Chapter 2 Rachel
RACHEL
Watching him drive off in a cab as Emile took me to the precinct where Nyx was being held was a special kind of hell.
I didn’t want him to leave without me.
I wanted to go with him.
I wasn’t overly maternal, but every single motherly instinct inside me was screaming at me to go with him, to let Nyx stew in a cell for a couple days—it wouldn’t kill him.
Not like a bunch of Triads could kill our defenseless, underaged daughter.
Nausea and I were no strangers thanks to this pregnancy, but the need to puke had me opening a window to the cold night air and letting the stench of gas slip inside the backseat of the car.
I sucked it in because the last thing I needed was to vomit.
If I could get Nyx out tonight, maybe I could hop on a flight tomorrow to join Rex and Wynter in LA…
Maybe. I had to try.
We got stuck in traffic around ten minutes in, and because thinking about Wynter trapped with the Triads was a vicious kind of torture, I decided to distract myself.
Instead of replying to Hunter via text, I hit the connect button, hoping he’d answer so he could further distract me.
Thank fuck he did.
“Hey, Rach!”
As always, he sounded super zen.
I’d only seen him be anything less than chilled that day when he’d killed Marcus, Rory’s husband.
It was a sad twist of fate that while our friendship had survived the years, every time I thought of Hunter, I inevitably thought of him that day.
I had a feeling that Aurora felt the same way about him, and that was why she’d put up so many roadblocks that he could have lived in Australia, never mind in the desert, for how much space separated them.
“Hunter, what’s with the photo you sent me?”
“Weird, right?” He chuckled. “I think it’s actually a death threat.”
“You do?” I asked cautiously, not wanting to alarm him but needing to scope out the situation. “What have you done to deserve a death threat?”
“Recently, you mean?”
I sniffed. “Well, yes.”
“I’ve done a lot of shitty things over the years,” he pointed out.
“I know. I was there for a few,” I drawled, which made him chuckle.
His guilt had long since died a death; something I’d helped perpetuate. In the aftermath of Marcus’ attack, of Wynter’s birth, of my attempt to get back on track with my studies, Hunter had been my stalwart strength.
“This is very true,” he agreed. “Still, I don’t think I’ve done anything to deserve death by assassin. That’s usually above my pay grade.”
His wording had me tensing. “What is your pay grade?”
“Do you really want to know?” he asked smugly.
“If it’s pertinent to whoever wants you dead, then yes,” I retorted with a huff.
“Add a couple of zeroes to whatever your top paying client pays you and that’s about right.”
I narrowed my eyes at that. “The fuck?”
“Do you want into my pants now?”
“This isn’t funny, Hunter!”
“I think it’s hilarious.”
“You would,” I sniped. “This is serious. Someone’s threatened your life.”
“Gah, someone’s always doing that; this is just the first time it’s been gift wrapped. I’ve heard rumors about an assassin who does this, of course, but I’ve never seen it before. Wonder who she gets to send the gifts—”
“Why? Do you want to use them for the next party you host?”
He chuckled. “You know I don’t host parties. What’s got your panties in a bunch, anyway? Rory told me you were full steam ahead with the FAST gala. My donation is in the charity accounts, by the way.”
I pulled a face at that. “Thank you, Hunter.”
He hummed. “Very welcome, very welcome.”
He was far too generous, and for someone who made a point of scalping everyone in her vicinity for cash for her charities, that was really saying something.
“I wish you’d come to one of the fundraisers though—”
“We’ve discussed this.”
We had.
“I don’t see the point of fundraisers. Someone pays forty grand for a plate, right? But a lot of that money goes to waste on renting the hall, on the food, on the entertainment—”
“We get subsidized rates and we also get a lot of things donated—”
“I don’t care. I just think it’s dumb. But you did have a nice lot in one of the auctions. I bought it over the phone.”
“Meaning you had someone come to the party that you disapprove of?”
“I did.”
“Who?”
“That’s for me to know, not you.”
I rolled my eyes though I had to admit to being amused. Hunter, even in the most stressful of circumstances, had a habit of making me smile. He was just that kind of guy.
As I pondered the question of whether he and Link would get along well, I retorted, “Let’s get back to the matter at hand.”
“You mean the death threat?” He hummed. “Yes, very intriguing.”
“Not intriguing,” I grumbled. “What are you going to do?”
“Not sure,” was his candid retort. “I mean, ordinarily I’d go to my people, but I sometimes contract out without their knowledge, and if this is to do with that then I’m screwed on two fronts.”
“Do you make a habit of contracting out to other people?”
“No. Just the Valentini family.”
“Should have known that without asking.”
“You really should.” He tsked. “You’re slipping.”
“Pregnancy makes me forgetful,” I discounted.
“It might make you forgetful, but it doesn’t make you stupid.”
“That’s harsh, isn’t it?”
He chuckled. “Should I say sorry?”
“Yes,” I sniped.
“Sorry, Rach,” he declared at his most penitent.
But, with Hunter, that wasn’t saying much.
“Does Rory know you help the Valentinis?”
“Nope. Only Custanzu.”
A couple of things that had happened over the last six weeks suddenly made sense.
“Is that why you shoved Lodestar onto them?”
Because he didn’t want to be working with Rory up close and personal?
“Sure is. My people were starting to get suspicious.”
Hmm.
“Could they have sent you the death threat?”
A snort escaped him. “No.”
“Well, you’re not as clever as you think, Hunter, because not only did someone send you that pretty package in the mail, they sent it somewhere that actually got delivered to you—”
“Shit, you’re right,” he groused. “I need to move, don’t I?”
“You don’t. That’s the last goddamn thing you need to do. You move and you’ll get hit.”
“Damn. This is an inconvenience,” he complained. “I have a routine, you know? I go for—”
“I don’t need to know if you still have a coffee and a Danish every morning after you go for a run,” I grumbled. "Rex told me that he knows someone who could, potentially, call the shooter off.”
“And you rang me first and not them?!”
“I wanted to check in with you first.”
“Ah, you wanted to know I wasn’t dead yet.”
My lips twitched. “That too.” I stared at the road ahead, saw some of the traffic had begun clearing up, and felt my nerves start to twist into being again.
Tonight had been a clusterfuck.
Sucking in a breath, I muttered, “It’s been a busy night.”
“I bet,” he said somewhat sympathetically. “I’d really appreciate—”
“You don’t have to ask. The hacker you shoved onto Custanzu is the one who knows the assassin anyway, so…”
“Lodestar knows Dead To Me?”
“Dead To Me?”
“That’s the assassin’s name. To be honest, I thought she was an urban legend. I didn’t realize there was a sniper batshit enough to go around giving her victims gift baskets, but you live and learn.”
Despite the situation, I smiled. “Seems like she has style.”
“I can’t disagree. I’ll get in touch with Lodestar. Leave it with me.”
“You sure? Will you call me to tell me you’re not dead?”
I heard the grin in his voice. “It’ll take more than a sniper’s bullet to kill me, Rach. But if she comes at me with a flamethrower or a pitchfork then know that I love you?”
As always, he shoved humor at me, and though my lips twisted of their own accord into a smile, it didn’t diminish the fact that his words hurt.
“I love you too. Please, Hunter, stay safe.”
“I will,” he told me, his tone more serious now. “I promise.”
He cut the call, leaving me staring at the slowly moving traffic for a handful of seconds.
One thing about being a defense attorney that sucked was that if life were a game of chess, you were shoved into the match halfway through and, somehow, had to protect your client’s moves all while making your own.
Well aware that I was going to have to maneuver around Nyx’s very sticky past, it took me too long to text Lodestar:
Rachel: A man called Hunter is going to call you tonight. I think you know him, because he knows you, but if you don’t, then remember, he’s a friend of mine. Anything you do for him, I’ll remember, and I ALWAYS pay back my favors.
When I didn’t receive a reply, when the two ticks didn’t even turn blue to inform me that she’d read the message, I had to accept that she could be busy working or even might be sleeping—anything was possible with Lodestar.
By the time we arrived at the precinct, I’d managed to shove aside the last couple hours’ worth of stress and tension and settled into the mask I wore at all times—Rachel Laker.
Not Rach.
Rachel Laker.
Two names.
Not the one.
People sneered my name. They spat it. They grimaced when they heard it. That was the reputation I’d crafted; one I’d built and forged in the fire that was life in this criminal underbelly in which I’d subsisted for so long.
Rachel Laker didn’t lose.
She might have to negotiate, but she did. Not. Lose.
Giulia would have her Old Man back in her bed—tonight. No later.
With that resolve fixed firmly in place, I climbed out of the car once it pulled up to the curb, told Emile to wait for my call, then stared up at the building.
Sucking in a sharp breath at the bitter cold, I firmed my jaw and climbed the steps.
My mask slipped, however, when the first face I saw in the precinct wasn’t a cop, but a Five Pointer.
Irish Mob.
An O’Donnelly.