SEALed Bride: A Bad Boy Romance (Includes bonus novel Jerked!) (38 page)

As the coffee brewed, I walked to the front door and pulled it open. I didn’t see the newspaper on the ground, but something caught the corner of my eye. I looked up and saw a huge knife, like the sort of thing a commando from an action movie would use, stabbed into the center of a piece of paper. It was like something right out of a horrible dream.

With some effort, I pulled out the heavy knife and read the note.

No more playing around, Brenna. I’m coming to get you very soon. Tell your daddy I said hello. – Vince

My jaw dropped. I could barely breathe.

Sometime during the night, Vince had been outside of my house. He had been close enough to stab a piece of paper to the front door and we didn’t even know it. Suddenly, I realized how exposed I was standing on my own front stoop and ran inside, slamming the door shut behind me and locking it tight.

I read the note again, over and over, and knew it was from him. It wasn’t a prank or someone else. It was his handwriting. It was the way he would word it. I could practically hear him saying the sentences in his Long Island accent.

Quickly, I ran upstairs, fear lancing through me.

“Colin,” I called out, opening the bedroom door.

He stirred.

“Colin,” I said again. He looked up at me and smiled.

“Morning, Princess.”

“He left a note on the front door.” I was breathless and staring at him.

“What are you talking about?”

I held up the knife. “He stabbed a note to the front door.”

That got his attention. He sat up and took the knife from me, weighing it in his hand.

“What’s it say?”

I held the paper out to him and he took it. He read it over a few times and sighed. His hand was clenching the knife.

“That motherfucker,” he said.

“He was here, Colin. Right outside our door.”

“He can’t get in—“

“He was right there!” I felt frantic.

Colin dropped the knife onto the bed and stood up, wrapping his arms around me.

“It’s okay, I know. It’s okay.”

I wasn’t going to cry. I wouldn’t let myself cry. But I was angry, so fucking angry that my psycho ex had followed me, so angry that he wouldn’t leave me alone. And I was angry that I couldn’t take care of it myself. Worst of all, I felt better in Colin’s arms.

“I’m sorry, Bren. This is my fault.”

“How is this your fault? This is Vince.”

“No, I’ve been distracted. He should never had gotten anywhere near us.”

I moved away from him. “This isn’t your fault.”

“Nice of you to say.”

“Cut it out.”

“I should have been on the roof, or out watching the front door. Not in bed fucking you all night.”

Memories from the night before returned to me, flashes of pleasure, skin, and more.

“I’m not sorry about that.”

He grinned. “Yeah, neither am I.”

“What are we going to do?”

“First, we’ll check the security tapes.”

“Security tapes?”

He nodded and started walking into the hallway. I followed him, keenly aware that he was in nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs. He moved like a trained fighter, ready to duck and dodge at any second.

“This building is practically a fortress. There are cameras all over the place outside. Plus, blast-proof walls and windows, and a state-of-the-art alarm system.”

“I knew it was safe. But a fortress?”

“That’s why your dad wanted you here. They could plant a bomb on the front stoop and we’d still be fine. Except for maybe that little decorative glass window on the front door.”

I followed him to the end of the hall and he opened a door that had once been a closet when I was a kid. Instead of old blankets and towels, there was a bank of computer screens and a keyboard.

I stood outside of the door while Colin sat down at the keyboard and woke up the monitors. It was cramped inside and hot as hell from the equipment.

“This was a closet when I was a kid.”

He laughed. “Your dad made a lot of changes around here after you left.”

“I can see that.”

As the screens woke up, I saw that they were live images of the outside of the building. Colin scanned the screens and seemed to be content. He turned to a monitor to his right and began to type. I watched as another video popped up.

“Okay, this is last night’s camera feed.” He pointed at one of the monitors. “It’s that camera. If Vince came up to the front door, we’d see him on this.”

He began to fast forward through it. Cars zipped by on the screen and people walked down the sidewalk, but nobody came remotely close to the building. I leaned against the doorframe and watched.

Colin cursed. “There’s nothing on this tape.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “He doesn’t show up.”

I watched as he rewound it back even earlier and scrolled through it. In the beginning, when it was still light out, more people came by and way more cars zoomed past. But as the sun sank, the crowds thinned out. We watched as the minutes ticked by in seconds, and nothing unusual appeared on the screen.

“There’s no way,” Colin said.

“Are you sure he’d show up on this one?”

He nodded. “Absolutely. Let me try a different view.”

He typed some more and another video popped up. This was directly out of the front door.

“Okay, he couldn’t have hidden himself from this one. He has to show up here.”

We watched again as the night scrolled by. The quality of the camera in the front door wasn’t as good, but everything still came through clearly. It probably took a lot of storage space to keep every minute of every day as a video recording. It made sense that the quality was as low as possible to save on space.

Suddenly, around three in the morning, a black blob appeared on the screen and then disappeared. Colin stopped the tape.

“Got him.”

He rewound it again and played it at normal speed. I gasped as a figure suddenly appeared in the left part of the screen. He wore a black hooded sweatshirt and a black ski mask pulled over his face. We watched as he held something up against the door and jammed a knife into it. Then he turned and walked away, disappearing off frame.

“That was him,” Colin said.

“But he wore a mask. That could have been anyone.”

He shook his head. “It has to be him.”

He started typing again and pulled up another video. I stood there watching as he went through three more video feeds, but didn’t find any evidence of the man in the black ski mask.

I watched as he got more and more frustrated. The man showed up clearly in the one video of the front door, but he didn’t appear in any of the other camera feeds.

“This is impossible,” he said.

“Maybe he’s a ghost.”

“Yeah, maybe he is a ghost. I’m not sure I like that any better.”

“Seriously, how is he not appearing anywhere else?”

He shook his head. “I have no clue.”

We stared at the screens for another hour, going through each camera feed as slowly as possible. We watched the front door feed over and over, and although he appeared every time, we didn’t learn anything new. Finally, Colin turned it all off out of frustration.

“I don’t know how this is happening.”

“Are there any places that the cameras don’t record?”

He shook his head. “No, it’s a really good system. He’d have to know exactly how the cameras are positioned and figure out exactly where the blind spots are. That would take him weeks, at least. It’s not exactly an easy thing, especially with a complicated system like this one.”

“But it could be done by someone that knows the system.”

“Sure, yeah.”

“What if someone told him?”

He stared at me. “What do you mean?”

“What if someone in my dad’s gang told him?”

“No way. None of the Right People are that stupid.”

“How else could it happen?”

Colin was quiet for a second as he considered the possibilities.

“Fuck, this is bad,” he grunted.

Fear pierced through my chest.

“What do we do?”

He looked at me gravely. “I need to call your dad.”

––––––––

I
sat in the kitchen drinking coffee for twenty minutes while Colin was on the phone. I had no clue what he was saying to my dad, but I could tell it was getting heated. Finally, he emerged from upstairs fully dressed and looking pissed.

“I need to go out for a while.”

“What happened?”

“Your dad isn’t happy.”

“Is he blaming you?”

“Yeah, he is.”

“We both know this isn’t your fault.”

He clenched his jaw. “This is my fucking fault. My job is to watch over you.”

“Colin—“

“Listen.” He stood close to me and I wanted to reach out to him. But I could tell that was the wrong thing to do. “This is all fucked up. I’m going to be your stepbrother soon. I can’t avoid that.”

“I know.”

He looked away. “We should stop this. I need to make you safe before anything else happens.”

“I’m not going to beg you to keep fucking me, Colin.”

He looked at me angrily and reached out, grabbed my face, and pulled my lips to his. He kissed me intensely and deeply. I was shocked at first by his sudden movement, but quickly melted into his warmth. Finally, after a minute, he pulled away.

“I want to make you beg. But not like this.”

I blinked and felt something stir inside of me. “I don’t want to be a distraction.”

“Fuck, you’re the only distraction I want. But you know that keeping you from that piece of shit is the most important thing right now.”

I nodded. As much as I hated to admit it, the idea of never feeling his thick cock between my legs again hurt me more than I would have guessed.

“Find him fast.”

He gave me a long look again and nodded.

“I’m leaving. Some guys are outside watching over the place. Don’t let anyone in until I come back.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

He turned and walked away without another look. I watched him go.

And then I was alone in the kitchen. I had spent a lot of time alone in the house, but that was the first time I really felt it.

M
y car roared through the streets as anger pulsed in my veins. I couldn’t believe I had let that snake get so close to Bren, even if there was no way for him to get into the house without me knowing. Still, his little stunt had worked, and she was clearly afraid again.

Worst of all, I had no clue how he did it. Bren thought it was an inside job, but that didn’t make any sense. There were very few people with enough knowledge about O’Brian’s house to help the guy get through its defenses, and I trusted every one of them. I even trusted Davin, despite the man’s constant attempts to undermine me.

My car came to a squealing halt outside of Jimmy’s place and I climbed out, slamming the door behind me. I pushed my way into the deli and walked through back to the goon who sat outside of the back room. People stood staring at me from behind the counter but I ignored them. The place was empty otherwise, which was good. I wasn’t in the mood to hold back.

“I need to see Jimmy,” I said.

He stared me down. “You don’t got an appointment.”

“Fuck your appointment. Go get Jimmy or I break your nose.”

The goon stood.

“We don’t have to do this the hard way,” I said.

“You should leave now.”

The guy towered over me. He probably weighed fifty pounds more than I did. But he was only a front doorman; he had no idea what he was getting himself into. I moved fast, snapping my fist out, breaking his nose on impact. The guy stumbled back then came at me, blood pouring from his nostrils. As he got close, I used his momentum against him, twisting to the right and throwing my arms around his shoulders, yanking him back and to the side. He stumbled and almost fell, but righted himself as I backed off. Adrenaline pulsed through me, and although I knew that fighting someone in the Italian Mob was a terrible idea, especially in his home turf, I couldn’t help myself.

I wanted to break something. I wanted to break something real bad.

He looked pissed and people were staring. I wondered how long before the whole situation escalated. I knew I needed to finish it before someone decided to pull a piece out and start shooting.

The guy came at me and threw two quick punches. I dodged them both, stepping back. He moved forward, trying to throw a huge haymaker. He was like a big lumbering monster, and I could see everything he was going to do before he did it. Faster than he could follow, I stepped into his punch and got inside of his reach. I hit him twice, fast, once in the nose and once in the jaw. He groaned and stumbled back as I followed up with a vicious knee to his midsection. He toppled over, hitting the ground hard. I could have sworn the whole place shook on impact.

The big fat bastard had no chance.

“Okay, enough.”

I looked up. Jimmy was standing in the doorway with three of his men and they didn’t look happy. They were all holding guns, though Jimmy was clearly restraining them.

“Hey Jimmy,” I said, grinning.

“Why did you just beat my doorman senseless?”

“He wouldn’t let me back.”

“No shit. That’s his job.”

I shrugged. “Been a rough morning. We need to talk.”

He sighed. “Boys, make sure Tommy is okay.”

Jimmy’s men gave me pissed-off looks, but they put their guns away at least. I stepped around them as they went to tend to their injured friend. If I were lucky, I’d get to beat the piss out of them later, too.

“Don’t do that again,” Jimmy said as he led me into the back.

“That’s fair.”

Although it felt pretty fucking good,
I thought.

He pushed open the door to his office and we took our seats. He sighed.

“So, what’s so terrible that you’d beat the piss out of some poor asshole?”

I pulled the huge Bowie knife from my waistband and tossed it onto his desk, followed by the note.

“I found those two things in O’Brian’s front door this morning.”

“Big knife.” Jimmy picked up the note and read it. He whistled, clearly surprised, as he got to the end. “Shit, this Fabrizio kid has huge balls.”