Red-Hot & Reckless Read online

  She looked everywhere but at the man doing a fine job of intimidating her. “Aw, I’m flattered. You mean to tell me you did all this for little ol’ me?” She forced herself to stare directly into his eyes when he pulled back to look at her. “You should have just killed me. It would have been simpler.”

  He grinned, nothing but teeth in a jagged black hole. “Yes, but it would have been much less satisfying.”

  Nicole swept her leg out, catching him forcefully at the ankles. He went down like a ton of bricks. Hands still bound behind her back, she ran for the door.

  12

  ALEX HEARD the commotion inside the vault and used it to cover his quick, silent entrance through the thick door. He ducked off to the side behind a couple of high crates just in time to see a masked man grab Nicole’s hair and jerk her backward from where she’d apparently been trying to flee.

  The masked man put his face next to hers and swore vehemently while Alex instinctively reached for a gun that wasn’t there.

  Damn it, why hadn’t he thought of taking his piece with him when he left the loft? Then he remembered why. He’d been so damn preoccupied by everything that had happened that day, he hadn’t been thinking much at all. First Nicole’s disappearance from the loft. Then his mother’s jewelry being stolen. If that weren’t enough, he’d had to sit through his sister telling him the jewelry hadn’t been stolen at all, but was out being cleaned, and that he was a moron for ever having believed Nicole could have taken it.

  “She’s the best damn thing that’s ever happened to you,” his sister’s words echoed in his mind, haunting him again.

  Out of sheer stupidity, he’d pushed Nicole out of his life. He eyed the entrance to the vault. But now, with all his power, he would make sure she wouldn’t be taken away from him for good.

  NICOLE’S EYES watered fiercely as D.M. yanked mercilessly on her hair.

  “Try something like that again and I’ll make sure torture is included in the repertoire,” he whispered into her ear.

  She whipped her head away and thought about smacking the back of her head against his nose. The problem was that she’d probably get no farther than she had a moment ago. The other three goons were on alert now, closely watching her even as they readied their bounty.

  She was finally released then shoved into a growing pile of discarded crates.

  “You know, the authorities are onto you,” Nicole said between clenched teeth.

  “The authorities will never be able to connect the dots. I’m too good.”

  Nicole merely grinned, insinuating that she knew something he didn’t.

  He bit. Big time.

  “Where’d you get this information? From your ex-cop boyfriend?”

  Nicole’s throat narrowed. How did D.M. know she and Alex were…had been involved?

  Realization swept over her skin, chilling her straight through to the bone. All along it hadn’t been Alex who was watching her. It had been D.M.

  Nicole suddenly felt dizzy.

  Don’t you dare pass out. Don’t you dare.

  She shifted until she could easily get into a standing position. Strange, it seemed, that just a few hours ago she had thought law enforcement and the state prison system her greatest enemies. As she stared into the covered face of the man who had spent Lord knows how long arranging this setup, it was sobering to think that she hadn’t even considered something like this might happen.

  She squinted at him.

  Why had he taken so long, anyway? Why hadn’t he forced her hand before now?

  “Which others do you want, boss?” one of the goons asked.

  D.M. silently towered over her, appearing not to have heard the question. Then he said, “The crates to the left. All of them.”

  Nicole’s skin crawled under his intense scrutiny.

  He finally turned away.

  She sagged against the broken crates, relieved.

  Broken crates…

  Her heartbeat accelerated. If she worked a piece of wood into the plastic restraint and twisted…

  She’d cut her hands off at the wrist.

  Unless she could find a way to protect her wrists.

  She covertly scanned the debris to her left and right, finding several wood pieces thin enough to work between her and the tie. But would the wood hold under the stress?

  Well, she wasn’t very well going to find out unless she tried, was she?

  She scooted over to her right where the most promising pieces lay and began methodically feeling her way through the pile of rubble.

  Suddenly, the tie gave.

  Nicole gasped.

  “Shhh,” Alex whispered from somewhere behind the crates.

  Oh, God, Alex!

  Nicole’s stomach pitched to her feet then back again.

  Alex had come for her.

  Instantly forgotten were his accusations. The memory of the awful way he had looked at her. Her fear that she had made a very bad mistake getting involved with him. All of it left and was replaced by mind-numbing relief.

  “When I say run,” Alex murmured, though she had yet to see him. “Run.”

  She nodded once to indicate she’d heard.

  She sat with her hands clasped behind her back rather than tied and tried to restrain the smile that threatened. Who would have thought she’d live to see the day when she was glad Alex was once a cop?

  D.M. was supervising the opening of the last of the paintings and she hoped that Alex, who proved he liked to go slow in so many ways, understood the word “fast.”

  But even as she waited for the go-ahead, she plotted her path out. Dart to the left, duck behind the crates there, then make a mad dash for the vault door.

  That was the part that concerned her. The mad dash for the door. Because once she moved, she’d become a target and that stretch was the most open, left her the most vulnerable.

  She heard a sound and jumped when all three goons dropped what they were doing and aimed highly sophisticated, mammoth weaponry toward the vault door. Oh, boy. If that was what she was in for, no crate was going to save her.

  “Whoa,” the newest addition said, holding his hands up in the air. “No need for the warm welcome. It’s just me.”

  “Run!” Alex shouted from behind Nicole.

  She began to do just that when the new arrival pulled back his mask to prove his identity, pinning her to the spot.

  Every molecule of air left her body as she stared at her brother. “Jeremy…”

  WHAT IN THE HELL WAS SHE DOING?

  Alex stood behind the open vault door, ready to smash it into the new arrival and dash out behind Nicole. But he’d issued the command for her to run and now she stood as if a magnetic force held her to the ground staring at the man who had caused the distraction he’d been waiting for.

  He squinted at Nicole’s shocked expression then turned to look back at the man. It looked like…it was the guy he saw her speak to at the coffee shop last week.

  Damn it all to hell. If they were going to get out of here before the police arrived and things really started getting hairy, the time was now.

  “Jeremy,” Nicole said, still not having moved.

  “Jesus…what the hell is going on here?” the man said as he saw Nicole. He stalked over to the man who appeared to be running things. “What’s my sister doing here?”

  Sister? The man was Nicole’s brother?

  Alex wondered if there were any more surprises in store for him tonight.

  The man in charge calmly laid his hand on Jeremy’s arm. “She’s here for the same reason you are,” he said, pulling a handgun out of the back waist of his black slacks. “You’re both going down for this crime.” He shrugged. “And, of course, the murder of the three guards.”

  Alex’s heartbeat thundered through his veins. Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse.

  “What—”

  Jeremy didn’t get a chance to finish his thought as the masked man brought the heel of his gun down on the
other man’s head. Jeremy fell to his knees, obviously trying to hold onto consciousness. When it looked like he was regaining his bearings, the masked man hit him again. Jeremy hit the floor, out cold.

  “Leave him alone!” Nicole shouted, getting to her feet and revealing that she was no longer bound.

  She picked up a plank of wood and appeared to aim for the man’s head. He ducked, but it hadn’t been his head she was after, rather the hand that held the gun. The heavy metal fell to the cement floor then slid until it smacked up against the wall.

  Her target roared then caught her around the waist causing her to drop the wood. She fought him, bringing her heel down on his instep and elbowing him in the solar plexus but nothing succeeded in getting him to relax his grip. Instead, he shifted his right hand until he was gripping her throat.

  Not good.

  Alex began to rush forward when he heard someone else enter from the vault door. “Let her go, slimebag.”

  Slimebag?

  Alex watched as Kylie stepped in from the same direction Jeremy had entered, holding a mean-looking stun gun that crackled as she pointed it at Nicole’s assailant where he stood twenty feet away. Would the wires reach?

  That got the other goons’ attention and they turned on her with their own very real guns, that shot very real bullets, from any distance.

  Alex felt ridiculously like he’d been caught in an Arnold Schwartzenegger movie and he was the only one not holding a gun.

  Nicole reached into the back of her own slacks and pulled out her small caliber pistol, then pressed the muzzle against her assailant’s temple.

  Yup. Definitely the only one.

  “Tell your friends to drop their weapons,” Nicole ordered.

  Nobody moved.

  “Now!” she shouted.

  “I’d do what the lady says.” Alex stepped out of the shadows so that the men were now flanked. Of course he wasn’t armed, but he thought the best course of action to take right now would be to appear that it didn’t matter. He crossed his arms and grinned at the four thieves. Then he shrugged. “You know, unless all of you want to kiss your asses goodbye.”

  Silence. Then Alex could have sworn he heard a quiet chuckle. A chuckle that grew louder as each second passed.

  He narrowed his eyes on the one holding Nicole.

  “Bravo, Cassavetes,” the man said, sounding remarkably familiar. “You know, I really didn’t think you had it in you.” He moved until he was facing Alex. Nicole made a choking sound and fought to keep her pistol pressed against his temple. “You know, there was a running bet around the company that you quit the force because you couldn’t hack it.”

  The company?

  Realization dawned on him at the same time the masked man used his free hand to peel back the mask from his face.

  John Carlon.

  A man he had worked with at the insurance company for the past year. A man who had reportedly just taken a job out in San Francisco with another company and whose last day was the previous Friday.

  Dark Man had been right there under his nose all along.

  A flurry of activity sounded as police stormed the building from every entrance. “Freeze!”

  A chilling expression came over John’s face as he continued to hold Alex’s gaze. As if in slow motion, he followed the inside of Nicole’s arm up with the backs of his fingers, as if lovingly caressing her. Then he fastened his hand over hers where she held her gun and pulled the trigger.

  NICOLE SAT in the back of an unmarked van, her throat raw and tight, her hands shaking as she checked the back of her brother’s head. He’d come to right after the police had made the arrests.

  She shuddered. Well, after they had arrested Carlon’s three goons. John Carlon himself… She shuddered again.

  “Here, maybe this will help warm you up.” The woman Alex had introduced as P.I. Kylie Capshaw held out a thermos.

  Neither of them mentioned that Nicole couldn’t possibly need warming up on such a balmy summer night. She sniffed the contents first then took a long pull, feeling the Irish Cream inside immediately go to work on her frayed nerves. Her throat wasn’t ready for the alcohol though, and she coughed.

  Alex stepped up. “Careful. Kylie likes a little coffee with her Bailey’s.”

  Nicole felt a stab of jealousy at the casual almost fond way Alex spoke of Kylie. She kept her gaze on Jeremy as she handed the thermos back.

  “I think I’ll leave you guys alone,” the P.I. said as she capped her thermos and headed around to the front of the van.

  Silence stretched between them. Only a hundred feet to her left flashing lights illuminated the otherwise dark alley as countless N.Y.P.D. officers secured the area and went in and out of the auction house. A vehicle pulled up onto the street to her right. She looked to find it was the county coroner’s van.

  She shuddered again.

  “Sir, the paramedics have arrived.”

  Nicole blinked to find that a uniformed officer was directing the comment to Jeremy.

  “Just one last job,” her brother had told her when he’d come to and stared up into her face. “That’s all this was supposed to be. Just one last job to cover a down payment on a house for Joanna and Justine and me. I wouldn’t have done it except…”

  Carlon had made the offer too appealing, Nicole now knew. The reason he had taken so long to set her up was because making her alone pay for Christine Bowman’s arrest and life imprisonment hadn’t been enough. So he’d thrown first her father into the mix, setting him up in order to chase her from the bushes, then added her brother for good measure, planning to frame them both for not only tonight’s heist, but for all his other crimes. And they wouldn’t have been able to dispute the allegations because, well, it was a little difficult to talk when you were dead.

  If anything good had come out of the night, it was that Nicole was convinced Jeremy was out of the business, this time for good.

  Her brother looked at her and she looked at Alex.

  “Go ahead. I’ve got things covered here,” Alex said.

  Her bother looked back at her. She smiled and nodded, indicating Jeremy could trust Alex. She knew he was a man of his word. He’d promised to keep them safe from prosecution and she knew he’d keep that promise, or die trying.

  Jeremy reluctantly got up to follow the officer to the paramedic truck up the block.

  Nicole crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself, wondering if she’d ever feel warm again. She would have thought she’d feel relieved—triumphant, even, at finally catching up with the Dark Man. But when Carlon had squeezed her hand around her pistol…

  Alex sat next to her, close enough to touch, but keeping his distance.

  Nicole swallowed hard. “Thank you.”

  He looked at her. “For what?”

  “For…” She smiled halfheartedly. “Well, I guess ‘everything’ about covers it, doesn’t it?” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “But the thing I’m most thankful for is your stepping up to keep my brother out of this.”

  He shrugged. “No problem.”

  She gazed at him. “Isn’t it?”

  He considered her long and hard. Then he grinned. “Well, maybe it was a little bit of a problem.” The grin vanished. “But nothing I can’t handle.”

  She was beginning to see that there were probably few things that Alex Cassavetes couldn’t handle. Which felt odd to admit.

  Oh, while she’d been attracted to him from the word go, she’d always thought him on the too-tame side, a man stuck in a groove she was determined to push him out of.

  Instead, somewhere down the line she’d begun to understand that Alex’s groove wasn’t a rut but rather a different way of life. He was solid, thoughtful, loyal, as well as sexy as hell, and she couldn’t imagine a situation where he wouldn’t be there for those he loved.

  And she supposed that was the problem with the two of them and why they couldn’t take their relationship any further. He didn’t love her. Because i
n order to have love you had to have trust. And they didn’t have that.

  “So…you work with Kylie a lot?” she asked quietly.

  She felt his gaze on her profile as she watched the paramedics attend to her brother.

  After the police had closed in, Alex had sorted everything out in a way that left her and Jeremy out of the spotlight. He’d explained that they worked with Kylie. Nicole had been surprised by how readily Alex’s former co-workers had bought the lie. They hadn’t even looked twice at her and Jeremy and they would walk away from this without a scratch.

  Well, aside from the emotional scar she would have from having involuntarily killed one man and fallen in love with another.

  Alex cleared his throat and shifted where he sat next to her. “I owe you an apology.”

  Nicole slowly turned her head to look at him. He returned her gaze.

  “For what?” she whispered.

  “For accusing you of doing something you didn’t.”

  Nicole’s heart beat a hopeful rhythm in her chest and warmth began to return to her limbs.

  He cleared his throat again and glanced toward the chaos surrounding them. “It seems my sister took my mother’s jewelry to be cleaned as part of an anniversary gift for my parents.”

  Hope vanished. “I see.”

  “Do you? Because I’m not sure that I do.”

  She gave a weak smile.

  “Do you forgive me?”

  She nodded. “That, I can do.”

  His whole body seemed to relax. He reached for her hand. She moved it away.

  “I can forgive you, but it’s not enough, is it?”

  He squinted at her, apparently trying to make sense out of her words.

  She smiled, surprised to find tears burning the back of her eyelids. “If you had told me you believed in me without learning what had really happened to your mother’s jewelry, maybe…” She looked everywhere but at him. “You know what’s funny?” she whispered. “Just this morning I decided that I didn’t want to be a thief anymore. I went to visit my father in prison and…” She didn’t know why she was saying what she was; she only knew that she had to. “And I decided that you were more important to me than my career. That you were worth rethinking my entire life.” She looked down and laughed quietly. “Strange how things work out, isn’t it? Here I was thinking that two simple words like ‘I quit’ would make all the difference in the world, then you accused me of taking your mother’s jewelry and I realized there aren’t enough words in the dictionary to change things. Not really.”