Billionaire Misery (16 page)

“Let’s stop trying so hard to protect each other. Instead, let’s talk about how we can safeguard each other... together. It seems to me that we’re not talking and so we’re working at odds with each other, and the only thing that keeps happening is that people keep trying to kill us, and frankly I’m tired of it. I think the whole crew’s sick of getting their asses shot at.”

Morgan, lounging in the doorway, harrumphed, “And run over. And arrested. And chased down by thugs. And courtrooms. And...pizza. Do you know how often we’ve had to eat pizza since this whole thing started?”

Craig spoke with amusement coloring his tone. “Dude, we ate a lot of pizza before this started.”

Morgan nodded and stepped inside the room. “Jessie, this isn’t over. We’re all way past ready for this shit to be over. How can we help?”

Family. They stood behind you. She knew, now more than ever, that she couldn’t ask Craig to leave this crew behind.

Except she couldn’t stay, and she was so damn tired.

She sighed. “We have the files, but what we really need is for Wilkes to roll over. We need him to talk, or none of us are ever going to make it through this. You know why, I guess.”

Morgan looked at Craig.

Craig asked, softly, “Do you care how that happens?”

Good cop or bad? What came first: family, or the law she’d sworn to uphold? If she went into protection, she would have to leave. The only way to stay was to make Wilkes talk, and she already knew what they were thinking; nobody had to tell her.

He wasn’t going to talk. Ever.

But agreeing to it would forever put her outside the law too.

Hadn’t she already played outside the lines?

She wanted Craig. She swallowed, her mouth dry and her body aching. “This is your crew and your family. I can’t ask you to walk away from them and I can’t ask them to accept me, knowing what I did.”

Morgan said, “You could stand.”

She blinked. Craig’s lips thinned. Standing was a hard option, and not just literally after being shot in the bloody back. She wiggled her toes, relieved they were fine.

She’d taken on Nate’s boys in a brutal fight a while back, one that had left her in agonizing pain but with all the respect they had to give. Standing against men who simply didn’t want a woman with a patch was one thing. Standing against a group of men with a grudge against her was something else entirely.

It was her only shot at having it all.

She took a deep breath. “Can I heal up first?”

Morgan nodded. “You’ve got plenty of blood back, but you need rest. I’ll tell the guys when this is over, that we’ll start a stand.”

Craig said in a heated tone, “You sonofabitch...”

Morgan held up a hand. “Don’t, Craig.”

Craig clamped his mouth shut.

Jessie sighed, already exhausted from talking and listening. “Make Wilkes talk any way you have to. Get him into witness protection. If we’re going to survive and be together, that’s what we have to do.”

Craig said, “Jessie...”

“I didn’t really like the pay anyway.” Her mouth tilted upward and her eyes met his. “I wanted to get the man who killed my father, and I’ve—we’ve—done that. I’m done.”

Craig looked like he wanted to argue, but he hesitated.

“Morgan?” Jessie asked, let her gaze slide over to him. “What does Katie think? What does she want?”

Morgan sighed. “He was never her father in a real sense and...well, she’s not great with it, but she’s getting better.”

“Is she going to know about this?”

Morgan said, “Not if I can help it.”

Jessie said, “I won’t say a thing,” and Craig added, “Me neither.”

It was a pact, and they all knew it.

Jessie felt like she was fading fast, too tired and wanting to heal. Craig’s hand found hers, and after Morgan left the room he uttered words that made her heart sing, “You won’t stand alone, Jessie. Not as long as I’m alive.”

“You won’t either,” she whispered, not sure if the words even came out of her mouth or she if she only thought them. “Never.”

* * 

C
raig waited until she slept again and then went to find Morgan. He was on the front porch, a shotgun nearby. “I’m going in with her, Morgan.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” Morgan tilted his head to look up at him. “You know that means we’ll go against each other.”

Craig grinned. “Don’t worry. I’ll take it easy on you.”

Morgan roared laughter. “Yeah, okay.” He shifted. “You think she’s right? About needing Wilkes to talk?”

Craig sighed. “The files will be enough on their own, maybe, but if there’s no other way to put Fields in it, and if the cartels need a scapegoat, and they do, Wilkes is the best target. It means putting a hit on him. You do know that. He’ll make it through trial, but there’s no way they’re going to let up on him. He’ll end up either in witness protection, which means he’ll get off way too easy and still be capable of calling down hell on us, or he’ll have to talk a lot and die before it goes to court.”

Morgan nodded. “I’m aware.”

“You’re in love with his daughter.”

Morgan said, “Yes. And I know what it would do to us if she ever found out.”

Craig watched him closely. “You willing to do that?”

“I don’t see any other way.”

“I do. Stay out of it, Morgan. Let me handle it. If she needs someone to hate, let her hate me and Jessie. Keep your hands clean on this one.”

“I don’t see how I can. It has to happen inside, and that means someone we know in there has to be the one to punch him up. So far they’ve kept him off in the nice quiet side of the county lockup, and we have to get him into general population. You don’t have that kind of clout.”

Craig said, “Neither do you, but I bet Jessie does. So you’re out of that part of it. I’ll go. I know who to see. Stay here, Morgan. If you go, Katie’ll know. And she might blame you no matter what, but at least this way you can honestly say you didn’t order it. If I know anything, it’s that being honest is what’s going to get her through this. And if she knows you pulled the rug out from under her dad, whether she loves or even likes him or not, she’s not going to be able to handle it. She’s already struggling with guilt over what she did to keep us out of jail and put him into it.”

Morgan reached out and shook hands with him. “Thanks.”

It was all he said. Craig knew Morgan hadn’t wanted any part of what was going to happen. “Now I’m
really
not going to go easy on you.”

Morgan laughed. “Damn it! Did you ever think this was how it would all end?”

Craig shook his head. “Hell no, but I can’t think of any way I would rather end it all than right here, shoulder to shoulder with you, brother.”

“Me neither.” Morgan’s fingers stroked the barrel of the shotgun. “When this is over, the crew’s going to have to pick up a lot of pieces. We got most of our guys off the radar, and not just crew guys but our street guys too. We took care of them like we said, so we’ve still got respect, but I’m thinking there has to be a better way to do this shit.”

Craig shrugged. “Well, you
do
own the bar.”

Morgan’s eyes met his. “I’m thinking we all need something else. Like maybe a custom bike shop. Clive wants to start a rescue, which is no surprise. He wants to organize a run for dogs and cats people abuse and abandon.”

Craig shook his head, more respect for Clive than ever before. “He’s a vet. He loves his animals. I always wanted to build custom bikes, but the costs are crazy.”

Katie, walking out onto the porch, said, “Yes, but I got my trust and it’s untouchable by my—our—father, since it came from my grandparents. It’s enough to buy a small country. I don’t want a small country. I want my life. And I want Morgan to have what makes him happy, and a place for the crew to make money and not have to worry about prison. We all deserve a better life.”

Craig smiled at his sister. “You know he’d better marry you before someone else rides off with you.”

Morgan squeezed her waist affectionately. “Anyone who tries will find themselves with a woman who’s probably going to rip off their balls.”

“No probably to it,” Katie retorted.

Craig left them there and went back to check on Jessie. She was pale and drawn, and her hands twitched at the sheets as she dreamed.

He headed out the back door, walking along the fences. His eyes were on the terrain but his thoughts were far away. What he did now would probably get a man killed, and he would have to live with that.

Would that make him the same as Wilkes? He didn’t know.

He just knew if he didn’t, everyone and everything he loved would fall, and he wasn’t willing to see that happen.

He took out his phone and started making calls.

T
he sky was heavy and gray. It was a sky best suited for funerals, and there had been plenty of those recently. Blake Wilkes was among the dead, but he hadn’t been the only one to die in the aftermath of the international crime ring he ran going down.

The entire jail had been on lockdown after a series of beatings that had left one crooked cop dead and a dirty judge almost dead. Wilkes had been taken out of his solitary cell and put into the general population area. A few dozen men who’d gone down for drugs had known he’d been the one to sit safe while they ran the drugs, and they weren’t happy knowing he would skate on heavy charges while they served hard time. He’d been beaten so badly he’d had to go to the infirmary for two weeks, and while there he had asked for an immunity deal and witness protection. That had been just what Jessie had wanted to happen, and it had.

On camera he had named names, and Fields, unfortunately, was one of them. He’d named the connections, and then they had been arrested. Some had rolled on their even bigger bosses, but many all across the country and beyond were staying stony and silent in their own cells.

Wilkes had been removed from the prison, but that hadn’t stopped him from being killed by a single bullet fired from a great distance. One shot, and straight on, a shot fired through the window of a cushy hotel room in a nearby city where Wilkes had been holed-up, waiting for trial. The agents guarding him had not had a single chance to help him.

It hadn’t been Jessie or Craig who had fired that bullet. It had been Clive.

Clive, who’d been a sniper many years ago and still had the same ability to shoot that he’d always had.

It was all over.

They were safe.

And yet it seemed unreal.

There were times when Jessie wondered if Craig had ever really wanted Wilkes dead. She knew exactly how complicated his feelings for the man were. He’d always wanted a family, a father, and when their father had walked in with that crazy story of how he had done everything just to protect Craig, it had had to hurt, and make sense all at once.

Katie was still not doing so well with all of it, but she was strong and tough. She had refused to call Craig Charlie, even when he had offered her the opportunity. He had been relieved when she had said no; Jessie had seen it on his face. Neither of them could erase the years of distance and difference and hurt that their father had caused them, and they would probably never get to a place where they were comfortable acknowledging each other as brother and sister.

Because Wilkes had not acknowledged Craig, he had gotten nothing from the estate. Not that there was anything left after the agencies stormed in and confiscated everything.

Katie had insisted on splitting her trust fund from their grandparents, though, and now Craig had millions in the bank. He had said no to it repeatedly, saying Katie deserved it far more since she had been the one who’d had to live with those people. He had also told Jessie in private that anyone who had been conceived just to be a target for criminals deserved to be happy.

Eventually they had worked it out.

Jessie was no longer an agent. She testified about the evidence she’d gathered. Nate got out on bail and came to see them, and though he was pissed, he owed Craig a debt. Craig said all he wanted was a promise of no repercussions against Jessie.

It was an uneasy truce, but it was the best they could do.

Jessie took a long breath as she faced the men ringed around her. Her decision had been made, and she didn’t regret it. The past was gone and her father avenged, but, more than that, she was finally living a life she knew her father would be proud of her for living.

He would have been proud of her for being a cop too, but he would have told her something she had already learned, and learned the hard way.

Sometimes the bad guys were the only ones with any sense of justice at all.

The man who had tried to kill her was in prison. So were a lot of cops, judges, and politicians. Not to mention the dealers who’d at least been honest about what they did. That was justice, and so was this.

The sky hovered lower. Jessie looked toward the windows of Clive large, rambling house. Katie was in there, refusing to watch. She was now obviously pregnant, and Penny was with her. A few other women stood nearby, and one shouted, “I got ten on you, Jessie!”

Jessie laughed.

Craig snorted “What? You got nothing on me?”

Laughter. This was it. She had to make her stand. At the end of it she would be a part of them, no matter what she’d done. The past was done when this was over. From here on out she would just be Jessie, Craig’s woman and a patch-holding rider with the Orphans.

Not that the Orphans were a hard-case crew anymore. They’d become honest businessmen, and while they were still wild, and free, and lived by their own codes and sense of right and wrong, they weren’t willing to die for money or drugs, or to live worrying about death from a stray bullet anymore.

Morgan grinned and leaned in. “Are you two sure about this?”

Craig looked at her. She smiled at him. They both nodded. Craig put his back against hers, and they made their stand.

Together.

THE END