Chapter 25 Rob
ROB
“Found her,” Knight said as I walked back into his office.
I hurried over to him, grateful I had something to distract me from Krista’s lack of response when I basically poured my heart out to her.
Snatching the paper from his hand, I stared at Krista’s doppelg?nger. She was a pimped-up version of Krista, with way too much makeup and glazed-over eyes, but it was her.
“Alicia Kay,” I murmured.
“Also known as Kay on the streets,” Knight said, pulling her information up on the screen. “She works the strip, going after the high rollers. She has a studio apartment in one of the most luxurious complexes. Going rate is five grand a month.”
“For a studio?”
He shrugged. “It’s Vegas.”
“How does she afford that?”
“Like I said, she goes after the high-rollers. Up until a month ago, she was linked with Danny Prescott. He was a regular at the MGM, but he replaced her with his wife, and she wasn’t very happy about him paying for an apartment for his hooker.”
“And the money disappeared,” I surmised.
“Along with her dream apartment if she couldn’t come up with the money.”
I scrolled through the information, looking for her bank accounts. “How is it possible that she has only five hundred dollars to her name?”
“The life of luxury is expensive. She had ten grand deposited into her account every month, but between rent and her expensive lifestyle, she was never able to keep more than a couple hundred at any time.”
“So, she needed fast money. But still, how could she possibly steal enough drugs that the Ratti Crime Family would hunt us down across the country?”
Knight flicked an image on the screen. “This is Angelo DeLuca. He’s the underboss of the Ratti Crime Family. He’s married with three kids and seems to have it all. Except that his wife is always drunk, and two months ago, he checked her into rehab. That’s where Alicia comes in.”
He flicked to an image inside one of the casinos. Alicia was hanging on DeLuca’s arm, clearly trying to pick him up.
“Two weeks ago, she approached DeLuca. She spent the whole evening with him, and afterward, he took her up to the penthouse, where she spent the whole night. Since then,” he said, flicking through various images of the two of them together, “she’s been following him around like a lost puppy, taking whatever scraps he throws her way. ”
“Scraps? So, he’s not giving her money.”
“No deposits into her account,” Knight confirmed. “But he makes regular visits to the back of the casino where you and Krista were taken.”
“How did you find all this?”
“Casinos have cameras everywhere,” he smirked. “They also have all live feeds of all their cameras so they can keep an eye on their product.”
I shot him a look. “You mean their kidnap victims.”
He flicked to a new shot. “The night before you and Krista were taken, Alicia followed DeLuca to the back room and snuck in after he left. She hardly paid any attention to the women, but she searched their office and came out with this case,” he said, freezing the screen on her glancing over her shoulder as she escaped with a briefcase-sized black case.
“What’s in it?”
“No idea, but whatever it is must be worth a lot of money.”
“Or it could be original samples of their drugs. The most potent formulas.”
“They could easily recreate their drugs.”
“But whatever was injected into us had tracers in it. What if she stole the tracking equipment for the tracers?”
I rubbed my fingers over my temples, trying to work it all out. “If they’re using the tracers to track their shipments, how much is sold, where it’s distributed—”
“How far it’s reaching across the U.S.,” he added.
“And she took it, then they would have no way of seeing the results.”
“Which means whatever they injected in you is special in some other way. Not just the formulation, but they want to know the possible side effects. Drug overdoses are bad for business when it all comes from the same supplier.”
“I had a massive headache for days. My whole body felt off.”
“And that was from one dose.”
It was entirely possible we were on the right track, but it was all just speculation. Unless we set up a meet with DeLuca, we wouldn’t have any answers.
“It’s suicide,” Knight said as if he was reading my thoughts.
“We have to find a way to get them off our backs, and Krista seems to have a problem with handing over Alicia.”
“The woman deserves what’s coming to her. You don’t mess with the mafia without knowing you might be ending your own life,” Knight said scathingly.
“Still…Krista doesn’t want this on her head.”
Knight scoffed as he turned away from me. “You’ve fallen for her.”
“What?”
Spinning, he pinned me with a glare. “You’ve fallen for her, and now, you’re going to risk your life, and everyone else’s, to make sure that you give her everything she wants.”
“That’s not what this is about—”
“Yeah? Then hand over Alicia. That’s the only way out of this that doesn’t end with you filled with bullet holes. That hooker knew what she was getting into. She took the risks. She gambled with her life, all for a high-rise apartment. Hand her over and end this.”
It was the smart thing to do, but I could still see Krista’s face as I argued the same point with her. The shock that I could allow someone to be killed all to save my own skin. She didn’t realize what was at stake, how easily this could all come back on us.
And maybe that’s why I wanted to do this for her.
Because she was innocent of the horrors in this world.
If the worst thing she ever did was shoplift at the age of seventeen, then she truly didn’t know how bad things could get.
Sure, she got a taste of it while we were on the road, but that was nothing compared to what the Ratti Crime Family would do if they got their hands on her.
“I’ll talk to her.”
Knight stalked over to me, his jaw hard and his nostrils flared in anger. That dead look in his eyes told me exactly what he was going to say.
“You do this, then you leave me out of it. I won’t put my family on the line for a hooker who got in over her head.”
“Noted.”
He stormed out of the room, rightly pissed at me.
I would be angry, too, if someone else was in my position, willing to risk it all for a woman he met in a casino.
This was Parker’s baby sister. I had to do whatever I could to keep her safe. But I also wanted to spare her from the reality of what would happen to this other woman. And if there was a way to do that, I had to try.
“You want to do what?” Cap asked, the tone of his voice reflecting just how ridiculous he thought my plan was.
“How is this any different than when we protect scumbags?”
“Uh…we don’t do that.”
“Come on. Not every client we take on is innocent.”
“Name one.”
I thought about it, trying to come up with a single name that fit the bill. There had to be someone. “Okay, maybe we don’t protect them, but we also don’t hand them over to be killed.”
“This woman stole from the mafia,” he said slowly.
“I know.”
“The mafia came after you.”
“I’m aware.”
“And you want to protect her from the men who would kill you and Krista?”
“Yes, because killing is bad.”
“Only when you’re killing innocent people!” he exclaimed. “This woman had to know what she was walking into!”
“I know that!”
“She has this coming, Rob. Get Knight to send over the intel, and move on with life.”
“That doesn’t mean we’ll be off their radar. I work for a security company. Do you really think they’re going to take any chances that I won’t tell?”
I was taking a long shot on that one. They very possibly could walk away and leave us alone. But Cap didn’t like leaving anything to chance, and I was banking on that.
When he sighed heavily over the phone, I knew I had him. “So, in this plan of yours, how exactly do you propose we get everyone out alive?”
“Easy. We get information on DeLuca. Threaten him with it. Return the case Alicia stole. Then everyone gets out alive.”
“Just like that.”
Yeah, it sounded easy, right?
“Just like that, Cap.”
“How sure are you that you can get information on DeLuca?”
“He’s in the mafia. There has to be something on him.”
Cap sighed again. “Find it. We don’t make a move until we know for sure we have something to blackmail him with.”
“No problem.”
He scoffed on the other end of the line. “You’re gonna eat those words by the time this mission is done.”
Grinning, I hung up the phone, but when I turned around and saw Knight glaring at me, I knew this wasn’t over by a long shot.
“So, get information on DeLuca. That’s your big plan?”
“I’m in tech. You’re in tech. Hell, between the two of us, we can come up with something.”
“Don’t you think I already looked into that? While you were playing games, fucking your friend’s sister, I was actually working. And guess what? There’s no fucking way to get anything on DeLuca through the system. It’s the mafia. They don’t keep anything online.”
Shit. “So, we break into his house. He has to keep something there.”
“He lives in a fucking high-rise apartment!” he shouted. “There’s no walking through the back door and grabbing what we need. There are cameras everywhere.”
“You’re great at working around cameras.”
“There are guards on every floor, by every entrance.”
“So we cause a distraction.”
“There are key codes and fingerprints.”
“Key codes are easy. Fingerprints are totally doable.”
He scoffed, turning away from me. “You just have an answer for everything.”
“Generally speaking,” I smirked. “Because we can do this, and there’s no way I’m walking away with any other answer.”
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
“I try my best.”
I still didn’t have him on my side, but he was thinking about it, and that was all I really needed. If he decided not to work with me on this, I’d do it myself. I had all the skills necessary to make this happen.
“I can’t do it,” he muttered. “I’m sorry, but there’s no way I’ll put my family on the line again.”
“I get it.”
And I did. After what happened with the virus, and then all the shit that went down with Cash…there was only one way forward for me, and I’d be damned if I didn’t try everything possible before giving up.
“Listen, thank you for letting us stay here and for getting me this far. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
He nodded, and I walked away, knowing what I had to do now.
I wasn’t making a single move without first letting Parker know what was going on. He would kill me for sure when this was over, but if I didn’t give him a heads-up, I’d be dead before I had a chance to get us out of this mess.
Stepping outside, I closed the door and dialed his number, letting the cool air wash over me and calm my racing heart. I was only a little terrified that he would come out here and kill me.
But he needed me to end this for his sister, so my chances at living were fifty-fifty.
“Who is this?” he snapped.
“Rob.”
When he didn’t immediately shout at me, I thought I was in the clear.
“You little fucking prick!”
Then again, maybe I was wrong.
“You stole my sister from the hospital, fled from the mafia, and you haven’t bothered to fucking call me until right now?”
“In my defense, I was more worried about keeping her alive.”
“You should have fucking called me. I could have helped you!”
“You know how it is. Things move fast. You don’t always have time—”
“I don’t give a shit what your reasons are. You married my little sister, and you didn’t even bother to fucking tell me!”
Well, when he put it like that, it did make me sound like a douche.
“Listen, I’m calling now—”
“Do you love her?”
His question caught me off guard, and frankly, I didn’t know which way to answer. “What?”
“It’s a simple fucking question. Do you love her?”
“Parker, I barely know her,” I said, hoping he would understand. “This whole thing—”
“My mother is planning your reception. She wants your parents’ number so she can get this whole fucking thing going. What the hell am I supposed to tell her?”
“She’s what?”
“People in a small town take this shit seriously. Now, you’re off at Knight’s place—”
“How do you know that?”
“—and you didn’t fucking bother to call me. My sister is not someone you fuck with!”
“I was drugged!” I argued, my panic rising by the second.
“I don’t give a shit if you were one hundred percent in your right mind. Under no circumstances do you touch my baby sister without asking my permission!”
Oh shit. This was really fucking bad. Even with the cold, my pits were sweating. My heart hammered in my chest as I tried and failed to think of anything to say that might alleviate his anger.
“Parker—”
“I’m coming for you, and when I get there, you’d better not run from me like a little bitch.”
I saw a flash of something in the distance, and just for a second, wondered if it was Parker, already here. But that wasn’t possible. I just called him. He couldn’t possibly be here all the way from Montana.
Unless…
Turning around, I stormed into the house and into Knight’s office, only to find him smirking at me from the seat behind his desk. He flipped the channel on the screen, and an SUV pulled down the drive, just a minute out from the house.
Knight zoomed in, and I saw Parker’s very angry face as he continued to rant at me over the phone.
“You called him?”
“Was I not supposed to?” he asked, cocking his head at me. “If you want my help, this is how it’s done.”
“You set me up.”
Standing from his seat, he walked around his desk and stood right in front of me. “Trust me, you’ll be happy I did this when all is said and done.” His eyes glanced behind me at the screen. “If I were you, I’d run.”
I spun around just in time to see Parker storm out of the vehicle, racing for the front door.
“Oh shit,” I murmured.
He wasn’t alone. He had his brothers with him, and they all looked fucking pissed.
“Better hurry. Your clock is ticking,” Knight taunted.
I didn’t wait. I took off through the house, hoping I could escape long enough to put a plan together.
He couldn’t kill me if he couldn’t find me.