Gunnin' for You (Rolling Thunder series Book 4) (18 page)

It felt like she stood there for several long minutes, but surely not. Her knees were locked to stop the shaking and her palms were sweaty. She was getting a doozy of a headache from the rigidness in her back. This was beyond nerve-racking. She hadn’t had to walk in on Greg and his floozy.

Hearing the knock on the door, Gunnar’s head snapped to the door.

“You have someone else coming to threaten me today?”

Dianna’s eyes wide, her head shaking furiously. “No. No one. I swear.”

Gunnar jerked the door open and stood with a wild look in his eye, his jaw was clenched so tight he thought it would break.

Emma could see his chest heaving from exertion or surprise.

“What are you doing here?” His voice was sharp and it sliced through the thick air easily.

“What are YOU doing here is the better question!” Emma lifted her chin just a bit higher. Her eyes bore into his, and at that moment, she dared him to piss her off just a little bit more.

“Excuse me? How is that a better question? What the fuck are you doing here, Emma?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you. I’m not here to cheat on you, that’s for damn sure.”

Clenching and unclenching his hands, Gunnar moved to step outside. Emma stepped back to allow him out of the house.

“What the fuck are you talking about? Why in the hell would you think I was here to cheat?”

“Really?” Now she was pissed. “I saw you with her. I saw you hug that…that woman, and then she led you in the house and you were holding hands. And. Why aren’t you at work?”

“Why aren’t
you
at work?”

Her voice raised, her temper let loose. “I. Am. At. Work. I’m delivering papers to Mrs. Simpson.”

Raking his hands back through his now loose hair, Gunnar turned to look into the living room. He stepped back in and looked Dianna in the eye. “That true? Did you make up some flimsy excuse to get her here with phony documents so you could do something to her?”

Emma was incensed. She pushed past Gunnar to step into the house only to stop short when she saw the gross man who had been following her on the sofa. His jaw was red, smeared blood marred his lips, his eyes looked dazed, and he was rubbing the back of his head. An older woman stood alongside, and Gunnar’s ‘friend’ was sitting next to him on the sofa. All eyes were trained on Emma. Emma slightly shook her head to break the confusion loose.

Gunnar put his arm on her shoulders. Emma tried shrugging him off but he held fast.

Emma heard him take a deep breath and she could feel the tension in the way he held his arm around her. She could feel his body vibrate, his control so tightly leashed he was straining against it.

“Answer me.”

Emma flinched at the tone he used. Dianna did, too, and Emma watched her stammer, opening then closing her mouth to say something, but words would not come out.

“Kelly? Tell me what’s going on.”

“Mom said you’d help us. Then you left yesterday and you were mad and said you wouldn’t and we needed you to help us.” She broke down crying.

“You weren’t here. How the hell do you know what I said or didn’t say?”

Sniffling and swiping at the tears welling in her eyes, she looked into Gunnar’s eyes. That’s when Emma saw it. They looked similar. Oh. My. God. Kelly looks like…Molly. Emma twisted her head to look at Gunnar, his jaw as tight and twitching, his back was rigid and the expression he wore was almost violent.

“I asked when I came home from school. I go to the technical college and I had class. I couldn’t miss again. But I was so excited to get home and find out if you were going to help us, but Kevin said you wouldn’t. He said you were a…”

She swallowed and looked over at Kevin, who was starting to regain his senses. He leaned forward to stand, but Kelly pulled him back by grabbing his shirt.

“He said I was a what?” Gunnar clipped.

Her lip slightly trembling Kelly tossed back her hair, straightened her back, facing her very angry half-brother. “He said you were an asshole.”

Emma raised her brows and slowly turned her head to look at Gunnar. To her surprise, he threw his head back and laughed. He laughed. If she weren’t so confused right now, she would simply stand there and watch the beauty that was Gunnar. But before she could say anything at all, Gunnar stopped laughing and sternly looked at Dianna.

“You better speak now or we’re leaving. I want to know how you got Chery Treklin to work with you to get Emma here. I’ll deal with her later. I want to know why those pictures are so important that you would burn a house down to set a tone.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Emma jerked her head back. She slowly turned her head to look at Kevin. Her eyes narrowed and she took a step forward before Gunnar pulled her back to him.

Stopping to look each one of them in the eye, he finished his commandment. “If I don’t get the answers from you, we will be leaving right this minute and going to the police department with everything we know. Got it?”

“Did that son of a bitch burn Ashley’s house down?” Emma’s eyes were huge in her head, her voice cracking, her lips quivering and then thinning as she stared at Kevin.

“I’ll kill you if you did that. Did you?” Gunnar held Emma tight to his side. When Kevin only sneered, she raised her voice. “Did you, you bastard?” Trying again to take a step forward only to be pulled into Gunnar’s side, she huffed out a breath and tried twisting in his arms.

“Christ, you two are pathetic. None of this would‘ave happened if pretty boy here would’ave just given us the fucking box.” He ended in a yell.

“For the record,” Dianna said taking a step toward them, “he didn’t burn the house down.” She swallowed. “We used the fact that the house burned down as a way to get you here. By making you think Kevin did it, so you would be scared for Emma’s life and come to talk to us. You had been ignoring our calls and not coming when we asked you.” She looked back at Kevin. “We needed you to think we did it.”

“How do I know that’s true? You’ve just admitted to lying. Why should I believe you?”

“Can we…can we just sit down and talk about this? Please.” Dianna pointed to the chairs across the room. She walked in front of Kevin and Kelly and sat on the sofa putting Kelly in between her and Kevin. Gunnar took Emma’s hand and walked over to the chair he had sat in yesterday and motioned for her to sit down. He stood next to her, touched the front pocket of his Rolling Thunder shirt, rubbed his chin, then tucked his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans.

“Gunnar, why don’t you take a seat in Keith’s chair?”

Gunnar quickly glanced at the chair, still showing the imprint where Keith had spent so much time. “No. Thanks.”

Shifting his weight from side to side, clearly showing his agitation, Dianna began.

“We didn’t…Kevin didn’t burn down Emma’s house.” She quickly glanced at Emma, her lips quivered as she tried to be strong and not cry. “We needed you to think we did, because you weren’t coming over when we asked. Kevin followed you around a bit, and…” Looking over at Kevin and back at Gunnar, she finished. “He wasn’t very good at it. More than anything, he seemed to have put you on edge. He’s
not
his father’s son.”

Kevin quickly sat forward and then abruptly stopped, closed his eyes, and grabbed his head with both hands. Slowly sitting back on the sofa he glared at his mother.

“Why was he following us? Why not just touch base? Or ask Connor to intervene and ask for you?”

“Look, Gunnar, we’re in a bit of trouble here and we need those pictures back. Keith was mixed up with some shady characters and I think the pictures we need to keep them at bay is in that box.”

Gunnar ran his fingers over his cheeks, clenched and unclenched his jaw a couple of times, then tucked his thumbs into his pockets.

“What pictures? I’ve looked at them over and over and I couldn’t find anything nefarious or ominous. They’re old pictures of my mom, Molly’s mom and Keith with various people. So, you’ll have to be more specific.”

Dianna looked at her children, nodded once, and then turned back to Gunnar. She let out a deeply held breath.

“Keith was involved with the Bambino crime family in Chicago. He was small-time, very small-time, and only couriered for them or drove one of their trucks from the trucking company, from time to time to pay the bills. It started before you were born. Keith met Carmine Bambino when they were both sixteen. They were just chums with some mutual acquaintances. Then one day, Carmine needed something delivered and told Keith he’d pay him a thousand dollars to deliver it. Back then a thousand dollars was like the lottery.”

Dianna straightened her shoulders and stretched her back. “Keith did good and didn’t say anything to anyone and Carmine liked that. Soon, Carmine would call a bit more often. Keith was beguiled by the money and he liked the fact that people with money liked and trusted him. He didn’t have that with his family. It was addicting to him. Then Joci got pregnant and he started to question whether it was right to have a child and doing the things he was doing. Joci was stable and smart and he thought she’d catch on eventually and he’d have to quit. When he told Carmine, it didn’t go well. Then, Carmine offered him ten thousand dollars to run another delivery. Keith thought he’d deliver for Carmine one more time and he’d be set with a bit of cash. By this time Tori was also pregnant.”

Dianna flicked her gaze between Gunnar and Emma. Emma looked up at Gunnar and saw him swallowing and working to keep his emotions in check. She slid her hand into his and squeezed. He briefly looked down at her and back to Dianna.

“Go on.”

Rubbing her hands together, Dianna continued. “Joci found out about Tori and Keith and broke up with him. He was mad at himself for hurting her and still had this last run to finish. In his mind it would be the last and he’d try to make it up to Joci and you. But that delivery went bad. Carmine and his younger brother, Roger, were there at the drop off. When Keith walked into the warehouse to make the delivery, he walked in on Carmine and Roger beating and strangling a man to death. He was so scared, and he didn’t know what to do. He believed Carmine set him up to make him an accomplice so he wouldn’t leave them. We don’t know that for sure, of course, but he was afraid to leave the organization. They killed that man with their bare hands.”

She stood and paced a few steps toward the kitchen then back. “A couple of years later, Carmine was implicated in the murder and so was Roger. They got off without a trial because they had people paid to say they weren’t together that weekend because Carmine was in Vegas. But later that same year, a man named Mike Finco gave Keith two photographs of Carmine and Roger standing next to each other at a boxing match. Finco told Keith to keep those pictures and only use them if they ever threatened to pin it all on him or implicate him in any way. He tucked them away for safekeeping—I thought in our fire safe. But…” Dianna began crying. She looked over at her children and began to sob. Kelly jumped up and hugged her mom and made shushing noises and patted her back.

“Kevin tried following in his father’s footsteps last year but he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He blabbed to some of his friends about what he was doing and about all the money he was making. Carmine threatened to kill Kevin for having a big damn mouth.”

She looked over at Kevin and her brows formed a severe v in her forehead.

“Kevin threatened to use the pictures against Carmine if he got hurt. Trouble is, now Carmine is threatening us to get the pictures. He says if we give them to him, he’ll leave us alone and never bother us again.”

Emma sat stone still, watching Dianna and trying to process it all.

“The mob? As in Mafia?” she asked quietly.

“Yes, they still exist. Carmine’s father is the Don. He’s been in jail since nineteen eighty-nine, but he still runs the family. No one threatens to take his place.”

“How in the hell do you know all this? You could be lying again.” Gunnar’s tone was harsh and clipped.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Dianna’s lips quivered, and softly she said, “I’m Carmine’s niece.”

Silence. The room was so silent you could hear a pin drop. Gunnar could hear his heartbeat and thought everyone else could hear it, too. He swallowed a few times to moisten his throat and slowly looked down at Emma, who had stood and slid her arm around his waist. She laid her head on his shoulder. When he laid his head on top of hers he heard her whisper. “I’m sorry.”

“So Keith met you after all of this or before?”

Dianna looked into Gunnar’s eyes. “I knew him before. He met me while he was still with your mom. We weren’t together then. But after he left town, he came to Chicago where the family is. At first I thought he married me so Carmine wouldn’t kill him. But we made it work.” Her sad smile ripped Gunnar’s heart just a bit. He’d seen that look on his mom’s face so many times. Keith sure was a bastard. “Sad thing is, Carmine wouldn’t care if he was married into the family or not. We’ve lost plenty of family members to…strange occurrences.”

Taking a deep breath, Gunnar whispered to Emma, “Let’s get going.”

She softly said, “Okay.” She reached down to pick up the envelope she had carried into the house and stopped. “I can’t. I have to have these signed.”

Gunnar looked into her eyes and softly smiled. Turning to Dianna he said. “Are those documents real? And by real, I mean do you really need to have them signed?”

Dianna dropped her head and ran her hands over her face. When she brought her head back up, she shook it side to side.

“Why did you try to involve her in this, and how did you get Treklin to go along with you?”

Kelly, who had been silent all this time, finally spoke up. “Emma’s former boyfriend, Greg Graff, is one of Carmine’s attorneys in Chicago.” Kelly looked at Emma and frowned.

Emma shook her head. “That can’t be. How did I not know?”

“I’m sorry, Emma. Greg was here yesterday asking us about the photos. Carmine sent him to see if we were going to turn them over; they’ve been putting pressure on us. Gunnar had left and we weren’t sure if he would come back with them.” Looking over at Kevin, she said, “Greg met with Attorney Treklin yesterday at lunch and got her agreement to help us get the pictures. That’s why Kevin was there. We wanted you to see him there, to protect Greg’s involvement. We were going to ask you to call Gunnar once you got here.” The last was said with sadness in her voice. Her lips again turned down into a frown and she shrugged.