The Firefighter's Secret Baby. Anna DeStefano
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Gianfranco smoothed a hand down the tie that, along with his private Gulfstream jet, was ruinously expensive but worth every dime he’d spent. In his world, money was power. It intimidated the people he needed kept in place, and wooed the ones he wanted closer.
Know who you can trust, and deal firmly with the ones you can’t.
It had been the wisest advice Luca’s father had ever given him.
“I guarantee she couldn’t have survived that accident,” the head of Luca’s southeastern operations insisted over their cell link.
“Really? Because it occurs to me that a guarantee would have been you watching her take her last breath.”
“Fire and rescue was there in under ten minutes. We couldn’t have—”
“You chose to make a public spectacle out of your responsibility, then you didn’t finish the job. Almost as if you didn’t want the same outcome I do, and you didn’t want me to have another chance once you failed.”
“I did what you asked,” said the voice of a man Luca had been sure could be trusted. It wasn’t the first time he’d been wrong about family. “You wanted the world to know you aren’t weak. No matter what you have to do. No one who hears about how you took Sam out will doubt—”
“But I haven’t taken her out. She was rushed to the hospital. She’s been in emergency surgery for hours.” Luca took a deep breath, resisting the wave of familiarity that came with thinking of her as Sam. She was a loose end. A challenge to his control that would be his death warrant if he didn’t eliminate her.
There was a long pause.
Something crashed on the other side of the line.
“She’s alive?” the gruff voice said.
“I’m assured she’s in bad shape, but alive. That’s all the details I can get. My source won’t risk attracting suspicion by asking too many questions. But that’s a risk I’m confident you’d be happy to take, to make up for your failure.”
“But even if I can get someone to—”
“Get your ass over there. I want a detailed report before morning. Then I’ll tell you exactly what I want done to end this. The trial’s less than a month away. My Vancouver associates are nervous. I’m on my way to reassure them that I’ve isolated the leak, that there’s no way I’ll be indicted, and that their investment is secure. You either take care of this for me, or you become part of the collateral damage you caused.”
Luca slapped his phone shut. The flight attendant bringing him cappuccino flinched as she set the cup down. He caught her hand before she could draw away.
“Share some of this with me?” It wasn’t a request.
She sat. Her smile was beautiful, if not completely genuine. She didn’t resist as Luca’s fingers threaded through hers. He lifted the cup of steaming coffee with his free hand, offering it to her as if it were a precious jewel. Hesitating, she took a sip and licked foam from her upper lip.
Sam had once craved private time with him. She’d needed companionship and a sense of belonging so badly. She’d been his shadow, until she betrayed him.
Luca’s hand tightened around the attendant’s, becoming a crushing vise. A squeak of pain escaped as he leaned forward, staring into her blue eyes. The same color as Sam’s.
“No one leaves my family,” he whispered to the attendant.
His mind raced with his plans to expand his West Coast operations into Vancouver. Everything was riding on him neutralizing this ridiculous grand jury mess. His fist clenched tighter. A bone snapped in the petite blonde’s hand. She cried out. The thrill of it swamped the rush of unfamiliar anxiety that had momentarily taken hold.
“No one challenges me,” he explained, his voice gentle. “Understand?”
The flight attendant nodded frantically, her eyes glazing. Pain. Fear. It was the same broken expression that had been on Sam’s face the night she’d run from him and their world. He wanted to see fear in her eyes again, just once more before she died. Fear of him, while he took away the life she had no right to live without his permission.
“You’d never betray me.” He yanked the attendant closer, until their lips brushed. “Would you?”
“YOU HAVE TO DO THIS,” Charlie Montgomery insisted, begging for help from a man he’d once threatened to kill with his bare hands.
His family’s relationship with their sister’s husband had come a long way since he and Chris and Randy had tried to beat the crap out of Rick Downing on Emma’s front lawn.
“I’ve never seen Randy this way,” he pressed when Rick didn’t respond. “Not even when we were kids. Not even when…”
“I understand.” Emma’s APD hero husband sounded both sympathetic and annoyingly professional. “But there’s no way—”
“There is, too, a goddamned way!” Charlie thundered.
This was Charlie’s baby brother they were talking about. Helping Randy through the first crisis any of them had seen get to him since they were kids—that was the only way. Except Rick didn’t know Randy like the rest of them. He couldn’t know how out of character Randy asking for Emma’s help had been—then asking Charlie to wade into the situation when Emma had come up empty.
“When it was your best friend’s ass on the line,” Charlie said, “you pushed and shoved until you were right in the middle of an FBI sting Alexa Vegas got herself in. When my sister told you to butt out of her life and turned my brothers and me loose on you, you took us all on to stay by her side. You put your job on the line to help her and get her to believe in you. But my brother’s problems aren’t important enough to risk your neck for, is that it?”
Rick was the big gun Charlie and his family needed. He’d married their sister last year, and they’d all accepted him, regardless of the bad blood between their families. It was time for the man to prove he knew what family meant.
Rick folded his arms across his chest. The guy was talking himself out of letting those meaty fists of his fly—a diversion Charlie would have welcomed at the moment.
Damn, he hated being back at Atlanta Memorial. Even though he didn’t personally know the patient they were all waiting around to hear news about, the place gave him the creeps. It hadn’t been that long ago that Emma had been the one clinging to life, after a courthouse shooting left her bleeding in Rick’s arms.
“Say whatever you got to say,” Charlie challenged. “I have got no feelings for you to hurt. And I got no problem taking you on right here and now, if you don’t care how much it’s hurting Emma to watch Randy fall apart over a stranger while there’s something you can do to help him.”
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my wife, as long as my actions don’t make the situation worse. And from what I’ve heard, that’s exactly what would happen if I started throwing my weight around digging for answers. Martin Rhodes already got nowhere trying to find information on this Robyn Nobles woman.”
“Making things worse for your cushy career, you mean.”
“No, you asshole.” Downing slid his hands into his filthy jeans pockets. The guy had come to the hospital straight from work. Being a detective meant he wore whatever earned him the street cred he needed. “Worse for Emma, when my questions put someone her brother cares about at even more risk.”
Rick had clearly done a bit of digging already.
“What have you heard?” Charlie asked.
“Not much.” Rick scanned the empty waiting area. Chris had dragged Emma downstairs for coffee. Lord knew where Randy was prowling while he waited like a caged lion for an update about this woman and her baby. “Except that the guys’ weekend you took down the coast