48. Kate
Kate
Brett’s voice still rings in my ear when I shove Claire’s office door open.
“Get up,” I hiss.
She’s starfished on the couch in her toy-shop office, one leg kicked over the back cushion, drooling like a golden retriever. The bottle of wine mostly empty on her desk. “Wha?—?”
“Your Romeo’s in lockup.”
Her eyes snap open. She bolts upright. “WHAT?”
“And we have to go get him out.”
“TWO SECONDS!” she shrieks, already scrambling to the tiny bathroom.
Two seconds is a lie.
She emerges eight minutes later in a micro-dress so short it might legally qualify as a belt, red lipstick applied like she’s about to shoot a music video, and her hair piled in a messy sex-bomb ponytail.
I stare.
“Claire,” I croak. “That’s what you’re wearing to bail him out of jail?”
“Yep.” She pops the “p” and checks her cleavage. “He deserves to suffer. I’m gonna stroll in looking like an angel sent to judge his sins.”
“I can’t go with you,” I mutter.
While she straps on heels that could kill a man, I search under her desk where she stashed the emergency numbers I gave her months ago. My fingers brush paper—taped to the underside—and I pull out the card.
Agent Will Tanner — FBI Field Office, Providence.
I dial.
He answers groggy, annoyed. “It’s three in the morning.”
“Brett’s in trouble,” I snap. “You promised protection for us. You swore the operation would keep him clear once he delivered intel.”
“I—I didn’t know,” he says, voice sharpening. “I wasn’t informed about the sting tonight. My supervisor reassigned me this week. I didn’t?—”
I cut him off. “Call your people. Fix this. Now. You have no idea what you’ve walked him into.”
“Kate—”
“He’s locked in a cell with the same men who ordered my death,” I hiss. “If anything happens to Brett, I swear?—”
I don’t finish the threat. I hang up.
Claire grabs her vault keys. “I’ve got fifty grand.”
“I’ve got cash hidden at my old office,” I tell her. “Let’s go.”
We speed through empty streets in Claire’s hatchback, headlights cutting through the fog crawling off the river. It’s too late, too early, a god-awful witching hour. My stomach twists.
Pregnant.
Scared.
Wired on adrenaline and fear.
But not helpless.
Not ever again.
We climb the steps into the Bayview Police Station, the lobby lit by one flickering fluorescent light—and there he is.
Lieutenant Jacob O’Malley.
Former high-school ginger with braces, freckles, and a crush so intense he once wrote Claire a poem comparing her to a “heat-sizzling summer tomato.” Now he’s buffed up, tanned unevenly, sporting a badge he obviously thinks grants him divine authority over women he couldn’t get at seventeen.
He leans back in his chair, boots kicked up on the counter, chewing gum like it owes him money.
“Well, well, well,” Jacob drawls. “If it isn’t Bayview’s golden girls. Claire Donovan and Katie Peters. Long time, ladies.”
Claire folds her arms under her breasts like a weapon. “We’re here for Brett Santoro.”
Jacob snorts. Actually snorts.
“No can do, honey pies.”
Claire’s eyebrow twitches. “Excuse me?”
“He’s being held as part of an active investigation,” Jacob says, lacing his fingers behind his head like he’s posing for a calendar shoot. “And I don’t think I need to remind you two that criminals don’t get bailed out at three a.m.”
“He’s not a criminal,” I say.
“He’s in a holding cell with twelve of them.”
My jaw locks. “We want to see him.”
“Can’t. Policy.”
Claire smiles sweetly—never a good sign. “Jake… darling… you remember sophomore year?”
He swallows. Hard.
“Uh… yeah?”
“Remember when you asked me to the winter formal?” she purrs.
He brightens. “I do.”
“And I pretended I didn’t hear you?”
His face falls.
She leans in, slow, voice sugary and deadly. “You’re about to relive that humiliation if you don’t do your actual fucking job and call someone who matters.”
I slap a hand on the counter. “Call the FBI liaison. Now.”
Jacob blinks. “The FBI? For Brett Santoro?”
“That’s right,” I say. “Unless you want to be responsible for obstructing a federal protection agreement.”
He laughs. Wrong move.
I lower my voice. “He’s an asset.”
Claire lowers hers to match. “A very important one.”
“And if he dies in your cell,” I finish, leaning close enough to smell his cheap cologne, “that’s on you.”
Jacob finally sits up, unease flickering across his face.
Then—a door buzzes.
Heavy boots echo down the hallway.
Keys jingle.
And Brett appears, handcuffed, looking like he’s been wrestling bears underwater.
His eyes light up.
“Well, ain’t this the best damn welcome party,” he grins. “My two favorite ladies, come to spring Daddy from lockup.”
I swear Claire almost knees him in the balls right there.
Jacob sighs, defeated. “Fine. Fine. He’s being released to your custody.”
Brett winks. “Told you my girls would come.”
Claire slaps him upside the head.
I hug him anyway.
Because under all the chaos, betrayal, operations, and bullets?—
We save our own.
Always.
We barely make it three steps out of the station.
The night air is heavy—humid, electric, the kind that warns you something bad is about to happen.
A low growl of an engine turns the corner.
Brett goes still.
Claire stops breathing.
I feel it before I see it—danger. The kind that sinks claws into the earth.
A black SUV screeches to a halt in front of us, doors slamming like gunshots. Armored goons spill out, tactical vests glinting under the streetlamps.
Roman.
Brett whispers, “Shit,” grabs my arm, tries to pull Claire and me into the shadows, but—too late.
Roman climbs out, tan suit, open collar, gold chains gleaming like a warning. His eyes land on Brett first—cold, calculating—and then slide to me.
To my stomach.
To what I can no longer hide.
A slow, deadly realization spreads across his face.
“What the fuck?” He growls, stepping closer. “What the fuck am I looking at here?”
Brett immediately steps in front of me and Claire, an entire wall of pissed-off fury. “They’re leaving with me.”
Roman laughs—dark, mean. “You think you get to call shots here? Brett, you’re two steps from a shallow grave. Move.”
Behind him, his men shift nervously, unsure. They weren’t expecting him to find us here tonight.
They weren’t expecting a pregnant woman.
They sure as hell weren’t expecting Brett alive and free.
Brett scans them, eyes sharp as razors.
Then he speaks, low and lethal.
“Choose now, motherfuckers.”
Silence.
“You with me and Michael,” he growls, “or with him—” Brett jerks his chin toward Roman, “—who ran to Vegas the second shit got hot and only crawled back because the council’s crumbling under their own rot.”
The men glance at each other.
At Roman.
At Brett.
Nobody wants to die tonight.
I can feel Claire trembling beside me. My hand instinctively drops to my belly. Protect. Shield. Hide.
Roman steps forward. “Don’t listen to him. He’s a traitor?—”
Brett cuts him off with a bark of laughter. “A traitor? To who? A man who abandoned this coast the second the Redmonds dangled power in Vegas? You think these men don’t notice that? You think they don’t see the writing on the wall?”
His gaze snaps to one guard specifically.
“Vito.”
Vito freezes.
Roman snarls, “Vito, get over here?—”
Brett steps closer. “Really, Vito? After everything Michael did for your family? After he paid your sister’s medical bills? After he buried your father with respect when the council wanted him dumped in a river?”
Vito swallows. Hard.
Roman growls, “Don’t you fucking dare?—”
Vito lifts his gun.
And aims it at Roman.
“Tell me what to do, boss,” Vito says quietly.
But he’s not looking at Roman.
He’s looking at Brett.
My heart slams into my ribs.
Brett smirks, slow and vicious. “That’s more like it.”
Roman stares at Vito, betrayed fury burning through him. “You ungrateful little?—”
Brett steps forward, cracking his knuckles. “Stand down, Roman. Walk away. Because if you so much as breathe wrong around my godsons or their mother again?—”
He pulls a blade from his boot so fast I suck in a breath.
“I’ll carve your liver out and feed it to the gulls.”
Roman looks around—the men, the guns, the math of survival closing in on him. For the first time since I’ve known his name… he looks scared.
Not of Brett.
Of the tide turning.
“Zip tie him. Throw him in the back.”
Vito’s hands are steady. His voice isn’t.
“Okay, boss.”
Brett doesn’t miss a beat. He steps forward, shoulders squared, eyes cold as steel.
A couple of Roman’s men hesitate—only for a breath—then they move. Because this is how power shifts. Quiet. Sudden. Absolute.
Roman snarls, “YOU’LL REGRET THIS?—”
Brett spins on him. “Shut up.”
The men slam Roman against the SUV, zip ties cinching tight around his wrists. They shove him inside the backseat like a disgraced king being dragged from his own throne.
Brett jerks his chin at us.
“Ladies, in.”
Claire’s eyes go wide. “Uh—what?”
“IN.” Brett repeats, voice dropping like a hammer.
Then he turns to the guards. “You two—drive Claire’s car. We’re heading back to the fortress.”
I blink. “The fortress?”
“Our casino safe room,” Brett says. “Michael had it built for situations exactly like this. No one’s touching you there.”
He looks at me, then Claire, then back to the goons.
“Bring them in. Both of them.”
Claire looks startled. “Both…?”
Brett growls, “My two ladies.”
And then?
He looks straight at Claire, eyes burning, jaw tight, like he’s been holding this in for years.
“Don’t even say that dude’s name,” he warns her, voice thick with possession. “I don’t want to hear it ever again. I don’t want to think about it. Understand me?”
Claire swallows. “Which dude?”
His hand snaps out, cups her ass—full grip, claim made, no questions asked.
She squeaks.
Then Brett pulls her flush to him and French kisses her, hard, dirty, devouring, right there in front of the guards, right in the lights of the police station, right after threatening Roman’s life.
The men all look away.
Except Vito.
He smirks. “Bout time, brother.”
When they break apart, Claire’s lips are bruised, her breath lost.
Brett wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes locked on hers.
“You’re riding with me.”
She nods, dazed. “Okay…”
Then Brett swings the SUV door open for me gently—gentler than I’ve seen him be with anyone but Michael.
“Kate. In. Now.”
His voice is softer with me. Protective. Fierce in a different way.
Because I’m carrying Michael’s child.
Because Brett swore to be godfather.
Because tonight went to hell and this is the only way out.
He helps me in like I’m precious cargo.
Then he shuts the door, circles the SUV, and snaps at the men:
“Move out. Nobody gets brave tonight.”
Engines roar to life.
Roman’s muffled curses fill the backseat.
Claire stares at Brett like she’s seeing her soulmate for the first time.
And Brett?
He looks in the rearview mirror at me, then at Claire, then at Roman—and smiles like a man ready for war.