Seductive Sin, page 12
“And I feel the same way about him. Right now, I need to trust that his lawyers are going to take care of him, because I have to help my brother.”
“All right.”
“Falcon’s satellite phone is at the safe house,” I say. “I want you to call me there as soon as you have news about him.”
“Absolutely, I will,” Leif says.
We walk to the kitchen into the front room just as the truck is driving up.
Leif signals the driver over. “The supplies I ordered are here. You two get ready to go, and I’ll get this all loaded.”
I regard Leif, his light blond hair and blue eyes. Such a contrast to my brother, with his dark hair and dark eyes.
But the look in both of their gazes is unmistakable.
They both mean business.
“Vinnie?”
“Yeah?”
“Promise me,” I say. “Promise me that we’ll get our mother out of there. That we’ll topple the Bianchis and the McAllisters for good, and that no woman will ever be forced into this life again.”
17
FALCON
Here I am.
Sitting in an interrogation room with my attorney.
Something I swore would never happen again.
“You need to listen to me,” Lola says. “Things don’t look good.”
“So I missed a few check-ins with my parole officer. Savannah was my parole officer until—”
She holds her hand up. “Until you whisked her away and put her in hiding. Yeah. Suffice it to say she’s no longer employed with the county. You have a new parole officer, and he’s not happy with you at the moment.”
I rub my temples and look at the ceiling. “What are my options?”
“The most frequent parole violations for which revocation occurs are failure to report as required and failure to go to treatment programs. You were supposed to go to therapy, remember?”
“I’ve had a few other things on my mind,” I say.
She stares me down. “You need to take this seriously. I can take this to the parole board, request a hearing. You’re already here in jail. It’s really up to the parole board how they proceed. They can modify your parole by adding new conditions, or they may require you to be taken to jail for sixty to one hundred and eighty days.”
I slam my hands down on the table. “A hundred and eighty days!”
“I told you this is serious. Plus, a man died after you pistol whipped him.”
A new thought occurs to me. Fuck…
“And I’m not supposed to have a firearm.”
She exhales sharply through her nose. “Give the man a gold star. What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“I think I was protecting the woman I love. Those two men trespassed, came onto my property. Threatened me, threatened Savannah.”
“I can make a case for that. But here’s the problem. You’re an ex-convict. You confessed to manslaughter eight years ago.”
“And you and I both know I didn’t do it.”
“You think that matters? You served eight years. You confessed to manslaughter, and then you got more years tacked onto your sentence for contraband.”
I grit my teeth. “And I’d either be dead or maimed if I hadn’t had that contraband.”
She waves her hand at me. “Hey, I get that. You’re preaching to the choir here. But you and I both know there are some rules you’re going to have to play by. You didn’t make the rules, and neither did I. Do I want to see you go back to prison? Hell, no. You didn’t deserve to be there in the first place.”
“I had my reasons.”
“Which I hope you will one day open up about. But the fact of the matter is that as far as the system goes, you’re an ex-convict. An ex-convict who violated parole by missing meetings and by possessing a firearm.”
I open my mouth but she gestures to me again.
“Yes, we’ve been through it. It was self-defense, defense of another. And they were trespassing and they were armed. I will do my best to make that go away, and we certainly have a case to get you out of a manslaughter charge. But you’ve violated your parole.”
I rake my fingers through my hair. “Sitting down with some idiot was the last thing on my mind for the last two weeks. And the guns are mine. I own them.”
“I get that. I do.”
I shake my head. “You don’t know what was going on with Savannah, Lola. She was taken by the McAllister family, and she was going to be forced into marriage to Miles McAllister.”
Lola’s eyes widen.
“Yeah, Savannah is a member of the Bianchi family.”
“Damn.”
“Right? I wasn’t going to let that happen. He was about to rape her when we found her.”
She takes a deep breath then slowly exhales. “I’m sorry, Falcon.”
“If you want to arrest somebody, get someone thrown in the slammer, go after Miles McAllister.”
“He and his family live in Austin.”
“So? Get them investigated.”
“I work for your family, Falcon. I don’t work for the state of Texas.”
“I know that, but how have they been able to exist? Get away with this shit?”
She shrugs. “The same way organized crime has been existing for the past several centuries, Falcon. They buy people off.”
“There should be some kind of punishment for all that.”
“When the DA can catch them, there is. They go away for a long time. But these families are experts at laundering money, experts at buying off cops and judges. It shouldn’t happen, but people aren’t perfect. They see money, and they take it.”
“Is it money? Or is it the barrel of a damned gun?”
“Sometimes it’s both.”
“It shouldn’t be allowed to happen. This isn’t Chicago in the twenties.”
“No. It’s a hell of a lot easier for these people to operate now,” she says. “With the Internet, the dark web, all the technology they can use to protect themselves, they’re virtually impossible to catch.”
“I’ll testify,” I say.
“You can testify, and the two guys who trespassed—make that one, because the other’s dead—will probably go down. But if that man is important to the family, they’ll find a way to get rid of the witnesses.” She narrows her gaze at me. “That’s you, Falcon.”
I cross my arms. “No one will touch me. No one touched me on the inside, and no one can touch me on the outside.”
“There were rules on the inside, Falcon. You were able to figure them out and learn to play by them, make them work in your favor. But this is the real world. You and I both know that. And as far as these families go, there are no rules.”
I shake my head. “I can’t go back inside. I need to protect Savannah. I can’t do that from the inside, Lola.”
She shuffles through some paperwork. “I’ll get the parole revocation hearing scheduled as soon as I can. But I can’t get you out of jail right now. You’re a convicted felon, and they’re not going to release you on bail.”
“So I’m just going to sit in here? Rot with these other miscreants?”
“You’ll be moved to a different cell. And I can at least fix it so they don’t send you back to prison. You’ll be held here in the county jail until your parole revocation hearing.”
“And when will that be?”
“Soon as I can get it scheduled.”
“Jesus Christ, Lola. Doesn’t my family own a judge or something?”
She raises an eyebrow. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that, Falcon.”
“Look, I know it’s not right. But these Bianchis and McAllisters can pay off judges, and we have just as much money as they do. And ours is clean.”
“If that were the case, do you think you would’ve gone to prison in the first place?” Lola asks.
“I know, I know. That was my choice. And I know you guys did the best you could to get me out of everything, but there was a dead cop involved.”
“That’s right.”
“But there’s no dead cop involved this time, Lola.” I stand and pace the room. “I missed a couple parole meetings and I had a gun. That’s it. Yeah, the guy died, but what I did was in self-defense.”
She sighs. “This is complicated, Falcon. And you know why.”
I rub my forehead. “Yeah, I know why.”
And I wonder, for the first time ever, if it was worth it to save my brother’s ass that day. To sacrifice eight years of my life for my little brother who got in over his head.
I breathe in.
Yes, it was.
Not only because he’s my brother, but for one even more important reason.
The entire experience led me to Savannah.
And I will fucking burn down anything in my way before I let the McAllisters take her.
“I’ll do what I can to get this hearing expedited,” Lola says. “But I’m afraid you’re stuck here in the county jail until it happens.”
“First-class fucking accommodations,” I say dryly.
“They’re within their rights to send you back to prison,” she says. “And trust me, there are people there who can’t wait to get a shot at you.”
“You think that scares me?”
“Falcon,” she says, looking me straight in the eye, “I don’t think there’s a thing on this earth that scares you.”
18
SAVANNAH
After I show Vinnie around the safe house, I make us a light dinner, and then I ask the age-old question that’s on my mind.
“What’s been going on for the last seventeen years, Vin?”
“I moved around a lot at first,” he says. “Like I told you, I did odd jobs to make ends meet. I had plenty of money, but I couldn’t look like I had money. Then I heard about Mikey.”
I nod.
“I thought about coming back,” he says. “I had a plane reservation and everything, made under my alias. I was at the gate, ready to board, and when they called my section, I stood.”
“And?”
“I walked the other way.”
“What changed your mind?” I ask.
He looks down. “I couldn’t go back to it, Sav. I was scared to death. Especially with Mikey gone, they’d pull me back into the family, and I wasn’t sure I had the strength to refuse. But I should’ve come back. I should’ve come back for you.”
“I wish you had,” she says. “But I don’t fault you for not coming. You had to do what was right for you.”
“No, I shouldn’t have been so selfish. Sure, I wanted out of the whole racket, but I should’ve come back for you and then taken you with me.”
“I would’ve gone gladly,” I tell him, “but I think things worked out the way they should have. I met the love of my life, Vinnie.”
Vinnie smiles. “He seems like a good guy, but not the type I thought you’d ever go for.”
I cock my head at my brother. “It’s interesting that you say that, Vinnie, since you really don’t know me. I was ten when you left.”
He smirks. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t keep tabs on you. I had some feelers out, got information when I needed it. When I heard that Dad actually allowed you to go to college without marrying you off, I was elated. And then, when I heard he didn’t marry you off after college, I was even more elated.”
“Yeah, but I clearly paid the price for that.”
“You did what you had to do. You got a job you liked, you did a few favors for the family every now and then.” He sighs. “It’s what this life is about, Sav. It’s why I left.”
“I should’ve left as well, but if I had done one thing differently, I wouldn’t have met Falcon.”
He simply nods.
“But seventeen years, Vin.” I grab his hand. “You said you came close to ending it all after Mikey died. You said you studied philosophy. Give me some details.”
“I did. I actually spent six months in a Buddhist temple studying with monks.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Yeah, it seems a little off brand for me, but I learned so much about myself. I did that right after I walked away from the flight that was going to bring me home after Mikey died. I felt terrible. It was like I had made all the wrong choices. I was thinking only of myself and not of you and Mikey. So I went to the Buddhist temple, studied with the monks. They put me on a strict vegan regimen.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You’re a vegan?”
“Only for those six months, but it gave me a sense of clarity. It was basically a fast.”
“You went hungry?”
“No, but we would fast for twenty-four hour periods at least once a week. The fast makes you consider things. It makes you consider how lucky you are to not be hungry.”
“True. Hell, we always lived in luxury.”
“And I still did at that point. Like I said, I had plenty of money. I never went hungry, never went without food or clothing or shelter. But I felt an immense amount of guilt, wondered if I should just end my life. And that’s why I went to the monastery.”
“What did you find out?”
He places a hand over his heart. “I found out that I’m human, Savannah. That I’m not perfect. But I put my own needs before the needs of my siblings, and part of me regrets that very much.”
“And the other part of you?”
“The other part of me has no regrets. I did what I had to do for my own well-being.” His gaze falls. “I didn’t want a life of crime. A life of always looking over my shoulder. A life where human lives had no more value than a business deal.”
“I know,” I say. “I hate that part. They say it’s not personal, it’s business. But you know what? Taking a life is personal. Taking a life is the most personal thing you can do.”
He nods. “I know. I came to the conclusion that it was okay to do what I did. That it didn’t make me a horrible person. It made me a person who took control of his own life, and that I had to trust you and Mikey to take control of yours as well.”
“Except Mikey was already dead at that point.”
“I know. But that’s the life he chose, Savannah. He didn’t have the strength to leave. Hell, maybe he never wanted to leave.”
“I wish he could have been happy, Vin. He deserved that.” I sigh. “But he’s in a better place. It’s Dad that confuses me more than ever. I’ve seen a side of him that I never thought I’d see. I never thought he would forsake me, but he locked me in a room once. He locked me in a room with his attorneys and the McAllister attorneys and Miles and his father. They were bartering for me. There was no landline going out, no cell phone service, and the door was locked from the outside. I couldn’t escape, Vinnie. They had me trapped.”
His eyes are wide. “God…”
“I couldn’t believe it either. I basically told them I wasn’t going to cooperate, and it must’ve tugged at Dad’s heartstrings a bit, because he let me off. He let me off as long as I took a job as a parole officer and did the favors he asked.”
“And you did?”
I bite my lip. “I did. For five years, and then I begged to be set free. And Dad made it happen. That’s when I moved to Summer Creek, got a job as a parole officer, met Falcon. Only to find out that I was never truly free.” I bury my face in my hands.
He reaches over and squeezes my shoulder. “I don’t think either of us will ever be truly free, Sav. But I’m here now, and you and I together will figure out what Dad, Grandpa, and the McAllisters are up to. And then there’s one other thing I need to do.”
“What’s that?”
His face darkens. “I’m going to see our esteemed grandfather behind bars if it’s the last thing I do on this earth.”
19
FALCON
Two nights.
Two nights of subsisting on Froot Loops for breakfast, peanut butter and jelly for lunch, and microwaveable macaroni and cheese for dinner.
At least I was moved out of the big holding cell.
I share a cell now with a meth head named Germs.
Seriously, he calls himself Germs. His actual name is Steve Germundson, and his teeth are rotted out, his eyes bloodshot.
He’s skinny as a fucking rail, and he leaves half his Froot Loops every morning.
I gobble up the rest of them. They don’t give me near enough food.
We don’t get any outside time because this is the county jail and there’s nowhere for them to put us. So I do what I can in the small cell. Sit-ups, push-ups, jogging in place. Working out until I’m a massive ball of sweat.
That of course just makes me hungrier.
“Man, Bellamy,” Germs says. “You fucking stink.”
I roll my eyes. “Funny, they didn’t give me any deodorant. You know, this being a five-star hotel and all.”
“Ease up, man. I just call ’em as I see ’em. Or smell ’em.” He erupts in laughter.
“Yeah?” I turn around and leer at him. “Well shut the fuck up. At least I don’t fart all night like you do.”
He shrugs. “Can’t help it, man. I’ve got IBS.”
“Yeah? Well I’ve got BO. Deal with it.”
A guard comes then, unlocks the cell. “Your lawyer’s here, Bellamy.”
“About fucking time.”
He cuffs my wrists and takes me to the interrogation room.
Lola’s already there with an iPad and a manila folder in front of her.
“Please tell me you have some good news,” I say.
“Please tell me you’re going to take a shower,” she says, waving her hand in front of her nose.
“God, you and my damned cellmate. I’ve been exercising, Lola. I’ve got to keep my strength up. They feed us crap. It’s not enough to keep a hummingbird going.”
“That notwithstanding, I’ve got good news for you, Falcon.” She opens the manila folder. “Your parole revocation hearing is this afternoon. I have permission to take you out of here and get you cleaned up. Which you clearly need.”
“Thank God. They only let us shower every three days here,” I say.
