Fool's Gold: A Kisses and Crimes Novel (21 page)

I falter like the drunk I’m starting to look like, accidentally knocking the bottles on the floor, and suddenly the man’s black shiny shoes are standing right beside me.

I don’t look up.

And still, the man kneels.

He puts an incredibly large hand on the bottle beside my foot.

“Here you go,” he says. His voice is svelte… and low.
American.

“Thanks.”

“You’ve got a lot going on there,” he comments.

“I know.”

“You’re all alone?” he asks. “They shouldn’t have a lady like you buying your own drinks. Not a lady so goddamned pretty.”

I can practically hear his smile.

And up goes Red Flag #1.

He hasn’t seen my face. I take extreme measures to make sure
no one
sees my face.

I practically snatch the empty beer bottle from his hand.

“Thanks. I do alright.”

I flit my eyes sideways and catch a glimpse of a navy suit. The man is in a
fucking
suit… and has one pinstriped knee on the floor of a very recently crowded pub.

I can’t tell who’s more out of place: him or me.

I vote for “me” when I catch sight of the golden Rolex wrapped firmly around his lightly tanned wrist. I try again to grab for all the bottles… and fail miserably as they bouncing away like bowling pins.

I curse out loud.

“Well, if you let me help you,” the man declares, “we can get these bottles squared away.”

“No,” I exhale soundly. “I got it. I’m just…”

“You could let me help you.”

“I’m fine. I’ve done this a lot.”

“
You drop bottles everywhere
a lot?” he quips.

I flinch.

“
You a dickhead to random strangers
a lot?”

His hands still.

And then he laughs.
Hard.

It’s a sound that’s so distinct, so unique that it causes a familiar sensation to run over my skin. He stands back up.

“I almost didn’t know it was you until this very moment,” he says, his voice soft and full of humor. “I never expected to see the
daughter of Don Gafanelli
sloppy drunk.
”

Shocked, I rear backwards, standing, and aim for the man’s face with my fist. He catches it.

“As much as I appreciate you not trying to slash at me with a broken bottle right now,
Dani
,” he whispers slowly, “I’d rather keep my nose if that’s all right with you.”

He grabs me closer.

“This same nose has led me to Bishop, and we need to act fast if we want to save him…”

I snatch my hand back.

“
Jackson
?”

I stare at him, disbelieving.

He simply nods, and I find myself exploding at a man I’ve never even met.

I need someone to blame.

“
Who the hell do you think you are
?” I rage, facing him. “What do you think you’re doing just showing up like this?
Bishop trusted you
. He thought you were his friend
.”

Jackson narrows his eyes.

“And I am doing what a friend
would
do…”

He looks at me.

“
I’ve been watching his fucking back.
Following the man I told you all about…
Acel Martelle
. Also known as FBI agent Calvin Carlson. He’s been undercover for
years
, playing a corrupt cop,” he rasps. “Turns out he didn’t have to
play
at anything… When you guys didn’t return to the hotel after the plan with Duvall, I’d assumed Carlson came back to finish what he started.”

He shakes his head.

“Luckily, he didn’t get the chance, but I want to find the fucker who made sure he didn’t. It wasn’t us… so I’m certain that it was the bastard who hired him.”

He stares at me, conveying worry and hurt and hatred at the same time.

“I think… a man who trained Bishop and me—the same man who helped raise him—
is
that bastard…”

And Bishop will be too if we don’t do something about it.”

The room is spinning. I have to keep one hand outstretched towards the bar to keep from lying down.

“Delaney…?” I ask.

Jackson’s eyes widen. His reaction lets me know he doesn’t know that I’ve met Delaney.

He starts to respond and then he capitulates, probably finding excuses useless at this point.

He nods reluctantly.

“Fucking Delaney. I knew it,” I say, feeling a sob in the back of my throat. “I knew he was behind it all; I knew he was going to try something against Bishop. I knew he couldn’t be trusted…”

I start to ramble, and Jackson reaches for my wrists.

“Dani,” he calls to me.

I don’t respond.

“Dani, Dani…
Dani!
”

He grips my wrists out of the air with his hands. He leans into me, placing his face in front of mine, and I can feel my panic begin to subside.

I’m fucking terrified for Bishop… and I just don’t know what the hell to do.

“You’re right,” Jackson comments dejectedly, his voice forceful. “But I didn’t come here to debate our “shoulda, coulda, woulda’s.”

He lets me go.

“Dani…” he begins again. “I hate to say this, but… right now, we don’t have time to talk about Delaney. If you can actually fucking believe it… we have someone more
dangerous
to worry about.”

He clears his throat, and I feel an even more stifling sense of dread. Anxiety, in the form of an emotional anvil, has taken a seat right in the middle of my chest.

I pull back from Jackson, taking a step away from him.

“Who…?”

Jackson looks at me, his blue eyes intense and shining under the glow of the bar’s muted light.

“The most dangerous man in New York. Not the one who raised Bishop… but the one who raised
you
.”

BISHOP

I’m going to die tonight.

Every bone in my body says so.

I can feel death itching its way through my veins as I cross Lexington Street, bypassing East 62
nd
street, heading towards the Regency.

I’m back where it all began.

In a sophisticated suit… on a sophistical corner. Getting ready to attend one of the most anticipated events in the City.

Except this time…
I’m not invited
.

Velvet lapels frame the dark navy suit on my shoulders, and I can barely feel the Ace bandages beneath.

Patched up, put together like brand new, I find an additional pep in my step, just one day removed from the hospital.

I walk with the gait of a man who’s sitting on top of the world because although the status of my own life is pending, I know that by the end of the night, I won’t be the only one.

My death won’t be the only dish on the menu tonight.

And, old Bishop or not, that fact gives me the smallest parcel of pleasure.

I actually smile—a wicked, twisted, grotesque grin—by the time I hit Park Avenue.

I straighten my sleeves curbside… and then I slide on my elaborate mask.

I walk into the Regency without hesitation and settle into a teeming lobby full of guests, many boasting decorative masks just as extravagant as my own.

By the time I enter the ballroom of Don Gafanelli’s annual Midsummer’s Night Dream masquerade… nobody even questions my invitation.

And I stroll right in.

The ballroom is dark, the obscurity of it punctuated by strings of golden lights hanging from wall to wall.

A band plays at the head of the room, and Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” floats over the middle of a large wooden dance floor, the melody as lively as the disguises over each partygoer’s face.

Mine is amongst the most decorated in the crowd.

A stunningly silver get-up with dark blue feathers, my mask matches the midnight hue of my well-tailored attire. Pants creased, my jacket pressed to within an inch of its life, I look like a man who came here
for
a good time.

Not like a man who was sent to
ruin
the good time.

Not like a man who was sent to
take
Don Gafanelli.

Dead or alive.

Hog-tied, threatened with Dani’s death for the last twenty-four hours, I’d been pushed to within an inch of my sanity, cornered so far against the ropes that that damned Delaney and Audriana Fletcher just assumed I’d given in.

I was to finish what I started with Don ten years ago.

End the job.

But this impromptu mission will probably be the last mission I ever undertake…

How about I go out with a fucking bang
?

I grab a drink, cranberry juice instead of alcohol, from the makeshift bar at the end of the dimly lit room. Putting my hand in my pocket, I retrieve one lonely cigarette, lighting up.

The lit match is still in my hand when I look over and see her.

Fuck me.

I’m surprised I couldn’t smell her skin from a mile away.

But that body…

That God-given body.

I could pick it blindly out of a line-up using just my hands.

Her curtain of golden hair flows into a dress of the same color, and silky smooth skin peeks beneath the back of a sexy gilded number.

She’s alone.

And now I have to figure out how to get to her.

The cigarette’s not doing its job, my cranberry juice is too
fucking tart
, and if I actually were a person who drank… I’d have
drowned
myself in whatever brown liquid is being passed around at this very moment.

Because I can’t stop looking at her.

Ten years.

Ten years has turned the most precocious sixteen year-old I’ve ever met into the smartest woman in the room.

A lethal tongue, coupled with the sexiest pair of pouty lips in New York, has made her queen of the Upper East Side, the shrewdest businesswoman to walk in heels, and the feared and respected handler of all of her father’s affairs.

Who would guess that beneath those taut thighs and tanned skin, that lush blonde hair and sexy ass grin… there laid a
fucking lioness
?

Beautifully built from head to toe, Daniela was nothing like the people she’d surrounded herself with.

She’s nothing like them now.

Acumen combined with altruism to create this gorgeous fucking creature whose beauty emanated from the inside out. She was a rare ray of light, a gold-plated sun in a dark and cynical world.

And every man in here—
and probably a one woman or ten
—wants her.

Clad in a sexy, glittery number, she takes a seat in the middle of the floor, beneath a glittery gold chandelier.

And she has no idea the type of danger she’s just put herself in…

And with that thought, my head takes a swan dive off the edge of reason.

I make a beeline straight for her.

I touch the back of her chair, and she turns.

She gasps, reaching up to touch me when I place my index finger at my lips, silencing her.

I grab her tiny hand, and then suddenly I pull it, clutching one of her elbows as I do my best to escort her off the main floor and out of the room.

Outside, in the hallway, I place her back against the wall, leaning into her.

“
What—what are you doing here?”
I growl.

She holds her ground. “I could ask you the same thing. I’ve only been looking for you for
what
?
The past two freakin’ days
. And then I come, and you show up
here
? Of all fucking places…”

I place a hand over her mouth, practically snarling like a pit bull on a leash.

A very short lease.

“I don’t have time to talk, Dani. You need to leave.
Now.
You don’t understand what you’ve done…”

She pushes me unexpectedly.

I take an awkward step backwards.

She doesn’t even have a disguise on, but her face is a verifiable mask of rage. She points a finger at me.

“
No, you
don’t understand, Bishop,” she rasps violently. “I came here tonight for a reason…”

She steps forward, her greenish-blue eyes sparkling.

“I’m not leaving until I take care of it.”

The temptation to kiss her is overwhelmingly strong. I know it might be my last chance, but the second I touch her waist, the lights in the hallway go dark.

And all fucking hell begins to break loose.

***

A symphony of screams increases in intensity behind the walls.

The sounds of footsteps—seemingly
hundreds
of them—march like the beat of a deadly drum beyond the doors of the decorated ballroom, and from my position in the corner of the hall,
I grab Dani
.

I hold her at the end of the hallway, tucking her in a hidden niche.

Trapped
, enfolded in the nook of a hopeless dead-end, we have no choice but to watch.

We watch as scores of S.W.A.T., men in black militarized uniforms emerge from every direction, swarming like a hive—descending like a powerful plague from every crevice, corner and coatroom that the formerly serene Regency has to offer.

And, in that moment, with a glimpse of the chaos around me, and Dani’s heavenly body against mine, I just know it.

I know Delaney is in the thick of it all.

We have to get the fuck out of this hotel.

But the parade of police never ends.

Closing in, slapping every partygoer in handcuffs, I know it is just a matter of time before they find Dani and me.

They’d blow off these low-level crooks and mob conspirators just to get to the two of us.

A traitorous FBI special agent and a powerful mob boss’s only kid?

We were gold compared to the rest of the fools.

And the Feds would sacrifice a thousand men in the end, just to get to us.

I grab Dani’s hand as a group of SWAT passes from thirty feet off.

“Come on,” I say, urging her forward.

And then we run.

The carpeted floor of the Regency thuds beneath our feet as we sprint the length of the hallway on the south side of the masquerade ballroom.

The sound of voices, low and deep, drive us into a conference room where I slam into its door, dragging Dani behind me, barely breathing as we slink out of sight just as another gaggle of troops come traipsing our way.

An ear against the heavy wood, my fingertips slick with sweat, I press Dani into my body and then my body into the door.

The voices outside taper into silence, and as they do, I tug Dani to other side of the room.

We exit through an opposite door. Then another one after that.

One after the other, one door leads to another door, which leads to another door until we finally enter an event room that has no second exit.

Under the sunset orange-colored light, we face each other, our eyes searching for where to go next when a uniformed officer, looking ostensibly lost, wanders right into our cordoned off space.

And I barely have time to draw my weapon before the officer’s is pointed right at us.

Only a blink will separate which one of us lives and dies.

Then, as instinctively and without warning, or personal awareness of her skills, Dani strikes.

She grabs a pinky on the hand that is gripped around the officer’s gun, bending it until it pops while simultaneously reaching for the officer’s balls with the other.

Throwing her head upwards, she head butts the now neutralized cop, striking him in his forehead, knocking him backwards.

Flat on his ass.

He falls backward hitting the floor with a thud, the gun flying out of his hand and across the floor.

And, needless to say, the weapon isn’t the only thing that hits the floor.

I have to pick my jaw up as Dani calmly walks away from her attack.

I grab her waist.

“Christ, you are one dangerous woman.”

“Would you have me any other way?”

We share an unexpected smile, and as she moves in to wrap her arms around me, Dani’s shy grin drops.

It falls right off her face… and is replaced by something awful. I can see the terror in her eyes.

The sound of a cocking pistol resonates in my ears like a
crack in the Earth.

And then the sound of the actual shot explodes.

***

DANI

The sound of the boom rockets over my head, and Bishop, now off his feet, goes flying backwards. I open my eyes to find his body sailing across the room.

The smell of gunpowder fills the air, and hot streaks of liquid slash across my face and hands.

The shot is followed by another… and it is as if I have been beckoned by the races. My hands grasping for my balance, my feet thudding hollowly across the floor, I find myself dashing blindly through the cloth-covered tables of the abandoned event room towards the farthest corner of the open room.

I can smell the acridity in the air.

It is a bitter bouquet—
that iron-tinged scent of blood.

It takes me several seconds to realize that it is all over me. Whipped across my face and fingers as if it were war paint.

And in that moment, I know Bishop’s been shot.

I couldn’t stop my dreams from becoming reality. I envisioned the bastards that had tried to kill me… and they had stepped right out of my head and into the streets.

They were actually here.

Choking on my own sobs, half-hyperventilating, I cower behind a large white cloth covered table while the men from my dreams roam the room.

I listen closely for their footsteps. My mind races as I realize that there may be only a pair of one.

I listen harder.

His tread is light—almost too light.

The soles of Bishop’s assailant are soft underfoot, and he walks around the place with no apparent purpose.

His path is not towards me, but on the other side. I hear him cock his gun as he meanders away from the door.

I flinch, as he lifts a table, sending it crashing across the room.