5. Eric
ERIC
“ T ell me the rest of it,” Ambrose demanded.
I’d had it with him dismissing me. “Not until I know where I stand. I will not hand this investigation over to you.”
“It’s not an investigation. It’s a war. One we can’t win if you get in our way.”
“I want your help, but I’m taking part in this… Whatever it is.”
Ambrose sighed. “I owe you, and I’m going to help, but you’re going to have to let me do this my way, and part of that means you standing back and letting me protect you.”
I should’ve known better than to think Ambrose would agree to be partners.
He was a man who preferred to work alone.
I’d only needed to be in his presence two seconds to know that.
He grudgingly took orders from Remington, but from what I understood, he often fought hard against him or simply disappeared.
I couldn’t walk away from this, though. I was already stepping way outside the bounds of the law.
I couldn’t just let the Theriots run wild in my parish.
“I intend to be part of the planning. I’m not just agreeing to you doing everything your way, but I’m not stupid enough to think a man like Carlotti is going to be taken down if we stay within the law.”
“He has to die and so do his top-level men.”
“Agreed, but I don’t want anyone to know I’m involved in this, especially not anyone in my department.”
“Fuck no. You think we want to let anyone know the Theriots are working with a sheriff? As far as we’re concerned, you don’t even exist.”
I rolled my eyes at his exaggeration. “I exist right here, right now, and I want us to make a plan.”
I took a step toward Ambrose. I was challenging him, pushing harder than I should. I was well aware of that, but if I didn’t make him understand how serious I was, I would never gain any ground with him. I wasn’t about to let him think I’d back down.
To my surprise, he stepped back as I moved closer.
I took another step. How far could I get with this?
Ambrose took another step back and then another until he was pressed against the counter. I could cage him in, and then I…
No. I was not going there. This was a professional relationship. That’s all it would ever be, and that was already more than either of us needed.
Faster than my eyes could track him, Ambrose pulled a gun, grabbed me, and spun me around. When he held me tight against him, he pressed the barrel of his gun to my head.
“Don’t play games with me. I don’t like it, not even from my family or friends.”
My breath caught. I didn’t move. I didn’t speak. He wasn’t going to shoot me, not that he needed the gun to kill me. He didn’t kill innocent people. I knew that about him, and I believed it, but that didn’t mean I was going to get away until he was ready to let me go.
I was no weakling. I was smart, strong, and well trained, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think I was going to bring down a half-insane former Green Beret whose family ran New Orleans. I’d be more likely to wrestle a gator into submission, something Ambrose could also supposedly do.
“Tell me what else you know about Carlotti, then get out,” Ambrose ordered.
“I’m not talking to you like this.” I kept my voice calm but firm.
Ambrose spun me around so fast it took me a few seconds to focus on his face. He held his gun at his side now, pointed at the floor. At least that was a slight improvement. He fisted his hand in my shirt and pulled me in. We were close, our bodies nearly touching, our faces only inches apart.
If I had any question at all about how much I wanted this man, it had vanished because, despite knowing what he was capable of, despite knowing he could kill me right there if he chose and cover it up so no one would ever find me, my dick was still hard as a rock for him.
I held his gaze and saw his anger give way to confusion. He didn’t move, though. I could barely pull air into my lungs. What would happen if I leaned in and kissed him? Would he shoot me or kiss me back?
I was tempted to find out. I let my gaze drop to his lips and was rewarded with a sharp intake of breath.
His tongue snaked out to moisten his lips, and I watched it glide across the soft, plump surface. I wanted to pin him to the wall and grind against him while I kissed him. I wanted to know if he was as crazy in bed as he was in everything else he did.
I wasn’t going to find that out. Not today.
Not ever. I brought my hands up between us and pushed at his chest. He barely moved, and his grip on my shirt tightened until I heard seams rip.
I shoved harder. He lost his footing for a moment, and his snarl made me shudder. “Tell me what I need to know.”
“Put your fucking gun away, and I might.”
I jumped straight into the air when he let off a round into the floor.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
He stared at me, eyes wide.
“Shit.” He let go of me and looked down at the hole he’d made in Dax’s floor.
I didn’t say anything. Hope whined and barked and scratched at the door.
Ambrose flicked the safety on, put his gun in his pocket, and went to let her out. She jumped up on him, and he picked her up and soothed her.
“It’s okay, girl. It’s all okay.”
He kissed the top of her head as he stroked her fur. I was frozen in place watching him. How did he go from wanting to shoot me or fuck me or both to this tender display of affection? Who was he really, and what the hell had happened to make him bury this side of himself so far down?
Hope calmed down, and he set her on the floor. When he turned my way, he looked startled to see me. A moment later, he cleared his throat. “You never saw that. Any of it. You were never here. Go home, and I’ll take care of your problem.”
“No. I already told you I’m not going to turn this over to you. This is my parish and my investigation.”
“I don’t play the sidekick.”
I didn’t mind that Ambrose’s irritating side was back. It told me he was recovering from his lapse in control. I couldn’t stop watching him as he took a slow, deep breath and let it out.
“You’ve probably been told I always shoot first and don’t care who I hit.”
I had, but I chose not to say anything. I’d known he was volatile, and I understood why. I couldn’t say he didn’t frighten me, but he also made me horny as hell. He might think it was his job to protect me—and everyone else—but I wanted to help him, to heal him.
Wow. Who the hell did I think I was?
“That’s not true, not in the way everyone thinks. If you show up at my cabin, I’ll sure as hell fire a warning shot to send you away, but it’s not uncontrolled. It’s deliberate. I don’t aim for the person. The truth is, I’d be happy to never make another kill.”
He’d seemed so casual about it when he’d killed one of LePlatt’s men.
As if he knew what I was thinking, he said, “Remember what happened after we brought down LePlatt? It messed me the fuck up. That was the first time I’d killed in years.”
I stared, unable to believe he was opening up to me like this. My gut told me he’d never talked about this, at least not with anyone but Dax.
“I’m dangerous and probably really messed up in the head, but I don’t usually lose it like this. I only shoot when I really mean to. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”
I was crossing the room before I even realized it. He looked away as I approached and stared down at Hope, who was lying on her side at his feet, totally relaxed. He really did have a way with that dog.
I laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not afraid of you.
” That wasn’t exactly true, but most of my fear came from the fact that I wanted him so badly.
I didn’t understand the intensity with which I was drawn to him, a man I should want nothing to do with.
Asking for his help with Carlotti was bad enough, but thinking about…
more was far worse. “You didn’t hurt me, and I know how easily you could have.
I’m man enough to admit that you had the advantage over me. ”
He shook his head. “Dax is going to fucking kill me.”
“Then let’s fix the floor.”
He looked up at me then. “What?”
“I want to help you fix the floor.”
“You know how to do that?”
I frowned at him. “I thought you were all self-sufficient, living out in the bayou by yourself.”
He grinned. “I’m self-sufficient as fuck, but if my cabin gets a bullet hole, I just patch it and don’t worry what it looks like. Dax is”—he gestured around the immaculate house—“a little particular about this place.”
No shit. “I bought a fixer-upper when I moved. It had the original hardwood, but the floors were beat all to hell. I learned how to fix them up.”
“Policing the good people of Albertine Parish hasn’t taken up all your time?”
I laughed. “No, not until recently. I needed something to do. I didn’t have any friends here, and I don’t hunt or fish, so the house was the perfect project.”
Ambrose stared at me. “You don’t hunt or fish?”
“I grew up in the city.”
“We’ve got to do something about that.”
I didn’t think this was the time to tell him that if I’d wanted to take up those sports, I could easily have done so. Plenty of people in my new town had offered to get me started. Though, for Ambrose, I might try fishing at least. I didn’t think hunting would ever appeal to me.
“How do we do it?” he asked. “Can you really make the floor look like it used to?”
I stared down at the bullet hole. “I can’t be sure we can cover it up one hundred percent, but we can do a decent job.”
“Decent enough Dax won’t know?”
“Maybe.” I doubted it. What was I doing anyway? This man had held me at gunpoint, threatened me, and shot a hole in the floor, but there I was willing to go to any lengths to help him fix his mistake.
Maybe I really had lost my mind when I’d left Baltimore. All my friends back there said I had. They understood why I wanted to resign my position, but they thought moving to the wilds of Louisiana was crazy. It probably was.
Luckily, since Dax had done the renovation himself, there were extra pieces of flooring and tons of tools in his shed. Ambrose helped me find everything I needed. He was silent while I worked, which suited me fine, and surprisingly, he took direction very well when I asked for help.
Ambrose pulled Hope onto his lap and absentmindedly scratched her ears while I sanded and buffed the piece I used to fill the hole.
As helpful as he was being, I could tell how hard it was for him to sit back while someone helped him.
I wondered how long he had been the strong one, the one who took care of everything.
I knew they were twins, but he treated Dax like a younger brother. Had he always been that way?
The silence eventually began to feel heavy, so I started giving Ambrose the information he wanted.
“Yesterday, I spent three hours watching the shed where LePlatt’s merchandise was stored.
I hid in the same spot we did when we were waiting for LePlatt.
That’s when I saw the men unloading crates.
The day before, the place was deserted, but there was evidence left indicating someone had been moving things in and out.
You’d think Carlotti would have taught his men to be less careless, but it was easy to follow their tracks since they’d tossed liquor bottles and cigarette butts from their vehicles. ”
Ambrose shook his head. “You can’t get good help anymore.”
I laughed, and he did too.
“You’re right, though,” he said. “If Carlotti knew, they’d be dead. Possibly, they already are.”
The rumors I’d heard about Carlotti said he had a reputation for killing anyone who displeased him, no matter how loyal they’d been. “How does he find an endless stream of followers? They have to know he killed their predecessors.”
Ambrose looked at me like I couldn’t be that stupid.
I sighed. “All right. I know. Money and power will always draw people in.”
He nodded, and I continued. “I’d been about to head back to my truck when I heard a car coming up the dirt road that leads to the shed.” I explained the rest of what I’d seen. Ambrose scowled the whole time.
“Don’t approach that shed again. I mean it.”
I looked up expecting to see anger in his eyes, but I was shocked to see fear instead.
If Ambrose was afraid of Carlotti, how evil was the man?
I’d read a catalog of all the shit he’d done, and I knew the crime world generally regarded him as dangerous and unpredictable, but Ambrose seemed to think he was invincible.
“Can we fight this man?”
“Carlotti?”
“Yes.” I wanted to say something sassy, but Ambrose’s tone was serious, not joking.
“We don’t have a choice,” he said. “He came into our territory once before. We told him to stay away, but now he’s back. If we let him stay, he’s going to think he can do whatever he wants.”
“But my parish isn’t your territory.”
Ambrose snorted. “As far as we’re concerned, anything in this part of South Louisiana is ours.”
“But other families?—”
“Anyone else working in this region has an agreement with us. Carlotti has no such agreement, and we would never grant him one.”
“Why didn’t you take him out before when he encroached on your territory?”
“We weren’t ready.”
“Are you ready now?” I hoped to God they were.
Ambrose closed his eyes. I waited for his answer, heart pounding, afraid I knew what he would say.
“No, but we’re going to have to pretend to be.”