My Sinful Love (Sinful Men Book 4) Read online

  I nodded, bile rising up in my throat. I reached for the door handle. Maybe I could escape. Run. Call the police. But what would I tell them? That I was a drug-dealing, cheating woman who’d ordered a hit that was going sideways?

  Oh, the sheer, bitter irony that I’d met the man of my dreams at a simple work party and had tumbled into this dark underworld of money, drugs, and power. A world my husband barely understood. A world I wanted to escape.

  75

  Charlie

  Eighteen years ago

  Oh, Dora.

  This woman.

  She made me laugh. With her naïveté.

  With her utter, imbecilic, childish naïveté.

  She didn’t know me if she thought she could get out of this. With a chuckle, I pressed the lock button. Then my laughter ceased to nothing.

  I stared at her, unflinching, unblinking. My voice was low, because I didn’t need to raise it. That’s what I had learned from years at the top: He who yells controls nothing. He who controls everything speaks softly, and his words are a force. “You are not leaving my car. And you’re not backing out. Your husband is figuring things out, and I can’t have him knowing what I do.”

  “But—”

  I shook my head, shutting her up. “Think about it. How would it look, after all, if a mere employee had discovered I laundered money through West Limos? Money from guns and drugs that were sold on the streets by my Royal Sinners, who managed their gang business from the back of a piano shop? How would that look? Think about it, Dora.”

  “It would look bad,” she said, her poor little voice all wobbly. Silly little woman. Silly little emotional creature.

  But she had the heart of a killer in her. I simply had to remind her of the stakes.

  Stakes she ought to understand. Especially since her lover, my right-hand man in the Sinners, had set up that end of the operation to run so smoothly that no one could link Luke, the Sinners, the piano shop, the limo company, and me. No one.

  Except . . . for that little matter of Dora’s husband playing a deadly game of connect the dots. Thomas didn’t yet know that I was involved.

  And I intended to keep it that way.

  Because my job was to provide for all my brothers and sisters. My businesses made money that had put them through school. Years ago I’d moved them, along with my mother and father, to America to keep them safe from the dangers in our home country. My parents had since passed on, but I still took care of all my siblings, thanks to my businesses and the way they turned money into more money.

  So when someone tried to mess with my business, they might as well be screwing with my family.

  And no one went after my family and got away with it.

  Not a single soul.

  Thomas Paige was trying to, sniffing around my limo company, asking far too many questions. Thankfully, Curtis Paul Wollinsky, my cousin and comrade in arms and the manager of West Limos, had alerted me to Paige’s queries. We’d tried to shut him up through TJ, our chief intimidator with the Royal Sinners, only that hadn’t worked.

  But fate had a way of stepping in. Once I’d learned that Dora Prince was already making moves of her own to order a hit on her husband, I had an ironclad solution—provide the means, and the pressure, for Dora to go through with it.

  I simply had to impress upon her what she might lose if she stepped out of line.

  People were so easy to manipulate once you understood what they’d be willing to lose, and willing to protect.

  To protect at all costs.

  “Do you see what I’m getting at, Dora?” I asked.

  Her lip quivered. “What if I leave? What if I leave town with my family?” she asked, casting out desperate ideas.

  I scoffed. “What if? What if? What if?” I mimicked her like a parrot, then grabbed her chin, leveling her with a cold stare. “I’ll give you the only what if that matters,” I said sharply. “What if you do as you planned?”

  Because . . . I knew Dora’s stakes.

  I knew what she was willing to protect.

  “And then I won’t hurt your children.” My eyes roamed to her belly, my message clear. A fresh wave of fear flickered in her eyes. Ah. Yes. She was getting my point. But just to make sure everything was completely transparent, I added, “All your children. Michael, Ryan, Shannon, Colin, and the one in your belly. Are we clear? You don’t cancel the hit, and you come out on the other side with a neat, clean robbery-gone-wrong, executed by one of the finest hitmen in the Royal Sinners, and then you are free. That is your last debt to me in our business dealings. And then you don’t say a word.”

  She trembled. “Why do you need me to order the hit? If you want him dead, you can call Stefano yourself,” she said, grasping at straws.

  She had a point.

  But so did I.

  So I made it.

  I narrowed my eyes at her and spoke once more, low and menacing. “I don’t order hits. I don’t have to. I don’t need a hit connected to me, because I haven’t made the mistakes you have.” I shrugged, scratched my jaw, and fixed on a smile, my tone shifting to an easy one as I dangled the thing she wanted most—freedom from her mistakes. All she had to do to be free was this. One simple job. “But if you pull this off, and you don’t say a word, I will let you go. You can leave town and be free.”

  76

  Dora

  Eighteen years ago

  Later that night, as I lay awake in bed next to my husband, I imagined calling the police. Asking for help. Turning in Charlie. But how could I say anything and be believed? I was a drug dealer. A former drug user. A woman who was conspiring to commit murder for hire. An adulteress. They wouldn’t believe me—they’d lock me up, and my children would be in real danger then.

  Thomas was better off dead than with Charlie hunting all of us.

  I tiptoed out of bed, grabbed the cordless phone from the kitchen, opened the screen door, and closed it behind me. In my nightgown, I walked far into the yard and called Stefano. “It’s back on.”

  I hung up, closing my eyes, the ground swaying as I made my horrible choice. My only choice. This was the only way I could protect Michael, Colin, Ryan, Shannon, and the baby in my belly.

  And I did protect them. Even when it all unraveled. Even when I got caught and the police locked me up. Even when Stefano went to prison. Even when the court sentenced me to life too. I never gave up the names of the others.

  I took Charlie’s warning to heart. It became seared on my very soul. It was what I clung to. Don’t say a word. Don’t say a word. Don’t say a word.

  I wasn’t innocent. Not by a long stretch. But my silence made sure no one else ever knew who was involved.

  It was my last chance to do the right thing when I’d done so much wrong.

  For the next eighteen years from my six-by-eight prison cell, I’d pulled it off, my silence driving me mad. But at least my children were safe from men who killed without mercy.

  77

  Special Agent Laura K. Reiss

  Four months ago

  Huh.

  What do you know?

  Sometimes a speeding ticket wasn’t just a speeding ticket.

  Sometimes it led to more.

  As I hung up with the trooper, I rubbed my thumb and forefinger together, feeling the possibility. The hope that maybe, just maybe, what the trooper had found in this scofflaw’s car might lead to something a whole lot bigger.

  So big that perhaps we were veering toward my passion project.

  To something I’d been trying to tackle for years.

  I stared out the window of the federal building, as that possibility started to grow, to expand.

  I returned to my files, poring over the ones I’d amassed over the years, reading and rereading details that might now be made clear.

  Tension rolled through me, but it was chased by hope. Hope that I might be able to embark on a path I’d longed to tread for years.

  When Sanders Doyle entered my office later that day,
I was eager, so damn eager to hear what the man had to say.

  If I could get him to talk, this could be the start of something big.

  78

  Sanders

  Four months ago

  My future hung in the balance, and I needed a touchstone so I wouldn’t lose it. When I entered the cluttered office of Special Agent Laura K. Reiss, I looked around, cataloging it, just to have something to keep my mind occupied. Her desk towered with papers, mugs, and picture frames. The bulletin board behind her was stuffed with notices. A busy woman. Perhaps all she did was work.

  Her eyes were kind, her focus was intense, even behind the cheery smile.

  She handed me a mug of coffee and sighed sympathetically as she took a seat across from me.

  “How’s it going, Mr. Doyle?”

  “I’ve been better.”

  “I bet you have. But maybe that can change.”

  “How? How can it change?” My question came out desperate. I was desperate.

  “I need your help,” she said, and her voice was deceptively sweet. She was petite and had blonde hair that bounced in a ponytail. A Reese Witherspoon look-alike.

  “How so?” I asked, forcing my voice to stay steady even as my gut twisted with worry.

  “Here’s the thing,” she said in that soprano voice. “Some of those guns you were transporting were illegally obtained. Which makes you a trafficker of illegally obtained guns.” She spelled it out like I was five, then lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “That’s kind of a no-no.”

  “I didn’t know what I was transporting,” I protested, because that was the God’s honest truth. I’d worn blinders for years. Don’t ask, don’t tell. “I swear to God. I’ve never known. They give me the packages, and I take them from point A to point B.” That was the truth, the full truth, and nothing but the truth. I’d never asked questions.

  Laura nodded sympathetically. “Oddly enough, that’s not really a good enough answer,” she said with a frown. Then she turned it upside down, her cheery demeanor returning. “But I believe you. I believe you’re telling the truth.”

  I sighed with relief. “Good. Then can I get out of here?”

  She laughed, then shook her head. “Not so fast.”

  “What do you need?” I asked, worry pitching in me again.

  “You have a few options. I can work up some charges against you for your role in transporting firearms as part of the illegal gun trade in Las Vegas, and you’d face time behind bars.”

  That sounded horrid. “What’s the other option?”

  “Or you can use what’s in here,” she said, tapping her head, “to help me catch some bigger fish.”

  She wasn’t offering chocolate or cake. But even so, only one of those options was even remotely appealing. “What sort of fish?” I asked skeptically.

  “Let’s just say I’m looking into organized crime in Las Vegas. And I would really like to find out if your guns are tied to something a helluva lot bigger.”

  I startled, surprised. How was my work tied to that? “I don’t know, Ms. Reiss. I guess I should think about it,” I said, trying to buy some time.

  She pointed at me playfully and shot me a knowing grin. “Well, think about it fast, Mr. Doyle. And keep in mind, you’d be doing the city a huge service. Because the more we talk, and the more you share, the better chance I have of putting away the men who are really making Vegas a nasty place. So how about a deal? I keep you out of prison, and you become my informant?”

  The only thing I’d ever done was skirt the law. I’d never hurt anyone. Never killed anyone. All I’d wanted was to make a few extra bucks to provide for my family.

  I loved my wife, loved my kids, loved my freedom more than anything.

  So there was really one choice.

  79

  John

  Present day

  Goddamn cell phone towers.

  As I peeled out of the garage of the federal building, I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, stealing glances at my phone as I waited impatiently for the signal to return.

  “C’mon, c’mon,” I muttered as the wheels met the road, heading toward Michael Sloan’s house.

  Soon the bars returned, and the second they did, I dialed Michael’s number again. I had to warn the guy. Michael’s White Box client had set him up. I was sure of it now. I’d had an inkling this morning that something didn’t add up about the company, and that something was that it was almost too easy on the night of TJ’s arrest. Almost like we’d been led there by the White Box guys.

  But there was no way to know the specifics until Reiss called.

  As I’d just learned, in return for not going to jail for gun-running, Sanders Doyle had shared everything he knew about the operations of what turned out to be a very shady company.

  The same company where Thomas Paige had worked years ago.

  A company that had been washed so clean, it raised no flags in relation to the murder, and showed no ties to the present-day White Box either. There was no paper trail at all to link the drugs and guns to the limo service—or the murder, of course—but it turned out Sanders had overheard a few conversations during his runs, and those clues had been enough for Reiss to tie Charlie, Curtis, and White Box back to West Limos.

  Charlie knew how to operate like smoke in the wind, hiding his tracks, never leaving a trail. But at least there was evidence now to bring them in.

  As I turned a corner, I tried Michael once more. The phone rang and rang and rang.

  I kept dialing, but with each non-answer, my senses told me something was gravely wrong.

  My suspicions were confirmed when a crackle came over the radio. Paramedics were hauling ass to the same building that I was. Words like multiple gunshot wounds and critical pierced my ears.

  Oh God. I was too late.

  When I arrived, an ambulance was racing away, sirens blaring, speeding faster than I’d ever seen one go.

  80

  Colin

  I burst through the doors of the emergency room, my pulse hammering in my throat as I raced to the information desk, Elle by my side. The past and the present slammed into me in punishing jolts with each footfall—memories of my father’s murder mixed cruelly with this. My oldest brother, the one who’d looked out for me, helped me stay sober when I first got clean, helped raise me . . . Michael had been shot in the chest and rushed to the hospital. We had no clue what his condition was, or if he was even alive.

  I choked back that horrific thought as I stopped short at the desk, words tumbling out in a traffic jam. “Michael Sloan. He was just brought in. I’m his brother. How is he?”

  The brunette in pink scrubs and wireframe glasses looked up and nodded. “Give me just a minute.”

  I turned to Elle, taking deep, sharp breaths, but they barely seemed to fill my mouth, let alone my lungs. “Elle,” I said in a whisper. I couldn’t say anything else. If I did, I would break.

  Her lower lip quivered, and she looked like she was trying to form the words He’ll be okay, but instead, tears slid down her cheeks and she clasped a hand to her mouth. We’d been in bed asleep when Sophie called fifteen minutes ago, hysterical with the news. Elle’s son, Alex, was at a friend’s house, and we’d uncharacteristically slept in until nine a.m., when we were awakened by a screeching phone call and sobs on the other end.

  The whole family was on the way, but Elle lived the closest, so we’d arrived first. I dragged a hand through my hair, trying to breathe, to ignore the beeping of machines, the clatter of equipment, the hushed conversations between nurses and doctors circling nearby, and the faces of all the other people waiting in the emergency room.

  “Elle,” I croaked out again.

  She wrapped her arms around me. “He’s going to be okay.”

  But she didn’t sound like she believed it.

  Resting my chin atop her head, because I felt like I might topple over if I let go, I turned back to the woman at the desk. “Do you know where he is? Is he in s
urgery? What’s going on?”

  The woman held up a finger as she toggled through her computer screen. “One minute.”

  “Elle, is your mom working?” I asked, desperation coloring my tone. “Can she find out something?”

  Elle shook her head. “She’s not an ER nurse, but I can try to find her.”

  “Wait.” I snapped my gaze in the direction of the woman in pink scrubs who’d spoken. “Sloan, you said?”

  I let go of Elle and gripped the counter. “Yes. Michael Sloan. What’s going on?”

  She’d opened her mouth to speak, when I spotted John Winston rounding the corner. His eyes were downcast, his arm was wrapped around Annalise, and he looked like someone had died.

  My ears rang, and I heard nothing but the screaming in my own head.

  81

  Annalise

  Thirty minutes ago

  Silver gleamed on the concrete—two, maybe three feet away from me, next to the wheel of the car—like a beacon.

  A harsh pant came from Charlie, then the dragging sound of unsteady feet across the pavement.

  My hands were covered in Michael’s blood, my vision was blurred from my own torrential tears, and my pulse thundered in my brain.

  But Michael’s heart still beat, and in an instant, my options crystallized into just one.

  There was nothing else to do but this.

  I lunged across Michael for the gun, rose to my feet, and spun around.