Riordan (16 page)

kitchen updated, as well replacing appliances that need it. And see that your home is renovated

too. Does Mrs. Price live here, too? If so, see that she has what she needs as well.”

After they were gone, she wrapped her arms around Riordan. He kissed the top of her head

and then lifted her chin up so that she could see him. His smile made her think he was enjoying

this.

“Not one
fuck
or
shit
the entire time you were talking to them. Could it be that you might be

civilized after all?” She told him to fuck off. “Ah, there’s my girl. So, we’re living here, now?”

“If you’re sure you want to.” He picked her up and sat with her on his lap at the big desk. “I

still want to work. Go to the bakery every day and make things.”

“I think you should. And I’ll work, too. But not every day. And I would appreciate it if you

didn’t work every day either. It’s obvious that you can afford it.” She nodded. “My parents are

coming, by the way. As are my brothers. Don’t be overwhelmed if my mom tries to help you

with the house.”

“I won’t. I like her and your dad.” Storm leaned on his chest as she continued. “I’d like for

my aunts to live here, too, if they want. I know that they have a house of their own, but they’re

not young anymore, and the yard work is a lot for them.”

“I was going to suggest it.” He held her for a long time, and she felt his breaths rise and fall

slowly. “Storm, will you marry me?”

Tony didn’t want to do this today. He had stuff to do, things to be preparing for. But he

needed to make them aware of what was going on, as soon as possible. But when he pulled into

the big drive, he changed his mind. Today, he discovered, was a day for family. He nearly turned

around and drove off, but Mac came out of the house to greet him.

“It’s family here now. I can come back tomorrow.” Mac put his arm around him and led him

to the big front of the house. “Seriously, one more day won’t make that much difference.”

“Sure it will. You came all the way here to warn them about something…I can see it on your

face. And the best time to warn family is when they’re all together. Come in and have some

dinner. I’m sure there will be plenty, and if not, then you’ll have to starve. Because as good as

the smell is coming from that kitchen, I’m not going to give you any portion of what’s mine.”

Tony nodded, knowing that he’d just blow off dinner with them and get this over with quickly.

“Tony, are they in trouble?”

“She is. And I would think your brother is, simply because he’ll not leave her to do this on

her own.” Mac nodded this time as they made their way to the big dining room. The table was

being set, dishes were being argued over, and he had to smile. “She’ll get her way…Mrs.

Harrison. She always does.”

“I’m letting her win this time because she had a good point. Hello, Tony. You’ll join us,

yes?” He didn’t answer but did ask about the argument. “She thinks that these dishes are ugly,

but I do not. But when she explained to me their origin, I have to agree now. I’m going to use

them at the bakery for my luncheons. That way, if they are broken, no one cares.”

He thought them ugly, too, but said nothing about them. He’d been eating meals from a tray

for so long that he wasn’t sure that he’d know what to do with a set of dishes. And a coffee cup

that didn’t have as many chips as it did stains. When Storm came back in the room, he asked to

speak to her and Riordan for a moment. She took him to an office that was bigger than his entire

apartment.

“My father’s, but Riordan is going to make it his own. And the house, too. Thank you for

seeing to it while I tried to…whatever it was I was doing.” Tony told her it was his pleasure. “I’d

forgotten how big this place is, and how cold.”

“I had no idea you came from this much. You never said. The first time I came here, I

thought for sure I had the wrong address.” Riordan said nothing, but Tony could tell that while

the place was bigger than the one that his family had, he saw it as nothing more than a place to

rest his hat. Even by military standards, this place was huge and had a wealth that he’d bet went

back for several generations. “I have to talk to you about some things. You might want to brief

Riordan’s family later, but for now, I’m going to tell you what we know.”

He laid five pictures in front of them when they sat at the long oak table. It was polished to a

high sheen, and the grain in the wood was beautiful. Tony sat down in the chair across from them

and asked Storm if she knew any of the men in the photos. This wasn’t what he wanted to be

doing, but he’d been sent by someone higher on the food chain than him.

“Yes. All of them. They were the last thing we were assigned before the accident. I never

got to…it wasn’t anything I was involved in before that, and after…well, I never went back.” He

nodded. “They’re coming for me, aren’t they?”

“Yes. Well, some of them are. They don’t know who you are as yet, but I have a feeling that

that won’t be long in coming. This one is calling himself the Viper.” He pointed to the middle

picture. “The others have similar names. These two are Bear and Demon, for whatever reason.

And these two on the end are Massacre and Destruction. These latter two are dead. Killed five

days ago at an airport here in the States. We are looking to see how they got in and where they

were headed, but a woman at the airport recognized their faces and made a call to my office. I

had nine men, all out going, there at the same place, and they took them out.”

“Out going?” Tony had forgotten that Riordan wouldn’t be up on their language and

explained. “So you had men there that just happened to be going back overseas, and they just

happened to be armed to do this.”

“Yes.” He waited for the man to ask more. He was smart and he’d know things that

wouldn’t come to most civilians. When Riordan looked at Storm, she smiled at him.

“Like police, Special Forces are on duty at all times. And I would imagine that these men

weren’t really going out, but just making it appear that way. In most all larger airports there are

people like this patrolling all the time. It’s what keeps you safe.” Tony neither agreed nor

disagreed with what Storm just said, but Riordan nodded as if he understood the reason for it all.

“So what makes you think that they’re after Storm? Maybe there is someone else that they

were targeting.” Tony lay the final picture on the table. It was blood stained, having been taken

from one of the deceased. It was an old, somewhat blurry picture of Storm when she was in

country. She was standing next to two of her men, and her face was bright with laughter. “Who

took this?”

“That’s what we need to find out.” Storm picked the picture up. “I’m here to ask you if you

are sure all of your men were killed that day.”

She didn’t even flinch from the question, and he knew that she’d been thinking the same

thing. But the longer she stared at the photo, the more nervous he became. Riordan got up and

went to the door, and in a few minutes someone brought in a tray of drinks, as well as a platter of

cheese and crackers. He took the drink but declined the food. When she laid the picture down, he

could see she was upset.

“We were leaving for the last ride. I had just told a joke about…well, it’s not a very nice

joke, and there are times when I can’t believe I said some of those things. But we were stressed

and it helped to calm us. But one of them pulled out a cell and snapped us. I was stunned at first

when he stood there with the phone, and when I took it from him, he didn’t fight me when I put a

round in it.” Riordan asked her why she’d done that. “We weren’t allowed to have them. Not at

all. Not just because we couldn’t be talking on it when we should be working, but for the exact

reason that he used it for. We were elite and our faces were never known. He sent it to someone,

didn’t he?”

“We think so. It took us a while to figure it out. Since you destroyed the phone, it will be

harder to figure out who received the picture. Then someone in the office got the bright idea to

try and narrow down where it was taken. After that, it was a piece of cake to see what phones in

that area sent something out. It’s not the only one that he took and sent out. There were pictures

of all of you. But mostly you.” Storm got up to pace, and Tony continued. “Ten days ago, this

surfaced on the Internet. I wasn’t made aware of it until five days ago, after the shooting at the

airport. Since then, I’ve had a team looking into seeing if there were more of them. There are

four that we’ve found of you. Ten more of the team. And two of the day that you were bombed.”

“Have you found him yet?” He told her he had not. “Then you’re sure that it’s Malcom

Brewer? I mean, no doubt at all.”

“Not until this very moment, no, I wasn’t sure. Why do you think it’s him? Besides the

phone, I mean?” He wanted to know her reasoning. A phone was nothing. Any one of them

could have taken this picture and the others, and it had little to do with Brewer. But she’d worked

with him and the others for years; she’d know him better than anyone.

“He had money.” He nodded. Tony knew that as well. His accounts had had a huge flux of

money going in and out prior to the bombing, and now they were empty, closed out three days

after they had picked up Storm. “I think I had a feeling then, and I was going to say something to

someone, but we were going out again and I’d…I guess I just didn’t want to believe it. Have you

contacted his wife?”

“Dead.” She nodded as if she might have known that. “His house has been sold, as have the

cars he had here as well. Cash, so there was no tracking the money. Nothing is paid off in the

form of his loans, credit cards, or nothing.”

“Why would he if you thought he was dead?” Tony looked at Riordan when he spoke. “I’d

look offshore if you haven’t already. He’d have to have somewhere to stash the money. And in

my experience in dealing with people who are cheats, once a liar always one. And the people he

was working for more than likely know that as well.”

“So you think that whoever he sent the picture to is more than likely thinking that he’ll go

against them as well?” It had been considered around the team, then dismissed when he pointed

out a few things to them. Most of it was speculation, and others…well, they dismissed it, and he

was glad for it. “What else could he give them after the pictures? That’s what has us stumped.”

Instead of answering his question, Riordan pointed to the pictures of the men. “These men,

they’re not American. Won’t blend in. They more than likely have attitudes that will make them

stand out. I’ve worked with some other foreign companies that continued to fail no matter how

many times we tried to help them because of their morals and ways they did things, such as the

way they treated women in their business. These men would have much of the same ground into

their heads.” Tony nodded. “This Brewer person, I’m assuming he’s the boy next door type.

Blond, blue eyed or something like that. Probably has an accent.”

Storm laughed. “Yeah. Texas. And he had green eyes with the reddest hair you’ve ever seen.

Called him Red for the first year, but we finally had to stop when we got a guy on the team that

was actually called Red. So you think he’s just like one of the guys, could be here already, telling

them all about me.”

Tony watched Riordan. He was a great deal like Storm in that he didn’t think aloud but

thought things through. He watched his face for any kind of tell, but there wasn’t any. And just

like Stormy, Tony would never play poker with this man. He wanted answers, damn it.

“He’s more than likely living and working right in this town. And reporting back to whoever

it is that is looking for you right now.” Tony had thought so, too. “Now that we know this, we

can fight back. Get his scent. Make sure the family and anyone else around us that can help track

his whereabouts sees his picture. We sniff him out, quite literally.”

“I have a team coming here.” Storm was shaking her head while Riordan was nodding.

“They’re part of the team that you’ve worked with before. You’d be in charge of them.”

“I’m not ready to be in charge yet.” He thought she’d been ready the day she was released

from the hospital, but thought that saying that now would piss her off more. “Fuck, Tony, I’m

just getting my life back in shape. Why do I want with a bunch of pussies working under me?”

“Yeah, Burkhardt said the same about you.” It was a long shot and one that could get the

man killed, and Burkhart no more wanted to work with Storm than she did him. But they were

perfectly matched when it came to working. And Tony needed to have Burkhardt watching over

Storm for him. “He said he’d rather the shooter came to him about getting you dead. Not his

exact words, but close enough.”

“Yeah?” He nodded. “You’re so full of shit. Did you really think you could play me like