Trust Me: Matty and Kayla, Book 3 of 3 (The McDaniels Brothers 7) (2 page)

BOOK: Trust Me: Matty and Kayla, Book 3 of 3 (The McDaniels Brothers 7)
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I knew this girl. Maybe not everything, and maybe she had some secrets, but I knew her heart. Kayla James was a good person. A kind person, stuck in a terrible situation.

She wasn’t here for Mickey. She was here to find out the truth.

I straightened, motioned to the bartender, and asked for two coffees. As she strode away to fill the order, I turned to Kayla again. “Eddy DeCruz. He owns the strip club on Walton Street. He and your dad have known each other for years. Ran with the same crowd in high school.”

“And what makes this Eddy DeCruz the authority on something that happened ten years ago?”

“People talk, Red. You know that. Stuff like this, where there’s payola and other people involved…it never stays quiet for long. Nobody is going to say anything for fear of retaliation, but the whispers are there.”

“So you’re telling me you want me to turn on my father because of whispers?” Her voice broke then, and she bit her lip, her throat working as she swallowed hard. “How do I do that? After all he’s done for me?”

I knew exactly what he’d done. He’d rescued her from her child molesting uncle, and brought her to Boston. Gave her a place to live.

She felt like she owed him for that. Me? I felt like he was her father. Making sure she didn’t get molested and had a roof over her head was the least he could do, and it sure as shit didn’t make up for the rest of it.

Kayla was struggling with it, though, and all I wanted to do was pull her into my arms and comfort her. Tell her that maybe she was right, maybe it was all bullshit. But I couldn’t. It wasn’t. And I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t just about Mick’s past. The kind of man that would have the mother of his child murdered to keep her from talking wouldn’t hesitate to cut his own kid off at the knees if he had to.

“I didn’t stop with Eddy. I called in some favors, asked some more questions. Seems like there is a prison doctor, Dr. Phillip Perry, who quit shortly after your mother’s death. Reid and I spent days trying to locate him, only to find that he was killed in a car accident six months later. His brakes went and he drove off a cliff in New Hampshire.”

She blanched, her face going chalk-white. “Jesus,” she whispered. “Jesus, Matty, how could he have done that to her? To me?”

The server saved me from having to think of an answer to that, sitting two white mugs in front of us along with a little bowl of cream and sugar before walking off again.

Kayla seemed to be taking the quiet time to get herself together, prepping her coffee like it was a ritual. We sat for a few minutes in silence until she finally broke it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about throwing the fight. I was wrong for that. I knew it then, and I know it now,” she said, picking up her teaspoon and toying with it absently.

“That’s not important now.” And it wasn’t. Funny how important it had seemed just a short week ago. Now, with Kayla’s life hanging in the balance, nothing else mattered. “What’s important is you.”

“We can’t go back, you know. To the way things were, I mean.” Her eyes searched mine, full of despair. “This is all I can handle right now.” She sounded sad. Defeated. “I’m not even mad anymore. I’m just-”

“I get it.” It hurt like a son of a bitch, but I got it.

“As long as we know where we stand. I don’t want to lead you on, but I could really use your help.”

It wasn’t much, but it was something. “Then I’m here.” I took a sip of the black, hot-as-fuck coffee and lifted my head to meet her gaze. “So what’s the plan?”

“The plan?” Her lips curled into a bitter smile and she held out her mug,
clink
ing it against mine. “We make that motherfucker pay.”

Chapter Two

 

Kayla

 

I sat in front of my desk and eyed it with disgust. It was piled high with invoices and checkered with colored Post-It notes bearing scrawled requests from Mickey and his boys.

Apparently, he’d been worried about me when I told him I needed some time off, but not so worried that he didn’t notice the supply of Keurig coffee pods was low in his office and that the air freshener in the bathroom needed to be changed.

I took a glug from my travel mug full of now lukewarm tea and closed my eyes to shut out the clutter. It was probably a good thing I had a lot of work ahead of me. It would keep my mind on the mundane.

At least, during the part of the day where you’re not gathering evidence in hopes of sending your father to prison for the rest of his life.

A low knock sounded on the doorjamb and Mick stepped into my office. “Hey, sweetie. How’s it feel to be back?”

Like I want to leap over the desk and rip your heart out with my hands.

Instead of saying that, though, I worked up the rueful chuckle he was expecting. “I’m fifty-fifty. Glad to be back in the groove, not so glad that you guys decided you would just wait until I came back rather than trying to run this place without me.” I gestured at my overflowing desk and shook my head at him incredulously. “What am I going to do with you?” I asked, hoping that my voice didn’t sound as tinny and fake to him as it did to me.

“It’s not my fault.” He gave me a helpless smile and threw up his hands. “I’m hopeless at that stuff. That’s why I have you.”

The ache started in my chest and traveled outward, until my whole body hurt with the effort not to cry.

I wanted to rage at him. To scream, and hit and tell him I would never, ever forgive him. Instead, I pasted a placid smile on my face. “It’s okay. I’ll dig out by the end of the week. I just have to hunker down and get a shovel, is all.”

He nodded and toyed with the gold ring on his pinky finger. “I have faith in you, kid.” He turned to go, and then turned back like it was an afterthought. “Hey, have you heard from our boy since the fight?”

He scanned my face for clues that I refused to give up. I’d spent my whole night tossing and turning, playing this exact part of the conversation over in my head, so I was more than prepared.

“Yeah. I called him last night to let him know I was back in town. We’re going to meet on Wednesday to talk about the strategy for the fight. He’s not happy about it, but I think he’s coming around to the idea of throwing it if he has to.”

I wasn’t the best of liars, and even as determined as I was, part of me felt like he’d see right through me. After a long moment, though, he nodded, the smug satisfaction apparent on his face.

“I figured he’d see reason eventually, the little prick. I’m sorry I put it out there like that, though.” He shook his head regretfully. “I thought you had told him already. I didn’t mean to cause trouble for you.”

That was bullshit and we both knew it. He hated Matty and had every intention of driving a wedge between us. But that didn’t matter anymore. If I wanted to carry on like it was business as usual, I had to let it slide.

“I know. It was for the best, anyway.” I kept my voice light, and leafed through a handful of papers on the desk in front of me. “After spending the week thinking about it, I know you’re right. He’s more trouble than he’s worth and I’m not going to let him come between us.”

He nodded, clearly satisfied with my answer.

Hook, line and sinker.

“I’m proud of you, sweetie. Family first and always.”

That sentiment sent bile rising in my throat along with words unspoken.

What about my mother, you son of a bitch? She was my family too.

I looked away from him then, sure the fury roiling in my gut was going to shine through. “I better get to it if I’m ever getting out of here tonight.”

“Sure, sure. Hey, I’m going to La Fortuna for lunch at noon if you want me to bring you back a meatball sandwich.”

I didn’t look up, still not trusting myself to keep it all together. “That would be great, thanks,” I said brightly.

He turned and then walked out, and I kept my eyes averted until I was sure he wasn’t coming back. A minute later, I slumped over the desk and pressed my cheek against the cool mahogany, trying to calm my rioting nerves.

How was I going to do this? I’d barely made it through a three minute conversation and my whole body was shaking like a leaf. What if I had to be here another week? Or longer?

The cell phone sitting on the desk next to my ear vibrated and I lifted my head. I peered down at the screen to read the text message flashing there.

It’s going to be okay, Red. We got this. Call if you need me.

Matty.

It was like he knew. Knew that I was falling apart at the seams and was trying to help sew me back together again. The fact that he was still willing to put himself out there and let me know he still cared after all we’d been through and how we’d hurt each other meant more than I could ever express.

But I wasn’t about to confuse gratitude with anything else. In the short time we’d been together, it had become remarkably clear that the rule of double negatives didn’t apply to us. Put us together, and we were anything but a positive. Too much baggage on both sides. Too much pain, old and new. As much as I’d wanted to believe otherwise, we would have destroyed each other.

For now, though, we needed each other to complete this task. Matty would get his life back if Mick went to prison. And me?

Everything I knew and held dear would be destroyed. I would betray the one person who loved me. I would lose my job and my identity and life as I knew it.

But my mother would be avenged.

Someday, that would be enough. Someday, I’d be able to pick myself up and dust myself off and move on. I didn’t expect that day to come any time soon.

I picked up the phone and punched out a quick response to Matty.

Thanks. I’m good. Getting it done.

I tossed my cell onto the desk and straightened, rolling my shoulders. For the rest of the morning, I’d make as much headway as possible on this paperwork to keep up appearances. But come noon, the second Mick and his boys left for lunch, I was going to tear this place apart. The warehouse was the heart of the entire organization. Always had been. All I had to do was get through the flesh and bone protecting it, and then he was mine for the taking.

The next couple hours went by in a blur as I did my best to get through as much of the grunt work as I could. Even in that, little things caught my eye that I’d never really thought about before. Willful, blissful ignorance. An invoice for a bunch of new furniture that we’d never received. Bills for rent on properties we were subletting for eight and nine times the cost. Between just money-laundering scams and extorting cash from people in exchange for “protection”, Mick could have made a great living.

But all that was small potatoes and nobody gave a rat’s crap about it. The Boston PD and everyone else was happy to look the other way while he did his little business, just like I had. Not going to cut it. Like Matty said, we needed to find something big. Something that was going to stick. Proof that he was dangerous.

Deadly.

After pouring myself a cup of coffee, I dove back into the mess. The next time I poked my head out of the pile and looked at my watch, it was noon on the dot.

Game time.

I shoved back my chair and stood, a curious mix of anticipation and dread coalescing in my belly like congealed, Thanksgiving gravy. Once I started, there was no turning back. Mick had eyes and ears everywhere and it wouldn’t be long before he realized I was poking around. The fact that he trusted me implicitly right now meant that I had some leeway. I could make excuses, throw him off the trail. I figured that gave me a week, maybe two, before he got suspicious and he realized I was up to something.

I had to find the mother lode before then, or I was going to be in a world of hurt. The only thing more devastating than the immediate future I had planned was the immediate future if I failed.

If I sacrificed it all only to have Mick come out the other side of it clean? I’d be truly alone in this world with nothing to cling to.

No comfort in my revenge. No relief at a wrong made right. No peace in the knowledge that my mother’s killer had been put behind bars, never to kill again. I’d be adrift, like a sailboat without a mast, whose crew had abandoned ship.

Screw that.

With a renewed sense of purpose, I strode toward my office door and flung it open. I made my way down the hall toward the reception area.

Ariel, the girl at the front desk, was still pretty new. She was the daughter of one of Mick’s thugs and had needed a summer job before she left for her first year in college. Mick had her doing some filing and answering phones for some of his more legit businesses, but she wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.

All the better for me.

I strode in, muttering curses under my breath, but loudly enough for her to hear me.

“Oh, hey!” Her chair squealed furiously as she rushed to shut down a window on her desktop that looked an awful lot like a game of Candy Crush, only to expose a second window that featured what appeared to be a close-up of a guy masturbating.

She gasped and shut that one down too before looking up at me with guilty blue eyes. “Um…so…everything okay?”

Perfect
.

BOOK: Trust Me: Matty and Kayla, Book 3 of 3 (The McDaniels Brothers 7)
9.5Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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