Run This Town 03 - (Watch Me) Unmask You (19 page)

Elias seriously doubted Tek did the handling there.

“Besides, you should be gunning for Annika.” His face twisted into a grimace. “She’s working with the old man on this one. They’re who sent those men after you and she’s the reason I’m here.”

Elias frowned. That made no sense. “That— Why would Annika want anything to do with me?’

“I can’t imagine it’s any fun trying to figure that treacherous bitch out.” Tek was back to business, his breakdown of mere minutes ago long forgotten. “She thinks she’s blackmailed me into this shit.” He chuckled at that.

“What does she have on you to think she can?”

“She’s in New York, so you know—” Tek jerked his chin and ignored Elias’s question. “Better get on that before she sends another crew after that pretty husband of yours.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Does he know about Rikers?” he asked. “Does he know about us?”

“No.” Lots of things Lucky didn’t know. If Elias wanted to fix them, he had to spill everything. He didn’t look forward to it.

Tek nodded once. “Huh. Secrets. We’re fucking up to our necks in them, aren’t we?”

Elias’s secrets were out. At least that weight was off his shoulders. Tek’s… He couldn’t begin to know how his friend managed. “How did you find out about Annika?” That shit still had him reeling. Why would Stavros’s sister be coming after him? “Does Stavros know?”

“I’m not all gone in my shit.” Tek sounded completely offended. “I can make people talk when I want to. And no, dude has no idea what she’s up to.”

Elias knew how Tek got his information and he wanted to throw up. Or shoot someone. “I don’t want Stavros to know,” he said instead. He couldn’t trust that bastard not to protect his family, especially the woman he loved. 

“Done. Oh, and you can stop looking for the other men,” Tek said over his shoulder as he walked out the hotel room. “I dealt with them. Annika is yours.”

He disappeared, and Elias’s ass hit the bed.

A knock came on the door of the hotel and Lucky grabbed Maddie off the floor where she’d been crawling, holding her to his chest as Reggie pulled a gun from his waist and approached the door slowly. All the lifting made his sore arm ache, but he ignored it like he’d been doing all along. The healing bullet wound was a constant reminder.

At night he touched the bandage with tender fingers and let sorrow take him.

“What?” Reggie demanded.

“Open the door, Reg.”

Reggie tucked the gun back into his waist and pulled the door open. Israel Storm stood there with a frown on his face, his stance on edge. Behind him were two men in suits. One Lucky recognized.

Dane Hutchins.

The man with Dane was a stranger, though. Of obvious Indian decent, Dane’s companion had dark skin and shiny blue-black hair that brushed his collar. His eyes were covered in dark sunglasses.

“Dutch. What it do?” Reggie hauled Israel into the room as he grinned at the FBI agent. “You coming in?” He eyed Dane’s companion. “Patel.”

“Reggie.” Lucky didn’t think Patel’s mouth moved even though he verbally acknowledged Reggie.

Did they all know each other? How did that work, the FBI being on first name basis with criminals like Israel Storm and the man Lucky called his husband? 

“What’s up, Dutch?” Reggie squinted at Dane.

“Just here to check up on Mr. Mousasi.” Dane looked over Reggie’s shoulder and met Lucky’s gaze. “Give us some time alone.”

“Nope.” Israel scowled at Dane. “I’m not letting you anywhere near Elias’s family.”

“You realize you can’t stop us,” Patel said tightly. “I mean, you do know I can arrest you on a whole bunch of shit right now, and keep you there for an eternity.”

Israel laughed. “I bet you think you scare me. That’s that nerve.” He shook his head. “Fucking Feds. Always good for a chuckle.”

Patel stepped forward, past Dane and into Israel’s space, his nostrils flaring. “I’ll be happy to show you just how serious I am.”

“Patel.” Dane’s voice was… different, not soft or loud, but strong enough that his fellow agent stiffened. “Back up.”

A muscle twitched in Patel’s jaw. Israel didn’t budge from where he stood next to Reggie, and after a pregnant pause Patel moved. One step backward that had him bumping against Dane, his back to Dane’s front. Lucky was watching them close enough to see Dane’s eyes close, see his lashes brush his cheeks before he cleared his throat and moved away from his partner.

“Lucky.”

Lucky stood with Maddie in his arm, trying to escape her flailing fists. “Dane.”

Reggie turned to Lucky. “You want to talk to Dutch?”

Lucky shrugged. “It’s fine with me.” He glanced down at Maddie. Her blue eyes were wide, pink gums exposed as she smiled at him. “It’s cool.”

“I don’t think Elias would think so,” Israel said.

Lucky glared at him. “And I should care about what Elias thinks why?”

Israel’s eyes darkened and he walked over to Lucky, slowly enough for Lucky to understand what it must feel like to be stalked. “Don’t start judging people until you fully get the reason they do what they do.” His lips twisted as his gaze roamed Lucky’s face. “My brother loves you. You and that little girl in your arms come before everything, before his own life, so think about that before you discard something you might never get back.”

Lucky stared at him, speechless. What did that shit even mean? He didn’t dare ask, and Israel didn’t give him the chance anyway. He went back to Reggie.

“We’ll be outside,” Israel said. “I don’t trust you,” he told Dane boldly. “And you,” he flicked a glance in Patel’s direction. “I just don’t like you.”

“Fuck you.” Patel’s face twisted.

“Yeah.” Israel chuckled. “You wish, son.”

Lucky rolled his eyes. These men were like Goddamn kids. “Only Dane can stay.”

Patel frowned. “What?”

“It’s okay.” Dane lifted a hand, probably to touch his partner’s shoulder, but lowered it when Patel tensed up. “You can go,” Dane’s voice morphed into cold and bland as he looked at his partner.

“Come on, Is.” Reggie met Lucky’s gaze. “We’ll be right outside.”

Lucky nodded. “Try to stay out of trouble.” He jerked his chin in Patel’s direction and Reggie grinned.

“No promises.”

All three men stomped out of the hotel room and Dane locked it before turning to Lucky who sank back onto the floor.

“So…” Lucky kept his gaze on Dane as he came over and squatted next to him. “Dutch, huh?”

Dane’s mouth twisted, but he nodded. “Yep.” He glanced sideways at Lucky. “You can call me that if you like.”

“Nah. I like Dane.” Lucky held out some dried cereal to Maddie who snatched it from him and brought it to her mouth.

“Your husband refuses to call me anything but Dane.”

The small smile on Lucky’s face fell away at the mention of Elias. He stretched his legs out in front of him and cleared his throat. “Why are you here, Dane?”

“Checking up on you.”

“Really.” Lucky cocked his head and regarded the other man. “Why don’t I believe that?”

“Can’t help you there.”

“Okay. Tell me how you know Elias. What you know about him.”

Dane’s brow creased. “Shouldn’t you be having this conversation with your husband?”

“Well.” Lucky made a show of looking around the hotel room. “He’s not here. And even if he was—” he paused. “I don’t know that I can believe a word he says.”

“Ignoring him doesn’t make it go away.”

Lucky wondered if Dane spoke from experience. “So tell me. Who is the man I married?”

“That’s not my job. It’s his story to tell.” Dane sighed. “I can tell you how we met.”

“Okay.”

“In Sag Harbor. We had an undercover op going, a joint sting with the DEA. One of my men was embedded inside a major drug dealer’s operation. He’d been inside for about two years and we’d heard rumblings that something big was about to go down.” Dane stopped and stared off into the distance. “This drug dealer, he’d insulated himself. Not many people knew his true face. He was a respectable man in the community, had a lot of clout, money to burn. We could never touch him, never make anything stick. He was fucking Teflon.”

Maddie grabbed on to the bed and used it to struggle onto her shaking legs. Her body wasn’t very steady, but she clung to the bedspread.

Lucky clapped softly and her head jerked toward him, her cheeks rosy. “Good girl, Maddie,” Lucky whispered to her. She got excited and took a step while releasing the bedspread and crumbled to the floor. Lucky chuckled while she looked bewildered. If Elias was there he’d be laughing, too. His blue eyes would shine with pride and he’d scoop her up into his arms and give her those loud ticklish kisses on her stomach that she loved so much.

“You okay?”

He nodded at Dane’s question. “Sure. Keep going.”

“The target had a reputation for disappearing his enemies. No traces after he did whatever he did with then. We had to take him down, but our man on the inside went silent for a month. No contact. Very few people even knew about the mission, so trusting someone enough to send them in after him was impossible. Then one day I got a call on the phone reserved for my UC guy. It was Elias.”

“What—what happened?”

“Someone had paid him to uh, kill the target. So he went to do just that. I still don’t know how he did it, but he found my guy buried alive, naked, with too many wounds to count. He’d been… violated, in every way.”

“Jesus,” Lucky breathed.

“I don’t know how his cover was blown, but it had been. To pieces and they’d done things to him.” Dane shook his head. “Shit, it’s been years and I still don’t know for sure what they did to him. But Elias found him, my agent. And he had a choice to make, do the job he’d been paid to do or rescue an FBI agent. He chose the second.”

“He did?” Lucky’s eyes widened.

“Yep. Got my guy out, took care of him until he was okay enough to tell Elias who he was, to give him my information. He was the one to let me know that the man I was after had died a while prior and his wife had stepped into his shoes, calling the shots. He let her go, the wife. ” Dane shook his head. “I’d heard of him, you know. This mercenary who handled things for the right price. He was notorious, reputation spreading fast by word of mouth. I always knew that eventually I’d have to go after him, but then there he was, coming to me. Making himself vulnerable, showing his face so he could save my agent’s life.”

Lucky stared at him, transfixed. “What did you do?”

Dane shrugged. “I retrieved my agent and put myself in his debt.”

“You’re friends?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. Elias and I, we have a mutual respect for each other. We understand each other. We’re very much alike, which I think is why we constantly butt heads. Occasionally I’ve used him to handle pesky jobs for me.” He turned to Lucky, faced him head on. “He is extremely good at what he does, Lucky.”

“So I keep hearing.” And he could never reconcile the man he’d fallen in love with, his husband, with the man Dane and Reggie had described. “You say you’re alike so if Elias is a contract killer, what exactly are you?”

“An FBI agent,” Dane said as if Lucky was a few senses short.

“Yeah, but what is that code for?”

“A lot of things.” Dane’s face was blank. “A whole lot of things.”

“You’re different.” And Lucky had the feeling that Dane was a man brimming with deadly secrets. “I like you.”

Dane shifted next to him, a distinctly uncomfortable expression on his face.

Lucky barked a laugh. “Not that way! Shit.” As if. One man alone did it for him. Just one, and he was lost as to what would happen to his relationship now. How did they fix what Elias had broken?

“Thank fuck,” Dane murmured. “Would’ve sucked if Elias set his sights on me next.”

Lucky directed the conversation away from his own fucked up life. “That man. Patel, is it?”

“What about him?”

“How long have you been in love with him?”

Dane didn’t move or speak, but the temperature in the room made a drastic dip to the frosty side. He chanced at glance at Dane and found him with his head thrown back, gaze trained on the ceiling.

“When he backed into you earlier, you looked as if you were in pain,” Lucky said softly. “As if it hurt to have skin to skin contact with him and then when you tried to touch his shoulder—”

“Lucky.”

Lucky pursed his lips. “Yeah?”

“Do you figure that we’re somehow friends?” Dane asked, voice a harsh whip. “That I’ll start telling you my secrets and shit?”

Lucky shrugged. “Since we’re not friends, I have nothing to gain. No horse in this race. And as a stranger I can’t use what you tell me against you, can I? We’re strangers.”

Dane shook his head.

“How long have you been working with him?” Lucky asked.

“Too long. Too fucking long.”

The anguish in those words was shocking. “I saw the ring on his finger,” Lucky said.

Dane smiled, self-deprecating. “He’s got a wife who he adores, who loves him right back.” He licked his lips. “And a new baby.”

“And what do you have?”

“A house on a hill.” Dane laughed while Lucky watched him in confusion. “An empty house on a hill.”

Lucky didn’t know what that meant, but he nodded in sympathy. “Why do you stay, continue to work with him?”

“Because not being near him hurts more.”

Well, fuck.

The door opened and Dane jumped to his feet, gun at the ready as Reggie and Israel came through the door.

Dane scowled.

Israel chuckled. “Easy there, shooter.”

Reggie rolled his eyes. “Behave.” He turned to Lucky. “Get packed. We gotta move.”

“What?”

“What is it?” Dane asked Reggie.

“We’re leaving.” Reggie picked up a bag and started shoving clothes in. “Get your daughter ready.”

Lucky picked Maddie up, wiping her mouth. “Where are we going?” He grabbed the diaper bag.

Reggie grinned. “Ever been to Coney Island?”