Fight For Me (9 page)

“Thank you, Detective. We will do that,” she
agreed before grasping the brooding bodyguard's hand and leading
him away. Brandon shook his head. That man was a sniper, a Ranger,
a skip-tracer, hell, he was even a hero, but he was also pussy
whipped. How the mighty have fallen.

~*~

The hair on the back of Dylan's neck stood
on end, and he darted his gaze around the hallway. “Your office.
Now. Don't stop,” he commanded quietly. Something was off, but he
didn't know what. The trial had gone well, the bastards punished
for the rape of a young woman, and the families had all filed out
the door minutes ago.

“What? Why?” she murmured as they made their
way down the hall and into the elevator. “What's wrong?”

He hit the door close button, leaving the
two of them alone in the car. “I'm not sure. A feelin' like we were
being watched.”

“Your spidey senses?” she joked.

He managed a smile. “You don't stay alive in
war zones without them, darlin'.”

“I'm glad you have them then,” she said
softly.

Him too. Now, he just had to figure out what
had his nerves on edge. He learned early on that if he thought
something was wrong, it was, and if he thought he was being
watched, someone was watching. “Who would be here, watchin'
you?”

She shook her head. “Any number of people. I
just sent four men away for a long, long time.”

“Those weren't men, and they deserve
everythin' dished out to them and more.” Animals like that, who
forced themselves on women, didn't deserve to live. “Have you
received threats from the families of those four?”

“Not that I'm aware of, but Rochelle would
know more than I do; she takes care of the mail.”

“Good thing we're headed to your office,
then.” He might not trust Detective Davis, but he was right—they
needed to sit down and compile a list of possible suspects. Now was
as good a time as any.

~*~

They exited the elevator, and Cassidy had to
admit she was shaken. If something could set her big, bad Ranger on
high alert, she wanted to know who it was. As they made their way
into her office, Rochelle sat up straight in her chair. “Recess?”
she asked.

“We're finished, actually. Just one day of
questioning.” She shook her head. “The defense didn't try very
hard, to be honest. The jury didn't deliberate for more than an
hour, and found all four guilty.”

“They were guilty.”

“That they were,” she agreed. “Although, if
I were defending them, I'd have brought in an expert on steroids to
speak to the affect of so much testosterone on such young men.
Their defense was almost non-existent. It would've made more sense
for them to have just plead guilty.”

Rochelle's dark eyes narrowed. “Why didn't
they? Why go through the motions of a trial at all?”

“That's just it. It wasn't a trial, not
really. I presented my case, and their defense was to assert that
Penny wanted a gang bang and changed her mind after the fact.” She
rubbed her arms as Dylan made a disgusted sound behind her. “Who
knows what Penny thought she wanted. She said no, and they ignored
her.”

“Blaming the victim never gets old,”
Rochelle muttered before handing Cassidy a stack of notes. “You are
a popular woman today.”

She glanced through the pile of pink paper.
Both her parents, the brother not on his honeymoon, Detective
Monroe, Officer Morgan, and Detective Delmonico. Just another day
at the office. “Why did half my family call?”

Rochelle's eyes focused on the man behind
her, and Cassidy laughed. “They were not worried about me and
Dylan, were they?”

The other woman chuckled. “No, honey, they
were worried about you
with
Dylan, there.
We were all at the wedding. Then y'all disappeared until this
morning.”

She blew out a breath that would've sent
bangs flying if she'd had any. “We didn't disappear. We retreated.
My townhouse was ransacked, our computers were stolen, and then
Judge Simmons was killed. Dylan's house is much safer than
mine.”

“
All of that may be true,
but I can't help but think something else is going on.”

She felt her cheeks heat. Something else was
certainly going on, and she was having a hard time
compartmentalizing it as something quick and casual. She had to say
something, and Dylan was staying quiet, just as he had in the
hallway earlier. “Even so, his house is safer,” she answered.

“
Maybe,” Rochelle conceded
before scrunching her face in laughter. “You be good to her, ya
hear?” she directed over Cassidy's shoulder.

“
Always,” came Dylan's
answer and she hated that her heart clutched with wanting to
believe him.

Chapter
Six

Dylan was grateful Cassie was finally
compiling this list, but awed by the sheer number of people she
came up with who might have it out for her. “Fifty-seven people,
Cassie?”

She shrugged. “I'm good. I've only lost two
cases.”

“Out of those fifty-seven, how many were in
Judge Simmons' courtroom?”

She took a highlighter to the list of names
for a moment and he held his breath. She kept highlighting and he
felt himself slump. “How many is that?”

She counted. “Twenty-three.”

Still a lot, but not fifty-seven. “Okay. Any
of those twenty-three have family members who threatened you?”

She tapped the highlighter against her lips.
“I don't remember anything big.” She turned to Rochelle. “Am I
forgetting something?”

Rochelle's big brown eyes stared into space
for a few beats until she slammed a hand on her desk when something
came to mind. “Didn't one of your defendants die at Lee last
year?”

Cassidy's breath caught before she made an
affirmative noise.

He knew the US Penitentiary, Lee was a high
security federal prison. “Tell me about that case.”

“Nicholas Rossi was a drug dealer and human
trafficker,” Cassidy answered succinctly.

“His father swore up and down he was
innocent, that someone was setting him up,” Rochelle added.

He thought about that. “How could someone be
framed for heading up a cartel?”

“They can't,” Cassidy answered, her tone
brittle. “There was a mountain of evidence from Tyler PD. I never
did figure out why he was running his cartel out of Tyler, but
maybe it was easier to stay close to home, or maybe he didn't want
to deal with someone else's turf.” She sucked on her teeth. “He was
far from innocent, that's for sure.”

“Tell me about his father.”

“Vincent Rossi is a blow hard,” Rochelle
stated. “He came in here ranting and raving about his son being a
good boy caught up in a bad situation, but I wouldn't let him near
Cassidy. A good boy my ass.”

“He was convicted and sentenced to life two
years ago, and was killed in a riot less than a year after
that.”

“Anyone else you can remember, Rochelle?” he
asked. “Otherwise, this Vincent Rossi is number one on my list,” he
said, getting nods of agreement from both women. If it was Rossi,
though, why wait for so long? Why toy with her the way he had?
There was more to this story, and he really wished he still had his
laptop.

“Why now? That trial was more than two years
ago, the riot over a year,” Cassidy verbalized his thoughts.

“We need to figure out all we can about this
guy, and we need to talk to the police.” As much as he hated to
admit it, this was something he couldn't do alone. He pulled his
phone from his pocket, noticing he was much better with his left
hand than he'd expected to be as he thumbed through his contacts
and placed the call.

Chris Delmonico answered after one ring.
“Finally come up for air?”

“Fuck you.”

“Not my type,” came the chuckling answer.
“Why'd you call?”

“Vincent Rossi made threats to Cassie a
couple years ago, and his son was killed in a riot at Lee. I think
he's your guy.”

“Been working, have you? Thought you were
too busy being all heroic.”

Chris Delmonico was a good detective, a
loyal friend, and a real smartass. Right now, he didn't have the
patience for the last of that list. “Look, Chris, Cassie is in
danger and it's possible this guy is the one behind it. I'm givin'
you a lead and you're givin' me shit?”

“Whoa. I should've known when you almost
clocked me after the explosion.” He stopped talking to laugh in
Dylan's ear. “Damn, man, never thought you'd fall in love
again.”

“Shut-up,” he barked into the phone. He
needed Chris to work, to find this Rossi asshole. He didn't need
him to tell him he was in love. “Check out Rossi.”

“Will do,” came the expected reply. He was
about to thank his friend and hang up when Chris went on, “Watch
your back,
amico
.”

“You too.”

“No, really, you're in deep with this
woman.”

“Sure am,” he acknowledged.

“You're okay with that?”

“Better than okay,” he paused. “Help me keep
her safe.”

“You got it.”

“Thanks.”

He knew Cassidy had listened in on his side
of the conversation and read surprise on her beautiful face. Maybe
she didn't know he and Chris were tight. Instead of asking him
anything, she asked, “He on board?”

“Of course he is. I'm sure he'll talk to
Monroe and they'll round up Rossi. Until then, I'm not leavin' your
side.”

She frowned. “You weren't leaving my side
anyway.”

“You're right. I wasn't, and I won't. You're
stuck with me.”

“Promise?” she whispered.

“Always.”

~*~

Days later Cassidy sat at her desk with
shaking hands, the manila envelope she held waving wildly. “How did
this get on my desk?” she asked Rochelle.

“
Inter-office mail,” her
friend and assistant answered, her tone nonchalant.

“
When?”

The other woman's eyes bounced between
Cassidy and Dylan. “You two were, ah, out to lunch. It came with
the briefs.”

She stared at the envelope in her hand,
remembering the much needed lunch. They hadn't eaten much, just
devoured each other in an empty office. When had she turned into a
teenager, and why was she still shaking like a leaf? This could be
anything, from any of the cases currently on her plate. Why was she
so sure she wouldn't like what she'd find? Willing her hands to
stop shaking, she opened the clasp to look inside and found two
small pieces of newsprint. She turned the envelope on end, sending
them fluttering to the shiny surface of her desk, the headlines
causing her to lose her breath.

Dylan rose from his chair then, concern
etched in his handsome face. “What did he send you?”

She pointed to the
headlines, clipped from a local paper.
Emily Black Loses
Life
and
Regina Black Found
Dead.
“Why are woman with the last name Black
dead, Dylan?” she asked, afraid of the answer.

“
Emily was my sister,” he
explained, pointing the first headline. “She had a brain tumor, and
even after surgery she remained epileptic. She had a seizure behind
the wheel.”

She thought about that. Hadn't they passed
the learning about the family stage of their relationship? Shit.
When had she started thinking about their relationship as a, well,
relationship? Ignoring the emotions roiling through her, she asked,
“What about the second one?”

“
Regina and I were
married. She wasn't cut out to be a military wife.”

That did not answer the question, and caused
a cascade of more. “She died?”

“
Suicide,” he answered
sharply.

He'd said she couldn't handle being a
military wife. There were a million things she wanted, needed, to
ask, but all that came out of her mouth was, “Oh.”

He leaned closer, his deep voice harsh when
he asked, “He accomplish his goal? Scare you away from me? Make you
want to run?”

She pulled away from him, startled by his
tone. Forcing steel into her own voice, she replied, “I asked, you
answered. Simple.”

“
Not simple. He's tryin'
to make you scared of me, paintin' me as the bad guy. He wants you
to turn tail, make yourself vulnerable.”

“
I'm not that easily
shaken.”

“
You sure?” he asked, his
golden eyes seeing more than she wanted to admit.

“
Are there more to those
stories? Something I should be afraid of?” She swallowed. “Are you
not the badass Army Ranger who wants to protect me at all costs and
take me to bed?”

His face softened, just a bit. “I am exactly
that man.”

“
Then I am not shaken,”
she promised and hoped it was true.

~*~

Dylan kept quiet for the remainder of the
day. After their lunch together, when he thought he was getting
closer to being deemed something other than a fling, Cassidy
received his past mistakes conveniently located in an envelope on
her desk. He had given Emily his bone marrow—the very essence of
himself—but it hadn't been able to save her, not from the seizures
she'd promised were under control. He had been in Afghanistan when
she'd run her car off the road and rolled down an embankment,
losing her life in a fiery crash. He closed his eyes against the
pain. He and Emmie had always been a team, but one day she was just
gone. He'd gone to war expecting he may not come back, but he never
imagined Emmie would be the one to die, not after everything they'd
been through, how hard she had fought her disease. He'd been
granted leave to bury her, and met the biggest mistake of his life,
Regina McAllister.

Gina had been beautiful and obsessed with
the uniform. It wasn't until he returned to Afghanistan that he
realized she wasn't able to deal with deployment. His next leave
they broke up, only to end up together again after he'd had too
many drinks when he was home for a few months. They'd ended up
married before he got orders for Iraq, and she was dead not three
months later.