Evan Arden: Otherwise Occupied Part 25

Rinaldo waved his hand around the room, but of course he didn't mean the office or the building he meant all of the businesses. I raised a brow but wasn't stupid enough to ask about Nick at that point. Biology aside, he wasn't going to let the illegitimate child that far inside. He was lenient enough with the guy as it was.

"Luisa is a strong woman like her mother, and she could take care of it, but having a man such as yourself looking after her would be a substantial bonus. It would keep those who might believe her to be an easier target at bay. There are also some who might feel a woman is not to be taken seriously, and I would trust you to take care of anyone who insulted her."

"Thank you, sir."

He went quiet for a moment.

"I trust you with my life, Evan," he said. "My life the life of my daughter, the running of any of my businesses I would trust you to be loyal to this family as much as I would anyone who shared our blood. Yes, in many ways you would be the perfect choice for her."

His lips tightened, and his eyes narrowed. I felt my muscles tense a bit because I knew the answer was coming. His focus on me was acute and palpable.

"You would never love her, though," he said, "would you?"

I blinked a couple of times.

"What, sir?"

"You would never love my daughter," he said again. "Even this hooker you killed for, you don't have any real feelings for her at all, do you?"

"I...I don't understand."

"If you had gone back to your apartment, found a letter from her saying she was moving out of the city, and you never saw her again, would you care?"

I didn't even know how to answer.

"I didn't think so," Rinaldo said. "That's why you will never touch my daughter. I hope you'll always be there to protect her if I am unable to do so myself."

"Of course," I responded immediately.

"That you understand," he commented. "Killing to keep her safe you know just what to do with those instructions. But matters of the heart? You're lacking there, son."

My chest tightened up, and I didn't know what I was supposed to say. Cold sweat had formed on the back of my neck and trickled between my shoulder blades. The rest of my body tensed completely before I could stop it. I tasted sand in the back of my throat, but when I tried to swallow past the sensation, I couldn't.

"You don't even really understand what I mean, do you?" he asked. "You don't let anyone in that head long enough for you to understand them or to let them understand you."

"I have a shrink," I heard myself say.

"I know," Rinaldo replied. "I know everything, Evan. You don't think I'd let your past not be of my utmost concern?"

"I...I never thought about it." I hadn't, either, and now the sleepy feeling waned as it was replaced by feelings of stupidity.

"You endured more than most men ever will," Rinaldo said quietly. "You've had it worse than anyone you ever killed. They died quick and easy. You've been dying since they brought you home from that war."

I forced myself to swallow hard and found I was having a hard time looking at his face.

"You are going to crack someday, aren't you, Lieutenant?"

My eyes flashed to Rinaldo's, and I couldn't stop my hands from clenching into fists. The anger boiling inside of me had nowhere to go, and I was dangerously close to letting it loose on the one man whom I didn't want to hurt.

Had Mario been in the room, he would have noticed. He would have seen how close I was, and he probably would have shot me. Rinaldo only nodded slowly and sat back again.

"If there comes a time I need to put you down, I will," he said. "If there comes a time you want me to put you down, you let me know. You can go now, son."

I stood up, trying not to let my knees wobble as I did. I turned and walked as quickly as I could out of the room, trying not to comprehend what Rinaldo Moretti had just said to me.

I couldn't think.

I could barely breathe.

Even though spring was in full force, the temperature had fallen and the wind was bone-chilling. I dropped down on the bench inside the dog run and unhooked Odin's leash from his collar, so he could run around and sniff at the other neighborhood dogs. I needed to think my head was just too jumbled up with all the recent information inside of it, but every time I tried to figure out what was happening to me, my head ached and reminded me how long it had been since I'd slept.

Well, kind of reminded me. I'd really lost track of how long it had been. I couldn't focus anymore that's what I knew. I jumped at f.u.c.king everything, too, just like I had in the hospital after I had been brought back from the Middle East. It had been years since I felt that kind of paranoia, and I wasn't even sure how to begin to cope with it.

Where did things start going wrong?

Without warning, Lia's face came back into my head, and for once I just let it happen.

I closed my eyes and leaned back against the bench as the whole time she was with me raced through my brain. I remembered seeing her out there on the dry, dusty road walking aimlessly towards my cabin, and I remembered thinking I might just have to shoot her.

I didn't do it I made her dinner instead. Once night fell, she crawled into the little twin bed and I ended up inside of her minutes later really inside of her. I didn't push for a b.l.o.w.j.o.b or a.n.a.l we just had straight s.e.x. No condom, no barriers, no pretenses. I came in her over and over again, and I couldn't get enough.

Even though I had told her I'd be there when she got back, I knew it wasn't something I could ever have. I didn't get the kind of promises she could offer. I didn't deserve them. According to Rinaldo, I didn't even understand that sort of s.h.i.+t.

I did, though. I knew exactly what I was missing.

Why did I keep thinking about her? I didn't want to think about her. I'd been spending all my time since I left the cabin in Arizona doing things to stop myself from thinking about her, and it still wasn't working. Whether I was sweating at the gym, researching the next target, or firing at the shooting range, she was always in my head.

Silk-soft hair running down her back, easy smile that made my heart beat faster for no reason at all, and that shy, quick blush that had my c.o.c.k ready to go again at a moment's notice.

From right behind me, the obnoxious sound of the parking garage door warning system went off and brought me out of the memory. I scowled over my shoulder at the car that moved out of the garage and around the loop North Field Boulevard made as it circled the park. The garage door went back down again.

What was I going to do about Bridgett? Did she really hear things I said in my sleep and tell Greco's men about them? Who did she even know in his organization? I couldn't quite fathom how she could have hidden such things from me, but then again, I was usually completely exhausted by the time I went to pick her up.

I remembered how quickly she talked about going to work over by the warehouses and considered maybe she had been working for them the whole time. Maybe her connection had always been there. Maybe she contacted Terry.

I wasn't sure. They had both completely disappeared.

That didn't make sense, though. What would she have been doing on Melvin's corner, then? Not waiting for me I had never even picked up a girl at that location before. I had always gone further south and used one of the hotels you could pay for by the hour.

She was chosen because I was in a hurry, wanted to f.u.c.k her at my apartment, and because she had the roundest a.s.s of the group. There was no way that was a plant. Someone had to have gotten to her after they realized I was f.u.c.king her regularly.

I was back to the list of those who knew about her and frustrated that I had been so stupid as to take her out in public where we could have been seen by anyone. It made the list insane.

Top possibilities, then.

Melvin.

Jonathan.

Terry.

Mario.

One of the other hookers Candy, maybe. What did I know about her?

Michele with one "L" at the bar.

There were too many and very little else to go on. Maybe I needed to figure out just which one of Greco's boys was getting the information and see if that led me in the right direction. Something had to show itself, but it wasn't going to happen out here in the park. The parking garage door was going to drive me over the edge before I came to any reasonable conclusions. I grabbed Odin and headed back upstairs, knowing there was one name that came up more than anyone else's.

Only name that really made any sense.

Terry Kramer. His phone logs were far more interesting than Jonathan's with several to a prepaid phone that seemed to find itself in the vicinity of my apartment pretty frequently, especially at night when a certain hooker should have been asleep in my bed. I dug back to earlier in the year and found two calls to Bridgett's number from the last surviving payphone in Chicago, as far as I knew, which happened to be near Terry's place.

There was no doubt that Terry would look for an excuse to get me run out of Moretti's organization I was his superior in skill and position, and he knew it. As long as I was around and the favorite, he couldn't move up from where he was nothing more than a two-bit thug.

Was Terry stupid enough to be working for the compet.i.tion or just trying to get me out of the way?

My hands were jittery, and I was starting to feel really nauseated. I lay myself down to try to get some sleep, but it didn't come easily. When it finally arrived, it brought forth some of the worst of the nightmares, and I woke sweating with a scream in my throat.

I took the dog out for a midnight walk to clear my head. It wasn't particularly successful, but it was probably better than nothing. My cell phone began to ring just as Odin and I returned to the apartment.

I didn't recognize the number, but I answered it.

"Evan?"

I froze just inside the doorway, paused for a moment and then reached down to unhook Odin's leash. I wanted to yell and scream, but I knew I had to at least appear calm.

"Bridgett. You've been a little out of touch." My voice was cold.

"I need to see you," she said quietly. "I need to talk to you."

"Where are you?"

"Would you meet me somewhere?"

She didn't want to come here or have me pick her up. She wanted to meet somewhere somewhere else, somewhere not alone.

Could she be any more suspicious?

"Where?"

"What about that place you took me on Michigan Avenue? The bar with the martinis and the waffles?"

"676," I said. "I'll be there in ten minutes."

I knew what she was doing trying to get me to meet her in a public place because she had something to say she knew I wasn't going to like hearing and she was afraid of my reaction. The fact that she had stooped to such a level didn't give me any kind of calming feeling. I was as tense as I could be.

"What did she f.u.c.king do?"

I took the Audi, drove up to the valet in front of the Omni, gave the guy a fifty to just hold my car there for a minute, and headed into the lobby. When I turned the corner to head upstairs, I saw Bridgett right by the elevator, waiting for it to arrive and carry her upstairs.

Not going to happen.

I walked over swiftly, took her by the elbow, and began to lead her back to the front of the building. As I had hoped, she was taken off guard enough that she didn't have time to scream or consider what was happening until I had her outside the building.

"Evan" she started, but I shushed her.

"Not a f.u.c.king word," I growled. "Don't you say anything; don't you do anything. Just get in the f.u.c.king car."

I escorted her around to where the valet was holding open the door, seated her with a smile, and then quickly climbed into my side. I drove off before anyone had a chance to even consider what had just happened.

"Evan," Bridgett whispered from the other side of the car.

I glanced sideways at her, my jaw tight.

"Tell me," I snapped. "Tell me everything. Tell me how you know Greco, and tell me what your relations.h.i.+p with him is. Tell me what the f.u.c.k you think you are doing!"

The precious little grasp I had over my emotions was waning, and there didn't seem to be anything I could do to stop it.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" she cried.

As I looked ahead into traffic, I could still see her press herself against the car door like she might jump out and make a run for it. It wouldn't work, though. I wouldn't let that happen.

"I came back; you were gone." I turned around the block and started heading down Grand, over the bridge, and towards the boss's office. "You want to start by explaining that?"

"I-I-I went outside," she said. "I just wanted to get some air, but he was there. He said I had to go with him, and we went to an office building he had a room there in the bas.e.m.e.nt."

"What office?"

"Just a small one," she said quietly. "It was brick and didn't have any windows at all."

Could he really have been hiding out in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the boss's main office building? Had he been there, right under my feet the whole time I was looking for him? Was it even who I suspected?

"Who?" I demanded. "What's his name?"

She didn't answer.

"Who did you go with?" I snarled through clenched teeth. I already knew the answer. The little f.u.c.ker had been trolling around my apartment, and he had sucked Bridgett into whatever his sick little game was to take my position in Moretti's organization.

"Take my position in his life."

"What?" Bridgett whispered.

"Tell me his name!"

"His name is Terry! I didn't know him. He just found me!"