The Salvation of Vengeance (Wanted Men #2) (14 page)

His vision quivered with quiet rage. This predator had gotten what he deserved.

No sooner had the thought passed through his mind than the image of a young girl with soft chocolate-brown hair and cheerful brown eyes floated to center stage. He hadn’t allowed that to happen in a while. Must be more tired than he thought. He squeezed his eyes shut as pain and loss skewered him at Sophia’s memory.

The last time he’d seen her alive she’d been standing in the doorway of their brownstone. It was her birthday, and she’d been wearing the leather jacket he’d bought her. She’d liked it for the fashion sense; he’d wanted her well protected when she rode on the back of his bike. The chatter of her friends had spilled out of the house and she’d blown him a rushed kiss as he’d climbed into the front seat of Gabriel’s Explorer. He’d waved her back inside when her friend Ashlyn had appeared behind her, mouth twisted in an expression of annoyance, phone in hand. Vincente had smirked at Sophia’s glare after Ashlyn said something to her.

“What? Did you really think I was going to leave you girls alone all night without a chaperone?” he’d called, grinning when she’d raised her fist at him. The week before, he’d asked Ashlyn’s mom if she wouldn’t mind sitting with the girls until he made it home to supervise the sleepover. Not because he didn’t trust Sophia and her friends, but because he didn’t trust the boys they hung with.

He hadn’t made it home at all that night. Gabriel had taken a bullet to the stomach, and Vincente had been too afraid to leave his boy in the doc’s care in case he up and died on him.

Because he’d been so busy playing nursemaid and had finally crashed on Vasily’s couch in the wee hours, he hadn’t been there the following afternoon when Sophia hadn’t made it home from school. She’d been taken right off the street a block from their house.

The image in his mind’s eye distorted suddenly, youthful health congealing and morphing into a gaunt, destroyed body, countless track marks up and down raw, overly used arms. Lank, dirty brown hair. Bruises over skin now grayish blue in death. He’d been doing nightly rounds of the morgue for months by that point, refusing to believe she was just gone, and he had almost covered the girl and moved on. Until he’d caught sight of the angel wing tattooed on her inner wrist. Given how much ink he’d had at twenty years old, Vincente had been in no position to refuse when she’d asked him if she could get the silver-dollar-size tat. He’d slowly looked back up to Sophia’s face and had felt his humanity seep from him and leak down the drain in the floor, accepting that it was her. The urge to decimate those who’d ruined his baby sister had been a sickness in his very marrow.

He knuckled his burning eyes as a heavy hand landed on his shoulder.

“Come on, V. Let’s go home.”

He let Gabriel turn him, and they walked through the door Quan held open. The three of them left the warehouse in silence and got into the truck.

If only he’d known her birthday was the last time he’d ever see her. If only he’d been there to meet her after school the way he’d liked to do. Goddammit, if only fucking Stefano hadn’t set Gabriel up that night in an effort to get rid of the competition!

If only, if only, if only.

Shutting down the pointless garbage with a vicious slam of the trapdoor in his brain, he watched the passing scenery out the backseat window of Gabriel’s Escalade, the city blocks never ending.

Kind of like this past week.

“Drop me at my place,” he called up to the front of the SUV before they could hit the freeway.

“You’re coming home, V,” Gabriel informed him from the passenger seat.

He kicked the bottom of it. “Drop me at my place. I want to get my bike,” he lied.

Gabriel turned his head so that his profile showed, jaw rolling. Guy was pissed because he’d heard the lie. “First fucking thing in the morning, I want to see your face at home. You don’t show? I come back and burn your goddamn place to the ground. You got it?”

Vincente felt a grin pull up the corners of his mouth. It didn’t last. “Yeah, brother. I got it.”

Gabriel turned to Quan and rattled off the addy to Vincente’s place around Forest Hills in Queens. He used the refurbished auto-body shop when he wasn’t in the mood to make the drive to Old Westbury. He and Gabriel also kept an apartment in Astoria; it was more comfortable but not tricked out with hidey-holes loaded down with weapons and other unmentionables like this place was. And it wasn’t where Vincente kept his Harleys.

Need to see her.

He popped his jaw and wanted to beat Fan Boy down with a few well-placed fists. Fucking idiot wasn’t giving him one minute of peace; he’d busted his balls for days now.

If it wasn’t
What’s she doing right now?
, it was
Is she okay?
or
Does she stay in Caleb’s room or have her own?

That hair-raising thought was usually followed by a possessive urge to breach the fucking wired fence around the clubhouse to make sure she
was
alone. Vincente curbed the urge to slam his head into the window. Or maybe the door frame. It was harder.

Was she eating right? Taking care of herself? Did she have nightmares? Was she scared? Did she feel lonely? Still out of sorts? Was she healing properly? Hurting?

Was her skin still like silk? Did she still smell as addictive as she had the last time he’d held her? Was her hair still as vibrant and rich as he remembered?

He swallowed a groan and glared at the “Don’t Walk” flashing next to them at the light they’d stopped at.

What the fuck was up with him? Since when did he give a shit what a woman’s skin felt like? Or notice enough to remember it? Since when did the scent of a woman make him throw wood the instant it reached his nose? Since when did a woman’s hair color make him feel as if he’d just freebased a bowl of Viagra?

He shifted around on the expensive leather and willed Quan to hit the accelerator.

He had to give it a rest. Nika was off-limits. He knew that. Had accepted it.

Or thought he had.

Especially now he knew what she’d been through. After her ordeal, she deserved peace and happiness more than anyone. With him, she’d never get it. Not in the violent, fucked-up circles he traveled. He also owed it to Caleb to stay away after verbally smacking him the way he had the other night. He’d crossed the line when he’d shoved his own guilt and remorse down the biker’s throat.

Vincente had lent a hand to many a woman throughout the years, but none had ever affected him the way Nika did. Why couldn’t he just deal with this shit for her without wanting to make it personal?

For days now, he’d alternated between trailing Tommy DeLuca and hitting up one scummy hotel after another, circling out from the last place Kevin Nollan had been seen. He’d nailed DeLuca but had come up with bubkes on the one he really wanted.

One interesting thing: Maks had hacked another sealed police report and found some information on the murder weapon used to kill Nollan’s family. And surprise, surprise: Kevin’s prints had been all over the big, bloody blade. The police had held off on formally charging him, though, because the knife had come from the family’s own kitchen and Kevin could have used it at any time to carve a turkey . . . before opening his parents’ and brother’s jugulars.

Pfft. Fucking laws.
He didn’t know how Lorenzo ever made an arrest with his hands tied so tightly.

They entered Vincente’s neighborhood and he unbuckled his seat belt, straining to go for the door. He needed to decompress with an hour of circling his heavy bag. Then maybe he’d call Paynne to see if he had any ideas on where they might have better luck searching for the brother-in-law.

Or maybe Vincente could stop by, just kinda sorta maybe pop in at the clubhouse just to see if she was—

Seriously?

Fan Boy stopped riding his imaginary pony around in a circle and glared at that one remaining sliver of moral fiber Vincente had stashed in the back of his messed-up head.

That sliver stared back, seeming to grow in size as Quan pulled up to the curb and stopped. Vincente hopped from the SUV but paused halfway across the sidewalk when he heard the whir of the Escalade’s window coming down.

“Vincente?”

He turned and looked into his best friend’s mug. Guy looked like the merciless killer he could be when necessary, but all Vincente saw in the hard expression was worry for one of his own.

“First thing,” he promised Gabriel in an effort to ease him. “Tell Sammy I want pancakes. And make sure your wife doesn’t eat them all before I get there,” he added with a wink before carrying on.

They waited until he unlocked and entered his place before driving away.

CHAPTER 9

Nika shook off the permanent sense of unease trailing like a toy train behind her and unlocked the apartment door. She swung it wide and placed the two grocery bags she carried on the floor in the entrance before closing herself in and throwing the locks.

She stilled and listened to the silence for a minute. Normally she’d have had her earbuds in, music cranked while she’d shopped. Not today. She’d been too afraid in case she missed hearing something. Anything. A footstep. Her name being called.

A gunshot going off.

Despite her thoughts, an unfamiliar sense of peace flowed through her, followed almost immediately by a wave of guilt. Caleb was going to be so upset.

She placed the TarMor key ring on the small table to her left and toed off her recently purchased sandals before grabbing the overflowing grocery bags and padding through the bright unit to the kitchen, adjusting the dial on the air conditioner as she went by.

Frick, it was sweltering. But then, it was August in New York.

She put her things on the granite countertop next to the quietly humming refrigerator and popped her iPhone onto the dock before looking around. Stainless-steel appliances and buff-colored walls. Farther out, visible in the open-concept layout, was the living area with its nine-and-a-half-foot ceilings, black leather furniture, and floor-to-ceiling windows. She felt small and too much as though she were rattling around in a space too large for her. She’d have preferred something cozier, tighter, somewhere that might hold her together. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, and that’s what she was, for now.

She’d lasted the week with her brother. Barely. Had spent seven days wandering around the clubhouse in a stupor, Caleb following behind her, doing things for her before she’d had a chance to do them for herself. She’d walk into the kitchen area and he’d have a Coke out of the fridge, tab popped and in her hand before she was even sure that was why she’d gone in there. Meals were the same; her plate would be piled with whatever deliciousness the very talented Vex had whipped up, and she’d be gently shoved into a chair, Caleb mumbling at her.

Eat already. I go faster than a crawl and you’re gonna fly off the back of my bike, Nik.

She’d attempted to do his laundry on Thursday, and he’d bodychecked her out of the way right in the middle of her transfer from washer to dryer, saying she wasn’t there to do his shit for him.

She’d also stupidly spent those seven days wishing things were different, hating the darkening shadows under Caleb’s eyes and the apologetic
nothing yet
he’d give her when she asked about Kevin.

She now saw it as a waste. A waste of seven days where she’d put off beginning her new life plan, which she’d kept as simple as possible: Get a place she could call her own. Avoid any and all romantic entanglements—for now. Get her career back on track. Three simple goals that she had let Eva in on as they’d chatted on the phone this morning—possibly sounding just a tiny bit desperate when she’d mentioned the first one. Within an hour, her absolutely amazing bestie and fab new hubby had shown up at the clubhouse, and, with a stern, disapproving expression, Gabriel had handed Nika the key to this place.

“You can use it for as long as you want. But just know.” His expression had been grave as he leaned in, and Nika had gotten her first glimpse of the intimidating mobster Caleb said Gabriel was. “I think you should listen to your beautiful friend here”—he’d motioned to his wife—“and reconsider coming back to the house.” He’d waited, holding her eyes, until she shook her head. She wouldn’t budge. If not his apartment, she’d find another.

He’d grumbled something about stubborn women and said, “Fine. I don’t support your decision to go off by yourself, but I certainly understand it. At least this place will be safer than what you’d find on your own. I’ll call the building manager, and he’ll let the doorman know to expect you. If you need anything, there’s security downstairs twenty-four-seven. No one gets in without going through them.”

Knowing Gabriel as she was coming to, Nika suspected she wasn’t really on her own anyway. Not that she’d seen any goons lurking, but she was pretty sure they had to be around the twenty-story building somewhere. She was on the tenth floor and couldn’t help but feel as if she was staying in a hotel, with the amenities the friendly doorman had told her about when she’d first arrived: pool, sauna, hot tub, fitness room. If she didn’t want to—now that she had food—she never had to leave.

Caleb was going to be angry when she told him, probably be insulted that she’d accepted Gabriel’s help and not gone to him first. Nika hated that. Didn’t want to upset him. He was dealing with enough, and not very well, she worried, biting her lip as she began putting things away. There’d been a hardness to him since the night he’d found out what Kevin had been doing to her, a darkness in his expression that had never been there before. They’d gone to Union Square and Chelsea together yesterday so Nika could start on a simple wardrobe of tanks, shorts, and jeans, and for the most part he’d been his usual charming self—fun and comical to the extreme, with his sarcastic comments and dry wit. But every once in a while he’d grown quiet and she’d caught him looking at her, pain and guilt, and something so menacing it had scared her, swimming in the backs of his eyes. She’d hugged him hard every time and told him to stop thinking about whatever it was he was thinking about, stating firmly that it was over and the worst was behind them. He’d hugged her back, forming a protective cage around her, but hadn’t once looked convinced.

They’d work on it, she vowed, once more wishing her brother hadn’t learned what had happened. That had been her aim. She never wanted him to know what she’d gone through for him. The last thing she wanted was for him to carry around guilt and regret the way Vincente did regarding his sister’s tragedy.

Nika quickly sent that distracting name on its way before she was able to start obsessing.

At least she hadn’t had to borrow money from Caleb—one less dent in her nonexistent pride. She’d used, for the first time, the inheritance their father had left her, the nest egg she would continue to use until she was on her feet again. Thank God Kevin hadn’t known about it, otherwise he would have pissed it away like he had his own money. The fund wasn’t endless, but it was enough to get her through the couple of months it would take to get settled in her new job and start earning a steady paycheck again. She’d replenish it then. She and Eva had briefly spoken about a position at TarMor, and she’d cringed at yet another handout. But, again, beggars couldn’t be choosy and ungrateful, so she’d agreed to let Eva ask around. With any luck there would be an opening, and she’d settle into her duties there as easily as she had at the firm she’d worked at in Seattle. She still missed the girls in her office, most of them young mothers, a few of the still-single ones whom she’d gone out with a time or two. She’d been comfortable there. Hopefully she could find that again.

Shaking her head at how she sounded, even to herself, she vowed again that she wouldn’t play the victim. That wasn’t her role. She was the survivor. She’d won. And she was going to act like the champion she was. Well, maybe not like a champion. But she would sure strive for normalcy, if nothing else. She would stay in this huge place only as long as it took for her to get on her feet so she could move on as the independent woman she’d been raised to be. She didn’t need anyone else. And she was going to make sure it stayed that way. She would fulfill the daydreams she’d had while sitting in the corner of the sofa, Kevin jammed right next to her as he’d watched TV. Not for anything would she be beholden to a man again.

Nika leaned over and fiddled with her iPhone for some music to fill the silence. She had to admit she’d never enjoyed a trip to the supermarket more than she had this one. Completely on her own. No one watching over her shoulder. No one waiting for her return. No one to riffle through her purchases now, yelling at her for spending too much money, backhanding her for not buying enough items—which would mean another trip to the store once her nose stopped bleeding—shoving her to the floor because she’d gotten the wrong brand/flavor, and so on.

She warded off another flash of goose bumps and stashed her Nutella and bread, not bothering to wash the grape she popped into her mouth before stowing the pale-green bunch in the fridge next to the cheese, olives, and apples she’d bought.

Finished, she padded through the spacious living room to look out the window that overlooked what the doorman had told her was the Triborough Bridge. Great view. She peeked directly below her and had to step back when vertigo hit her. Heights had never been her thing.

She took her cell out of the back pocket of her jeans and texted Caleb. As she typed in her request to meet up, she knew she should just call, but she was being cowardly.

Meet you where? You’re at home, right?

She cringed at his response and typed in the name of the deli at the corner, giving him the crossroads so he could enter them into his phone. She wasn’t sure if he knew that Gabriel—

Her phone rang.
Shit.

“Hello?”

“Where the hell are you? Tell me you took one of the boys with you.”

Her brother’s voice was low and furious. He must be around people.

“I’m fine, Caleb. Can you meet me at the deli? I need to talk to you.”

“What are you doing there? Why couldn’t we talk when I got home?”

Stubborn man.
“I’m heading to the deli now. We’ll talk when you get there, ’kay? Drive carefully.”

She hung up before he could respond and was surprised when he didn’t call her back immediately. She didn’t worry that he’d yell at her or anything. Caleb wasn’t a yeller. He was more a calm, cold, and deadly type.

Turning away from the view, she tucked her phone away and headed for the door, feeling rather calm and collected herself. She wasn’t having this meeting with her brother to ask his permission for her to begin her life. She was simply offering him the courtesy of letting him know she’d made her move. She only hoped he understood her desperate yearning for independence. Because it was too strong a desire for her to ignore. For anyone.

Vincente knocked Quan’s offered fist with his own before taking a chair poolside; the lights beneath the water reflected off the glass-topped table in front of him. Gabriel strummed through a Simon and Garfunkel classic on his prized ’58 Fender Telecaster and didn’t open his mouth until those talented fingers stilled after the final chord.

“You made it,” he observed.

Guilt over the fact that he’d pretty much been MIA since the night of the wedding, aside from last night, and a good helping of
I’m-fucking-embarrassed
—because he was so off the rails over a mere woman—popped Vincente in the chest at the lead-in. Not to mention morning, and those pancakes he’d asked for the night before, had passed by without him showing, more than twelve hours ago.

Not knowing what else to say, he responded with a clipped, “Yup.”

“It’s like that, is it? Well, then, I’d better get started before you fuck off again.” Gabriel placed the guitar across his thighs as if it were a freaking newborn, jaw rolling like his teeth needed the workout. “What happened to your craving for pancakes? Did you hit up an IHOP in favor of the homemade kind? And where the fuck have you been lately? I know you haven’t been to your place, other than last night. You weren’t in Astoria—and don’t bother going to the apartment now because it’s being sprayed for roaches. You’ve given ROM zero attention in the last month; that company of yours will not run itself. I hear, again through Maks, that you’re out there searching for Nollan on your own. We have more on our plate than finding that fucking lowlife, V.” He paused, leaning forward to wrap his hands around what was probably Stoli being watered down by melting ice cubes in front of him. “You know what I see when I look at you?”

A disloyal, unreliable pussy who can’t stop thinking about his friend’s damaged sister?
“What.”

“Me.”

Vincente narrowed his eyes. “How’s that?”

“You’re doing exactly what I’d do if it was Eva in Nika’s position. But with much more . . . control . . . than I’d have the frame of mind to use.”

From what Vincente remembered, Gabriel’s control when Eva was in that cabin with Stefano had been dead-on.

And he’d just been busted. He shifted in his chair. “What. So you think I’m, what, like, in love with your wife’s friend?”

“Shiiit.” Quan got to his feet, thumping him on the shoulder as he headed inside. “That was so sadly lacking in genuine incredulity and disgust that I’m officially embarrassed for you.”

Vincente glared at the fucker’s retreating back.
Arrogant prick.
“Guy’s cruising for one. When’s Jak coming?” They’d known the tough motherfucker since junior high. Aside from closing up shop in Seattle for Gabriel’s return to New York, he was also overseeing the transfer of Eva’s remaining possessions from her house on Mercer Island, which she’d decided to keep for the foreseeable future. Vincente didn’t blame her. There must be a lot of memories there of her life growing up with her mother. Only memories, though. It had taken Vincente eight years before he’d had the skin to sell the brownstone after Sophia’s death.