Billionaire Misery (14 page)

Morgan shook his head. “You’ve got guts. Fuck, the two of you are just alike. You’ve got guts for days but you’re short on thinking. He’s going to come after you. Hell, the whole world’s coming after you.”

“I’ve thought this all the way through. I’ll be gone before he ever gets out. He’s safe, and so are you and Katie. I just want what I asked you for. That’s it. I can take care of myself.”

“So can Craig. He makes a better ally than an enemy, you know?” Morgan wasn’t going to give up.

“I know, but I can’t let him ride with Nate, or any other crew. Not now.”

He smiled grimly. “Let’s make sure everyone knows that.”

She stuck a hand out and he took it.

His grip was firm and his voice serious. “If you do anything to hurt Craig ever again, Nate will be the last one you have to worry about.”

She nodded. “Same here. I mean it, Morgan. I know you didn’t want to exile him any more than I want to go, but we both did it anyway. So let’s not pretend we don’t care or are above hurting him, okay?”

He nodded, but a trace of a smile ghosted across his lips. “You better get out of here; I don’t need the OutKasts coming down on me right now. My guys are just trying to pick up the pieces.”

She walked toward the car she’d retrieved. She hated being in the steel contraption, but safety mattered, especially now. If she got taken out, Craig would never get out of jail. She could outrun anyone on her bike, but she might not be able to outrun bullets.

She got in and cranked the car. Morgan hadn’t said anything she didn’t know, but hearing someone else say it made it suddenly hit home, and hard. She’d betrayed a lot of people, and while putting Blake Wilkes away was worth a lot, it didn’t change anything.

Nate would get out of most of his charges. He was slick, and the evidence wasn’t immutable. She hadn’t been able to get close enough to his business dealings for that, but she had been able to get close enough to some of his underlings. While Nate hadn’t been the one who’d ordered her to run the dope to the street guys, he had been in charge of the crew. The DA would make that stick somehow.

Even if it didn’t, Nate had too many low-level dealers pointing their fingers at him. He’d have to wait out some time just to keep his bosses from wondering if he’d snitched on them. If they thought that, he’d die before he ever made general population. Nate was just as aware of that as she was, and she knew he’d stay quiet and fight in court but make no deals.

That wouldn’t mean he couldn’t reach out from the jail and have her killed. She honestly couldn’t say she blamed him for that contract she was sure was on her head. She had betrayed him, a brotherhood, and a code.

She drove through the city, her mind picking at plans and then discarding them. Craig would be safe, and that was all that mattered. He’d said he loved her, and she believed him, but she also knew that his life was here.

He would have had time to think about everything while locked in his cell. He would hate her for being a cop and not telling him, for goading him into doing things just so she could get evidence, for risking everything. He might lust after her, but he would never look at her the same.

She’d betrayed him too.

She’d broken every rule of every crew. She hadn’t been loyal to him, to Nate, to the DEA, and least of all to herself. The only way to salvage anything was to leave. Free Craig and let him move on. He’d survived worse than this. Maybe she could too.

Her heart ached at that thought.

She’d known going in that she could never have a future with Craig. That what she’d been doing had been wrong. That she should leave him be, and walk away from him after she hadn’t been able to resist him that first night. She should have asked to be pulled out. She should have handed over the information she had on Wilkes, kept the rest under wraps, and just walked.

But she hadn’t.

She couldn’t go back and change that. It was too late. All she could do now was try to save him from a life sentence in prison for the things she’d done.

And let him go.

Tears filled her eyes but she blinked them back.

There was nothing else she could do. If she stayed, he’d be under the same death warrant she was under. She’d have to have protection from the agency just to make the trial, and she knew it. Wilkes was in jail but his reach was long. She’d have to go into some sort of protection program, and Craig would never even be mentioned. Except on paper, and, like she’d said, his name would never go on that file; just the number they’d given him.

Protected sources.

The agency was serious about protecting them.

She’d be lucky to land in some small town in the middle of exactly nowhere. She didn’t think she’d ever ride again. Just live day to day, forever looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life.

It was a trade-off. She’d managed to save a crew that, while not exactly innocent, had been innocent of the crimes against them. She’d found herself, and in a way she’d found her parents again too. She’d let go of all the hate and need for revenge. All because of Craig.

She’d put a way a very bad man, a man who had caused so much death and destruction. A man who’d been the supplier to her own father’s crew. The man who’d ordered his flunky to kill her father.

She wanted to go to the courthouse, to go see Craig, but doing so would put him in danger. It would also put her broken heart in danger.

She’d gambled everything after he had refused to run.

And she’d won.

But she’d had to lose everything in the process.

Craig was gone from her, as if he had never come into her life.

She blinked back the tears and pulled into the driveway of the safe house.

Agents were waiting for her on the steps of the house they’d stashed her away in the night before. They looked pissed. Their job was to protect her, and she’d slipped right past them.
Oh well.
There were some things they would never understand.

She smiled at them as she got out of the car, and they came toward her. “Okay guys, I’m ready.”

She wasn’t. She’d never be ready. She’d be hidden away in safe houses until the trials were over, and then she would be given a new identity... given a life she’d never asked for. She’d known it would have to happen, at least until Wilkes was put away forever and his cartel toppled. She would never be a cop again.

She wished she could go back and undo all of it.

Except that was impossible.

They hustled her into the car and then headed out.

C
raig left the courtroom a free man, but he was pissed; angrier than he’d ever been in his life. Fields had come to visit him, disguised as a lawyer, and told him exactly what was going on. He’d done it in code and by writing things down on paper in case anyone was listening. Craig had understood exactly how serious things were.

He also understood, all too clearly, that he would never see Jessie again.

She was gone.

He stood outside the courthouse, blinking in the strong sunlight and trying to get his bearings.

The roar of the bikes caught his attention and he turned his head, sure he was about to be gunned down right then and there. Morgan and the rest of the Orphans pulled up at the curb. Penny caught his attention. Not because of her beauty, but because she was on his bike, and the grin she wore was both impish and terrified. Penny could ride, but she wasn’t used to a hog like his.

He stepped forward. “What’s up?”

Morgan said, “Jessie told us everything.” He swung one leg off his bike and walked toward Craig. Craig’s eyes went to the vest in his friend’s hands.
His
vest, the one with the Orphan patch and colors. “We owe you. That means you’re one of us. If you still want in.” He held the vest out.

It hung from his fingers, and Craig had to resist the urge to reach and grab it. “I was the one who got you in this shit. It was Jessie who got you out.”

“You had a hand in it, but you had no way of knowing Wilkes planned to set us up.”

Craig looked at the faces of the men. His brothers. All of them calm and cool. Nobody was against this decision, and it showed. He was welcomed back, something most exiles never knew. His family, his brothers and his crew, were allowing him to return. He took his jacket and slipped it on. The leather had never felt as good as it did right then. “Where is she?”

Morgan shook his head. “I don’t know, man. She didn’t say.”

Craig nodded. “Will you to ride with me?”

Morgan looked at the others. They all nodded. Penny swung up onto Clive’s bike and Katie, on the back of Morgan’s, gave him a smile that reached her eyes. They were with him.

And he was going after Jessie.

**

T
he car moved slowly through traffic. Jessie was sitting in the corner of the seat, staring out the window at the cityscape. There was the corner where she’d first seen Craig. That street was one they’d ridden pell-mell down. That road led out of town and to the house where they’d made love and erased Lisa’s ghost.

The memories hurt. She kept her eyes riveted on the glass. She could see the wavering reflection of the face of the agent sitting close to her. He was a big man; one she didn’t recognize. His cologne was nearly overwhelming and his broad shoulder kept bumping against hers, annoying her.

The guy had no concept of personal space.

She shifted slightly, her eyes scanning the streets again. Tension ran under her skin and crawled along her nerve endings. She hiccupped when her gut clenched.

Something was wrong.

Her senses perked up and she went rigid.

But what?

Her skin blossomed into goose pimples. Her gut tightened again and she scanned the street again. The traffic was slow-moving, and the cars next to them too close. She surveyed the people walking on the streets, tensing with every second that passed.

Every nerve lit up in her body, and she could feel her fear kicking in too. Her heart beat far too fast and her pulse raced. She was going to die, she realized, but where was the threat coming from? Was there a threat, or was she simply freaking out? An anxiety attack? Was she experiencing a moment filled with the loss of the adrenaline that had sustained her for so long? Was she just realizing the sheer volume of the consequences?

She knew that could be true. She’d known that, if she had to testify against Wilkes, if she chose to go ahead and put that file into Fields’ hands, she was risking her life. She’d quit the agency, but that wasn’t enough to keep her safe; as long as she was alive and could testify to the things she had actually witnessed, she was a target.

She’d chosen to make herself the target to spare Craig.

Was that what it was?

No.

Something was undeniably wrong.

She was still staring out the window at the cars and people beyond when she saw the man sitting beside her lift his chin just slightly. Without turning her head, she slid her eyes as far as possible to try to see the driver. She couldn’t see him, but she heard him shifting around. Her muscles bunched and tensed and she reached for the gun under her shirt, easing her hand up slowly so the men behind her wouldn’t see the movement.

Her eyes watched his ghostly reflection. Her hand moved steadily, but ever so slowly toward the cool steel of her weapon. Her heart beat slowed then sped up as he suddenly drew his own gun. She saw the barrel swinging toward her but she was already down, bringing her own weapon out. Her gun went into his belly just as he fired right where her head had been; it was too late to stop his finger.

Her bullet went into his belly. His went wild. The bullet-proof glass bounced it back, and she narrowly avoided a lobotomy when the ricocheting bullet zinged back past her. His face took on a surprised expression, and he stared at her then down.

The man in the front seat looked up just as Jessie twisted upward and grabbed the door handle. Locked! She couldn’t get out!

The man she’d shot put his free hand to his belly and croaked out something. The gun came back up and, while his face was white with shock, his hand was steady.

Desperate, and sure she was going to die right there in that car Jessie pressed her gun to the big guy’s head and shouted, “Pull over or I’ll kill him!”

The man in the backseat tried raising his hand toward her temple. The held their guns on each other, as if ready to play a round of Russian roulette. The tinted windows kept anyone outside from seeing her plight, and the damn door was locked.

She had to think fast, but nothing would come to mind except another frenzied and desperate order. “I’ll fucking shoot you!”

His lips parted as he fought to maintain control of the bleed in his belly and hold his gun up to her. The driver weaved through traffic. A sick feeling started in her belly and grew. Fields had handpicked these men. Fields. The one man she’d trusted.

Where was Craig?

Had he been set free just so he could be killed too?

Her mind raced and dragged at the same time. Had Fields betrayed her?

The car sped up. The man in the back with her kept his gun to her head. It hit her then that she’d forgotten his name completely, and the name of the man in the front. Had she ever been told their names?

She had one chance. She had to take it.

She fired.

Gore and blood splattered.

The agent beside her jerked and his finger tightened reflexively. She’d already been ducking, but she knew that the ricochet alone could kill her. There was no way to know which direction it would spin. Pain blossomed in her back. Her hands went weak.

The car slewed to one side, and she managed to blink away the gray mist on the edges of her vision just long enough to stick the gun over the seat. “Unlock the door or I’ll kill you too.” Her speech was slurred and her vision was blurry. Pain radiated up and down her arms and shoulders. Her mouth was filled with acidic bile, and her stomach flipped over and spun.

The driver could have taken the gun, and she knew it. The blood and brains splattered everywhere were probably the only reason he didn’t. He got the car next to the curb and unlocked the door. Jessie, aching and sick, managed to get the door open. She staggered out. The street he’d parked on was deserted. She could barely walk. Had she just signed her own death warrant?