Adler Read online

  I probably should have ejected myself.

  I hadn't run this past Reign.

  It was an easy thing to forget at times, that I wasn't my own boss anymore, that I couldn't just come and go as I pleased.

  Reign was somewhat lax as a whole, letting his men have their own lives, not demanding too much of their time except guard shifts and church. But he expected us to check in.

  When her iPod switched to yet more modern crap, I pulled out my cell, shooting off a text to him and Cash saying I'd be out of town for a few days.

  "Why?" was Reign's almost immediate reply since he had given me a stern talking-to when he let me prospect, telling me that my old job was done and over with. He didn't want me sneaking off to put a bullet or knife wound in someone while I was working for him. Unless, of course, it was by his orders.

  I lifted my phone, toggling over to the camera, snapping off a pic before I realized my volume wasn't off.

  "Did you just take a picture of me?" she asked, head turning away from the windshield for way longer than was technically safe.

  "If I end up dead after this weekend, I want my mates to know who did it," I said casually, shooting the image off to Reign.

  Reign - Got it. Check in if your fuckfest goes longer than two days.

  That was the kind of leader I could get behind.

  "What's wrong with my music?" she asked a moment later, breaking a silence that had been between us since we pulled away from her skeazeball boss' office.

  "It ain't music. Music involves instruments that the actual band members play. And vocals that haven't been auto-tuned beyond recognition. What's the point of liking an artist if they don't sound a fuckin' thing like that in concert?"

  "Fair point," she conceded, turning down the dial slightly, letting the pop-rap become background noise. "So why are you tagging along with me? I haven't exactly been inviting."

  "Figure it might be interesting to see ya in action."

  "Trying to make friends with someone who might haul in your gun-running ass someday isn't exactly the smartest move."

  "Duchess, no one knows who I am. They wouldn't know who to issue a bond to."

  "A ghost, huh? Want to bet I can learn your story in under a month?"

  "What's the wager?" I asked, hoping for something worthwhile since there was no way she was going to win.

  "Money is lame. You lose, you do whatever I want you to do for thirty days."

  "Anything ya want, huh?" I asked, feeling my lips curve up, liking the idea a little too much.

  "Wipe that grin off your face. I'm not talking sex. Laundry, dishes, car washing services..."

  "And if you lose?"

  "Same offer."

  "Ya cook?" Her foot put the pedal to the floor, just barely braking in time for the red light, half turning in her seat to face me, brows drawn together.

  "Of course I can cook. You can't cook?"

  "Haven't had the chance to learn," I admitted, shrugging it off. "Besides, it's much better when a beautiful woman does it for ya."

  "What? Naked and in heels?" she asked, rolling her eyes.

  "Nah. She can wear a thong."

  "I will not be wearing a thong."

  "Naked is fine then."

  She snorted as she slammed on the gas, rambling off a string of curses at the guy behind her who laid on the horn the second the light changed.

  "Fuck you too, asshole!" she yelled even though the windows were up as the guy swerved into the other lane to pass her, yelling and waving his hand as he did so.

  "Little road rage problem?"

  "Road rage, yes. Problem, no."

  "Duchess, you drive down side streets like you're taking a precision driving course at Quantico," I countered, smiling when she sent me a slitted-eye look.

  "What? Like it's my fault that no one else knows how to drive?" she asked, swerving out of the way, just barely missing the back bumper of a van that turned without a signal. "Stop criticizing my driving skills, and look over that file for me. Make yourself useful."

  "What am I looking for?"

  "Anything that might help me find this bastard. Did you read that autopsy report?" she added after a moment, tone losing that sharp edge it always had, there to cut people before they got too close, no doubt.

  It was the first time she showed a soft spot, making me flip to the page in question, scanning through the notes from the medical examiner.

  I wish I could say it sickened me, that I was shocked by it. But I had lived in the deepest, ugliest places in the world, had brushed shoulders with the vilest of human beings. Very little managed to catch me off-guard.

  This woman, barely more than a girl, who had the face of a cherub, all plump cheeks and bright eyes, making her appear at least five years younger than her actual age on the missing persons flier that had been on the page before the medical examiner's report, had been beaten, sliced, burned, and raped before she was finally given the sweet release of death. By strangulation, it was reported.

  "How'd he even get bail?" I asked, exhaling hard.

  At that, Lou snorted, disdain filling the little sound. "A sympathetic judge."

  "Sympathetic of what?"

  "The long life he had ahead of him, I imagine," she said, referencing the somewhat young age of the man in question.

  "Before he took the life away from someone else."

  She shot me a look over her shoulder, something full of a mix of resignation and disgust. "There's nothing just about the justice system these days."

  Couldn't exactly disagree with that.

  It was why I had been so fucking busy all those years when I was finally on my own, able to make my own life. People who couldn't get justice in the traditional ways. So they came to me. To deal with it in an old-fashioned way.

  It was almost impressive how many sick fucks managed to escape cages or lethal injections.

  "Ya ain't just in this for the money, huh, duchess?" I asked, watching as she took one hand off the wheel to gather a handful of her brown hair, the movement making the silky strands catch the sunlight, revealing strips of gold and auburn mixed in with all the mahogany as she twisted it and settled it on one shoulder, so it stopped blowing in her face.

  "You mean do I enjoy getting the scumbags off the street? Yes, I do."

  "And rough 'em up a bit in the process."

  Her lips curved up at that, teasing up the corners of her eyes. "Only if they try to run."

  "How many try to run?"

  This time, when she smiled, she sent the whole thing my way. And it fucking lit up her whole face. "All of them."

  We fell into a companionable silence for the next hour or so, pulling down toward the boardwalk.

  It was a ghost town, many of the summer shops shuttered for the cold season. Snow capped some of the buildings, the dunes, blanketing the familiar wooden planks locals and tourists alike would flock to once the weather warmed.

  As it was, though, the area was all but abandoned save for a lone female runner, her purple-sneaker-clad-feet landing easily on the slippery snow, her high blonde ponytail bouncing with each stride forward.

  "I hate AC," Lou declared, exhaling hard.

  "Got a problem with gambling?"

  "Got a problem with places that pretend to be something they're not. All lit up at night as if they could shine a light in all the dark, seedy corners."

  "Unlike the Bronx?" I asked, not exactly one who easily let things go. And she hadn't been forthcoming about her past. Hell, she hadn't even wanted to tell me her name. "Where all the ugly is all up in your face?"

  "At least it's honest," she said with a shrug, side-eyeing a duo of men standing just to the side of one of the buildings in town, right there in broad daylight, painfully obviously making a drug deal.

  "Where are we staying?"

  "I will figure out where I am staying after I have put some footwork in. No point getting a room if I need to skip towns. You should check out the local train schedule, and get your
ass back to Navesink Bank."

  "And miss all the fun?"

  "Don't you have street gangs to arm with assault rifles?" she asked, pulling into a spot, throwing the car into park, giving me her undivided attention for an almost unsettling moment.

  "Don't insult me. We only arm large street gangs with assault rifles."

  "And you feel no guilt in that? Even knowing how many innocent people get shot during gang wars?"

  "It's just a job, duchess. None of us are saints. But that's a problem to face up if you get hauled in or when ya are facing up the pearly gates lookin' for absolution."

  "You believe in the Pearly Gates?" she asked, head cocked to the side slightly.

  "Ya don't?" I asked, reaching outward, watching her eyes as they watched my hand reach for her neck, picking up the Saint Paul medallion she wore around her neck, the gold tarnished a bit with age and wear. "Then why wear this?"

  "It was my mother's," she declared, jerking away, cutting the engine, climbing out, and slamming the door.

  So her mother was a sore spot.

  Whose wasn't?

  I glanced back out, finding Lou already half a block away, her determined gait doing nothing to distract from the sway of her hips, the way her ass filled out her jeans perfectly.

  I climbed out, having to jog to catch up with her. "Where ya headed?"

  "Nicky Musgrove," she said easily, raising a brow when I shook my head. "Known associate from the file. The only legwork that seemed to be put into this case."

  It was pretty fucking impressive how much she had retained from what seemed like a cursory glance at the file while trading barbs with her asshole boss. I had been looking over the file on and off for the whole ride down the state, and the name didn't even ring a bell, let alone an address for him.

  "What's he do?"

  "Aside from, I imagine, gambling? No clue. All there was in the file was a name and address."

  "So you are just gonna go knock on his door?"

  "Or jimmy open his kitchen window."

  "You didn't grab any weapons."

  "I didn't? she asked, reaching into her jacket pocket to produce a stun gun. Then, digging in another, a pocketknife. "I very much doubt he is going to outrun me, so a gun isn't necessary. Also, harder to hide."

  I had a gun on me, but it didn't seem the time to tell her that. "Why don't you think he could outrun you?"

  "His driver's license," she told me, shooting me a small smile. "He's closing in on four-hundred pounds."

  We fell into silence for a few minutes as we walked, her long-legged pace and the bite of the wind chilling me through my jeans and jacket. This was nothing compared to a Russian winter, but that was one of the many reasons I didn't set down roots there.

  "Why do ya run in jeans?" I asked as we turned down a side street.

  "I am not a runner," she started.

  "Coulda fooled me."

  "I mean I don't do it because I enjoy it. I do it because my job requires running a lot of the time. So the only reason I get out there every morning is so some fuck doesn't run away with my paycheck. And since I likely won't be chasing after a skip wearing those trendy stretchy pant things, I run in what I would have to run in for work."

  "What if a mark was in a fancy place?"

  To that, her lips quirked up ever-so-slightly. "I could outrun you in heels, Adler. Take you down in under two minutes."

  "Helps that I am not up on my cardio," I told her, shrugging. "But if the endgame is you taking me down, duchess, don't see why I would run hard at all."

  "Cute," she said, waving a hand at a sand-colored brick apartment building seven stories high, black fire escapes marring the side that theoretically faced the water, but I doubt anyone could see past the taller buildings in the main area of town.

  "This it?"

  "Yep."

  "We going in the front or the fire escape?"

  "Know how to pick a lock, Adler?"

  "What? Am I five? Might as well ask me if I can tie my shoes. What criminal can't pick a lock?"

  "We're going in the front. Hopefully, he's nocturnal like any good criminal in this town."

  "How do ya know he's a criminal?"

  "He has a face tattoo," she said, pulling open the front door, the lock knocked loose when we walked up to it. "And since he isn't a nineteen-year-old rapper, I am going to go ahead and assume he's not gainfully employed anywhere."

  "Fair enough," I agreed, standing back, just taking in the view as she walked over to the boxes piled on the mail table, picking each up, checking out the addresses, before finding the one we were after. "3C," she declared waving the box, then tucking it under her arm, and moving off toward the stairs.

  "Got something against elevators?"

  "It's only three flights," she told me, shrugging before taking off at the stairs at a dead run, making me seriously second-guess her earlier declaration about hating running as I took off behind her, catching up as she rounded on the door, holding a hand out at the lock.

  "Prove that you're more than just a pretty face," she demanded, tone low in case Nicky was within earshot.

  "We're gonna have to revisit that pretty face comment later," I told her, crouching down, pulling a lock pick set out of my wallet where one had lived for several long decades. I made short work of it, hearing the click, shooting her a smirk as she reached for the handle.

  "Not bad. But I can do better," she declared, pushing the door in, stepping into the open space provided, craning her neck around before waving me in as well.

  I took her shoulder as we moved through the apartment, sparse in the way that all men's places tended to be, decorations being nothing more than piles of clothes and the occasional poster tacked up without a frame.

  Her finger, oddly delicate, raised to her plump lips, shushing me as we rounded on the last door, the only one that had been closed.

  I nodded as she lowered the finger and raised a hand, silently telling me to back off, stay in place, that this was her job, her paycheck, her rep on the line.

  A man could respect that.

  Besides, I had a feeling seeing her in action would be all kinds of sexy.

  She threw open the door, stepped in, then came flying back out, slamming the door, crashing back against it, body quaking.

  There were a short few seconds of pure fucking panic at the idea that she was maybe crying before I realized she was trying hard to hold in laughter.

  "Aw now I gotta know what that's about," I said, smiling just because her amusement was infectious as she pressed a hand to her belly, sucking in a deep breath. "On... the... can..." she started, breaking off on a choke before going on, "jerking... off..."

  A chuckle escaped me at that, shaking my head. "Guess ya could say he's comin' and goin'," I said, making her double forward, slowly sliding down the door until her ass met the floor. "Oh, my God. Stop," she demanded, sucking in air as she turned her head to her shoulder to wipe away a tear that escaped the side of her eye. "Must be a ritual," she added, taking a few quick breaths, calming down. "He's got a flatscreen on the wall with porn playing."

  "Yeah? What's he into?"

  "From the looks of things... pegging."

  "Nice knowledge of kinks there, Lou," I told her. "Ya ain't worried he might escape out the window?"

  "I couldn't fit out that window, let alone him. Heya Nicky, why don't you get your ass out here and wash your hands so we can have a nice little chat?" she called, pushing up off the floor just a moment before the door opened to Nicky, every bit as large as Lou had suggested, red-faced in embarrassment, unable to even look her in the eye.

  "What are you doing in my apartment?"

  "Hand washing first, then conversation. I know where that palm has been," she added with a raised brow, making the redness spread down the man's neck. "Got any halfway decent coffee in this joint?" she asked as he turned around to wash his hands, the male moaning from his porn still audible, something Lou either didn't hear, or simply wasn't fazed
by as she turned to walk back toward the main area of the house.

  Figuring she was right about the guy being not able to escape, I followed her out, finding her reaching up into the overhead cabinets, her jacket and shirt inching up, showing off a sliver of her back and stomach, enough that I could see a lower back dimple from my angle, making all kinds of thoughts fill my head as I moved in behind her, pressing my pelvis into her ass, reaching to snag the bag of coffee she was trying to grab, pushed back against the corner of the cabinet.

  "If I wanted your situation all up in my situation, I would have said so," she declared as I placed the bag on the counter.

  "Aye? Then why is yer voice all airy, duchess?" I asked, ducking my head so my lips were near her ear, so close that a butterfly's wing couldn't fit between our bodies, but not quite touching.

  I overestimated my charm.

  And underestimated her willingness to use her body as a weapon.

  I learned it a second too late as her elbow cocked and slammed back into the fleshy bit of stomach just under my lowest rib, missing the bone by the smallest of spaces, making me realize just how trained she was as my air knocked out of me, allowing her the room to whirl, slamming a hand into my shoulder, knocking me back into the fridge as I tried to pull in a breath.

  "Ease up, Casanova," she told me, but there wasn't much fire in the words. "Perfect timing," she added as Nicky walked in, eyeing the door a bit wistfully, clearly knowing he wouldn't make it there before her. "Now, Adler here is gonna make us some coffee. Strong," she added, giving me a look, "While you and me have a little chat about friends. Namely, your bad choices in them."

  "Listen, bitch..." he started, and before I could even shoot the guy a I wouldn't go there if I were you look, Lou's hand flew out, fingers closing in around his trachea, making his air choke in his throat.

  "No, you listen, bitch," she said, but her tone was still light, conversational. "I am here to get some answers. You are going to give them to me. Now here is where I might say something like Unless you want my foot up your ass but judging by your choice in porn, you might be into that. So unless you want to know what a broken dick and penis cast feels like for the next six weeks, I suggest you sit your ass down, and start giving me what I want. Namely, Thomas's whereabouts."