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  “No,” she moaned. “It’s been so long, and no one has ever . . .” Her mouth slid over his, her tongue getting him wet, her teeth taking a gentle nip. “No one like you.”

  He didn’t need to know that—honestly.

  “You look like hell, and I’ve got a plane to catch. The—uh—elevator looks a little full. We’ll take the stairs and meet you on the fifth floor,” Dylan spoke up again.

  Hawkins leaned on the fifth-floor button and felt the old elevator restart its ascent. When it had changed direction and gone back down to the gallery, he didn’t have a clue. Probably somewhere between when she’d unbuttoned his last button and he’d completely lost his mind.

  CHAPTER

  9

  THINGS COULD HAVE been worse. Hawkins knew it. He just didn’t feel it. No, he felt like things were as bad as they could get. Not only had he completely lost his mind, there had been witnesses.

  Fuck. He’d given up disintegrating in public after his first three months in prison, and if he sometimes had a hard night to get through, he got through it alone and in private.

  Then along comes Katya Dekker, and inside of two hours, he’s practically banging her in an elevator in front of her roommate—and Dylan, who had warned him.

  He never ignored Dylan’s warnings. Never. They’d saved his life too many times, but he’d thought he’d had this situation covered. At the gardens, he would have bet Roxanne’s pink slip against him getting within twenty feet of Bad Luck, let alone getting between her legs.

  He straightened her dress one more time, trying to cover her up. It was hopeless. The damn thing was hanging by a thread, and two safety pins were not enough to remedy the problem. He’d taken his damp, wadded-up shirt completely off as the elevator had slowly ground its way up to the fifth floor; out of necessity, he’d let her keep his coat, which left him in a T-shirt and left her way too busy running her fingers up and down his arms.

  “The first boy I ever made love with was arrested,” she said, her index finger following a path of ink from just below his wrist to his elbow.

  “Yeah, I heard.” He finished buckling his belt. Damn, she really had moved fast.

  “He looked a lot like you.”

  No kidding, he thought.

  He dragged his hands back through his hair, trying to smooth it all into place. The way she’d been working him over, he probably looked like he was the one who’d been rolled across a mattress.

  He looked at the top of the elevator door. The thing was slower than molasses in winter. The number three had been lit up forever, making him wonder if the damn thing even went to the fifth floor, or if it just spent a few minutes shaking and shimmying at three before dropping back down.

  Finally the four lit up, then the five, and her apartment started coming into view, starting as a band of light at the top of the cage that slowly got broader and broader.

  Color was his first impression. Neither she nor Alex Zheng was afraid of color, and possibly, in this instance, a little fear might not have been a bad thing.

  The first wall he saw was brick, painted yellow with red and orange flames tinged with white, blue, and green roiling across it. The back wall was graffiti heaven, its big, fat, blue letters proclaiming JULIO RULES against a purple background. KING JULIO was written in huge white letters rimmed in gold across the loft’s twelve-foot-high ceiling, the letters looking like clouds in a pale blue sky.

  “Who’s Julio?” he asked.

  She fell against him, her mouth curving into a grin. “Suzi Toussi’s latest boyfriend. He’s very-very-very, but not so cute as you.” He was glad to hear Julio was Suzi’s idea of a good time and not Bad Luck’s.

  He held on to Kat, keeping her from sliding down his body, the direction she seemed inclined to want to go. He didn’t know what to make of her comment. “Cute” was not a word people used to describe him.

  “Son of a bitch,” now, he heard that pretty often. “Mean motherfucker” tended to come to people’s minds in certain parts of town and in certain parts of the world, especially if the people concerned happened to be on his shit list. It was usually a pretty long list, full of bad guys the Department of Defense wanted taken down.

  Taking down bad guys, that’s what he did. He did not get taken down himself—at least not until about three minutes ago. If it hadn’t been for Dylan and Alex Zheng showing up . . .

  God, if she were drunk, he might have actually started pouring his heart out to her, and wouldn’t that have been awful?

  French-girl voodoo, that had to be it.

  Now all he needed was the antidote.

  The elevator lurched to a stop, and when he glanced through the cage, he got exactly what he needed: the look on Dylan’s face.

  His boss was holding a manila envelope in one hand and a tiara in a plastic bag in the other, looking at a photograph he’d obviously pulled out of the envelope. The expression on his face was one of pure, cold fury.

  Standing next to Dylan, also looking at the photo, Alex Zheng had gone white, no mean feat for a half-Asian guy. His hand was up near his throat in a purely feminine gesture of distress—which pretty much clinched Hawkins’s gay theory for him.

  Both men looked up as he slid open the elevator door. Alex Zheng’s gaze went quickly over him and Katya, then came back to the tattoos on his arms. If possible, he turned even paler.

  “Alex. Oh, Alex,” Katya crooned, holding on to Hawkins as she stumbled off the elevator and into the apartment. “Did you see the fireworks? Are you okay? I’ve been so . . . so worried about you.”

  She reached for him, and he stepped forward to take her hand, which made a very cozy threesome, because she didn’t let go of Hawkins.

  “I’m fine, luv. I—”

  “You won’t believe who I ran into,” she said, cutting him off with a breathless exclamation.

  “Christian Hawkins,” he said. His voice sounded a little strangled, as if he’d said “an ax murderer from Hoboken.”

  “Christian Hawkins! Can you believe it?”

  Alex Zheng looked like he believed it all too well, as if it were his worst nightmare coming to life.

  Hawkins knew exactly how he felt.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “More bad news,” Dylan said grimly, walking toward the elevator and extending both the photograph and the envelope. “This and the tiara were waiting for us when we opened the apartment door. There’s a piece of material in the bottom of the envelope. It looks like another part of her prom dress.”

  Hawkins took the photograph and the envelope, while still holding Kat up—or holding her at bay. It was hard to tell the difference. She was plastered against him, her hand running over the small of his back and occasionally dipping toward his waistband—which he kept putting a halt to as best he could—and she was still talking to Alex Zheng and holding on to his hand, and Hawkins wished they could all just spread out a little, let everybody get a little air.

  “My tiara?” Kat gasped, letting go of Alex’s hand to reach for the bag Dylan was holding. “Ohmygosh.”

  Dylan carefully held it out of the way, not letting her touch it. “I’m sorry, Ms. Dekker, but this is official evidence right now. I’m sure it will be returned to you later.”

  “Official evidence for—for what?” she asked.

  “For Ted Garraty’s m—” Alex started, then saw the look Hawkins was giving him and shut up.

  At least the guy had some brains. Katya did not need to know Garraty had been murdered—not while she was too drunk to handle the information.

  And she shouldn’t have been in the same building with that damn tiara, let alone the same room. According to the testimony given at Hawkins’s trial, it had gotten lost in the alley when the boys were chasing her, and it hadn’t been seen since. He knew for a fact that she hadn’t been wearing it when she’d gotten into his car.

  He’d known they’d all been lying, the bastards, and as far as he was concerned, the tiara narrowed down his l
ist of suspects pretty damn succinctly.

  Hawkins glanced down at the picture, an eight-by-ten full-color glossy—and turned to stone.

  “Where did this come from?”

  “It was inside the apartment door when we came in,” Dylan said. “And to answer your next question, I have no idea when it was delivered, except sometime after four o’clock, when Ms. Dekker and Mr. Zheng left the apartment to go to the Botanic Gardens.”

  Hawkins stared down at the photograph, not believing what he was seeing, even though it was right there in his hand. The photo was thirteen years old, yet the rage he felt looking at it was as immediate as if the violation had occurred only moments ago.

  He looked at the tiara in Dylan’s hand. “Are you sure that’s hers?” His throat was so fucking tight, he could hardly breathe, hardly speak.

  “Y-yes,” Alex answered, a blush creeping into his cheeks. “Triple fleur-de-lis with pink rhinestones, except for the one clear stone on the middle fleur-de-lis, which is obviously a mistake.” At Hawkins’s questioning look, he added, “I’ve been over the facts of the Traynor case many times.”

  Obviously, though how anyone besides an eighteen-year-old prom queen and her mother could see the one clear stone among all the pink sparkle and shine was beyond Hawkins.

  “Can I see?” Katya asked, clinging to him with one arm while raising herself on tiptoe to look at the photograph.

  “No,” he said, holding the picture out of the way. She didn’t need to know about this, either, not while she was drunk.

  “I’d say we’ve narrowed down our list of suspects for tonight’s party at the Gardens,” Dylan said with typical understatement.

  One of the Prom King Murder boys, Hawkins silently agreed. One of those lying bastards. The pieces of her dress and the tiara all pointed that way. He forced his gaze back to the photograph and knew why Alex Zheng was blushing. If he hadn’t been so furious, he might have blushed, too.

  Geezus. There it all was in full color, him under her dress, a cotton summer thing with little straps, little buttons, little flowers, and a few rows of dainty white lace. He was doing God knew exactly what under that dress, and if there was any doubt, all a person had to do was look at her face.

  She was in rapture, her mouth open, her neck arched, her fists clenched into the rows of lace—with her legs over his shoulders. Eighteen years old and getting ready to give it all up for him. He remembered. He remembered everything.

  As for him, well, you couldn’t see that much of him, except for his bare ass, one of his arms, and his back, and that’s about all it took to make a positive identification. No wonder Alex had known who he was the instant he’d stepped off the elevator. Without his dress shirt covering his tattoos, there was no mistaking him.

  Hawkins opened the envelope up wider. “You look in here?” he asked Dylan. Katya was chattering away to her secretary again.

  “No. I pretty much got the general idea from just the one photo. Figured you could take it from there.”

  Dylan was nothing if not discreet, which had saved both their lives more times than Hawkins could count. He pulled the stack of pictures partway out of the envelope and quickly went through them.

  It only got worse. One of those friggin’ prom boys had been pretty busy with a camera. All he had to do was find out which one and do what he did best—take the son of a bitch down.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Alex interjected during a lull in Katya’s breathless monologue about the tiara and the fireworks, and the fireworks and the tiara.

  “She had one too many margaritas.” Hawkins shoved all the photographs back into the envelope, not bothering to elaborate that just one margarita had been too much.

  “No, I’ve—I’ve seen her drunk,” the secretary begged to differ, “I’ve just never seen her like . . . like this.” He made a small, helpless gesture.

  “Why don’t you take her into her bedroom,” Hawkins suggested, peeling her off his body and handing her over to Alex. “Get her something to wear.”

  He wasn’t going to leave her in the apartment, especially now, with some wacko breaking in and leaving his sordid calling card, but he could use a breather, a chance to clear the air and get his head screwed back on straight.

  His coat fell open during the transfer, and there she was for all the world to see, practically half naked with her clothes falling off.

  Alex quickly wrapped his arm around her waist, holding her up. “What happened to her dress?” he asked, a definite edge coming into his voice.

  “It tore, Alex, the new one I bought in L.A., but I was able to pin it together,” Katya answered, twisting to one side. “See? Two pins.”

  “It tore during the explosion at the Gardens, when she fell,” Hawkins added some explanation. “All I’ve been trying to do is keep her in one piece. It’s all I’m going to do.”

  From the look Alex gave him, his line was obviously a little hard to swallow after the way she’d been all over him, and honestly, he’d be the first to admit that if she came on to him sober the way she was coming on to him drunk, he was going to take her up on her offer. He was no saint, and kissing her had done nothing but whet his appetite for more. As a matter of fact, kissing her had put a real edge on his appetite. They were both adults now. He could handle it, handle her—and she could handle him any way she wanted.

  But Alex Zheng didn’t need to know any more than what he’d already seen in the elevator.

  As for himself, he’d seen plenty, too. Enough to change his plans for the night.

  “I think we can all agree that it isn’t safe for Ms. Dekker to stay here. If you could put a few things together for her, I’m sure she would appreciate it,” Hawkins said, keeping his voice cool, calm, and professional.

  “This isn’t a matter for the Department of Defense,” Alex said, agreeing to nothing.

  Hawkins looked to Dylan.

  “He wanted confirmation of who we were with,” Dylan said, “and I gave it to him. His plan is to call in the police.”

  “Let me get her settled,” Alex said, before Hawkins could tell him where he could put his plan. “Then I’ll be back.” Holding her close to his side, he headed for a door on the other side of the living room.

  Hawkins cocked an eyebrow at Dylan, who shrugged.

  “He’s having a hard time accepting that he’s not the one in charge of this deal.”

  Hawkins didn’t give a damn. “Well, he better get used to it. I’m taking her back to Steele Street tonight, especially after this.” He lifted the envelope. “Tomorrow I’ll run down all the Prom King boys. What?” he asked, seeing Dylan’s expression turn grim.

  “Skeeter got a call from Miguel. The NRF dumped J.T. off the back end of a truck in a box and a body bag just after sunset. Miguel said Kid didn’t sound too good, but he won’t be able to get into Rosalia to get him out until tomorrow morning.”

  Something hard twisted in Hawkins’s chest. Somehow, even with what they’d been told, a part of him had held on to the possibility that J.T. was still alive.

  “Miguel also said the Marines were pulled out of Rosalia late this morning,” Dylan continued. “Back to Panama.”

  So Kid had been left on his own—all day, and he’d be on his own all night tonight. Hawkins wanted to swear in frustration. If Kid had seen the body bag, he’d obviously opened the box. Hawkins hoped like hell that he hadn’t opened the bag—but he knew Kid had. Hawkins would have opened it. So would every one of the guys who worked for SDF.

  “What about Stavros?” This was going to be hard on old man Chronopolous. J.T. had been giving his father heart attacks since he was fourteen years old and running wild in the streets of Denver. Stavros’s love had been there for his son, but not the ability to control him, not after Kid and J.T.’s mother had left for the bright lights of Los Angeles and a career as a wannabe actress in Hollywood.

  “Skeeter’s headed over there now and will stay with him for a while,” Dylan said.

  �
�I’ll have to go back to Colombia. Finish the job.” Revenge was a hard word, but the men of SDF were hard men; one of them didn’t get killed without all of them having to be dealt with.

  “We’ll all go back,” Dylan said. “Let’s get this Prom King mess off our backs first, take care of old business, before we finish up the new.” Dylan tied off the bag with the tiara inside and tossed it to him.

  Hawkins caught the sparkling crown with one hand.

  “How much trouble are we going to be in with Lieutenant Loretta if I have Skeeter dust the prints off this before we turn it over?” he asked.

  “No more than we can handle,” Dylan assured him. “General Grant put us here, so he can damn well back us up if we end up stepping on a few toes.”

  That was fine by Hawkins. Loretta might not like it, but he figured she wouldn’t hold it against him—not for too long, anyway.

  “I’m not one to give advice,” Dylan continued.

  Like hell he wasn’t, Hawkins thought. He’d been giving them all advice since he’d first roped them all together into a gang of thieves.

  “So don’t.”

  “She’s trouble, Cristo. Nothing but trouble, and her mother is meaner than a junkyard dog. Tonight looks like a setup to me, and you’re the one getting set up. Not many people have the kind of power to pull this off. Could be that Senator Dekker didn’t like the idea of you still being in Denver with her daughter moving back home.”

  “And she had Ted Garraty murdered to frame me?” he asked incredulously, then shook his head. “Hell, no, my luck isn’t running that good.” There were few things he would like more than to go mano a mano with Linebacker Dekker at her junkyard-dog worst, but she hadn’t planted naked pictures of her daughter in the apartment, and she hadn’t bought a hit on Garraty.

  Dylan shrugged. He never put anything past a person with a motive. Never. Despite the choirboy face and impeccable manners, Dylan Hart was a cynic to the core. It was what made him tick, what had kept him alive.

  “Well, will you do me a favor and at least try not to sleep with her?” His boss gave him a look that said he was only thinking about what was good for him—and Hawkins knew it. He knew getting involved with Bad Luck would only bring him more bad luck. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Dylan was only giving him the advice of a friend, a good friend, the very best.