?”

“How can you? These people are playing you. You don’t have control over their actions.”

She tapped her foot then placed it on the seat between his legs. The point of her boot aimed directly at his crotch. He didn’t move, trusting she wasn’t about to kick him. Lexy bent in closer and leaned over her knee at him.

“These bastards are really beginning to piss me off, Val. I am tired of letting them call the shots.”

“Me too,” he admitted.

She backed away and sat across from him. “So what’s the plan?”

“Plan?”

“Yes, plan. I am tired of sitting here and waiting. Let’s go after them.”

“No.” The word slipped out before he even realized it was an option to say.

Not a good option, given the look on Lexy’s face. She scowled at him. “What do you mean no?”

“Did you not just read what I did? How they killed her? If you think I’m letting you put yourself in that situation, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“I’m already in this situation!” she hollered, shoving to her feet. “I’m up to my throat in it. You can’t keep me on the sidelines, Valentino. For some reason it’s me they want. Not you. Me. Unless you think this is some sick thing to get to you, but that doesn’t even begin to make sense, since you weren’t near when they first went after my brother.” She took deep breaths and he could see her try to relax and regain some control. “I don’t know how things are done in an Italian family, but down here, in the South, in mine, we don’t run from things. We band together and kick the everlasting fucking shit out of the ones who hurt us.”

Lord, she was something else when she was pissed off. Her eyes were hard as flint and cold as the Arctic Circle. Her lithe body trembled and he knew it was with fury, not fear.

“Italian families protect their own as well.”

“Really? Great. Then go protect yours and let me do the same for mine. I’m tired of waiting for this fucker to make moves. It only allows him to be ahead of me.”

He rose to his feet as if he had all the time in the world, when in truth, it was so that he didn’t grab her. Her words were the last things he wanted to hear.

“I
am
protecting what’s mine.” His voice was low and deadly. When she paced by him, he snapped out an arm and stopped her. “Make no mistake about that, Alexsa.”

She froze, much like a deer in headlights. Those thickly lashed eyes of hers blinked a few times before she tried to pull free. He didn’t release her and held her gaze.

“Don’t lie to either one of us, Valentino. The only reason you’re even here is because of your need to capture this Trevor Mansfield. If his group had targeted another woman, you’d be with her.” Her pinched expression told him of her jealousy.

He tugged her closer and put them so their lips nearly touched. “Is that what you think? I came all this way to settle a score with Trevor?”

“Yes.” The honest reply she gave hit home deep. “I don’t know what he is to you, but it’s personal. I can read you like a book.”

“Can you?” he taunted. Damn her for being right.

“It has to do with that God damn ring you used to wear all the time. I don’t know how it ties into that, but your ex-wife does. Don’t try to appease me by saying crap like that. I thought you were better than that.”

He shoved his hand through her hair, anchoring her where he wanted her. Immediately hostile, as he was anytime Alyssa was mentioned, he struggled not to shake her. “You can’t read me as well as you thought, Lexy.” He tightened his grip and kissed her. Dominated her mouth until she sank into him. “You are mine.” He released her and stepped away. “And you’re not going after him.” His tone was final, with no room for discussion.

Her sharp laughter told him it wasn’t going to be that simple. But then, nothing was when it came to dealing with Lexy. He watched it on her face as she shifted gears, putting her anger to the side, and he knew she was about to come out with something. What, he wasn’t sure.

“Tell me something, Valentino.”

“What?”

“Who’s Marco?”

The air was punched from his lungs and he couldn’t find his breath for a second. “Where’d you hear that name?”