Chapter Thirteen
NIKKI
Giddy like a schoolgirl, I leaned against my front door frame, watching Cade make his way up the short cobble-stoned pathway, the stones darkened and slick with moisture from the light afternoon shower.
He had stepped out of a large white moving truck parked outside my place, a rare free spot.
Cade’s smile flicked on and off, a similar reaction happening to the frown that came and went from his brow.
My grin dropped as I watched him. It was near impossible to tell what he was thinking, but Cade had become my escape from reality, as well as much more than that, and I half expected him to jump me and fuck me on the floor the second he arrived. But something was on his mind.
As he passed my mailbox, he gestured vaguely at it, and I shrugged. “Haven’t checked it in a few days.” Without a word, Cade nodded and opened the rusted white dome top, pulling out a small handful of envelopes and handing them to me as he reached the porch. “Hi,” I said.
“Hi, angel.” His eyes were on mine, and I tilted my chin up expectantly.
With a smirk, Cade traced his thumb along my jawline before pressing a kiss to my lips, sweeping his tongue across mine and humming.
“I’m going to taste your sweet cunt tonight,” he whispered against my lips, and I shuddered, barely managing to stumble inside and close the door behind us.
Flicking through the mail, I stopped in the hall before it opened to the living room. Cade turned around a moment later. “What’s up?”
Frowning, I dropped the letters onto the floor, stepping over them and rummaging through a drawer to pull out some gloves before picking them up again. Discarding the junk mail and a bill I’d like to hope I’d already paid, my fingers trembled as I ran them over the edge of the final envelope.
Cade came up to my side and slid an arm around my waist. I leaned into him, but when he went to touch the letter in my hands, I yanked it from him, crying out, “Don’t touch it!”
“Why?”
“Fingerprints.”
Was this from him? The man who had threatened me earlier? My name was simply printed on the front with a thick black pen that had run slightly with the droplets of rain. No logo, no return address, not even a stamp. The letter had been hand-delivered.
Had he been here?
Trembling, I tore the letter open carefully and read it. One line only.
If you’re looking for whoever killed your father, go to Urban.
Cade read over my shoulder, his back tensing as I stared intently at the paper in my hands. Pulling away from him, I found a resealable plastic bag and dropped the letter and the envelope inside, adding it to one of the new piles of paperwork we had made near the fireplace.
“Urban,” I said.
Cade nodded. “I saw.”
The adrenaline was surging through me. Where had the note come from?
And why now? With the recent deaths of Kim and Torres, maybe someone was getting cold feet.
Maybe the mystery man’s endeavor to clean up all his loose ends had resulted in some guilty consciences coming to the surface.
Even if they were simply hoping I’d catch him before he got to them, it was the first new clue I’d had in years.
Urban, why didn’t that sound familiar? I knew there were buildings in my father’s name I didn’t know of, and while he owned several clubs, I’m certain Urban wasn’t one of them.
Not one of the ones I could trace anyway.
The properties I had been able to track from him had all disappeared under networks of name changes and paperwork.
I’d even checked under my brother’s and mother’s names, and Urban didn’t appear anywhere.
Still, the note didn’t say it was one of his buildings but simply indicated that whoever was there might know something. I’d need to find the new owner, no sense in wasting my time with staff anymore. I had to go straight to the source.
A new energy was pulsing through me just when I was on the verge of giving myself a break before it destroyed me entirely. While I tried to calm myself to let the logical part of my brain remind me that this could be nothing but another dead end, I needed to believe it was more than that.
“I’m going,” I said, grabbing a jacket from the nearest pile.
“Now?” Cade’s eyes widened, and I threw him an impatient look. What difference did it make?
“The club is more likely to be occupied at night.”
Cade was clenching and releasing his fists, and I stared at him for a moment before grabbing my keys and phone and shoving them in my jacket pockets. For a moment, I contemplated taking a weapon but thought the better of it. Chances are I’d be patted down before even stepping foot in the club.
“Are you coming or not?”
Cade’s lip lifted into what was almost a snarl, and my eyebrows involuntarily shot up. “Of course, I’m coming.”
“Good.” I strode toward the front door, grabbing his hand on the way. “You can drive.”
Cade’s hand gripped mine, and with strength I’d only seen hints of, he tugged me back toward him, spinning me until I collided with his chest with a grunt.
As I went to squirm away, he grabbed my shoulders and waited until I looked into his blazing eyes.
“If anything happens, you get behind me, okay?”
“I don’t need you to protect me. I’m a cop, remember?”
Running a hand through his hair, he huffed out his impatience. “I know, but I’m stronger than you.”
“Why? Because you’re the man?”
He snarled again. “Because I’m…” His jaw clenched as he grit his teeth. “Because I care, okay?”
Narrowing my gaze, I watched his face before rolling my eyes and saying, “Fine.” I was too full of energy to argue with him. I wanted to be at Urban already and find out what secrets this club held.
Finally, a clue.
I guess Cade was my good luck charm.
The music assaulted my eardrums the second the door was opened, and Cade stayed so close behind me I could feel the brush of his jacket against my back.
His fingers remained splayed protectively on my waist, and I smiled at the sensation.
I hadn’t been romantically involved with such a protective man before, tending to avoid them because I didn’t want to deal with the excess testosterone.
But there was something soothing about Cade’s presence.
Beyond his physical stature, which was impressive in itself, he simply radiated a quiet power, and the crowd parted as we made our way through to the bar.
Cade waved two fingers at the bartender, who approached and leaned forward to hear us over the music. “We need to see the boss.”
“I’m the manager here,” she answered, tucking her curls behind an ear and frowning.
Cade leaned forward to meet her halfway across the bar, and her instinct to move away from him made me smirk. “The boss. You know exactly who I mean.”
Her eyes widened, and her gaze darted back and forth between Cade’s pupils before she scurried off.
“Now we wait,” I said.
Cade nodded, leaning against the bar. But for once, his stance was anything but relaxed, his back and shoulders tense.
He moved to pull me against him, and when I resisted, he growled, grabbing my waist and yanking me back until my ass nestled against his crotch.
Normally, I’d take advantage of the position, but Cade being on such high alert was sending my senses into overdrive.
Did he know something about this place I didn’t?
I kept my gaze moving, never settling on one person or spot for too long, taking a mental inventory of the occupants.
Wait.
When I tensed, Cade followed my gaze, and seeing nothing in particular, he stared at me. “What is it?”
I frowned. I could have sworn I saw my brother, but what would he be doing here? This didn’t seem like his scene. When I hadn’t seen him in so long, I’d assumed he’d left the city. I searched again for him but saw no one I recognized. Cade asked me again what I was looking at.
“Nothing,” I lied.
An attractive woman with black hair approached us, and another growl rumbled through Cade’s chest as he pulled me closer to him. “You!” Cade snarled.
She cocked a perfectly plucked eyebrow at him, her eyes appearing cat-like with the eyeliner around them.
“I don’t think we’ve met.” She let her gaze slide to me, her lip lifting into a smirk as she took in my hair—I wasn’t in the mood to be called innocent or some shit, not tonight—before she returned her eyes to Cade. “Follow me.”
Once again, I was yanked backward as I moved to follow.
Cade kept me behind him as we weaved our way through the crowd.
Okay, the overprotectiveness was starting to get on my nerves now, and Cade cried out as I twisted his arm behind his back before ducking under his elbow, being the first to follow the woman with black hair up a narrow staircase.
She turned at the sound and smirked at the rage on Cade’s face and my impassive expression before continuing up the winding staircase.
At the top, she tapped on the door a few times, the music was muted slightly, and the purple lighting cast eerie shadows around the stairs. When the door swung open, the staircase was flooded with both light and sound as we stepped out onto a balcony overlooking the club.
“Visitors for you, Emrick, sir,” she said.
The décor screamed of someone who had money and wanted everyone to know it, and sitting upon the velvety chair opposite us, a man with sunglasses and a hoodie pulled over his head had his fingers together in a pyramid, resting his chin on his fingertips.
Wishing I could see his eyes beyond the dark sunglasses, I simply stared at him.
Up until this moment, adrenaline had surged me forward, but once that door to the staircase behind us was closed with a definitive click, my skin started to crawl.
It was him, the man in the chair, he radiated darkness and danger, and I rolled my shoulders, trying to rid myself of the feeling which settled over us.