Billionaire Ransom (11 page)

What if she was wrong, and she got herself killed by Nate and his crew, or someone else?

What if Craig was still working for her father? What if they all were?

Her father had wanted that file badly enough to have Craig take her for a day. There had to be something in there that could incriminate him. Something to prove that he was the mastermind behind it all. Nothing else made any sense at all.

A nagging thought pushed at her. The fact that her father didn’t want people to know that he had tried to buy that land didn’t equal up to his being willing to have his own daughter killed for the file.

Why would he have even thought she had a copy?

The biker crew pulled into a restaurant parking lot beside the bank, and Katie slid off Jessie’s bike. She glanced at Craig and Nate, their faces unreadable. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

She walked around the restaurant and headed into the bank, stopping by the door to pull the envelope out of the backpack and retrieve the key. She played the rich man’s daughter perfectly to the bank teller, who brought her to the safety deposit box area. Katie found the correct box and pulled the files out. However, instead of taking the file outright, she asked to use a copy machine. She made copies, put the copies in the original folder, and glanced through the rest of the files she and Morgan had taken.

Her blood ran cold.

She knew exactly what those files were. She worked with money, and she knew it when she saw it. The color coding was clear, as were the names of the establishments there.

Money-laundering. She swallowed hard. Where was the money coming from, though?

The urge to sort it all out was high, but she had people waiting and she needed to get to them.

She took the copies, stuffed the originals into the box, and relocked it. Then, in a burst of inspiration, she took off a shoe and carefully worked the box’s key into a tiny little slit in her sole. The sneaker had been made to be as aerodynamic as possible, as well as to allow cooling from the outer air. She stepped down experimentally. The key was wedged in tightly then.

She left the bank and got back on Jessie’s bike, her heart pounding with both fear and curiosity. This file might be everything, and it might be nothing. But it was the other files that burned in her memory; she had seen the name of a restaurant owned by two of the city’s most prominent judges. She’d also seen the name of a nightclub owned by several cops.

How many people were in on it?

How big had this become?

More importantly, what the hell was it?

Morgan had drifted off and woke half-confused from pain and the pill Jon had given him. He was grateful for it, though. He had spent a pleasant hour daydreaming about lying in bed with Katie, running his hands along the silky soft flesh of her body, letting his fingertips explore the ridges of her rib and down over his hips, feeling the smooth and supple flex of her muscles and the soft texture of body. He could almost smell her hair; that lavender and lilac scent it always held had intoxicated his senses from the first and he missed it, being stuck in this shithole.

He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. What would life be like without her?

He had to face the possibility that he would have to be without her, that this might be the end of the road. There was a slim chance of getting out of here, but a bigger likelihood that he would be sent upstate for seven murders.
Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

If it came down to it, he would take the blame and make sure his crew walked, at least on those charges. He was pretty sure the undercover cops and agents had already gathered enough evidence to put them all away for a long time on other charges.

He closed his eyes again.

He tried to be a good man. He lived by his code and, while it wasn’t something most people would or even could understand, he had lived well enough to be satisfied on that end.

Except…that had been before Katie had waltzed into his bar and his life, with her innocence and courage. She was the strongest women he’d ever met. Nothing seemed to be able to break her or make her swerve from her principles. He admired that.

Now all he had was time.

He took mental stock of all the things the DEA might have on them.

Drugs – how many ways could they screw his crew over? Cultivation, which would be a bullshit charge, but if Blake Wilkes had a hand in it, he’d find a way to make them look guilty. What else? Distribution, intent to sell, drug possession, drug trafficking, importation, manufacturing, possession with the intent to sell, first time offense, repeat offense, the list went on and on. 

Illegal guns. Morgan groaned. Possession, carrying, unregistered… that was another list not even worth going through because it was so long.

There was a seriously huge operation that took in stolen goods and turned them into goods that could be sold again without anyone being the wiser. The crew had participated in this more than once.

There were other schemes and scams, and all of it illegal. He had laundered most of the money through the bar, something he had once considered a stroke of genius but now he was pretty sure it wasn’t.

He was going to wind up in the pen for the rest of his life, and he couldn’t expect his beautiful, gutsy Katie to wait for him. He wouldn’t let her, even if it meant cutting her off from him completely.

He would take the murder raps and as much of everything else as he could… no matter what.

He swallowed. It wouldn’t be easy. Taking the wrap for seven murders meant the death penalty in the state would be on the table. No jury would say he was worth saving. He would have to face being strapped to a table and injected with slow poison. He would die for something he hadn’t even done. Fuck! That scared the hell out of him.

He steeled himself for that. If it had to be that way, then it had to be. He’d take that too. As long as his guys walked on those charges.

Fuck! He didn’t want to die.

Morgan had never wanted kids, a family outside the crew, none of that stuff other people wanted so badly.

He knew that was partly due to his childhood. He had been shuffled around so much and seen a lot of things no kid should see. He was determined not to bring a kid into the world, because he was sure if he did he would screw up parenting as badly as his own folks had.

He didn’t want another kid in the world who would grow up bent and twisted and dark.

But Katie had changed him inside.

Now he wanted a kid.

He wanted a permanent home, not just some little rental in the East End. He wanted a home and children, and he wanted to have those things with Katie.

Now he had time to dream about it. He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t stop himself.

He imagined what that would be like. Coming home to Katie and a kid, or maybe a couple of ’em at night. Being like Clive and Penny, who’d been together long enough that their kids were grown and out of the house, off at college and in the world making their own way.

Regret washed over him.

Why hadn’t he just left with Katie? How had he let his crew mean more to him than the woman he loved more than anything in the entire world?

He knew the answer to that. They were his crew. They were his family.

So was she.

She had said he was her crew, and he’d seen on her face how much she meant that. He’d spent most of what was probably their last day together being angry at her for wanting some independence, getting shot at, and breaking into her father’s corporation. What he should have been doing was making love to her.

He should have been holding her, touching her, kissing her, and making sure she knew exactly how much she meant to him, and how much she’d changed him.

Hopefully it might not be too late.

Except it would be too late, if things didn’t go in their favor. They were relying on a file they weren’t even sure existed. What if the shit they had stolen didn’t include the file? Or what if the file didn’t have the information to save them?

Thankfully the doctor came in, distracting him from the wave of depression trying to pull him down. Morgan nodded, the effects of the pain killer still making him woozy. He noticed the doc hadn’t closed the door all the way, but it wasn’t like Morgan was in any shape to get up and try to leave. Where would he go, anyway? This was prison. Locked tight and guarded.

“Feeling any better?” The doctor walked over and flipped open the chart at the end of Morgan’s bed. He nodded to himself and walked over to the metal cabinet, unlocked it, and came back carrying a syringe.

Morgan watched the doctor with his eyes half-closed. He couldn’t shake his thoughts and the fact that the end result for him wasn’t looking very good.

As the doctor locked the cabinet, the doctor slid a vial out of his jacket pocket. It definitely hadn’t come from the cabinet.

His reflexes dulled by the painkillers, Morgan’s senses were not as alert as they should have been, but he still sensed the danger. He started to wriggle away, grimacing as pain shot from his shoulder, chest, and ankle. “Hey, doc, I don’t need a shot. I already had the one you gave me earlier. I feel pretty good.”

The doctor wheeled around in surprise. “You’re more injured than you think. You shouldn’t have been moved from the hospital. I need to examine you, and the shot I’m about to administer is just for swelling.”

Morgan knew better. He writhed and tried to get his working arm to grip the railing, but whatever it was that Jon had given him was strong, and his body, still weak from the shock it had suffered, wouldn’t cooperate.

The doctor moved closer. “Relax. It’s fine,” he said, holding out the vial he had taken from the medicine cabinet. “It’s just cortisone to help reduce the swelling. That’s what cortisone does. Your chart doesn’t show any indication that you’re allergic to it.”

Sure, but what the hell was in the vial he was filling the syringe with, and then sliding back into his lab coat pocket?

The doctor moved around the bed, his face shiny with sweat.

Morgan croaked, “How much is Wilkes paying you?”

The doctor halted. “What did you just say?”

Morgan glared at him. “I said how much is Blake Wilkes paying you?” He forced himself to sit upright, nearly falling back from the pain. “You want to kill me with whatever’s in that vial you stuck back in your fucking pocket, then go ahead and try. But know this: people already know Wilkes is a killer and have the evidence to prove it. He won’t be around to save you when the shit starts hitting the fan. You kill me and you’ll end up here, or upstate, which will make this hellhole look like a church picnic.”

The doctor didn’t bat an eye. Words meant nothing from a prison piece of shit. He obviously believed himself above all this. “You’re delusional. There’s nothing in this syringe but cortisone.”

Morgan tried to shift away, his collarbone and ribs not agreeing with the sudden movement. The doctor raised his arm and pulled back, about to shove the needle into the closest piece of flesh. Morgan tried to jerk his leg away, muffling a groan as pain shot up from his ankle. Everything felt in slow motion on his part, while the doctor seemed to have no problem with speed.

Suddenly Jon appeared behind the doctor, wrapping a long, thin tube around his neck. The doctor tried to holler but Jon clamped a hand over his mouth. Morgan reached over and grabbed the syringe. “Just cortisone, huh?”

He only had one good hand, so he pushed himself up higher and then pressed the needle to the doctor’s neck. The point pricked his skin. “Then it won’t kill you.”

The doctor’s hands were at his throat, trying to get the tube off his neck. Jon held him stead. “You trying to kill my buddy?” he hissed.

Morgan held the syringe tighter, moving toward the doctor’s jugular as the doctor’s hand tried to grab it. “Touch it and I push the plunger,” he said in a stern voice. “I fuckin’ mean it. I’ve had an incredibly shitty week. Grab it, and, before you get it away from your neck, whatever’s in here will already be in your bloodstream.”

The doctor dropped his hands. He made a gasping, choking sound.

Jon leaned behind him, loosening the grip on the rubber tube just slightly. “Is it cortisone, doc? You might want to think really careful about what you say here, ’cause it might be the last thing you ever say.”

“It’s…” He closed his eyes and sighed. “Don’t.” The doctor’s nerve broke completely. “Please don’t.”

“It’s just cortisone, right?”

The doctor whimpered frantically. “No! Damn it!”

Jon continued to apply pressure, and the man’s words became garbled and inarticulate. His eyes rolled back in his head. Jon forced the doctor to stay standing.

Morgan pushed the needle closer to his throat and said, “This is how this is going to play out. We’re all going to pretend this never happened, but we’re all going to know it happened. I have friends in here. Lots of them. You kill me, hell, if anyone kills me, everyone in here’s going to blame you. You won’t even need to worry about the law getting you. My friends will, and if they can’t get you in here because you’ve fled with the money Wilkes paid, they’ll find you.”

The doctor opened his eyes and stared at Morgan, frantic.

Morgan grimaced, his body aching something fierce. “Be aware that I’m the man Blake Wilkes’ daughter loves. Do you think she’s going to let you get away with this? She’s tougher than her old man. Much tougher.” He pressed the needle into the doctor’s skin, just a little.

The doctor groaned and flapped his hand. Morgan pulled the needle away. It was just a skin pop, but it did the trick. The doctor was on his knees. His eyes rolled back. Jon released his hold on the plastic tubing and took the keys from the doctor’s pocket.

He went to the cabinet and took out a few bottles then shook out some pills into his hand. He gave Morgan a cheeky grin. “Not bad for a day’s work. These will buy me a couple cartons of ciggies and a whole mess of commissary snacks.”

Morgan sighed, and then glanced down at the passed-out doctor. “What’s in that syringe anyway? Please say it’s not something like bleach.”

Jon fished it out and said, “Nope. Straight A-class painkillers. Enough to put an elephant to sleep forever.”

“Get rid of that stuff. I owe you. Again.”

Jon said, “I don’t think doc’s going to talk about a few missing pills or that vial. I’ll take it since there’s some left in there, and I could probably drop it on paper and sell it too.”

Morgan leaned back and groaned as pain shot through him. He grinned and shook his head at his buddy. “You do know that’s how you wound up in here, right?”

Jon grinned, “Hey, no matter what happens, I have to be true to me, right?”

Morgan managed a smile. “Yeah.” Being true to his own code. Look where Morgan had ended up by being true. Maybe it was time to start rethinking what was important to him, and how to live his life and not sell out his brothers or sacrifice the life he wanted with Katie.

Was such a thing even possible?

**

Jon left the infirmary and headed back to his cell when the doctor came to. He was groggy and confused, but he got clear very fast when Morgan looked over him from the bed.

Morgan waved at him, his middle finger politely extended. “It’s been documented by me and that other dude, that you just attempted to murder me. He took the evidence. You can try to kill him too if you like, but I’d be cautious; by now, half the prison knows what happened here.”

The doctor scrambled to his feet.

“It seems to me that your best option is to go home, pack if you haven’t already, and blow town as fast as possible. Think carefully about it. Blake Wilkes could reach his hand into a prison to get to you. How many people does he have out there who would be willing to reach a hand into your life? You got kids? A wife? Anyone you care about? You’d better get them out, and now, because that man won’t stop until you and all of them are dead. How do you think I landed in here? You think I really killed seven rival gang members and left the bodies and a shitload of evidence? Nobody’s that stupid.”