Into the Blackness (Blackness Series Book 4) (4 page)

“Yeah,” he says encouragingly. No pressure!

“Button.”

“Button? What the fuck is that?”

I laugh quietly before answering, as he’s clearly offended.

“Your eyes look like chocolate buttons. You know…the candy in the UK?”

“I’m not familiar.”

“Hey you asked me to pick something off the top of my head. You do it if you think it’s so damn easy.”

“Sunshine,” he replies immediately.

“How’s that?”

“You’re a bright beacon of light from head to toe and your hair looks like something out of a fairy tale, golden and shiny.”

Well shit. His was definitely better.

“Okay, you’re better at this than I am,” I admit slightly defeated.

His smug smile makes his win less impressive. He’s probably used that same line on hundreds of women.

“Can I make a suggestion?” he asks quietly looking at his hands.

“Of course.”

“Nicky,” he whispers almost pained as he says it.

“You don’t seem to like the name,” I observe.

“It’s personal for me. Maybe someday I’ll tell you about it. It’s a good choice though and I don’t have an issue with you calling me that.”

“I’m not steppin’ on your real life wife’s toes with that or something am I?”

He furrows his brow looking up at me.

“I don’t have a wife. None of us are married that go on extended undercover ops. You know that,” he admonishes.

“I know. You just seem…I don’t know. Never mind.”

I let it go because he obviously doesn’t want to talk about this with me. I’m a stranger. I have no desire for him to start poking around in my life.

There’s a swift knock at the door before it swings open. A kid walks in startling me a bit until I remember Jake.

“Hi. I’m Jake Rivers,” he introduces himself sweetly. He looks like he just started puberty. He’s long and gangly with shaggy blond hair curling over his ears and big brown eyes wide with excitement. No way is this kid eighteen.

Nick and I stand up simultaneously to greet our third.

“Kat Russell,” I say sticking my hand out to him.

“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” he responds respectfully. Yeah he just came from the training farm where everyone is sir and ma’am.

Nick comes around the table in confident manly strides.

“Nick Cooper.”

“Sir.”

“Why don’t we sit down and run through some things?” Nick suggests.

I retake my seat while Jake slips off his backpack and takes the seat next to mine.

“You’re pretty young to be in the agency,” I point out the obvious.

“Yes ma’am. The FBI has strict rules on age and college education. The DCA doesn’t and recruited me straight outta high school.”

“I was recruited right outta high school too. And please stop callin’ me ma’am. You’re makin’ me feel old.”

“Sorry, ma…Kat.”

I smile and he offers me a sweet almost timid grin in return.

“I’m guessin’ you have a skill-set that didn’t require a college education,” Nick suggests.

“Yes sir. I’m a sniper.”

“Welcome to the family, Jake,” Nick says through a broad smile, pleased at the kid’s prowess.

“Thanks,” he beams back.

“Let’s bond,” I instruct and we go about doing just that.

Nick

Jake may be new to the agency and young as fuck, but the kid’s bright. He’ll be easy to work with. My only concern is high school girls wanting a piece of him. Maybe he can do it cougar-style and get an eighteen-year-old if the need comes. It will.

Kat…wow, she’s a lot. The job has mindfucked her a bit. It does that. I’m no beacon of normalcy. I’m not sure what kind of team Shane’s running, but pimping out field agents should be against his goddamned policy. I felt every muscle in my body twitch when she laid out the briefest description of her last op where she was basically a whore for hire. That shit stops.

We have three departments that oversee teams at the DCA. I come from the same department and have been moved to this team because the department head, Hal Gelding, wants me to take over this team. When this op is wrapped, Shane’s goal is to move to a different team or take Hal’s position as he’s looking for a promotion to run the agency. Shane may be taking his ops in unconventional directions, but he’s running the most successful ops of any team. If he can rein his shit in, he’ll make a great department head.

I know Shane pretty well. We went through three years of training together before I went back to Chicago to work undercover in my own family. My uncle was the head of The Mancini Crime Family and I worked undercover as the enforcer for that family for a decade. It was torturous (pun…intended) to live my life in the family that had murdered my parents in one way or another before I was an adult. My father got what most mob men get, dead. I never needed the specifics, but I figure it was a drug deal gone wrong. Nothing to really shed tears over.

My mother got cancer while I was away at “college”, meaning DCA training. She only lasted six months after the diagnosis. I was a miracle baby born to parents in their forties so my grandparents were long gone before my mom died, leaving me to be taken in—inserted by the DCA—by the great Vito Mancini. My uncle is a piece of fucking shit.

I spent most of the decade I was in the Family carrying out DCA sanctioned hits, torturing and murdering at my uncle’s behest, collecting intel about every crime organization we had dealings with and in the end gathering recorded information on Vito Mancini himself once we’d sucked the Family dry of information. I wish I could say after a decade it was easy to get that, but it wasn’t. He was religious about sweeping for bugs and checking everyone for wires and listening devices. Even though I’d been killing for him for years, he never trusted me enough not to search and scan me.

He finally fucked up though. After years of me trying to get enough shit to pin on him, he fucked up big time. Vito orchestrated the abduction and torture of Shannon Kelly. Shannon is a family attorney in Kansas City. For the last twenty-two years, it was believed she and her father, the State’s Attorney at the time, had died when their car was caught in a gang crossfire. I met an eight-year-old Shannon a few months before the shooting. I played with her for hours and fell madly in love with that little girl. I may have only been ten at the time, but she stole my heart and soul that day. My Shanny.

When the press conference announcing her and her father’s deaths came on the TV, I threw up all over the carpet in front of me. I was destroyed by that information. It was in that moment I knew I never wanted to be anything my uncle was. I wanted to be good, to do good. I wanted to be worthy of the afternoon I spent with a girl that shined so brightly it hurt my eyes. Auburn hair, bright green eyes, a smile that could melt glaciers and a heart so big the world could fit in it two times over…that was the eight-year-old I played baseball with for an afternoon. She rocked my world.

Twenty-two years later I get a call from my uncle that a job isn’t going as planned and he needs me to go wrap it up. Not an uncommon request from him. I show up at a farmhouse outside Chicago and look at the monitors connected to the cameras where the team was holding their captive to see auburn hair, bright green eyes, a naked body with its back ripped to shit from torture and Tony Gallo moments away from raping her. My heart finally returned to a beat I’d lost as a ten-year-old boy and my veins ran ice cold.

I stormed into the basement room where they had her and slit Tony’s throat before he could do much to fight me. I spent the next few days tirelessly trying to find a way to rescue Shanny and keep her alive and safe. I failed in that effort because her new adopted family showed up to rescue her just as the rat that had infiltrated her family—planted there by mine—showed up. “Taylor”, as he was known, shot Shanny four times in the back as she flung herself around my body to save me, as I was his intended target. I felt every shot wrack her thin frame before I watched the life drain from her stunning emerald eyes. I died for the second time in my life that day.

I wrapped my hands around her head when she curled around me and ended up stopping the bullet to the back of her head with my hands. The DCA has some amazing surgeons who have fixed my hands and removed my scars. That was the least of my worries.

After a week in a coma, Shanny came back. My heart beat again. The only issue, Shanny is no longer the girl I met twenty-two years ago. She’s been hurt and tortured in ways nightmares are made of. The woman has a strength and determination that has carried her through her life that’s unparalleled.

Once she was rescued I set about putting away my uncle which was made easy by information Shanny’s father had hidden proving on paper what my uncle is, as well as a dirty politician that my uncle was in cahoots with. That politician is currently recovering from surgery after I put a bullet in him yesterday. He came for Shanny for the third and last time. He ordered the hit that was made to look like a gang turf war twenty-two years ago. He ordered the abduction and torture of Shanny in December to cover up his dealings with Vito twenty-two years prior. Yesterday, Governor Grady showed up with three Mancini Family lowlifes to try to force her to testify at his trial by stealing her infant son. Before Shanny, who’s a weapons expert the agency would love to get their hands on, could blow his brains out, I put two rounds in his chest.

That’s the last time harm will come to Shannon Kelly on my watch.

As much as I love that woman, she’s taken. She has a man who loves her the way she deserves, in a way I’m not sure I’m capable of. So instead of fighting for the love of a woman who’s had my heart for more than two decades I’ve let her go. Shanny’s my friend. My closest friend in the world and I love her fiercely. But I had to let her go. Eight months have passed since I found her in that basement and the ache from losing her still stings, but the joy in sharing her friendship lessens the blow.

Yesterday, Shanny learned she’s pregnant with twins. Her life is full to the brim with love and I can’t be hurt by that. I take pleasure from it. I’ll fill my life with good to prove to myself that I deserve even a fraction of what that woman offers me as a friend if it’s the last thing I do on Earth.

“So should I call you Uncle Nick?” Jake brings me back to the table away from my thoughts.

“Yeah,” I grunt still stuck in my head a bit. I’m a fairly rough person to begin with so being a family man for the next year or so is going to be a challenge.

“Please don’t call me Aunt Kat. It sounds like the name of some old lady’s dead cat that she’s had stuffed after it died and still shares her meals with,” Kat explains seriously. She’s fucking funny. I chuckle right along with Jake.

“What would you like me to call you then?” Jake says through a snicker.

“Is there an aunt I’d like to fuck acronym we could use?”

That sets the whole table alight.

“Not that I’m aware of. I’m not sure that would be a very wholesome option either,” Jake points out sweetly.

“What about Aunt Kay? That sounds better,” she suggests.

“I’m good with that if you are.”

“Nick?” I like that she diverts for my approval. I like it more than I should.

“I’m comfortable bein’ married to Aunt Kay,” I respond professionally.

“This has been fun boys, but I’ve got a hot date tonight that I can’t put off gettin’ ready for any longer,” Kat informs us pulling her jacket on as she stands up.

“I believe we’re staying at the same hotel. Would you like me to go back with you?” Jake asks politely. The kid is sweet, professional and smart. There’s nothing about him that suggests he’s a cold-blooded killer. I like him.

“I’m good on my own but thanks. I’ve gotta run to a lingerie shop and I doubt you wanna accompany me for that errand.”

That’s a lucky motherfucker she’s seeing tonight. Kat’s gorgeous, no doubt about it. Her hazel eyes are in a constant state of a sexy slant. Her golden hair would look good spread across any number of surfaces, but it would look best covering a pillow. Her body is soft yet toned, something she works at. Her tits are more than a handful and when the air conditioning kicked on a few hours ago, it made apparent her nipples are made to be sucked on for days. Kat has a narrow waist and shapely hips that my hands would wrap around with ease taking her from behind. And I’ve promised myself to keep this nothing but professional with her. This agency has made her use her body too much for its own gain. I won’t be another person to put her in that position.

“Have a nice evening,” I say politely.

“You too, Nick. I’ll see you in the morning. Jake, if we’re at the same hotel you can hitch a ride with me in the morning.”

“Thanks,” he says through a broad smile. He thinks she’s gorgeous too.

She offers us each a stunning smile and then leaves the room with a slight sway to her hips that I’m sure she’s unaware she has.

“Jesus Christ that woman’s somethin’ else,” Jake says with wide eyes.

“She’s good at what she does,” I state blankly.

“She’s better than
good
at what she does,” Jake admonishes.

“You’re right, she’s a very talented agent and she’ll be stellar on this op.”