Chapter 14 #2
He resolved to find out what was behind it. And to fix it. Whatever it was. Knowing what that might mean. Knowing it might mean a real commitment. He put it aside. He didn’t want to test his heart with the danger of going down that deadly road again, the one that led to certain hell.
He knew he’d reached the point with Shana that meant hell was certain no matter which road he took.
Angelique came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. Dane almost flinched. He forced himself to relax. She reached around to the front of his shirt and, grabbing each side, ripped it open. Dane turned around to face her. It was go time.
*****
The tearing of Dane’s shirt sounded like an earthquake in the small car.
“Holy shit,” Cap said.
Every muscle in Shana’s body tensed with repulsion. She slammed the computer shut and pushed her door open. No one tried to stop her this time.
Jean Luc was right behind her. “Mon dieu. Shana, tell me this is not real.”
He breathed the words with fear and incredulity. She reached up and tapped the tiny button in her earpiece to listen in. Cap had an earpiece too, but thank the lord Jean Luc wouldn’t hear any more.
“It’s not real,” she said. The tension in her voice as she hurried along the sidewalk toward the Inn made her sound less convinced.
But she was certain. As she listened, she wanted to kill Angelique and it was a damn lucky thing Jean Luc was there to keep her in check because Cap looked like he would like to strangle her too.
*****
Dane pulled the belt from his pants. No way the team needed to see any more. They’d have to settle for listening.
“Are you ready to play, mon cherie? I have some toys you will like, non?” She pulled handcuffs from a bag. “Lie down on the bed. How would you like to be my prisoner?”
There was no way in hell he could have anticipated this, and there was no way in hell he was letting her cuff him to the bed.
He darted a hand out and snatched the cuffs from her and tossed them aside.
Then he pushed her and didn’t stop until he bodied her against the wall so that she could barely breathe.
“What are you doing?” He heard the panic alongside the excitement in her voice.
“I have a different game in mind.”
“And what game is that?” She was back to seductress and pushing her hips against him in a way that made it impossible to hide his body’s response to her naked beauty. She leveled a sexy sinister smile at him, but when she tried to touch his hair, he grabbed her wrists.
She licked her lips and Dane’s cock twitched. He decided it was time to put all his cards on the table and go for broke.
“Where is Gabriele Tavares?”
The whites of Angelique’s eyes expanded for a flicker and then she laughed.
“Was it your plan to murder Bellarine all along—or was that Gabriele’s idea?
” She quieted, but before he had a chance to say or do more to prod a response from her, the door on the other side of the room crashed open.
He turned to the door. A curse for Cap and Shana’s piss-poor timing jammed unspoken in his throat.
It wasn’t Cap and Shana he saw there.
Two chunky Latino men, one with a pretty face and a twisted smile and the other scarred and angry, burst into the room wielding Berettas.
Directly behind them, Gabriele stood on the threshold in black spike-heeled boots that went halfway up her thighs, not quite meeting the short black skirt.
The ensemble was topped by a transparent black blouse.
And nothing else. But it wasn’t what she was wearing that commanded his attention.
His survival fighting instincts pounced to life, flooding his system with adrenaline, at the sight of the long leather whip she carried in her right hand.
It was not a harmless game-playing whip. It was the kind used on a ranch to keep bulls in line. Dane had seen them before. He had a scar on his back to show for it.
Even with his instinct and training taking over, he was aware of his thought process and deliberate in his decisions. It was his mind that he most needed to control and direct his well-honed survival instincts.
First, Dane stepped forward, blocking Angelique’s naked vulnerability from the two men. It wasn’t chivalry. It was both automatic and purposeful. He still had no idea how deep into this she was, to what degree she was the perpetrator versus the pawn or even victim.
The thug with the mean scarred face stepped forward first, and lucky for Dane decided to use his gun as a sledgehammer instead of a bullet dispenser.
He was thick and clumsy and it was easy for Dane to catch the butt and use the momentum to bring the man to the ground where Dane could kick him in the head.
He was at least temporarily down, groaning and only semiconscious.
This happened in less than two seconds, during which time the second thug made a move, but Dane was ready.
He’d raised his pistol and wasn’t going to make the same mistake his friend made—even with Gabriele shouting at him not to shoot, in colorful language questioning his manhood.
He was no fool. But he also was no fighter in close quarters.
He’d let Dane get far too close and, like his friend, was far too slow for the gun to be effective.
Dane had stepped forward into him after he’d landed his kick on the man’s partner.
He snapped his left hand out to grab the gun while he pushed the man’s elbow with his other hand, effectively snapping his arm while disarming him.
The man howled in pain, but Dane also needed him down so he hit him hard across the temple with his own gun, knocking him to the floor.
The scream snapped his attention around. It was Angelique’s scream.
Gabriele had grabbed her and thrown her onto the bed, then lashed the whip back into a threatening pose as blood-curdling as a guillotine blade ready to fall.
“I thought it was me you wanted.” The words sounded commanding and calm above the drumming of adrenaline-infused blood pumping and his heart crashing. He forced his breath to stay steady and fisted his hands to prevent their shaking.
“Oh yes. And I will get you. I know you too well. You don’t want me to hurt your precious Angel, do you? Don’t worry—I won’t hurt her.” She gave a snarling look at Angelique, who whimpered, looking stunned, sprawled on the bed and frozen.
“All you have to do is one thing for me.”
He said nothing. His stomach churned. He knew what she would say. He had to let her say it for the final incrimination. Then he would take her down.
“You don’t want to know what it is?”
He still said nothing. He could tell she was getting angrier, more insane. He calculated his position. It was iffy. He wasn’t close enough to her. He wanted to provoke her just enough. But not too much.
She shouted, “Don’t you want to know? You bloodless bastard? You want the heirloom? Take it from her.”
In a shocking instant, Gabriele lashed the whip, but not at Angelique.
The whip flew at him. He had no more chance than to lunge to the side, but it hit his arm ripping a wide gash in his shirt through to his flesh.
After the first stinging instant of mind-blanking pain, he blocked it out.
The abundance of adrenaline fueled him and he jumped to his feet and to the bed between Gabriele and Angelique.
This time when Gabriele raised her arm to lash the long whip again he was close enough to rush forward and grab her arm to stop her.
She screamed. Or maybe it was Angelique screaming.
He wrestled the whip from Gabriele’s grasp at the same time the door banged against the wall again.
This time it was Cap and Shana who rushed into the room.
They were followed by a crowd of uniforms. The room swarmed with shouting people. Dane’s head buzzed.
Two uniforms took Gabriele from him and cuffed her.
He turned to Angelique. Her face was in her hands and she sobbed. He pulled the sheet over her. That was when he felt the sting on his arm return to life.
“Shit.” He looked at it and Angelique looked up at him. Her tears stopped. She ripped a pillow case from a pillow and started wrapping it around his arm. It burned like hell.
Cap directed his men to remove the two thugs from the room. They were dragged to their feet and out the door. Within a minute order had been restored and the shouting had stopped. Cap was on his phone directing the logistics of the takedown.
He looked for Shana. She stalked from the bathroom and back into the middle of the room. She didn’t look at him. She stared at Angelique. Angelique stared back.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” Angelique said.
Jean Luc rushed into the room. Dane was shocked to see him and was too compromised to hide it.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“What have you done?”
“What have I done?” Dane let his anger, everything, all the emotions he’d been controlling, out. He rose from the side of the bed where he’d been sitting and took a step toward Jean Luc.
Shana said, “Stop right there. Both of you.” Dane stopped. In truth, it was more because he felt sick and dizzy than Shana’s command that stopped him. The adrenaline was receding and the strain and the pain were filling the void.
Angelique renewed her crying behind him. They all turned to her.
Jean Luc said, “Are you all right, mon—”
“Don’t. I’m fine. I’m pathetic. I’m so, so sorry.”
“An apology isn’t going to cut it,” Shana said. She swept past Jean Luc and reached for the girl. “Let’s go.”
“What are you doing?” Jean Luc said.
“Tell him,” Shana demanded. She dragged Angelique from the bed with the sheet around her and pulled her toward the bathroom. Angelique stopped, dug in her heels, and turned to her uncle and to Dane.
“I will return the jewels. All of them. I will tell you all about Gabriele’s plan.”
“Yes you will,” Cap said. “At the station. Put on some clothes.”
Shana took her into the bathroom and closed the door. Dane knew Shana would make sure Angelique retrieved her family heirloom to give it back.
“We will make a deal?” Jean Luc said.
“We’ll see,” Cap said. “If she can help us with an air-tight case against Gabriele Tavares and anyone else in their cartel who’s left, there might be some room for negotiation.”
Jean Luc nodded. He looked grim. Dane felt sorry for the man although he had no idea why at the moment. He could barely think straight. He hadn’t slept more than a few hours in three days. And his arm throbbed relentlessly like the drumbeat of a funeral march.
Cap looked at him. “You look like shit. You need to get that arm looked at.”
Shana came out of the room with Angelique and handed a plastic bag with a small jewel in it to Cap. Angelique was dressed in a plain black dress and black heels. Then he realized Shana, who was still in evening wear, also still wore her spike heels.
He said to her, “Your feet must be killing you.”
She turned to him. Shock and pain covered her face. He’d never seen her more vulnerable. She looked like she would cry if the world shifted even one millimeter under her feet.
Cap said, “Angelique Dubois Ruse, you are under arrest.” He took her from Shana’s hold and pulled her arms behind her back and cuffed her while he recited her rights.
*****
At State Police Headquarters Cap had Angelique and Jean Luc placed in the main interrogation room while he paced around in his office with Dane and Shana.
“I’m not sure we have enough. We’re going to need a hell of a statement from Angelique.”
“Then give her a deal.”
Cap grunted. “You sell it to her. She’ll take whatever you want to sell her.”
Dane saw Shana stir in his periphery. He’d loaded up with enough ibuprofen—the strongest thing they had for him at the station—to allow him to think straight.
He’d have preferred a shot of tequila and a bed.
But if Shana was still standing in those damn heels, then he could damn well see this thing through.
“Sure. I’ll tell her.” He walked past Shana without looking at her. The strain of avoiding her couldn’t be any worse than confronting their pain, could it?
Dane walked into the room with Angelique and Jean Luc and shut the door behind him.
He was aware that Cap and Shana were watching.
He was aware that he had absolutely no authority or standing to be playing this role.
He wasn’t anyone’s attorney—or an attorney at all.
He wasn’t on the force or with the DA or the Attorney General or the US Attorney’s office.
He had nothing. Except the trust of the potentially star witness.
They wanted not only Gabriele—they wanted her papa. Old man Tavares.
Angelique and Jean Luc both looked up at him with surprisingly hopeful expressions. He told them the deal. Angelique would have to spill everything, and neither of them could ever return to the United States.
“What about reprisals from the cartel?” Jean Luc asked.
“They’ll all be in jail if Angelique does her job.”
Angelique said, “How do I know if you’re telling the truth?”
He said, “You’ll have to trust me.”
She gave him a long look. And then nodded.
It was too easy. She was too trusting. Guilt felt like sludge in his gut, accumulating and clogging his soul and heart.
Not guilt about the deal—it was fair. He had no idea why he felt guilty.
What was supposed to be an easy case, a lark, had taken on too much weight.
It had been a test of his character, of his resolve to be a real person, capable of leading a real life.
The weight of failure loomed like a raised sledgehammer about to drop.