Mercy (7 page)

This time words tripped in Wade’s brain. “I meant the anger.”

“I’m talking about us.” Eli cupped the back of Wade’s neck and brought his head down until their lips almost touched. “So, stop talking and get back into bed.”

E
I
GHT

Two hours later Jarrett stood in the doorway to the main lounge area as the club’s energy ramped up for the night. Silverware clanked and the murmur of conversation flowed from the first wave of casual diners and business dinners.

Jarrett surveyed it all as a surge of satisfaction roared through him. Not bad for a son of a whore who spent most of his elementary school years eating stale chips for dinner because that’s all there was. He’d fought and crawled and done nasty things he’d sooner forget, but those days were behind him. Even after the near-killing blow from Becca. He’d picked up and gotten back to work, rebuilding trust and ensuring his clientele the charges amounted to nothing more than a rogue police operation.

Having clients in high places helped to sell that story. So did the information he turned over to the CIA in exchange for his freedom. It was the ultimate deal with the devil, but he’d survived the flashover when there was no way he should have.

He watched Wade step out from behind the bar and walk over. He smiled and made small talk with a few of the members. Jarrett wondered if some of these elites had any idea the man who served them drinks once worked as an enforcer for some very nasty criminal types. Those days were long gone, but Jarrett suspected the instincts were as sharp as ever.

Wade stopped next to Jarrett and joined in scanning the crowd. “Elijah is worried.”

Which reminded Jarrett how crowded the top two floors of his building had become. “He should be grateful he’s not dead.”

“He was watching on the surveillance monitors. He saw Becca come in. Saw you walk her through the hall.” Wade grinned. “I believe he mentioned something about her being naked.”

That was enough to kill of the last of Jarrett’s sexual high. “Fuck me.”

“I’m guessing that’s what happened upstairs this afternoon.” Wade returned a nodding greeting to a congressman who walked by before slipping into a back booth. “Guess you forgot about Elijah being in the building and tapped into the security feed.”

Jarrett hadn’t bothered reasoning out the issue of the conflicting endgames at work in the minds of the two people upstairs. Now he would. “I should have shot him two months ago when he crawled up to the door and begged for help.”

“Technically, you did. Took out the gun and nailed him in the shoulder.”

Another voice broke in. “Don’t admit to doing that.”

Jarrett hadn’t even heard him step up, but Sebastian Jameson stood on the other side of him. Well over six feet with brown hair and glasses, he looked every inch the proper prep school boy, Ivy League–educated lawyer type he was.

Of course, the reputation about his wild private life didn’t match the influential business life. At thirty-four, his bedroom scorecard put most men in town to shame. Jarrett was only a few months older and had gone round with many women, but Bast trumped it all because a book by his ex-wife forever memorialized his antics.

The poor bastard.

“Bast?” They shook hands. “What are you doing here?”

“Decided to stop by for dinner.”

Jarrett noticed Bast didn’t even try to make the excuse sound convincing. “Since when do you leave the office and eat before eight?”

“I’m a member here. Do I need a reason to stop by?”

Jarrett let out a loud exhale. “So, Wade called you.”

“To be fair, I texted,” Wade said.

Bast looked around Jarrett and nodded to Wade. “He may have mentioned some trouble and you needing a keeper.”

Jarrett couldn’t find the energy to get pissed off. Not when Wade’s call was probably the right move. “I’ll fire you later.”

“That should be interesting.”

Bast laughed. “I advise against that course of action as well. Some days Wade is the only thing standing between you and oblivion.”

“True.” Jarrett debated putting off the conversation to come. Faking a work emergency and excusing himself. But none of that was his style. He motioned Bast in the direction of the back office. “Come with me.”

They walked to the door leading to the private space. Neither spoke. Conversations and music whirled around them, but no one tried to stop them. Likely had to do with their matching frowns and dark in-charge suits.

Jarrett opened the lock and walked in. He stopped when he saw the pile of abandoned clothes in the middle of the floor. The bra was tough to miss since it sat on top.

And Bast being Bast, he didn’t ignore the lingerie. He glanced down with an obvious smile. “Interesting.”

Bending down, Jarrett scooped it all up and dumped the stack on the floor by his feet behind his desk. “I’m clearly off my game today.”

“Speaking of which, what did you do that has Ward calling me during the middle of the day, insisting I stop by?” Bast didn’t bother sitting down in one of the chairs. He slid a thigh on the edge of the desk and leaned there, looming over Jarrett.

“Becca Ford.”

Bast’s grin faded. “I thought you stopped doing her eight months ago.”

“Do you have to phrase it that way?”

“I’m thinking yes.”

Not one to share, Jarrett hadn’t confided much with other people about those lost tense months. Wade knew about what unfolded because he had a front-row seat and landed in the cell beside his boss. But Bast knew because Jarrett unloaded on him as a friend and hired him for his expertise. They’d shared a lot over the years, but the emotional dump was new, and Bast took it like he did everything else, without even one “I told you so.”

Jarrett figured after spending weeks living in Bast’s guest room because he couldn’t stand being in the bed he once shared with Becca, and having him to thank for being free, he owed his friend the truth. “She contacted me.”

“About?”

“Someone wiped out her black-ops team.”

Bast didn’t flinch. The guy was rock solid and not easy to ruffle. “Except for her.”

“Exactly.” And that part still didn’t make a lick of sense to Jarrett.

“Convenient. Is she blaming you?”

At one time Jarrett would have deserved the doubt. In those early days, he ran different kinds of clubs. He offered women and protection and didn’t ask questions, all under the umbrella of low-class strip clubs. He didn’t worry about the people who worked for him back then, except to make sure they weren’t screwing him.

But that was in a different city and another time. He was a different man those days. One who remembered what it meant to be hungry and not have a bed to sleep in each night. He fought like hell not to get dragged down there again, and those fights sometimes took him to nasty places.

Which led him to . . . “I notice you didn’t ask if I committed the Spectrum killings.”

Bast tipped his head as if in silent salute. “This isn’t my first day on the job.”

“She wants my help to figure out what happened and why.”

“Give her a few hundred dollars, tell her how lucky she is she didn’t fuck you over ten years ago, when you handled problems with more permanent solutions, and send her away.”

Typical Bast advice—rip the problem out of your life and get rid of it. If only it were that easy.

“Can’t do any of that,” Jarrett said.

“You mean you didn’t do that.” Bast’s body froze as his gaze toured the room. “Shit, Jarrett. Is she here?”

“As a lawyer, don’t you need plausible deniability or something?”

“Lawyer by training but a negotiator in fact. The guy who kept your ass out of prison and wherever else the pricks at the CIA planned to stash you.”

To Jarrett those skills were far more valuable than anything a litigator could have done for him in a courtroom. “Much appreciated, which is why I insisted on paying you despite your protests.”

Bast held up a finger. “At a significantly discounted friend rate.”

The comment sidetracked Jarrett even further. “That wasn’t full price?”

“You only got charged for actual expenses and partial staff time. My extremely high rate wasn’t included.”

Jarrett mentally calculated the bills and thought about the condo he could buy in D.C. with that money. “Jesus, really?”

“You didn’t read the bill before you paid it?”

“I would have handed you a million dollars and not asked any questions. God knows what you did was worth even more than that.” Keeping the government’s eyes off Jarrett’s past and negotiating a deal that bordered on bribery could have landed Bast in prison as well.

“Good to know for the future, but for the record, I’m not looking for more work. I don’t want to do this dance with you again. I’d rather you be free.”

“That makes two of us.”

Bast shrugged. “After all, if you go away and the club closes, then where would I eat and conduct after-hours business?”

Jarrett knew his friend of more than a decade was kidding, but still . . . “That’s moving, really.”

“I’m here for you.”

“But I know what I’m dealing with this time.”

Bast groaned. “Cut the bullshit.”

He was one of the few people on the earth who could utter those words and remain standing. Jarrett didn’t take shit. Despite the expensive suits and command he exercised over the floor of his club, underneath he still could drop a man to his knees without guilt. “Excuse me?”

“This woman left you in pieces last round.”

Jarrett shook it off because the memory shoved him back in the dark hole he struggled and fought to break free from . . . with Bast’s help. “That’s an overstatement.”

“Is it?” Bast stood up and rebuttoned his suit jacket. “Jarrett, we’ve been friends a long time. Back before you were respectable—”

“Am I now?”

“—and before my private life got paraded around every bookstore.”

“I don’t like where this conversation is going.” When Bast whipped out the “we’ve been friends” speech, a lecture usually followed.

“You are not alone in that.” Bast rolled his shoulders back, stretching to his towering height. “You want me to tell Richard to be on call and get the law firm ready to do courtroom battle because this time it could go the distance, fine. You want me to step in and get you out of trouble, and with Becca around trouble
is
coming, my friend, I’ll do that, too. But maybe we can cut this off before you have to rebuild your life again and just kick her the hell out.”

All good options. Jarrett didn’t plan to follow any of them. “Let’s say I don’t send her away.”

Bast blew out a pained breath. “There has to be another woman in the D.C. metro area you can fuck.”

The word slammed into Jarrett. Mindless fucking mixed with a touch of revenge had been the plan when he first saw Becca standing in the alley. But something inside him rebelled at the thought of hearing the label now. He’d engaged in that behavior back when he got out of jail. Nights with women he barely knew, names he couldn’t remember, all while trying to screw Becca out of his head for good. So, he recognized the concept. He just couldn’t get it to work for him when it came to her.

Bast held up his cell phone. “Hell, I can call four women right now and set you up for the night of your life.”

And he was a guy with that kind of access. “This isn’t about sex.”

“Are you sure?”

“I know what I’m doing.” But since he just made the sex comment, Jarrett wondered if that were true. This was supposed to be sex only, and now he denied it. Becca had him spinning in circles.

Bast rolled his eyes. “Oh, yeah. Clearly.”

“Have you ever known me to be out of control?” Jarrett regretted the words as soon as they were out because Bast actually did.

“You don’t want me to answer that.” Whatever he was going to say next cut off when his cell rang. After a brief check he glanced at Jarrett again. “Just promise you’ll keep me on speed dial.”

“I’m not stupid.” Jarrett put it out there. Now he’d have to hope to hell that was true.

•   •   •

Becca spent some time after he left the condo searching the place. The move wasn’t about setting him up or violating his privacy. It was more about taking an inventory and seeing what tools, if any, were at her disposal to hunt down the CIA information she needed.

For some reason she couldn’t bring herself to open his bedroom door, the same bedroom they once shared. She knew he could hide documents and files in there. She also understood how tight a rein he held on his anger when he touched her. He might think she couldn’t feel the tremble in his fingers, but she did.

The initial fears about him hurting her dissipated with each passing moment but crossing the threshold to his private space might be the one push too far. So, for now, even though skipping that room nearly killed her, she fought the impulse to storm inside. She tried to focus on something she sucked at almost as much as waiting—taking a few minutes to relax and not strategize.

After ten minutes of fiddling, Becca finally figured out the expensive new stereo system he’d installed since she moved out. One last button and music filled the condo. The steady beat bounced off the white walls and high ceiling. She hummed as she walked back to the kitchen because humming helped her think, and no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t help but think about her life now and what it could become.

Part of her couldn’t believe less than twelve hours had passed since she showed up in the alley. Being in the safety of the condo helped settle the jumping in her stomach and the constant racing of her mind. For the first time in months, maybe years, she wasn’t looking around corners or waiting for the next gunshot or random fire.

She’d escaped the last attack, but only by inches. They—whoever they were—set off a flash bomb in her kitchen, blocking her path to the front door. Good thing she always had a second and third way out. She didn’t hesitate to throw the emergency rope out the bedroom window and climb down three floors. She’d hit the ground before they started firing into the street.

She’d been ducking and hiding ever since.

But right now her biggest concern was her wavering control. Once she fought through the humiliation and harsh whip of Jarrett’s voice, she found her equilibrium. He wanted to use sex to control her, but truth was she had the same weapon at her disposal. She enjoyed sex with him, craved it even. The way she could make him react gave her an advantage.