Billionaire Misery (7 page)

“Damn!”

“Nothing surprises me anymore.” Craig shook his head while Jessie figured she had a pretty good idea that she could shock the shit out of him still. Craig continued, “Wait till you hear the plan. Blake Wilkes is having a fucking gala tomorrow night. Katie suggested we all get all dressed up and just waltz right into it. She said nobody would question her right to be there, and if we were there as her guests, well...even better.”

“Wow.” They couldn’t be seriously considering it, could they?

He nodded. “Yeah, it’s one hell of a plan.”

“I don’t know. There’re so many variables we can’t control. There’re bound to be men there who we can’t afford to tangle with, and what if Wilkes has bodyguards who know about Katie, what if the cops he pays are waiting for her, or us? Shit! It might be our only chance.” Her mind raced, discarding and seizing on one scenario after another.

“I think we just have to risk it.”

She nodded and sighed. “Me too.”

Craig held up the bottle of wine. “Cheers to crazy.”

Jessie accepted the wine and drank directly from it as well. “I think we’re going to need another bottle of wine.”

“Why?”

“I’m guessing we need to go shopping. You don’t own a tux, do you?” What the hell was she going to wear to a billionaire’s house?

Protection.

She was going to need a whole lot of it if she wanted to get out of there alive.

S
he should have gone shopping with Katie. Morgan and Craig went to rent tuxes or buy them, Jessie had no idea. She hit a shop with the money she had from Nate. The red flowing gown she bought was off the rack. The shocked store clerk muttered something about how a size four with large breasts and small hips didn’t exist naturally. Jessie had paid the bill and didn’t bother to say everything she had was real, nothing synthetic.

She stood in front of the mirror, in the red dress with the high slit. It showed a lot of leg, but not enough to hide the garter holding her gun, which sat tucked neatly inside her thigh. Her raven hair was up in a classic twist. The tattoo on her arm was the only hint of non-conformity to the rich life.

Craig opened the bedroom door and whistled. “Damn, woman.”

She turned and stared at him. He wore a black tux and slipped his jacket on as his gaze moved down and then slowly back up her. She smiled. “Damn, yourself.” The tux made him look bigger, like he was more buff. “You clean up nice.”

He nodded curtly and checked his watch. “We need to go.”

She stared at him, his nervousness clearly apparent. She didn’t feel the same nervous energy as him. She’d been undercover, and this was just one more job in a sense. There was a lot more riding on this one, but every time she went undercover there seemed to be more pressure. She just had more experience hiding it.

They were all nervous when they met up later on a secluded little side street. Jessie and Craig had walked to where they would meet Morgan and Katie.

Jessie shivered and got into the back of the car, and they headed out. She stared at the back of Morgan’s neck and tried to think of a single thing to say to either of them, but found she couldn’t. She didn’t know Katie very well, and she knew Morgan even less well. The silence was tense and thick, and she tried to sit back, but as soon as Craig’s body hit hers she felt a blush of passion and immediately jerked away.

Craig was a sexy distraction, but a distraction nonetheless, and any distraction could get all of them killed. She needed to focus. Tonight was going to change everything for all of them somehow. She wasn’t nervous, but she needed to focus and be prepared.

The impatience that had been slowly simmering the past few weeks burst into a full boil as the car slid through the city, headed for the mansion in which Wilkes lived. What would they find in that safe? Was Craig wrong about what was in there? Had he been right, and could Blake have moved that stuff already?

Blake Wilkes.

Damn him.

The man had become impossible to catch. The agencies after him had been after him for nearly two decades, and they had never even gotten close. Katie was clueless to all of it. Jessie knew that because the FBI had sent in a guy, and he had actually enrolled in her college and dated her for a whole year.

And had gotten nothing. Katie was not naïve, but when it came to her father and his business, she had been wholly unaware, and that was a testament to just how well Blake Wilkes hid his real business.

The man was a genius at delegating then killing those who had carried out the bloodiest of tasks. He kept everyone in the dark, and never let his right hand know what the left was up to. He kept his legitimate business contacts either completely separated from his illegal ones, or he did what he had done tonight. He invited political figures from drug-addled countries whose men he did massive amounts of business with, and then introduced them as politicians or foreign businessmen to people who would rather not know anyway.

Jessie needed to think tonight. She didn’t have back-up, at least in the police kind of way. She had her gun tucked into her dress. Craig had a gun too, and so did Morgan. Katie carried a short, very sharp knife. When Jessie had asked if she wanted a gun, Katie had retorted that if they all got tied up they’d need a knife to cut themselves free.

That had amused Jessie, but it had made her think too. There were Wilkes’ bodyguards to consider, and a vast murderous group of men he employed that seemed to change daily. Her worry and eagerness left her jumpy and tense. Craig’s presence made her even jumpier.

Usually when she went into a situation, she was the only one she had to worry about. If she lost her life, she had no one waiting at home to wonder if she was okay. Now she had not just herself to consider, but Craig—and Morgan and Katie too. This was not something she wanted. Katie was the one who would likely be least capable of handling herself.

Or not. She’d heard from Nate how Katie had started shooting, and hit everything she aimed at, during that rowdy little throw-down at the bar, one she’d missed because she’d been sent out to ride a small amount of weed to a street-level hustler; something she knew was makeshift work to keep her busy while they went to the bar.

So maybe Katie could take care of herself, and Morgan would also help with her. He wouldn’t leave her side no matter what.

What if something happened to Craig, though?

She wanted to protect him, and she knew that she was foolish for that. Craig was more than used to taking care of himself. But if things got sticky, and guns started going off, she had to make sure to keep her mind focused on what was important.

Craig.

No, damn it!

Wilkes and the evidence.

They pulled in to the long driveway. A valet moved to take the keys, but Katie stuck her head toward the driver’s window, and said in a firm voice, “Excuse me. I’m Katie Wilkes. I’m going to have my escort pull in to the family side of the drive.”

The valet nodded and said, “Oh, yes, but of course, Ms. Wilkes,” and backed away.

They pulled in to the drive, a small and empty spot that Jessie was relieved to see was clear. The valets weren’t parking other cars near the ones the family used, which meant if they had to go quickly they could.

So far, so good.

They got out and headed for the steps that led up to the house. Jessie shivered again from the cool night air and Craig slipped his jacket off. “Here, put this on.”

She slipped her arms through without arguing. His warmth and scent filled her nostrils, and she hesitated for a moment. Straightening, she let him slip her arm around her.

Craig cleared his throat. “Wilke’s office, ASAP.”

Katie nodded and waved at people, and Jessie managed to do the same. She knew they all looked the part. Her mouth went dry as they swept into the massive house. It was twenty-one-thousand square-feet, and she found herself wondering what it must have been like to grow up in all that echoing space.

Even with all the people gathered in there, and the noise from conversations going on everywhere, the place had a definite echo thanks to the cold marble floors and walls, and the massive ceilings didn’t make it any more intimate either.

They headed for the staircase, and then Katie paused, and whispered, “The servants’ stairs would be better; nobody would notice us.”

Jessie nodded. They worked their way around the fringes of the room and down a long deserted hallway. The door was almost invisible. They opened it and ascended to the upper floors. Jessie, ever conscious of the long hem of her skirt and the fact that, at any minute, they might be discovered, kept her footsteps light, and was glad when everyone else did the same.

They came out on the third floor. The entryway was just ahead, and it was open all the way down to the ground floor, where too many people were gathered. Jessie eyed the distance warily. Could they cross it without being seen?

As it turned out, they didn’t have to. Blake’s study was on the right, and as soon as they stepped in they were almost overwhelmed by the masculinity of the place.

It took up most of that end of the hallway. Books sat in floor-to-ceiling cases, and there was a massive desk that took up most of the middle of the room. Persian rugs covered the exquisite floors, and the paintings on the wall were priceless masterpieces that should have been in a museum.

Craig closed the door and whispered, “Fuck!” He blew out a breath. “That went much better than I thought it would.”

Katie said, “We still have to get back out of here without anyone realizing.”

Morgan stepped forward. “Where’s the safe?”

Craig crossed the floor and went to one of the bookcases. Jessie expected him to pull a hidden lever or something equally spy-like. Instead, he said, “It’s in the floor. It has to come out of the floor, and there’s a certain way it has to be done. Don’t stand anywhere near that rug there.”

He jerked his chin toward a nearby rug, and they all stepped back. Craig began to lift books off of the shelves one at a time, and then he reached into the shelves and under them. The rug shivered then lifted.

Jessie held her breath. Was it possible? After all this time, was she about to get the evidence that she really needed to finally be paid the debt that Wilkes owed her family?

What would come after?

The thought hit her hard.

What would she do after this was done?

She had never considered that, and now it hit her that she had to. That she would be able to have a life when this was done.

Her heart knocked crazily in her chest as she looked at Craig. They might be able to have a life...except she had collected the evidence that would see him in prison for a long time. The kind of things he had been involved with carried heavy sentences, and he already had two felonies on his jacket. The next would be a third strike, and in that state a third strike was life without possibility of parole.

Her breath caught in her throat. There were only two options. Dump the evidence she had against Craig, and in doing so destroy her case, or don’t. Break the law or...
Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

She shook those thoughts off, but the one persisted. If this ended, finally, what would she do?

The rug slid to one side and she stepped forward, but Craig said, “No, hold on. There’s more.”

She stood still, trembling all over.

Craig put the books back carefully. He said, “If you touch the safe before the books go back in, it triggers a very loud alarm and there’re about a hundred cops all over this house.”

They all held their breath as Craig approached the safe, knelt, and began to turn the complicated series of dials and knobs. What if he had gotten the combination wrong? What if Wilkes had changed it?

Katie groaned, “Damn, you’d think we’d get tired of robbing my father’s safes after a while.”

Morgan chuckled softly and said, “Next time we’ll know to take everything at one time so we never have to come back.”

“If the stuff is in there like Craig says, we’ll never have to do it again anyway,” Jessie said as she watched Craig swing the door open and stand. She headed for it. The files were paper, just as she had hoped. She said, “Quick, use that copier and copy this stuff; it’ll do like five pages at a time and we need a copy in case. It would be smart to make the copies and leave the originals so he doesn’t know we were here.”

Morgan nodded and went to the copier. Jessie began to read through the files as she handed him pages. Her eyes went wide as she realized exactly what she was holding.

It was the same thing Katie had seen before.

It was his payroll.

Every dirty cop in the county and beyond was in there. Her mouth formed a silent whistle as she recognized the names of high-ranking DEA and FBI agents. There was more too: The plans for the shopping mall, the one that would have stood on the ground belonging to the other crew.

A hard knot filled her belly as she realized it wasn’t just a matter of money that had driven Blake Wilkes to kill those men.

That property beyond their house was a damn graveyard! There were bodies everywhere back there. Names, dates, times. Reasons why. Wilkes had kept a running tally of the bodies in that ground.

Why?

Why had he done that?

Because he was a psychopath, and he wanted some kind of trophy.

It wasn’t enough that he took their business and money. It wasn’t enough that he used them and then had them killed. He had to be able to gloat over it. And when it got to be too much, and he knew that eventually his competition in legitimate business was about to buy up the land and put a shopping center out there, he had had no choice but to take that deal too.

Only, the men who’d lived in that house had decided to argue that deal. They’d had two corporations fighting for the property they owned, and they may or may not have known about the bodies.

Jessie was sure they had known. They had decided to play hardball with the man who had put those bodies back there, and they had been crazy enough to think that they could get away with that. Jessie was astounded by not just their greed, but their foolishness as well. They had to have known who they were screwing with. The house overlooked too many of those graves for them to have never noticed that they were going in the ground.