No Good Deed (16 page)

Joseph brought Niki over the top, and he followed her. He kissed her, held her, whispered his love in her ear.

“Take me to her,” Niki said. “I want her to see me when she dies.”

He didn’t want to. He wanted to run far away, him and Niki, and disappear. Let Tobias try to run the operation without them. He would be dead or in jail within a month.

“Anything for you,” he said.

She smiled and kissed him.

“On one condition,” he added.

She raised an eyebrow. “Conditions?”

“One. I’m going with you. You do exactly what I say. If I say we leave, we leave. Trust my instincts, Niki. The one time you didn’t, you ended up in jail.”

Her body stiffened, and he almost felt bad for saying it. Except she had to see that this was where he served her best. Protecting her.

Then she sighed and relaxed. “I became too arrogant.”

“It wasn’t you. It was Sanchez and Trejo. You were juggling many things. You were simply trying to fix their mistakes.

“I could have stopped them, but I liked the plan. Donnelly was becoming bolder. Getting close. But he didn’t realize how close he was, and it was foolish of me to sanction the hit on him. I should have found another way to take him out.”

“Don’t.” He kissed her again. “Don’t beat yourself up. You are the smartest woman I know. Brad Donnelly has never played by the rules, and he was already causing problems in our organization. Sanchez and Trejo simply had no talent for planning.”

“It was Kane Rogan,” she said with a scowl. “He’s fucked us over more times than I can count. That little bitch Kincaid would never have found Trejo if Rogan didn’t lead her there by the nose. They will both be dead when this is over.”

“We need to kill Rogan now. Allowing him to live is dangerous.”

“It’s the plan to interrogate him, and you agreed.”

“Yes, but—” How did he explain to her that the last two weeks had put him on edge? He’d never felt so vulnerable. Maybe because in the past, no one knew that Niki was part of the operation. Now she was America’s Most Wanted. And … he wasn’t confident that Rogan would give them anything. The man had been a marine, had gone up against some of the biggest cartels. He’d been a one-man wrecking crew in some regions, and the loyalty of his men was admirable. There were rumors about what he’d done, about what he’d suffered … but Joseph didn’t know how much was true and how much was grandstanding. Still, a marine wouldn’t break easily under torture.

Instead of arguing with Niki, he said, “We have a big enough nest egg to disappear.”

“We’ve talked about this. It’s not only about the money. We made promises, and we have to keep them or we’ll never be safe, or free.” She paused. “And what we have won’t last. A couple of years, and then what? We need the money that was stolen from us, rebuild our operation, and
then
we go.”

He dropped the subject. He would bring it up, again, when this stage was over.

It
was
partly about the money. When Adeline Worthington cut ties with Tobias and hid their money, they couldn’t retrieve it all.

Because of Kane Rogan. But it wasn’t solely the mercenary who stopped them—it was that fed, Lucy Kincaid, a bitch with a bone, digging and digging until they had to cut and run.

The bigger plan was to take their money and set up an empire in South America. With Tobias as the figurehead and Nicole and Joseph running the operation from behind the scenes—and far away—they would control the lion’s share of the drug trade into the United States. Once they put Kane Rogan’s head on a stick and paraded him around for the cartels to see, the cartels would bow down to
them
. Everyone wanted Kane Rogan dead, but only Nicole would deliver his corpse.

He said, “I won’t stop you from killing Samantha Archer yourself, but remember the original plan.”

She scowled. “That bastard Kane Rogan has screwed up more of our plans than anyone. And I will kill him. Slowly. He thinks he’s tough, but he’ll beg to die. I’ll make sure of it.” She sat up, beautiful in the nude, completely unmindful of her nakedness. Joseph could stare at her for hours. “And we still don’t know how he drained our money. He’s not exactly a computer mastermind. Are we getting the computer forensics report?”

“It’s sensitive right now. Everyone is looking at everyone else. My contact is being extra cautious.”

“Tell him caution will get him dead.”

Joseph didn’t say anything. Niki would come around. She always did. Which was why they had survived for so long in the most dangerous business on the planet.

His phone beeped. He picked it up. “It’s Lyle. He has the documents from DC.”

“It’s about fucking time.” She pulled on jeans and a tank top. She’d never looked sexier. “He’s here, right? He’s not going to make me wait, is he?”

“He’s here.”

They left the bedroom and went downstairs. The house was in the middle of the property and well-guarded. They had multiple routes to escape
if
the feds tracked them down.

Lyle was drinking Scotch at the bar in the large gathering room. Tobias was standing behind the bar, playing the bartender. Joseph stared at him, keeping his antipathy hidden.

Tobias.
He would be at the bottom of a lake if Joseph had his way. His sick fetishes disgusted Joseph. He was a stupid, self-centered, pompous ass. He acted as if he really was the head of their organization, instead of the figurehead. And then he’d gone and killed Garza. In fucking
public
. Caught on camera at the airport. Why couldn’t he have just thought for
five seconds
that there would be cameras all over the fucking airport?

Tobias had grown fat and lazy. He had ostensibly been in charge for three months and it had gone to his head. He was their biggest problem, bigger than Kane Rogan. Joseph had verbally put the blame on Trejo and Sanchez, because Niki would never see that Tobias was the root of all their problems. He always had been, from the moment they’d set the fire in Van Nuys twenty years ago and killed three people in order to destroy the remains of the woman Tobias strangled to death.

Joseph should have killed him and not said a word. He knew how to make a body disappear. Niki would never have figured out it was him.

But he didn’t lie to the woman he loved.

Tobias glared at them. “We were supposed to meet hours ago, but you two were upstairs fucking all day.”

Niki walked behind the bar and kissed Tobias on the cheek. “Shut up,” she said, but with a smile. “I’ve been in jail for nearly three months, I deserved one day for myself.”

Tobias grunted.

She turned to Lyle. “Joseph said you had something.”

“I did exactly what you said,” Lyle said. “But it took our guys a while to crack the code.”

She said, “Give it to me.”

He handed her a flash drive.

“Don’t you care about what happened with Kane Rogan?” Tobias said.

Niki frowned and looked from Tobias to Joseph. “He was captured in Santiago,” she said.

Tobias snorted but didn’t say anything.

Joseph lost his temper. He crossed the room and jumped over the bar. His hand was around Tobias’s thick, ugly neck. He pushed him against the wall. Glasses fell to the floor and shattered.

Niki said, “Joseph!”

Joseph hated this man. Hated him with a passion that had him squeezing harder. It would be so easy to kill him right now.

“Please, Joseph,” Niki said. Joseph could barely hear her.

He stared into Tobias’s arrogant, scared, beady eyes. They watered, reddened, and Tobias was shaking. He grabbed Joseph’s wrists but had no strength to push him off. He was a pathetic, weak coward. Tobias knew exactly what Joseph wanted to do to him, and better, he feared him.

Good. He
should
be afraid. If Joseph had the opportunity to kill him without it coming back to hurt Niki, he’d do it. Without hesitation and certainly without remorse. Tobias deserved worse than a bullet in the brain.

Joseph let go and stepped back. Tobias sputtered and coughed.

Niki took a step toward Tobias, but Joseph caught her eye. She stopped, straightened her spine, and said in a calm voice, “What happened with Kane Rogan?”

Tobias didn’t answer right away. He stood up, poured a glass of Scotch with shaking hands, and drained it. Then he said, “We don’t have him.”

“What do you mean, we don’t have him?” she asked. Niki sounded as angry as Joseph felt. Good. She needed to be angry.

“The priest,” Tobias said. “He fucked it all up. He must have told Rogan where we had the girl, because he brought enough men to take out everyone. Dover got away, he’s hurt pretty bad, but he took out one of theirs.”

“Did he have a fucking
army
?” Niki asked. “How could Rogan take out a dozen men?”

Tobias didn’t look at her. “We had five. Five is usually enough.”

“Five against Rogan?”

“Rogan had three men.”

“Five. Five idiots against four trained US soldiers.” Niki picked up a glass and threw it toward Tobias. It hit the wall behind him. “Didn’t the fiasco at Trejo’s compound teach you anything? There were four then, too, against twenty!”

Tobias stepped toward Niki. Joseph resisted every urge to push him back against the wall. Niki was going to have to learn that her cousin was out of control.

“You got arrested, Nicole.”

“How did Trejo get that disk?” she countered.

“How do I know?”

“You’re lucky the DEA hasn’t figured out what really happened five years ago, otherwise they never would have pled, and my escape would have been that much harder.”

“That FBI bitch didn’t need the disk to figure it out.”

Niki reddened and Joseph stepped back. Finally. Tobias was showing his true colors.

“You, Toby, are a fool if you think you have the power here. You are a figurehead, nothing more. Your games have gotten us into far more hot water than anything I have done. What you did with Elise was inexcusable.”

“Leave her out of this.”

“I can’t! She’s in jail because of you.”

“She’s exactly where she needs to be. You always do this, Nicole. You treat me like
I’m
the idiot. Like
I
don’t know how to run this operation.”

“Elise is in
jail
,” Niki repeated.

“She’ll be out by Wednesday afternoon.”

“You’re delusional,” Joseph said. “No way will the feds let her go.”

“Don’t underestimate her. Our contact at the juvenile detention center told me that the shrink they assigned wants Elise transferred to a minimum-security facility for minors, and possibly a group home. I’m watching the situation closely. You’ve always underestimated her, Nicole.”

“She’s a loose cannon,” Niki said. “She doesn’t follow orders.”

Except, Joseph thought, from Tobias. They were both sick.

“We’re family,” he said. “We stick together. You can’t leave her behind.”

Niki sighed and rubbed her eyes. “I never planned on leaving her. I just wish you’d left her in DC where she was gathering information, and doing a damn good job of it. Now she’s been compromised. The feds have her DNA and prints. She’s been burned.”

“Elise is meant for better things,” Tobias said. “She’s smart. And if you’d work with her, you’d know that.”

“She’s sixteen! Reckless. A know-it-all. I’m still reeling over the fact that Jimmy gave her to you at thirteen. She wasn’t ready.”

“She was ready, and I’ll prove to you that she can do anything.”

“First, let’s see if she can get herself out—and
not
lead the feds to us. Then we’ll talk.”

“Fine,” Tobias said, frowning.

Niki turned to Joseph. She looked so tired, so … worn out. She shouldn’t feel that way, not now when she was free.

Joseph said, “I’ll reach out to Dover, find out what happened with Rogan, and we’ll regroup. We should take them all out, no more games.”

Tobias snorted. “Games? What’s that
game
of yours in the basement?”

Niki looked at him. “What’s in the basement?” she asked.

“Someone I thought would be more help than he was,” Joseph replied. “I’ll explain later.” He glared at Tobias. Damn him, Joseph wanted to tell Niki himself. He wanted information first—but now he’d have to confess he jumped the gun a bit while she was still in prison. But he wasn’t going to do it around Tobias.

She rubbed her eyes. “Toby, stop trying to divide us. We’re united—a family. Joseph is family, as much as you and me. Don’t forget it.”

“Never,” he said, and Joseph knew he was mocking them. “He’s not blood.”

“Stop,” Niki said. “Fighting now only gives the feds more power. United, we will win. Remember that. It’s been true for years, it’s true now. We need our money,” she repeated. “And if Rogan saw Dover, he’s burned. It won’t take long for the feds to trace Dover back to Los Angeles.”

“Maggie will take care of it,” Joseph said. “You’re not the only one in the family, Niki. Others need to carry their weight.” He glared at Tobias. He was either too dense or too arrogant to see Joseph’s rage.

Good. Then you won’t see me coming with the knife when I gut you and leave you to die slowly in the middle of a remote desert. Scorpions will sting you. Snakes will bite you. Coyotes will eat you alive and then the vultures will pick your bones clean.

“Take me to Samantha Archer,” Niki said. “I need to regain control.”

“Are you sure?” Joseph asked, enjoying the image of Tobias screaming in pain.

She nodded. “Toby, contact Dover and tell him the bounty on Kane Rogan just doubled. Dead or alive. He’s too much trouble.”

Tobias sneered. “Happily.”

*   *   *

Tobias watched Nicole leave the room with that asshole Joseph. God, he hated that man. Joseph thought he was better than him—
him
. Joseph was turning Nicole against him. Joseph had worked on her for years, and every little mistake—even things that weren’t his fault—Joseph used against him.

Lyle had watched the entire thing from his seat in the corner. Tobias would have forgotten he was there, except he spoke up after Nicole left. “Hey! Nicole! You forgot—”