House of Paine - (A Romantic Suspense - Book 2) (11 page)

“Maybe, I gave him some pain medicine through his IV when I first started it...but it might be wearing off.” Paige got up and found the kit Jules brought to her earlier. He’d brought her a big vial of Dilauded and several syringes. She washed her hands and drew the Dilauded into one of the syringes and put it directly into his IV. He groaned again and his eyelids fluttered open.

“Dad, can you hear me?”

Kevin croaked out a “Yes,” and then he tried to sit up.

“No! Dad stay there. You have to keep lying down,” Roxi told him. “You’re going to tear your stitches open.”

“Where—-?”

“You’re in a safe place Dad. Jake’s here and Damien and Paige. Paige patched you up. She saved your life.” Paige looked at Roxi and Roxi rolled her eyes. “You and Jake could start your own Girl’s and Boy Scouts of America chapter. What Paige would like me to tell you Dad is that Alex originally saved your life.”

“Alex? How? What happened?”

Damien stepped up next to the table. Kevin’s eyes found his son’s and focused on them. “We’ll talk about all of that later,” Damien told him. “You need to rest.”

“Damien—“

“Later,” Damien told him. “We’re going to get you home so you can rest. We’ll talk about everything in the morning.” Kevin grunted again and then drifted back to sleep.

“Can we move him soon?” Roxi asked.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Paige said. “I’m not sure sitting up in a helicopter is going to be good for him.”

“We can take him to my penthouse,” Jake said.

Roxi looked at him with worry in her eyes and said, “It’s one thing being here, Jake. No one can really prove you were here when this happened. But having him at your house...”

“Where are you going to take him? Jackson thinks he’s dead, right? He can’t go to his house. The only way we can send him home on Derek’s copter is sitting up, or lying across the seat with no harness on which I don’t think the pilot would approve of. We’ll have to walk him in though, make it look like he’s drunk until we get him through the lobby.”

Roxi nodded. “Thank you.” She looked at Paige and before she asked Paige said,

“I don’t mind staying with him. I’m getting stir crazy doing nothing every day. But, my mother...”

“I’ll make sure she’s taken care of,” Roxi said. “I’m not really the domestic type, but I have a housekeeper that comes in a few times a week. I can have her come in.

“Okay then,” Paige said with a smile. “A mother for a father, I guess.”

“Really Paige,” Roxi said seriously. “Thank you.” Paige gave her a smile and a nod. She was like Jake, just by virtue of her being here she could be throwing away her entire future...but how could she not help him?

“Damien, you can go with Paige and I’ll stay with Roxi. I don’t have anything going on in the city this weekend,” Jake told him.

“Thanks,” Damien had that worried, intense look on his face that Paige was coming to know so well. She waited until Roxi and Jake started cleaning up before asking him,

“What’s wrong?”

“I was just thinking about this big family meeting my...Jackson called tonight. I wonder how he’s planning to explain Kevin’s absence to them.”

“Do you think this will have any bearing on Alex’s decision to help us or not?”

“I think that Jackson is having the worst few months of his criminal career. Now would be a perfect time for Alex to overthrow the king. I’m just not sure if my brother has it in him. He never disagrees with my father.”

“He did today. He didn’t kill Kevin.”

Damien nodded. “Yeah...I guess it’s kind of nice to know he has some small bit of conscience.”

“To me it’s nice to know that family means that much to him...at least I don’t have to worry that he’ll hurt you.”

Damien slipped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. He kissed the top of her head and just held her there. Neither of them spoke and they were both rapidly becoming content in each other’s silences. 

––––––––

T
hree days passed before Damien got a call from his brother. “Meet me back at the pier,” Alex told him.

“I’m in New York.”

“Where?” Damien wasn’t about to tell Alex that. It wasn’t so much his brother he was worried about...but he wouldn’t put it past Jackson to tap Alex’s phone just in case he did call Damien.

“Huh uh, just tell me where to meet you and I’ll be there.”

Alex snorted. Damien knew it pissed him off that he was asking for help from him, but still didn’t fully trust him. “There was a time when I was the only person you trusted.”

“There was a time when you didn’t remind me so much of Jackson,” Damien said.

“Meet me at Battery Park by The Sphere at noon.”

“Will you be alone?” He heard Alex sigh and then he hung up without answering. Damien told Roxi and Paige he trusted his brother to help him...he was going to have to go with his gut instinct on that one. He just wanted this all to end.

He went into the guestroom that Kevin was staying in. Paige had just given him his pain medication and changed his bandages. Damien liked watching her do what she does. She’s so conscientious about everything and he found that actually watching people save lives instead of end them, was a refreshing change. But then again, he liked to watch her do just about anything. She saw Damien and told Kevin, “I’m going to start some lunch for you. I’ll be back.”

As she passed Damien he reached out and pulled her into him. He held her there for several seconds before placing a kiss on her forehead and letting her go. There weren’t many women in her position that would do all she’d done for Kevin. He wasn’t good with words...he never had been. He wished there was some way to show her how much he appreciated her. As soon as this mess is all over...if it ever is, he plans on taking her out for a nice dinner and a movie or something. He chuckled at that. He couldn’t remember the last time that he’d taken a woman out on a “date.” If any woman deserved it, it was Paige.

“How are you feeling?” Damien asked Kevin. They hadn’t talked about “things” yet. Paige kept him well-medicated for pain and Damien wanted him to be coherent when they talked.

“Like I got shot in the gut,” Kevin said. He chuckled then...and winced.

“Do you remember what happened?”

Kevin nodded. “My own brother shot me.”

“Yeah...unfortunately. Did you know that Alex refused to play “clean-up” crew? He waited for Jackson to leave and then he called Roxi and he took you to the agency where Paige patched you up...”

“That’s hard for me to imagine. I never thought that I was Alex’s favorite uncle.”

Damien grinned. “You’re really not...but I already had Brad...”

Kevin tried to laugh, but it came out in a groan. “Don’t be funny, it hurts.”

“I’m avoiding being serious, Dad.”

“I was wondering if you read the letter. I didn’t think you seemed mad enough at me.”

“I read it. Before I got a chance to kick your ass over it, you went and got shot.” Kevin laughed again.

“God damn it, you’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?”

“Slowly yes,” Damien said with another smile. “But seriously...I was pretty pissed at you at first. I was even pissed at my mother. But, I know Jackson and I know you had good reason for keeping the secret. Obviously, you being his brother was not enough to keep him from shooting you this time. I being his “son” was not enough to keep him from sticking a knife in my side either. He’s loyal to his family as long as he thinks they’re all “behaving” the way he wants them to.”

“I wanted to tell you, Damien...so many times. At first it was your mother I feared for. Jackson was hard on her when he first found out she was pregnant. She’d been gone to her mother’s for so long that he knew you couldn’t be his. She didn’t want to tell him you were mine. She thought it would be better if he thought you belonged to some random stranger.

He drove her to an abortion clinic when he first found out. She refused to go in. She told him he could kill her there in the parking lot...she wasn’t going to kill her baby. When he took her back to New York he locked her in a room with him for about eight hours and held a gun to her head until she finally told him that you were mine. I was in California on legitimate business for the company and I didn’t even know that she was pregnant. I stepped out of my car in front of your father’s house that day to a baseball bat across the face. While I was writhing on the ground I looked up and saw my brother’s face. He was smiling at me. He told me that if I ever so much as breathed a word to anyone that you were mine, he would kill me. I was young and stupid at the time. I can’t even remember what I said that day through my broken teeth...but whatever it was pissed him off. I woke up three days later in the hospital. They found me in an alley. Jackson came to see me in the hospital and brought me flowers. He told me the next time, Maryann would be the one found in the alley.”

“The more I find out about him, the more I want to kill him myself,” Damien told him.

“Please don’t,” Kevin said. “Now that you know I’m your father, I’d like you to stick around for a while. We’ll figure this out.”

“Yeah, we’ll figure it out,” Damien told him. He didn’t tell him that he had a meeting with Alex. He didn’t tell him that he wasn’t joking about killing Jackson...if he ever got the chance; Jackson Paine was as good as dead.

*****

D
amien stood next to the Spheres in the park and waited for his brother. As he stood there, he watched the “normal” people walk by. There were couples hand in hand...business men with their phones to their ear, women having a girl’s day out...and happy kids everywhere. He wondered sometimes if he would ever get to have that kind of life. He always wanted a family. He wanted kids and a wife and a “normal, boring” job. He wanted to come home at night to his wife and have dinner and spend time with his family. No more killings, drugs, violence...Just a normal guy with a beautiful and blessedly “normal” wife and two point five kids.  His ideas of what that life would be or should be like came mostly from television.  He had no personal experience with it...but fantasizing about it made him feel at peace in his heart.

“Hey,” Alex walked up behind him. Damien jumped. He had been daydreaming...in his line of business that wasn’t the safest thing to do in public. Alex voiced that out loud.  “For a man on the run, you sure aren’t very observant.”

“I saw you.”

Alex laughed. “Bullshit. How’s Kevin?”

“Do you really care?”

“Did someone piss in your Wheaties this morning? I saved his fucking life. Give me some credit.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m just so fucking sick of all of this. Paige’s mother can’t go home, Paige can’t go back to school, Kevin has to pretend to be dead...it’s all fucked up.”

“I have more bad news.”

“Shit, what’s that?”

“Kelsey Kramer bailed.”

“Fuck! Lucas knows where she is, I guarantee you.”

“I’m sure. But, Lucas is not going to tell anyone. The good news is if he has her hidden out somewhere she won’t be able to run around loose with a gun.”

“What about Lucas? Is he still pounding his chest and insisting that Jackson do something?”

“Every chance he gets. Dad has also lost two shipments in the past three days. The first one was on a truck that was hijacked. As far as the police report goes, the truck was carrying a shipment of Video game systems...”

“Guns?”

“Yeah, a lot of them. The next shipment was a boat that has so far, disappeared off the face of the earth. The last time it made contact with anyone it was right outside of Bermuda...”

“Well, there is that triangle,” Damien said with a grin.

“Yeah right. Dad knows it’s Kramer, but he can’t prove it. It’s taking everything in him to keep from putting a bullet in Lucas’s head himself. Meanwhile, Lucas is stirring shit up on the streets with people who did business with Caine. He’s telling them that Jackson’s step-daughter killed Caine and Jackson refuses to do anything about it. Dad’s losing face and you know how he feels about that.”

“It sounds like Lucas is looking for a war.”

“He’s going to get one if he doesn’t back off soon...The only thing keeping Dad from doing it is that once people start turning up dead in droves, the F.B.I. starts getting interested again and snooping around.”

“Which will hurt Lucas as well as Jackson.”

“Yes, but at this point Lucas is so far gone he’s not thinking clearly. He’s running on his anger which is dangerous in our business.” Alex took a manila envelope out from underneath his arm and handed it to Damien. Damien opened it and pulled out the documents inside. A USB drive fell out with them. He looked at the paper in his hand. It was a copy of a handwritten paper. It said:

Kramer Construction, Slate construction and Backwoods buildings: Physical similarities in bids or proposals submitted by different bidders (all of the bids were prepared by the same party) evidenced by: Identical stationary, type, layout etc.

Same calculations, type face, handwriting, spelling errors or corrections appear in four of the five bid packages. Bids or proposals Contain corrections indicating last minute price changes. Multiple losing bidders submit defective, forged or sequential bid securities, or securities purchased at the same bank on the same day, etc. Correspondence or other indications that contractors exchange pricing information, divide territories, or enter agreements. A bidder brings multiple bids to a bid opening and submits its bid only after determining who else is bidding.

“What is all this?”

“It’s called a “Collusive Bidding Scheme,” and it’s something the F.B.I. would be really interested in...especially since the two companies bidding against Kramer are owned by our...my father.”

“I’ll be damned. Where did you get all of this?”

“Do you remember last year when Jackson sent us after Joe Madrid?”

“The ATF agent, right?”

“Yeah. He worked for Jackson for almost two years before he was made as a cop. The USB a lot more information on it...the handwritten paper is proof of who discovered it...”

Damien’s eyes widened and he threw his arms around his brother and hugged him. He felt Alex stiffen. His brother wasn’t much for being touched. “Sorry! Fuck! This is amazing! Joe Madrid’s murder was never solved. They couldn’t find any evidence they could use against Jackson or Lucas. Where did you get this?”