Over the Line (13 page)

She scowls as she stands, then scoops up the tissues and her shredded underwear and tosses it all in the trash. I watch her drag a fresh thong from her drawer up her legs, then slip her thumbs underneath and smooth the lace. “Even if I believed it wasn’t you who holds the contract, which I don’t, I’d need to be able to convince Rob if you want to live to use that code. You’ve given me nothing.”

“Let me talk to him.”

“He. Will. Kill. You.” She flips a hand at me, all indignation. “Christ, Oliver, what about that aren’t you getting?”

“It’s possible I have something he wants.”

She gives me a suspicious squint. “What?”

“I might have some thoughts on who holds your contract.”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea too,” she scoffs.

“I know for sure it wasn’t my father, and it’s not me or anyone in the inner Savoca circle.” I’ve got to tread lightly here, because she’s not going to like what I found out. “It was a power grab, Lee, plain and simple.”

She sits next to me on the bed as she contemplates that, her expression pure bewilderment. “So you’re seriously saying that this contract has nothing to do with me messing with your program?”

I lift a hand and cradle her cheek in my palm, thumbing her chin. “You really believe I’m capable of pulling the trigger on something like that?”

“You’ve given me no reason to believe you’re not.” She says it, but I can see in her eyes she’s still reeling from her orgasm. My only prayer is she’s getting something from me she can’t get anywhere else, and it’s enough for her to want to keep me alive. She pulls away from my touch and scoops my boxers off the floor, tossing them at me. “Get dressed.”

***

Lee didn’t tape my mouth today. I don’t know whether she just forgot after she got me tied back up last night, or my confession hit a nerve and she’s decided to trust me, but I’m starting to get desperate enough that I might have to break that trust.

I’ve been in Florida for ten days, the last six of them, tied to Lee’s bed. My family will know I’m not in Las Vegas by now. I overestimated my persuasion over Lee. Or maybe it’s her feelings for me that I overestimated.

She’s gone into town to pick up some things at that diner, and I hear Rob downstairs. If I were to yell, he’d be here in a second, Glock drawn.

After my romp with Lee last night, I couldn’t sleep. Part of it was the havoc it wreaked on my ribs. They throbbed all night. But more than that, it was her scent. And the heat of her body on the mattress next to me. Her breath on my neck. The tiny sounds she’s always made when she’s asleep.

The way I ached for more.

So I’m dozing off and on this morning. I’m mostly asleep when the click of the door latch startles me awake. I look up, expecting Lee.

Who I find instead is Rob.

I freeze as he moves across the room to the closet. He disappears inside, reaching for something on the shelf. When he reemerges, he’s got an open box of ammo in his hand and he’s looking over the contents. It’s not until he’s almost to the door that he glances toward the bed.

It’s the same reaction I got when Lee found me in her closet. He stops dead in his tracks, his dark eyes widening as he takes in the scene.

“We need to talk,” I say, breaking the silence.

Predictably, the next thing that happens is his piece is pointed at my face. He moves forward until the barrel is inches from my forehead.

“What the fuck is this?” he asks, his feral eyes scanning the bed.

“Your sister thought it was best to contain me while she figured out what to do with me.”

The muzzle of his gun bites hard into my skin as he jams it against my forehead. “Who else is here?”

“No one. I came alone, unarmed.” I try to shift so he and I are more eye to eye, but Lee’s got me tied too tight.

“Who else knows where we are?” he bellows, pushing my head deeper into the pillow with the muzzle of his gun.

“I’m off the reservation, Rob. This is all me.”

His eyes narrow. “You’ve always been a fucking spineless snake, Savoca. There’s no way I’m going to believe you’re alone.”

“I’ve been here for ten days. Most of that time, I’ve been tied to this bed. If I’d brought the cavalry, don’t you think they’d have torn this place up by now?”

He pulls the gun back and just looks at me. “Ten days?”

“I followed you here from Spencer Security when you came home early a week ago Tuesday morning. Lee shot me that afternoon. I’ve been tied up here since.”

He shakes his head slowly. “There’s no way.”

“Pull back the sheet,” I say with a jut of my chin.

He reaches cautiously for the edge and pulls it slowly lower, as if it might be rigged to blow. When he gets to the bandages, he stops tugging the sheet and stares.

“I have to check in, Rob. My family has no clue where I am, but they’ll be looking for me by now.”

The next second, Rob’s on me. He plants his fist into the bandages and leans his weight onto my chest. White-hot pain sears through me with the grind of my fractured rib and I cry out.

“Who else is coming for us?” he barks.

It’s a second before I can get my breath to answer. “No one.”

He leans harder onto his fist, sending another jolt through me.
“Who knows you’re here?”

“No one,” I gasp.

“Good,” he says, standing and aiming his gun at my face.

I watch his finger tighten on the trigger, lambasting myself for not thinking this all the way through. I know better than this and my error has cost me everything.

A plan conceived of desperation is never going to be a good one.

Lee

If I take Oliver at his word, the contract on my family coming only days after I hacked his gaming program is total coincidence. I planned it all out. It was months in the making. Everything went exactly according to plan.

Except, according to Oliver, it didn’t. He didn’t play his role. I counted on retaliation. But it wasn’t him.

Which means someone else wants us dead.

I am in so far over my head.

I’m putting my whole family in danger.

The thought sends a chill down my spine and clears the fog from my head. Everything is suddenly clear.

It doesn’t matter whether or not Oliver contracted the hit. It doesn’t even matter that I might love him. If I want to keep everyone alive, there’s only one thing I can do.

I drain my coffee mug and finish packing up the box of receipts and ledgers from Murdock & Son auto shop. “This is everything?” I ask Polly.

“That’s not enough?” she teases.

I hoist the box off the table. “Not if there’s more.”

“There’s not . . . at least that I know of. Chuck is better about keeping things straight at the shop than his dad was.” She looks down at the box as I haul it to the door. “You really want to do this?”

“You and your husband are both self-employed. You file together. I need all of it if I’m going to make sure your return is accurate.”

She nods as she opens the door for me. “All right, but if you end up buried in an avalanche of paper, make sure Adri knows I didn’t ask you to do this.”

I load the box into the trunk and pull out of the parking lot. On the way home, I dig for my phone and dial before I can chicken out.

“I hope this means you’ve worked out whatever needed working out,” Wes says when he connects.

I stiffen when I hear the hope in his voice. “It turns out I need your help with that after all. Can you come by the house tonight?”

“This sounds like business,” he says tentatively. “Have you changed your mind about staying?”

I draw a breath and slowly blow it out. “I’d rather talk about it when I see you.”

There’s a pause. “Okay. What time?”

“Does six work?” I should be able to round everyone up by then. We can pack the few things we’re allowed to take when we relocate and be ready to go with him back to Tampa.

“I’ll be there.”

I disconnect as I bump up our driveway and have the sudden sense that something is horribly wrong. I try to convince myself it’s because I’ve just turned my family upside down. Wes is coming at six. By seven, Oliver will be in custody and we’ll be gone. But as the sinking feeling in my gut intensifies with every foot closer to the house I get, I know it’s more than that.

I skid to a stop and bolt out of the car. Grant’s Harley is here, but the Lumina is gone, which means Rob is out. The house is quiet, but I hear the dogs bark over the sounds of the roiling ocean below the bluff. Sherm and Grant probably have them down on the beach.

I rush across the porch and throw open the front door. Ulie’s not in the kitchen or her room. I take the stairs two at a time, and when I crest the top and see my bedroom door open, my heart screeches to a stop.

I burst through the door and the breath is wrenched from my lungs.

Rob is standing two feet from Oliver, his Glock leveled at his forehead. Oliver’s features are twisted in pain, and there’s a red bloom rising on his bandages.

“Stop!” I yell.

Rob glances over his shoulder at me before focusing back on his target. That’s the second I know. I can’t keep denying it.

Oliver Savoca is the love of my life.

And my brother’s going to kill him.

“Back out of the room, Lee,” Rob says, his voice low. Deadly.

“No.”

When he looks at me again, there’s murder in his eyes. “I said, leave.
Now
.”

Instead, I move to the bed, putting myself between Oliver and Rob’s Glock. I’m shaking, but I can’t let either of them see it. “I said, no.”

The vein in the center of Rob’s forehead pulses with the fury that paints his face red as he pins me in his gaze. “This needs to happen. I should have finished it when I was in Chicago.”

“I’ve already called Deputy Buchanan.” I lift my hand and lower Rob’s gun. “I’m turning Oliver in tonight. Wes will take us back to Tampa and put us on a plane to Safesite. We’ll be gone from Florida by this time tomorrow.”

Rob’s brown eyes storm as he processes that. “You decided this without me?”

“What choice did I have?” I toss a hand at Oliver. “He found us. We can’t stay.”

Rob backs away from the bed, waving his Glock in Oliver’s direction. “You told Buchanan about Savoca and not me.” He’s angry, but the tinge of pain in his tone tells me he also feels betrayed.

“I haven’t told him about Oliver yet. I just told him to meet me here at six tonight.”

Rob’s wild eyes flash from me to Oliver and back. “Ulie went shopping. Text her and get her back here. I’ll go find Grant and Sherm.”

He spins and is gone, leaving me to sort out what I’m going to say to Oliver. I send the text to Ulie telling her to come home, then look up and find Oliver’s green gaze studying my face.

“You did what you had to do,” he says, saving me from having to.

“I have to protect my family.”

He nods. “You do. What I wish I’d been able to make you understand is that I’m not the threat.”

Maybe it’s because I’ve finally let myself accept that I love him, but for the first time, I hear his words and believe them.

But it’s too late. Wes is coming.

“I’m sorry. I just couldn’t be sure.”

“I take responsibility for that. I haven’t always been straight up with you about my motives.” He swallows and looks away. “I love you, Lee. I have for a long time. I knew it before you left, but . . . I’ve never been in love before. I didn’t get how fragile it was. I should have told you.” He rolls his head at the room. “All of this . . . everything I’ve done since you left was done with the single-minded goal of finding you.”

“Because I messed with your program.”

“I thought so, but . . .” He shakes his head and his gaze captures mine. “It’s really because I don’t want to live without you.”

My heart aches at his confession. It’s only now, as I reflect back on the months before we left Chicago, that I realize all the time I thought I was so deftly avoiding giving Oliver information on my family’s business dealing was only because he’d stopped digging. I don’t even know when, but at some point his stealthy inquisitions stopped. He opened himself up: Oliver unlocked, giving me glimpses into his life—taking calls, both personal and business, without leaving the room; conducting business on his laptop without making any serious attempts to conceal what he was doing from me; flat out showing me the program I ended up sabotaging. I was just too busy plotting to see it.

A tear breaks through the dam and courses a crooked path down my cheek. I wipe it away. “Our timing blows.”

A smile ticks the corners of his mouth and he opens it to say something. He’s interrupted by the sound of a stampede of people and dogs on the stairs.

“I need you to take the dogs and wait in your room, champ,” I hear Rob say.

I slip into the hall and Crash scrambles past Rob and jumps on me, barking his head off.

“Why?” Sherm asks as they all reach the top of the stairs.

“Because I want you close but . . .” Rob’s eyes catch on me. “There are some things I need to sort out with Lee and Grant.”

Sherm looks at Grant, then me, as if hoping one of us will veto Rob.

“You should do what he says, dude,” Grant says.

Sherm gives us all another glance then herds the dogs into his room. Rob closes the door behind him then turns to Grant.

“Savoca found us,” he says, his voice little more than a whisper.

“You’re fucking shitting me,” Grant says, his eyes wild as they flick between us.

Rob reaches for the handle of my door. “He’s in Lee’s room.”

I cut in front of Rob as he opens the door and move toward Oliver, putting myself between him and my brothers.

“Does someone want to explain this?” Rob asks, pinning me in his intense gaze.

“What do you want to know?” Oliver says, drawing Rob’s wrath away from me.

“How the hell you found us would be a good place to start.”

“I followed a trail no one else would think to look for.”

“What trail?” Rob asks, looming over Oliver.

“When you left me unconscious in your apartment in March, once I came to, I took the opportunity to look around for any clue as to where you went. There wasn’t much there, but I found a
Tribune
article in the trash. It was from that charity gala last fall at the governor’s mansion. The picture was of you and Sophie, and it got me thinking.”

My heart squeezes into a hard ball.

Oliver dated Sophie in the three weeks we were apart after his father was arrested. I saw the pictures. I knew what was happening. Rob had dated Sophie. She was a potential source of information on our family. Oliver and I had been sleeping together for eight months by that time, and he seemed to have given up the womanizing, but I guess Sophie was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

When he came back to my bed, we never talked about it. We talked about classes, and movies, and music. We watched the White Sox bring up the rear in their division and argued about who they should trade in the off season. We laid naked in bed as he traced the lines of my body with his fingertips and had long discussions about what takeout to order. We also went back to using condoms, because even though I never asked and he never told, I knew exactly what he’d been doing with my brother’s ex.

Rob’s eyes narrow as understanding dawns.

“Don’t blame Sophie,” Oliver says. “I totally manipulated her, and even still, she had no idea she’d given me anything.”

“You son of a bitch,” Rob growls, and it’s clear from the murder in his eyes that he
doesn’t
blame Sophie.

“Fuck this, Rob,” Grant says from where he’s leaning his back against the door. “Just shoot the asshole.”

Rob glances over his shoulder at our younger brother, and I can see, for once, they’re in agreement. “What did she tell you?” he grinds out, turning his attention back to Oliver.

“Only that she’d seen you before she left for London and you were safe.”

The next second, Rob’s Glock is digging into Oliver’s forehead. Every muscle in my body coils, ready to pounce, but I have to trust that Oliver can talk his way out of this.

“Give me one good reason not to do what my brother says,” Rob says, his hand rock-steady on the gun.

Oliver keeps his cool, as usual, even though I’m about to lose it all over the place. “Because I know who holds your contract.”

There’s a second Rob’s breathing stalls, but then he pushes the muzzle of his gun tighter to Oliver’s forehead. “Who?”

“If I tell you, there’s nothing stopping you from killing me.” Oliver’s eyes flash to me. “I’m not quite ready to die.”

“You are so full of shit, Savoca,” Rob says, his finger tightening on the trigger. “You know who holds the contract because it’s
you
.”

The hint of a smile lights Oliver’s eyes. “You pull that trigger, you’ll never know, will you?”

I’m dying inside and he’s enjoying the game. It makes me want to kill him myself.

I let out the breath I was holding when Rob lowers his Glock. “You want to stay alive, you need to give me more.”

“I’m here alone. I’m unarmed. I will help you take down the person who holds the contract, but I need your word you’ll come back to Chicago and take back the organization when that happens. You’re smart and generally rational, unlike most anyone else who would take over your father’s business dealings. I need you in charge if we’re going to clean things up. We could own Chicago, Rob, and we wouldn’t need to spill a drop of blood.”

Oliver’s eyes flick to mine, and in them I see hope. He mentioned a truce, but I never believed it was real.

“If I was trying to kill you,” Oliver continues, still trying to persuade my brother, “you’d be dead. I’d have taken you and the rest of your family out the night I followed you back here from Spencer Security. You have to trust that I’m here to help.”

Rob raises his gun again, pointing it at Oliver’s head. “I will
never
trust you.”

“Rob, please,” I say, trying and failing to keep the desperation out of my voice. “Wes will be here in less than an hour. You can’t kill him.”

Rob’s gaze narrows to a suspicious squint as he regards me.

“My car is just up the main road,” Oliver says. “You can search it.”

“I moved it into the driveway of the rental next door,” I confess. When Rob shoots me an exasperated glance, I add, “The house was empty and I was afraid his car would get towed from the street. I wasn’t sure if that might trigger someone to look for him here.”

Rob’s glare softens as he realizes I’m right.

“I had a room at the Sand Dollar Inn just over the bridge in Loveland,” Oliver says after a long silence. “They’ve probably cleaned out my shit by now, since I was only paid through Friday, but if they have it in the office, you can look through my bag. There are no weapons. My ID and tickets are all in the name Patrick Barrone. My family doesn’t know about that identity. There’s nothing they can track here. But that doesn’t mean they’re not out there trying. Just let me call them to check in.”

Rob fixes him in a glare. “I have no way for you to do that. Any phone I could give you will show up as a Florida area code.”

“Let’s go get his things at the hotel before Wes gets here,” I plead. “Then we can decide what to do.” I need Rob out of this room. It’s the only way Oliver’s going to survive until Wes arrives.

Rob picks my Beretta up off the nightstand and shoves it at Grant. “Keep your eye on him.”

“Your sister knows her knots,” Oliver says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Grant keeps my gun trained on Oliver as he steps closer and peels the sheet back to reveal the scarf binding his arms to his sides. “Fuck, Lee. Wouldn’t have pegged you for BDSM.”

“We’ll be back before Buchanan gets here,” Rob says, ignoring Grant and yanking open the door.