A Righteous Kill (4 page)

“Made it.” The smile in her weak voice made him think that maybe he’d gone without sleep for so long, he’d started hallucinating.

Luca spun back around as if he’d heard a gunshot. “What?” The bleary jade-green eyes that met his gaze suffused him with a barrage of disturbing sensations. “Ms. Connor, I—”

“Where’s everybody?” she slurred slightly while looking around her dim room in bewilderment.

“Who?” Were there more women floating in the river tonight? Had she been held with someone else? Did she mean the rest of the first responders?

“Knocks,” she mumbled. “Brown. Rohm. Dim tree. Dra. Pop. Mmph.” Her eyes clouded with worry and confusion.

Okaaaay, now she was just speaking nonsense. He should probably go get a doctor and let them know she was awake. And had a possible brain injury. God, he hoped not. He needed the horrible information she carried in her memory. He needed every little detail. The shark in him wanted to attack her with a million different questions.

A booming voice threatened from the direction of the nurses’ station. “I don’t give a ripe shit about visiting hours
or
who’s already in there. They’re not family, and they can get the hell out!”

“But Mr. Connor, he’s FBI.” Barbara’s frazzled response came closer, along with the clacking of her ridiculous shoes as she chased the determined voice down the hall.

“Well, so the hell am I.” This was obviously said through clenched teeth.

“And he’s a
Mexican
,” she stage whispered in her southern drawl.

Luca rolled his eyes. He was half Euro-Brazilian, half Puerto Rican, but whatever.

Hero’s head fell back to the pillow, and she relaxed.

Apparently, Di Petro had made good on his promise to call Rown and the concerned brother had flown here and apparently called in the rest of her clan.

It surprised him how badly he didn’t want anyone else in Hero’s room. Even her family. She’d clung to him so ferociously, and he wasn’t ready to give that up. So—this was new and dangerous emotional territory.

Hero was a piece of priceless evidence, nothing more. He had no business going all white-knight and shit.

“In here, man,” he forced out, walking to the door to wave the brother in. It was that or slam and lock it against him and the rest of the world.

Yeah, he was one tired bastard if he was considering something so stupid.

“Ramirez.” Rown’s amber eyebrows lifted in surprise as he narrowed green eyes identical to Hero’s. He wore workout sweats, a T-shirt that struggled to contain his muscle, and flip-flops. He’d likely been roused from bed by Di Petro’s call. Luca had never seen him out of his cheap ass Men’s Wearhouse suits. The same ones that hung in Luca’s own closet, or the one he wore now. The man was built like a comic book hero with crazy-wide shoulders and a disproportionately lean waist. He shoved past Luca into the room.

Were it not his sister lying on the bed, Luca would have shoved the guy back. Right out the third story window. He let it slide though. For now. The wild, frenzied worry in the other man’s demeanor told him his fellow agent was ripe for violence. And this big mother-fucker may not work homicide, but Luca couldn’t predict the outcome of that particular battle.

“Hero? Hero, what the—” As if on instinct, Rown reached to take her hand, then recoiled when he saw the thick bandages covering all but the tips of her fingers. “What did he do to you?”

Hero didn’t answer as she had sunk back into unconsciousness.

Her brother leaned over as if looking for a safe place to touch her. With the scratches and contusions now swelling and coloring her face, her injured hands, and the various tubes attached disappearing beneath the covers to God-knew-where, he obviously didn’t dare.

“
Damn.
” Turning away from her, he seemed to search for something to throw. Or smash. Luca knew the urge all too well.

“She woke up a second ago.” He kept his voice even and non-threatening. The situation between them could go south very quickly. They were on the same side here. No reason for their respective testosterone to clash. “I think she was asking for you. She’s pretty out of it.”

Rown turned and his eyes focused as they zeroed on him. He seemed to get a hold of himself and nodded, his jaw still clenched. Luca spoke this language all too well. Don’t unlock the teeth until you can trust yourself not to do something ridiculous like snarl or roar.

Make gestures instead.

Luca answered the question in Rown’s eyes. “She was pierced in the hands and the left side, then nearly drowned in the river. Lost a good deal of blood, but they replaced it and fully expect her to pull through. Here’s the surgeon’s cell number. He went home, but said to contact him anytime.”

Vibrating with obvious rage, Rown looked at the extended card for a sec and then took it. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

“And for…” he gestured to the chair.

“Yeah.” Luca stuck his fists in his pockets. “She was pretty scared. I didn’t want her to wake up alone.”

A spark of defensive anger flared in Rown’s eyes.

“We didn’t recover a purse or any identification,” Luca explained. “You were called as soon as we knew who she was.”

After a quick mental evaluation, Rown nodded and ran frustrated fingers through short, auburn hair and linked his fingers behind his head, causing his biceps to threaten the seams of his sleeves. “John the fucking Baptist?”

Luca nodded. “Looks like.”

“That makes no damn sense. Doesn’t he only kill hookers? How the hell did this happen? My sister is no prostitute.”

Luca cleared his throat. “How… sure are you of that?”

“Sure as shit.” Rown pushed an extra folding arm-chair out of the way hard enough that it bounced off the wall and advanced on Luca, who just shrugged and stood his ground.

“I have to ask. You know that.”

“Oh dear,” Barbara moaned from the doorway. Luca thought it was because she caught the murderous glint in Rown’s eyes. But at that moment, either a rioting mob had gathered, or the rest of Hero’s family stormed through the halls of the ICU. God, he hoped they didn’t traumatize the other occupants of the unit with their noise.

“Where is she? Where’s my baby girl?” Was that an Irish accent in a booming baritone?

“What the fuck did Rown say on the phone?” Came the irate, gravelly question. Someone hadn’t shaken the sleep from their voice, but the accent was American.

“Watch your mouth in front of your mother. You may be Special Forces, but I’ll still wipe your arse on the floor, boy.”

“It’s ‘
wipe the floor with your ass’
pop.” Came yet another deep, male voice. This one calmer. Darker.

“Calm down, Dad. I’ll find the night ICU doctor and he’ll tell us what’s going on.” A woman’s voice. The obvious force of reason in the chaos.

“All Rown said was she’d been stabbed and found in the river and that she was alive,” said calm-and-dark.

“Lennox is going to be so upset when he hears about what happened to his Hero.” How international
was
this family? That trembling female voice had a faint, Eastern European tinge to it. Russian maybe?

Wait. ‘
His Hero?
’ Was this Lennox asshole Hero’s man? Why the hell wasn’t
he
here yet? Wouldn’t he notice his lady was missing all night? Didn’t matter, Luca wasn’t in a hurry to meet him.

Couldn’t say why.

“Look here, Ramirez.” Rown used his family’s distraction to get up in Luca’s face.

Not appreciated.

“You breathe one word about the possibility of Hero being a prostitute in front of my mother and dad, I’ll rip off your head and spit down the stump, got it?”

His sharply angled face couldn’t be more dead serious.

Luca could respect that. “Step back and we’ve got a deal.” Two could play the stone-face angle. But he could be decent without being intimidated into it, thank you very much.

Rown jutted out his chin, but took a retreating step before turning to meet the crowd in the hallway. As it turned out, only five extra people crammed into the small ICU room instead of the six Rown had predicted.

“Where’s Knox?” Rown demanded to no one in particular.

“London.” The biggest of the five men present wasn’t the tallest at maybe six foot, but his shoulders blocked the entire doorway. His matching green eyes were dead, though, and a disconcerting chill settled around him like an aura.

“We were waiting to call him until we knew more.” The obvious patriarch of the family also happened to be the shortest in the room. If one discounted Hero. At about five-seven, he stoutly led the three Katrova-Connor men.

Christ, was Hero related to SEAL Team Six?

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph… my sweet child.” The older Irishman crossed himself and kissed his fingers before grabbing the hand of a tall, classically beautiful, sixtyish brunette and rushing to his daughter’s side. The others present dutifully followed suit with the crossing, the kissing, then the hovering.

Luca made his own cross, for Hero’s sake. The motion was so alien to him now. Most of the time, he contended that if there were a loving God, shit like this wouldn’t go down. But a part of him still expected to be hit by lightning even as the thought rolled through his mind.

Dead-eyes lingered at the edge of the group and didn’t miss Luca’s movement. As his gaze zeroed in on him, Luca felt as though he’d just been marked for death. “Who are you?” the broad man asked with that gravelly voice. Something was wrong with this guy. Dangerously wrong.

Rown deftly commandeered the introductions. “This is Special Agent Luca Ramirez from the Bureau. He’s lead on the John the Baptist case.” He gestured to his father and the lovely dark-haired, black-eyed woman tucked into his brawny side. “My parents, Eoghan and Izolda Katrova-Connor.”

That was the cause of the hyphenated last name, huh? How progressive of them.

“My little brother, Demetri.” He pointed at a black-haired, black-eyed carbon copy of his mother. “Little” must have been an ironic statement. The guy was decked in jeans, heavy leather and carried a black motorcycle helmet with the skull and crossbones on the back.

They exchanged nods. This one belonged to the dark, silky voice.

“The oldest, Romeo.” He nodded to the muscled equivalent of a storm-cloud.

“Connor,” the husky voice corrected, his flat affect never once changing.

Sure. The scary bastard wouldn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea, after all. This guy was no poetry spouting lady-killer. Luca looked at Hero who still slept as peacefully as a child. Yeah, wrong choice of words. Even on the inside.

Luca had never been so grateful that he was tall and built like a linebacker. He might need it in this crowd.

“Oh and that’s Andra.” Rown threw a hand toward the slim red-head now standing in the doorway. Thick-rimmed librarian glasses framed her whiskey-colored eyes. Her hair, a little darker red than Hero’s or Rown’s, was drawn back into a tight knot that went with her smart slacks and shirt.

“Timandra Katrova-Connor.” She walked in briskly, followed by a middle-aged doctor who looked fresh enough to just be coming on shift.

“As in—”

“Assistant District Attorney Andra Connor, yes.” She offered him her hand and he took it in a congenial shake. He couldn’t believe he didn’t put that together before. Damn.

So, Hero hadn’t been spouting nonsense after all. ‘
Brown, Rohm, Dim Tree, Pop, Tmmm, and Mmph’
turned out to be Rown, Romeo, Demetri, her father, Timandra, and Mom.

Wait a sec. He took that class in college. Some of these names were like, from plays and shit. Shakespeare, right?

“Now that’s out of the way,” Izolda said, her husky Russian accent taking command of the room. “Tell us what is going on here.”

Luca cleared his throat, squirming a little beneath her cat-like gaze. She carried a lot of presence by herself, but flanked by her enormous sons and attached to a husband that could have been a ginger gorilla in another life, she was downright venerable. “We believe your daughter, Hero, has been the attempted victim of John the Baptist.”

The next silent three seconds must have been the eye of the storm. In all of his experience with college sports and Law-Enforcement, he’d never heard so much cursing packed into one space. Even the doctor’s ears turned a little red. The general sentiment seemed to be the expected questions. What happened? Was Hero going to be all right? Did they catch the perpetrator? Et cetera.

“I’m sorry!” The doctor’s tag read
Karakis
, which kept in bearing with his Mediterranean looks. “This is not good for the patient. Please follow me out into the consultation area and I can give you more information.”

“I’m not leaving my daughter.” Eoghan visibly dug into the ground, gently laying his meaty hand on Hero’s forearm. “You can
consult
with us right here.”

“I really must insist.” To his credit, the doctor remained undaunted.

“Look let’s not make an incident out of this.” Luca looked to Rown for back-up. But the guy had rallied around his parents. Traitor.

“You can keep the hell out of this.” Connor shoved a finger in Luca’s direction. “If you’d been doing your job instead of thumbing your dick for the last six murders, my little sister wouldn’t be lying in that bed.”

“Hey.” The weak voice from the aforementioned bed startled them all into silence. And likely saved ole Romeo’s life. Hero lifted her head to spear her oldest brother with gentle reprobation. “Be nice.”

Chapter Three

“Thy drugs are quick.”

~William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

The ruckus had been pleasant, at first, as Hero swam in the soupy remnants of whatever pain-killers or sedatives the hospital had given her. These voices were so beloved to her. She was alive. Safe. She wasn’t dead or staked to a cross anymore. No reason to think about that now. Then her heart would start to pound, her limbs would tremble. And she would sweat. She was always a nervous sweater, and if that beautiful Latin cop was still with her, she didn’t want him to see her all sweaty. So, she’d just float here, wrapped in the warmth of her family’s presence and concern.