Big Bad Wolf by Diana A. Hicks
Every Goddamn Time
Mia
Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan, New York
“Where the hell is Tyler?” I pressed my back to the brick wall in the alley and peeked around the corner.
A block away, the machine gun smoke still lingered just above the asphalt. The scent of blood mixed with burning fuel shot up into my brain. As tired as I was, as scared as I was, that small detail kept my senses on high alert.
“Shh.” My second in command, Vic, stepped out of the shadows.
The old man practically raised me. Now that I was the Rogue River Boss, he never left my side. I trusted him implicitly. But when it came to Tyler, my husband and the father of my one-year-old son, I couldn’t stand idle while he was out there risking his life and getting shot at.
My body jerked when it dawned on me why the old man had shushed me. I’d said Tyler’s name out loud. The one word we had all agreed never to utter again—not in public anyway. To me, my husband would always be Tyler. Chase Rossi was someone who overdosed a long time ago. Chase Rossi was Tyler’s fake identity. The one he used to infiltrate the New York faction.
“He keeps playing the hero, he’s bound to get shot one of these days,” Vic deadpanned, in his usual pragmatic tone.
He wasn’t wrong. Wasn’t that how Tyler got caught up in my world of criminals? How he ended up being the leader of the New York faction when he was supposed to bring them down? He did it all for me and to keep our unborn child safe.
“We have to go back and get him. Now.”
“He told you to go home.”
I turned around so fast that Vic put up his hands up in surrender. “First of all, I’m still the boss. Tyler…Chase doesn’t get to tell me what to do. Husband or not, I’m in charge.”
“You got it, boss.”
Vic could imply a thousand things with just his tone. Tonight, his tone implied that the men, my men, were confused. Part of the deal with the Society, with Rex Valentino, was that the Jersey crew would become part of the fold. Rex wanted everything under his command. That meant my crew now answered to the New York faction, who in turn, answered to Rex. Tyler was in charge of this run. But that didn’t mean I was going to sit pretty and let the fucking Irish kill my husband.
I missed the days when we stayed on our side of the Hudson, ran our gun business with the Mexican cartel and lived a happy life. It all changed when the late Jac Rossi decided he wanted my crew to advance his standing with the Society. But I couldn’t be too mad about that. Because of him, I met the love of my life, Tyler Cole, who, at the time, was undercover with the FBI playing the part of Jac Rossi’s grandson, Chase.
I didn’t care about any of it. How it got started or how much of our time and effort it required to keep Tyler’s true identity hidden. I cared about my family. I would do anything to keep them alive. If that meant killing the Irish to send them back to Harlem, I was more than prepared to do that tonight.
“What do the Irish want in Hell’s Kitchen?” I said through gritted teeth. “The Italians own this territory. We always have.”
Vic grunted with a soft click of his teeth. “Peace never lasts. It’s been too quiet around here. I’m sure the assholes thought we were prime for the picking.”
“It’s getting worse, too.” I peeked around the wall again, hating that I’d stayed in my hiding place for so long. “It’s a war zone out there. You know what that means.”
“Yeah, the Feds are bound to take notice. Come knocking. Ask Tyler for favors.”
That was exactly the problem here. The Irish, with their greed and thirst for power and territory, had created a huge problem for my family. If the pigs came looking for Tyler, they would have no qualms exposing him to get what they wanted. They’d done it before. And it ended with Tyler almost dying from a shot to the chest. Not this time.
“There’s only one way to keep the FBI away.” I checked my AK-15, a model I’d outfitted myself. A little something I had to do to appease the Mexican cartel last year.
“We handle this business ourselves,” Vic finished my thought.
“Let’s go.”
With my heart thrashing in my ears, I darted out onto the street. The cacophony of guns shooting from every direction had died down. Either we were all out of bullets or both sides had decided to take a reprieve to strategize and advance. I used the small window of time to try and find Tyler in the cloud of smoke.
Instead, I found one of my men, Manny. “Where’s Chase?”
“He’s trying something.” He stood at attention.
“I told you to stay with him.”
“I know. But he ordered me to stay put.” He dropped his backpack to the ground and pulled out a laptop. Manny and his brother, Tom, were my hackers. They were good. I could only hope Tyler’s plan was as good.
“What did he ask you for?”
“Simple hacking job. Security cameras, and then he said to cut the lights.” Manny punched a few codes into his screen. “Their boss is here, too. Why would he show up?”
“Because he thought this was it. He thought we would concede tonight.” I lifted my head toward the end of the street and the warehouse where most of the shooting was happening. “That’s not one of our sites.”
“It’s theirs. Fully operational distribution center. Mostly nose candy.” Manny switched to another screen to show me.
The assholes had settled in. They knew Hell’s Kitchen was Italian territory. “They have some balls.”
“Not for long, boss.”
“Jesus. Tell me he’s not planning to blow up the place.”
“Um. He’s not planning to blow up the place.” Manny rubbed the back of his head. “But he is. He sent everyone home. I stayed behind to be his eyes. Tom and me, we flipped for it. I won.”
“This is a suicide mission. God, I’m going to kill him.” I moved Manny’s screen to face me. My gaze darted from one dark image to the next. Now it made sense why the blaring of the guns had gone silent. Tyler had ordered our crew to retreat. “Which way did he go?”
“The alley to the right. It has a door with a code.”
“A code you disabled?”
“Yes, boss.” He beamed at me. “Just like old times, huh?”
“Yeah. I guess a year of peace was too much to ask for.” I tapped him on the shoulder and bolted for the dark alley he had indicated. Without having to ask, Vic covered me, following close by.
When I reached the entrance, I tripped over a body. As I scanned the dark corridor, extending to the street over, I counted five more bodies. I scrambled to my feet and faced the door.
“Don’t hesitate. That’ll get you killed.” Vic stood behind me. His words were an echo of my own thoughts.
Ever since I had a baby, I’d had this compulsion to overanalyze everything; every angle, every possible outcome, every stray bullet. I didn’t want our baby to grow up without parents, like I did. But Tyler was on the other side of this door. I had to do it.
I turned the doorknob, peeked inside, and immediately spotted Tyler in a standoff against the Irish. I counted a dozen men on the opposite end of the warehouse. Had they not yet figured out Tyler was alone? Of course not. Who in their right mind would face a bunch of angry Irishmen alone?
Vic tapped my shoulder, pointed two fingers at his own eyes then gestured toward three different spots along the wall. Homemade explosives. When my gaze settled back on Tyler, I realized his plan wasn’t entirely done. He still had two more pipe bombs on either side of him. Without missing a beat, Vic started shooting at the Irish. I used the distraction to make my way to Tyler.
“We’ll talk about this later.” I picked up one of the bundles. Up close, I could tell the thing was poorly assembled, which wasn’t surprising, since Tyler only had about half an hour to come up with this plan and then execute it. I had to admit, his criminal methods were improving. “Where do you want it?”
“I told you to go home.” He gritted his teeth.
“And I told you I wasn’t leaving without you. You’re wasting time.”
“Jesus fuck, Mia.” He raked a hand through his dark hair.
His intense blue gaze shot daggers at me for a moment. And then something else—he had wanted me to go home because he wanted at least one of us to survive this ordeal for our baby.
“Behind those pallets.” He pointed. “I’ll cover you.”
“No, you take that one. Vic’s got it.”
“The old man should know better than…” He puffed out a breath. “Go.”
The heat of his anger bore through my skin, sending tendrils of heat directly to my veins. But we would deal with that later. First, we had to get to safety by blowing up the place. As I darted to the spot Tyler had said, I realized the device in my hand had a long wire attached to it. How were Tyler and Manny planning to detonate all the devices? I had to trust Tyler—trust that he would want to stay alive for us.
As soon as I started to make my way back, Tyler’s voice boomed over the intercom. I could only assume Manny had hacked into all their systems. Thank God for those boys, Manny and Tom. “Hell’s Kitchen doesn’t belong to you. Go home. You have thirty seconds to get yourself out. We have eyes everywhere. If I see any one of you trying to save the product, my men will shoot you dead.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, hoping the Irish didn’t know Vic and I were the “my men” in this scenario. The reaction to Tyler’s words spread in a domino effect. First, one guy’s creepy laugh rumbled in the back of the room, then another and another. They were calling his bluff because a proper criminal would not have given them a way out. But Tyler was a good guy. He didn’t belong in my world. My worst fear was that one of these days his kindness would be his downfall.
Shots pelted around us as we headed for the only way out. Over the loud roar of the guns, the familiar sizzle of a burning wire made me pick up the pace. Blood pumped hard and fast through me as I darted toward our only exit. Within seconds, the fuse had ignited, and the first pipe bomb went off. The eerie quiet that followed compelled me to look back. Tyler grabbed me by the elbow and rushed me away from the compromised building.
A street over, Manny had the SUV ready for us. We jumped in the back seat, and as soon as Vic’s body landed on the passenger seat, Manny slammed on the accelerator, and the vehicle careened away from the scene.
“Jesus.” I shifted my weight to face the now burning warehouse. “We’re lucky the police didn’t catch wind of the shooting.”
“It wasn’t luck.” Tyler reached for me and pulled me into his arms. “I called Rex.”
“What?” I made to face him, but he held me tighter. “You called the guy who could snap his fingers and make all your guys shoot you on the spot?”
“Yeah, I called that Rex.”
“What now?” I fully relaxed my body against his solid muscled frame. Not because I thought calling Rex was a real solution, but because Tyler’s scent and his energy always had a calming effect on me. He was home. He was everything I ever wanted in a man—strength, brains, and yeah, even his kind heart.
“It’s not ideal.” His deep voice broke the rhythmic dance of the car tires against the smooth asphalt. “In this case, Rex is the lesser of two evils. We can’t have the FBI interfering again.”
“Clifton is no longer our problem. Rex saw to that.”
Special Agent in Charge, Clifton, had been the mastermind behind a plan to expose Rex and his secret organization and bring them down. Because of him, Tyler had to turn double agent for the FBI and the ATF. Clifton was a madman.
“Plenty of other agents still know who I am. They’ll let us be. But the minute they need a favor from me…” He stopped to inhale, and his chest rose and fell. “Don’t think they’re above using you and the baby as leverage.”
I had to agree with him. Even someone as ruthless as Rex was better than the FBI. If the Society backed us up, we had a chance at surviving the hostile takeover the Irish were hell-bent on carrying out sooner rather than later. Tonight, they came at us with everything they had. Mounting a fully operational warehouse in secret, this fast, took resources and a shit-ton of motivation.
Tyler fished his phone from the back pocket of his pants and tapped the screen. “Rossi, here.” He used his business tone, which meant Rex was on the other side of the conversation. “It’s done.” He waited a few seconds, then replied, “Yes, we’re in.” He ended the call.
I wrapped my arm around his torso and held him tight. I didn’t want to think about tomorrow and the implications of everything that happened tonight. Manny pulled into the private garage of our building and stopped in front of the elevator bay that led straight into the Rossi penthouse.
“Go home. Get some rest,” Tyler ordered when Vic and Manny made to exit the SUV.
When they both froze, Tyler grabbed my hand and climbed out. I did my best to keep up with him until we reached the safety of the elevator car. Two seconds after we started our ascent, he hit the emergency button. I opened my mouth to ask what he was doing, but in that moment, his lips collided with mine.
His kiss was urgent and erratic as he undid the straps of his bulletproof vest. I helped him out of it, then he helped with mine. A moan echoed in the small space, and I couldn’t tell if that was me or him. In the next breath, he turned me to face the mirrored panel. His hands were all over me—kneading my breasts, my butt cheeks, and my pussy. Every rough stroke was a reminder that he owned me, body and soul, that he had already conquered every inch of me, that I was his.
Another sound echoed between us. This time, I was sure it was my own desperate groan that escaped my throat—a plea to not make me wait, a promise of surrender. He pulled down my pants without preamble and entered me from behind. I reached back, taking handfuls of his sweaty hair as he pumped hard into me. This wasn’t lovemaking. Tyler was fucking me as if trying to teach me a lesson, teach me to obey him. Or maybe he meant it as punishment for staying put.
Gripping my hip with one hand and my breast with the other, he plunged into me harder and harder until an orgasm ripped through me with the same urgency as his rough strokes and the engulfing flames from the warehouse. The heat I had felt on my back now moved down to my core. I squeezed my eyes shut and saw the building burning down. “Tyler.” I clung to him as my walls clenched around his hard cock, aching for more. “Tyler,” I repeated, over and over, while he continued to claim me, filling me until he found his own release.
“Fuck, Mia. How many times are you going to save my life?” He panted in the shell of my ear.
“Every goddamn time.” I fought back tears. “You can’t leave me, Tyler. I can’t do this alone. I can’t keep my family safe without you.”
“I was hoping not to start a war tonight.” He nibbled on my neck and then my shoulder, still digging his long fingers into my skin.
“I know.” I turned around and pressed my lips to his. “We’re not gonna let the bastards win.”