The F King:A Bad Boy Romance(31)

I walked to the window, peeking between the blinds at the Acardi building across the street. Jace stood next to me.

"We've got the locations of about half the Acardis' upper hierarchy in  the city and nearby suburbs surrounded by my men, ready for a  coordinated strike that's going to tear the city out of their grasp in  one fell swoop. Dan's got control of all the money that can be reached  electronically, and we have locations of billions more that they've got  stockpiled."         

     



 

"You know …  if you wait a couple weeks, the Acardi bosses all have a  meeting right there in their building. You could have them all in one  place instead of half of them all over the city," I said.

"Alberico is scheduled to be out of town in a couple of weeks and,  besides, Romano is already dead. They're gonna know something is up when  they find him, when they find the dirty cops that were going to bring  you in. Things are in motion already, and that building is a fortress."

"Hmmm. If we could get the bosses there tonight, I could give them to you."

"Right, but we can't. And when I said that building is a fortress, I  didn't mean it looked like a fortress or they just call it a fortress.  It's a fucking fortress. They can lock that shit down so tight you  couldn't get in with a tank before help or the authorities arrived. They  have anti-aircraft guns on the roof."

"We actually can get them there," said Dan.

Jace and I looked over at the guy who had turned away from his computer screens for the first time.

"They know how safe that building is. They've outlined siege scenarios,  remember? If they were threatened enough, the bosses would make a run  for the tower. They'll toss out everybody who doesn't work for them and  then lock it down."

"OK," Jace said. "That's great and all, but it doesn't change the fact  that they're not wrong. Even I can't sneak in the kind of firepower  through the streets of Highston that we'd need once they close the  doors."

"I have a plan. The question is, can we threaten them enough? You said  you've got teams around locations covering about half the underbosses?" I  asked.

"Yeah."

"Pull them out, all except one, and send them to the money and weapon stashes instead."

"Why?"

"I've got a plan."





Sarina





The elevator dinged and the man, who had identified himself as a federal  agent to people as he marched me out of Cumberland in a black hood,  pushed me forward into the unknown. I very much doubted that he worked  for the FBI.

In the darkness I heard a choked gasp, followed by the sound of someone  collapsing into an office chair. The man kept urging me forward.

"She put up a fight?" somebody asked.

"Fuck yes she did. She's not above aiming for the nuts when she's backed  in a corner. Found her in her room driving a fuckin' machete into some  Acardi goon's belly," the man said. He hadn't spoken a word since  securing my feet and wrists and hurling me into the back of his car.

He whipped off my hood. I was in some half-renovated, but, if the  computer workstation was any evidence, functional office. How many  floors up, I had no idea.

I saw the person who'd asked if I put up a fight. He was a dark-haired  man in a suit with tattoos that snaked and swirled out from under the  collar and cuffs. I saw a man at the workstation …  and then I saw Ryan.

Ryan was sitting in a chair near the window, looking at me like he'd  seen a ghost. Pale and showing signs of having been in his own battles  tonight, he sat silently.

He looked like he'd been to hell and back, and I probably didn't look  any better with my bleeding nose, bruised neck, black eye and the  slow-seeping wound on my calf. I would have thought we were going to be  executed together, if the guy hadn't just mentioned "some Acardi goon."  If these weren't the Acardis, then who were they?

"What's happening? Who are you?" I asked.

"Could you guys give us a few minutes?" Ryan asked.

The tattooed man in the suit looked at Ryan and thought for a second.  "OK. Not too long, the cars are already arriving thick and fast. Eric,  cut her loose and take a break in the stairwell. Austin, take the  elevator down and make sure Stefano isn't lonely, nobody uses it until I  call you back up. Dan, let's get some coffee."

Eric cut the cable ties around my wrists, as he had done with the ties  that had bound my ankles when we arrived in the parking lot. Everybody  murmured their compliance and gave me a wide-berth as they left the  room, including a big guy by the door I hadn't seen.

It was deathly quiet when the door clicked shut behind them. I rubbed my wrists and tentatively walked towards Ryan.

Instead of rising to meet me, when I got too near he pushed the chair  back and took a step away from me as if repulsed by my closeness. My  heart shriveled up like dead fruit on a vine and stopped me cold in my  tracks. I dropped my eyes.

"You're a cop," he said, simply.

"Yes."

"Do you know what happened today?"         

     



 

"No."

"The Acardis killed my mom."

My eyes shot back up to him and tears started pouring from swollen and  halfway-normal eye alike. My legs threatened to collapse under me for a  second, as I brought my hands to my mouth and sobbed, but then I  steadied myself and reached out for him.

He stepped back again. "Don't touch me, Sarina."

I halted. My arms dropped to my sides uselessly and I hung my head. My  hair fell in front of my eyes, and for a moment I felt the ghost memory  of those tugs as Diana had braided it.

"What is your real name anyway?" he asked.

"Sarina Beckett. Ryan, I-"

"You … " He held up his finger like somebody making a point, and shook it  in the air a few times as he winced, trying to hold back his own tears.  "You …  they killed her because they found out I let a cop too close to  their cash cow. To the F King. Me."

"You're … "

"Yes."

"Ryan, please …  I'm so sorry! I didn't want this to happen!"

He sighed. "How much of it was a lie?"

"A lot less than you think."

All I wanted to do was to go to him and feel his arms around me, to pour  my love and support into him and feel it flow back into my own body,  bouncing between us and getting stronger every time. But Diana was dead  because of me.

"Just last night I told you I'd love you forever. It was a lifetime ago …  do you remember?"

I nodded, feeling the tears running freely down my cheeks.

"I wondered how I could have been so lucky to have you drop into my  life. I guess now I know." He paused. "But, what I felt for you was  real. It was real and good. Something perfect in a piece of shit world.  You made me dream about taking that perfection and taking it somewhere  else where all this bullshit could never touch us."

"I wanted that too," I said quietly.

"That can't happen now."

My head hung again and I felt as if I was melting like the Wicked Witch of the West.

"But Sarina …  I still love you. You're the only thing left in the world  that I love. Do you still love me? Was it real to you? Tell me. Tell me  and I'll believe you."

I looked up at him, my eyes as wide as the swelling would allow, feeling  the spark of hope in the middle of the grief and despair.

"Yes, I do."

Ryan's face lost any hint of calm and he quickly closed the physically  short but emotionally huge distance between us. His arms were around me  and I never wanted him to let go. I held him back as tightly as I could  and buried my face against his chest, shutting out the rest of the world  for what might have been a second or an hour until he put his hands on  my shoulders and held me at arm's length.

"I'm Ryan. You're Sarina. I know you. You know me. But life is going to  be... very different. You have to know what you're getting into. I'm not  some cosmetics entrepreneur, you're not a college student or a cop. I'm  gonna go through hell and do some hellish things. I asked you, once  before, to fight with me. If you're gonna be with me now …  you gotta be  with me in this. Will you stay with me, Sarina? Will you remind me that  we'll have a life after this shit is done?"

I gulped. The last scrap of my mind that aspired to a law enforcement career tipped its hat and walked out the door.

"I love you, Ryan. I trust you. I won't ever let you down again. You and me, OK?"

"Yes."

Ryan kissed me and pulled me into another hug that might have lasted  forever, if somebody hadn't cleared their throat. The  tattooed-suit-wearer was standing there with the computer-worker he'd  called Dan.

The door to the stairwell opened, and Eric walked through as the lights  on the elevator started counting up. It felt like the eye of the storm  was moving on and things were about to get bad.

"We good?" the tattooed-suit-wearer asked.