Spectacular Rascal: A Sexy Flirty Dirty Standalone Romance (26 page)

“The police are on their way,” Julie calls from the deck overlooking the back yard. “They’ve got cars coming from Ithaca and down the highway in the other direction and they’re setting up roadblocks. They’re going to find her, sweetheart. I know they are.”

“I’m going to go look around the cottage,” I say, cutting through the yard.

“The police said we should stay inside, Aidan,” Julie shouts after me. “That’s why all the guests are in our basement, honey. The people who took Cat could still be close by. It isn’t safe for you to be out here.”

“At least not unarmed.” My father’s voice is closer, but when I turn it takes me a moment to see him. He’s standing in the shadows leading to the storage area under the house. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I see my old shotgun case in his hands.

He crosses the damp grass and holds it out between us. “You remember how to use this, right?”

I take the case. It’s lighter than I remember, but when I thumb the combination lock to the old numbers, it pops open smoothly, revealing my familiar Remington 870 pump twelve gauge.

It’s the third gun I ever owned, the one I used to take on hunting trips with my dad when I was in junior high. We would spend long weekends shacked up at his friend’s cabin in the woods north of Watkins Glenn, hunting and re-reading our favorite battered paperbacks—the ones that lived on the shelf at deer camp all year round, the pages bloated from exposure to heat and humidity—and eat venison for every meal. Back then, we actually enjoyed spending time together. We’ve never been the sort to have long heart-to-heart talks or share private jokes, but we both looked forward to weekends of shared solitude.

I haven’t shot this particular gun since I was fifteen, the last time I was on good enough terms with my father to willingly subject myself to three days of nothing but his company.

“I cleaned it a couple of months ago,” Dad says, holding out a box of shells. “It’s in good shape, but don’t take a shot if Cat’s close to whoever took her. They’re slugs, but it’s dark, and you’re out of practice. It isn’t worth the risk.”

“I know.” I pocket the slugs before taking the shotgun out and handing the case back to my father. “But I can’t just sit here.”

“I know.” Jim puts a hand on my shoulder. “Be careful. And if you have to shoot, shoot to kill. You wound a man like this and he’ll make you sorry you showed mercy.”

I nod, my throat tight, and reach for the ammo in my pocket, deciding it’s best to load the gun here while I have enough light to see. Better to be locked and loaded and not need the weapon, than need it and be fumbling with shells and a flashlight in the dark.

As I load, my hands aren’t as steady as I would like for them to be. I’ve never shot at a human being before. I’ve shot deer, ducks, and the occasional squirrel back when I was first learning to use my gun. But I ate those things, even the squirrels.

Part of the philosophy of hunting in our house was that it was done for food, not sport. Everything we killed was eaten and every part of the animal was used or passed on to someone else who knew what to do with it. Back when I was very young, my dad and I would squat down beside whatever we’d killed and take a moment to show our gratitude before we touched it. It was part ceremony, part show of respect, and part prayer of thanks.

But gradually, as I got older, we let the ritual go, the way we let so many other things go.

“I love you, Dad,” I say softly, not wanting to head out into the dark without saying the words.

“I love you, too.” He gives my shoulder a final squeeze before letting me go. “And I’m not ready to lose you. Remember, if these people are on our property, threatening the safety of our family, the law entitles you to use deadly force.”

“I wouldn’t care if it didn’t.” I sling the loaded gun over my shoulder. “I just found her again. I can’t lose her now.”

My father nods as I back away toward the cottage. “I’ll be praying for you, Aidan, the way I do every night.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I say, my throat tight as I turn and hurry down the dirt road toward the cottages. Once again, it’s taken a woman we care about in mortal danger to bring us back together.

As I reach the cottage and circle it with an eye on the ground, I send up a prayer of my own: that I won’t be stupid or pigheaded enough to need a disaster to get through my Jim issues next time. And that I will get to Cat before the bastard who took her hurts the woman I love.

Though I might already be too late for that.

Now that I’m looking for it, the trail is as clear as a ransom note scrawled on paper and pinned to the door. One man, about my size, wearing hiking boots, entered the house alone and emerged with his footprints sinking much more deeply into the damp earth. Deep enough for him to be carrying the woman who made the sandal prints leading from the vineyard into the cottage.

Cat went into our cabin on her own two feet, but she left in the arms of a psychopath who left a trail in the gravel beside the road for a dozen feet before veering off into the woods, down the hiking trail leading to the boat dock.

I click off my flashlight and pick up my pace. I don’t know how much of a head start Nico has, but I know this is the only path to Lake Cayuga. I also know that all the land from here to the shore belongs to my parents.

The person who took Cat has trespassed on private property and assaulted an innocent woman, and if I get a clear shot I’m going to make sure he regrets it for the rest of his life, however brief that might be.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

And now for something from Nico Mancuso

It’s cold in the woods, cold enough I’m concerned that Catherine is going to be chilly on the way across the water. She’s wearing a light sweater, but her legs are bare. If I’d known it was going to be this cool at night upstate, I would have brought blankets and warmer clothes.

“We’ll get you warmed up soon enough,” I murmur. She’s still unconscious, but it’s good to talk to her. After the madness of the past several days, I need this, need
her
, more than ever. “We’re going to Cuba. It’s all arranged. We have new names, new passports, even a new home beside the ocean. There’s a plane waiting on the other side of the lake that will get us there before morning.” I move faster through the moonlit trees, feeling freer with every step I take with Catherine in my arms. “By tomorrow afternoon we’ll be drinking mojitos on the beach and wondering why we ever wanted to take over the world.”

I smile. My dreams of becoming mayor of the city I’ve left behind are amusing to me now. I should have known better. Men like me don’t go straight. Men like me go to hell and have one heck of a party on the way there.

“Who needs the world? Let the world burn and we’ll roast marshmallows over the ashes. Isn’t that right, love?” I hug Catherine closer, eager for the moment when her clever eyes will open again.

Her head is heavy on my chest and her body limp in my arms, but she should come around soon. I used the smallest dose of sedative possible. I just needed her quiet long enough for me to get her away from the thug who’s latched onto her, and someplace safe, where we can talk.

Catherine is one of the smartest women I know, but she’s in a vulnerable place. Her father, her only living family member, recently passed away. That, combined with the abrupt ending of our engagement—a situation caused by an abundance of fear, not a lack of love—and she was primed to fall under the spell of any man with a firm hand.

My Catherine likes to be taken to the edge and held there with her feet hovering over the fire. She craves the extremes of passion and emotion that can only be achieved with a power exchange.

“But the person with the power should be someone who loves you, someone you can trust,” I say, lifting her higher as I step over a branch blocking the path to the lake. “I kept things from you for your own protection,
cara mia
. But in every way that mattered I was an open book. No man will ever love you the way I love you. That caveman isn’t fit to lick your feet.”

Though he did far more than lick Catherine’s feet, and I know it.

Thanks to the surveillance equipment I had installed in her apartment, I know that Aidan Knight fucked my Catherine. He made her come and beg and cry out his name again and again until all I could see was red. Blood red, streaming down the walls, washing over my hands, flooding my mouth until I couldn’t think straight.

All I could think about was that bearded Neanderthal shoving his tongue, his fingers, his dick in
my
woman’s pussy.

I don’t remember exactly what I told Petey when I ordered him to fetch Catherine from her apartment, but I wish I’d told him to kill that muscle-bound fuck. Mr. Knight deserves to die for standing between me and what’s mine, to die the way Petey is going to die for double-crossing me and making plans to murder Catherine on the flight to Cuba tonight.

It will be harder to get to the little shit now that’s he’s in police custody, but I’ll find a way. The detectives who took down my family may have destroyed one of the greatest criminal dynasties in the United States and wrecked my chances at a future in politics, but they won’t take my vengeance away from me.

Petey will pay for his betrayal, and Aidan Knight will pay for trying to take what’s mine. As soon as Catherine and I are safe in Cuba, I’ll start making the arrangements.

I emerge from the woods with a surge of renewed energy, but when I reach the boat dock, I pause, the reptilian part of my brain insisting that something is wrong. Something has changed since I tied up the boat an hour ago. I haven’t survived nearly forty years in a family like mine by ignoring the predator-prey instinct.

I’m immediately on high alert, searching for signs of enemies lying in wait.

I scan the rough boards of the dock, where the boats are moored on either side. My speedboat is still tied between two smaller, older boats on the left and nothing appears to have been disturbed. On the right are three blue paddleboats and a pink swan with a long fiberglass neck that bobs lightly as the waves lap against the shore.

My gaze narrows on the swan, honing in on dark shadows shifting back and forth on the boat’s floor. Whoever it is isn’t making much of an effort to be quiet, making me doubt that they’re here for me, but I’m not taking any chances. I barely escaped the sting tonight without being taken into police custody. From now until the moment Catherine and I land at a private airstrip in Cuba, I can’t afford to let down my guard.

Setting her down gently on a bench beside the shore, I pull my gun from the holster in my belt and move slowly down the dock, my feet silent on the boards. The moorings continue to creak lightly as the waves roll in, but aside from the wind and the faint chirp of crickets in the weeds, the air is silent.

Even when I get close enough to see who—or rather, what—has climbed aboard the paddleboat, the night remains quiet.

As I pause beside the swan, the two giant raccoons raiding the open cooler between the seats look up at me with challenging expressions. I can almost imagine the one of the right asking, “What are you looking at, buddy? Move along,” as he pops half a Twinkie into his mouth.

I make a note to remember to tell the story to Catherine. It’s the kind of thing she would love, the sort of observation that used to make her look at me with laughter dancing in her eyes.

She loved me then and she still loves me now. It doesn’t matter what she said, or that she ran away and fucked another man. What we have is real, and soon our relationship will be even stronger than it was before. I just need to get her out of the country and everything will go back to the way it was.

I tuck my gun into its holster and turn back toward shore, only to find the bench where I laid Catherine empty.

Too late, I remember her unusually quiet step.

Before I can turn to search the dock, small hands shove hard between my shoulders, sending me toppling off the boards into the water between the paddleboats.

I smile as I fall, sucking in a breath and holding it as I plunge beneath the surface of the lake. I enjoy the smooth execution of a plan as well as the next man, but there’s something to be said for fighting to get what you want.

And Catherine always did enjoy a fight.

I pull hard toward the surface, already imagining how good it’s going to feel to wrestle Catherine to the ground beneath me and promise her this is the last time she’ll ever take me by surprise. Soon, she’ll see that I’m all she has, all she’ll ever have, and realize it’s time to start making amends.

Maybe we’ll even start on the boat on the way across the lake. If anyone can take a woman from behind while steering a speedboat, it’s Nico Mancuso, esquire, former consigliere, and the last free member of the greatest crime family New York has ever known.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

From my hiding place behind the tiny boathouse near the lake, I watch Cat creep silently up behind Nico.

He’s distracted by a pair of raccoons that have crawled up on the seat of the swan paddleboat—a fact I’d planned to use to my advantage to shoot the gun out of his hand—but before I can disarm him, Cat moves into the line of fire. Normally I wouldn’t doubt her ability to take down a man Nico’s size, especially with the element of surprise on her side, but she’s not in top form.