Bullet Proof: A MacKenzie Family Novella (The MacKenzie Family) (6 page)

The longer Keir talked, the paler Bianca got. By the time he finally shut up, the pallor was tinged with green. Reaching across the island, Taz covered her chilled hands with his. She glanced up at him and the world shifted on its axis. In the next breath he knew he wouldn't ever let anything happen to her. Period. The Davies-Smythes were about to have their asses handed to them, Roma style.

Her fingers curled around his. "Shit," she said, her voice barely audible.

"That's about the sum of it and you two are right in the heart of it," Keir said. "They've yet to get anyone to come forward who survived their dance with the Genie. Don't worry. All of the bodies have track marks and you two weren't injected."

For a silver lining, that was a might fucking thin one.

"I need to get in touch with your DEA contact," Taz said.

"Who do you think I'm taking these samples to? Their lab is the only one that knows the chemical markers to look for to confirm it was Genie's Wish." He pulled out his phone and started typing. "Texting her now to arrange a drop."

"Can you trust her?" Taz wasn't about to put Bianca's life in just anyone's hands, which should have him worried that the drugs hadn't totally worn off. A little—okay, a lot of—lust didn't usually translate to caring about someone's safety...not with anyone else but her.

"She spent the past three years in deep cover before being forced onto desk duty, and she is mean enough to make me reflexively guard my nads whenever we meet up, but the woman is solid."

"How did you meet her?" Bianca asked Keir.

"Everybody has problems that need to be fixed and that is why my business is always booming." His phone vibrated. "Ask and you shall..." He started reading. "Shit, she's on her way over." He slammed his cell down on the island. "Damn it, she promised she'd taken the tracker off my phone."

The last thing they needed was trouble caused by Keir's dick and the groupies it ensnared—law enforcement or not.

"Is there something going on between you two that we need to know about?" Taz asked his brother.

Keir glared at him. "Just a whole lotta hollering when she walks her tight little ass through the door."

CHAPTER FIVE

The next sixteen and a half minutes passed by in excruciating slowness that had Taz contemplating murder more than a man should. Keir and Bianca had gone from sarcastically sparing with each other to snarky jabs at him. The comments he could give a shit about, but the obvious instant camaraderie between them landed about as comfortably as a bare-knuckle punch to the kidneys followed by a swift, steel-toed boot kick to the nuts. Add to that seeing her dressed in his workout gear, knowing the soft cotton T-shirt was up against her bare tits, had him frustrated and hard to the point of being a Viagra commercial warning.

Unable to stand Keir and Bianca's little buddy-buddy, kissy-kissy bullshit anymore, he shoved away from the island where they were all gathered finishing their beers. "You know, he's even more of a dick than I am."

That shut them up. Both turned in slow motion to stare at him, Keir with an all-knowing, pot-stirring grin under his never-been-broken nose. The fucker wasn't flirting so much as he was busting Taz's chops...and he'd fallen for it, let it twist him up. What an asshole.

"Must be something in the gene pool," Bianca said, obviously unimpressed with his snarly attitude.

Taz slammed back the rest of his beer. "We're not related." Thank God.

"Wait." She shook her head, sending her brown waves tumbling around her shoulders. "But you call each other brothers?"

"We are," he and Keir said at the same time.

She looked from him to Keir and back again, curiosity wrinkling her forehead. Sure, the Roma blood was strong in both of them, so four of the five of them had the stereotypical dark hair and they each had sepia-colored skin. In addition, they shared the what-the-fuck-are-you-looking-at charm of boys who'd grown up on the street and had turned into men who knew how to fight like they still lived on them. With the exception of Duke's red hair, all five of them fit the Romani stereotype of dark with an olive complexion, along with the Roma first names common in their families. They could easily pass for cousins, if not brothers, even if they didn't have any family tree branches in common.

"Okay, walk me through this," she said. "You're brothers, but you're not."

"Right." He'd never really had to explain it before. No outsider but Freddie had ever gotten close enough to need an explanation and he'd just understood at a glance. Hell, the crotchety old goat had probably come up in similar circumstances.

Bianca rolled her eyes. "More words, please."

How to explain this without making her think they were total street rats who'd basically raised each other, which they had been? Nobody wanted to hear that sob story and he sure as shit didn't want to tell it.

"We grew up together, Keir, Lash, Marko, Duke, and I, getting into trouble together like we were punching a time clock." It wasn't a lie. It just wasn't the whole story. Hell, it wasn't even a paragraph of the whole story.

"Color me shocked." She chuckled.

It was sarcasm tinged with a teasing lightness. The mix of hard and soft was just like her at the gym. The first day she'd walked in, he pegged her for a piece of fluff—the most expensive fluff in the world, but still fluff. Then she'd taken some practice punches and he saw something in her that he saw every time he looked in the mirror. Anger. Resentment. Self-recrimination. She was looking for her redemption at the Devil's Dip Gym. It wasn't a bad plan. That's where he'd thought he'd found his.

"You're not nearly as shocked as we were when Freddie Atlas caught us breaking into his gym one night when we were about fourteen. We were damn lucky he decided against calling the cops or our parents." Not that he would have gotten ahold of any of their parents. "Instead, we had to report to the gym every day after school and he trained us when we weren't mopping the floors or cleaning the toilets."

Her gaze shifted from him to Keir and back again, a smile curling one end of her tantalizing lips. "So you're the brotherhood of the fighting toilet cleaners?"

"We should get T-shirts made," Keir said from his side of the kitchen island, no doubt only half joking. "Of course, I'd be the only one who could make that work. The ladies would love it on me. On you?" He gave Taz an up and down. "Not so much."

Without warning or clearance from him, the elevator binged it was on the way up. Reacting on instinct, Taz grabbed Bianca and thrust her down behind the island. He pivoted and grabbed the nine millimeter from the unlocked wall safe above the sink and had it pointed at the elevator by the time the doors opened.

A woman strutted out into the loft's living area like she'd just signed the papers to buy the place. Five-foot-nothing. Chinese. Long black hair with a thick teal streak in the front. A total bitch-please look crossed her face the moment she spotted him with the gun. Not that she stopped moving forward. Nope, she strode through the living space toward the kitchen island, her hands visible but not in any way held up in deference to the gun pointed at her head.

"Keir," she said in a voice that practically bled money and privilege. "Didn't you tell your friend I was coming?"

"Haven't you heard of a doorbell, Yang?" Keir asked as he waved his hand, signaling Taz to put the gun down.

Her gasp of surprise was as dramatic as it was false. "You want a delicate little thing like me to wait outside in the dark all by my lonesome?"

"Vivi?" Bianca vaulted up from behind the island like a sexy jack-in-the-box. "Oh my God, is it really you?"

The two women stared at each other for all of two and a half seconds before letting out a high-pitched squeal that must have had dogs howling six blocks away. Bianca sprinted around the island and ran to the other woman, pulling her into a hug.

Brain still trying to process what he was seeing, Taz pushed the gun's safety back in place and set the nine millimeter down on the island as he wondered what headaches this little pairing was going to cause him.

* * * *

Bianca's ribs were under threat of cracking from the power of the petite woman's bear hug, but she didn't care. Vivian Yang. Here. The weekend was turning into a St. B's reunion and the boldest, brassiest member of the old squad was in attendance. Things were about to get interesting.

Pulling away, she glanced back at Taz. He'd put the gun down, thank God. He'd gone all alpha protector as soon as the elevator sounded, which was bullshit. She didn't have a handgun hidden away in the waistband of his shorts that she was wearing, but she wasn't a damsel in distress either. There were a dozen beautifully sharpened knives in a chopping block on the counter and she could slice and dice with the best of them—or send the blades flying through the air toward their intended target. Catching Taz's gaze, she ignored the excited shiver that raced down her spine and glared at him. He shrugged, obviously not worried one single bit about his overreaction.

"Men," she huffed under her breath.

"You're telling me." Vivi accompanied her snark with an eye roll, but her focus was zeroed in on Keir.

"I can't believe
you're
the DEA agent who scares Keir."

Vivi turned to the tattooed muscle man, a predatory smirk upending her patented deceptively innocent smile. "Oh sweetie, do I make you nervous? Toughen up, bad boy." She blew a kiss at him and pivoted back to face Bianca. "That explains me, but what are you doing here?"

Where to start? She glanced down at the cotton ball still taped to the inside of her elbow. No. That wasn't the place. She needed to start at the beginning because, as they knew from watching
The Sound of Music
on constant loop at St. B's, it was a very good place to start. Her throat tightened. They used to sing those songs together all the time, with Gidget being the only one who could hold a tune.

"Gidget is missing," Bianca said. "I think the Davies-Smythes know what happened to her."

Vivi blinked several times, then she straightened and the don't-fuck-with-me-fella body language took over her casual stance. "Gidget Harms? What's your proof? What have you gotten yourself into? What's the connection to the Davies-Smythes? What kind of trouble are you in?" The questions came out rapid-fire, without a breath in between.

Holding up a hand to stop the barrage, Bianca walked over to the island and pulled out the fourth stool positioned around the granite rectangle. "Sit down. It's a long story."

By the time they'd gotten the whole thing out, Vivi had transformed from her partner in crime at St. B's to DEA Agent Yang. She slapped her notebook shut and capped her pen but didn't say a word.

For the first time since Vivi arrived, the number of years since they'd last seen each other added up. Nothing guaranteed she'd help. Taz had called it earlier. If she'd been such good friends with Gidget and Vivi, then how could she have lost touch so completely? And it hadn't been just with them. She hadn't talked to Lexie or Elisa since St. B's either. Her blood family ties were thinner than dental floss and she'd let the ties to the people who were her closest friends fray to almost nothing. 

Maybe she should follow Taz and Keir's lead and create her own family with the women who'd helped her survive St. B's. They'd been the only people they could count on. They could be that again. They could even come in with her on the security and investigations business she was starting. Vivi had the obvious chops. Lexie was a computer guru. Elisa had been a born thief, able to get in and out of places no one else could. Then there was Gidget. She was the jack-of-all-trades and a master at spinning tales that opened doors to her that should have been locked tight. Together, the five of them could make a difference.

From her spot across the island, Vivi had scrunched up her face and was tapping out "Jingle Bells" with her nails on the granite. The sound bounced off the loft's high ceilings and echoed in the open, sparsely furnished space. Really, would it kill Taz to get more than a couch, TV, humongous bed and some barstools?

Finally, Vivi let out a deep sigh and straightened her shoulders. "Okay, you aren't hearing this from me and if it gets out I will remove your spleen with a dull spoon. Understand?" She glared pointedly at Keir. "There's been chatter among some of the bigger dealers that something new is coming down the pike, but we haven't been able to nail down with one hundred percent accuracy what it is or where it's coming from. I think it's Genie's Wish and it sounds like the Davies-Smythes. If they aren't the source, may be our way to finding it and shutting it down. Also, there've been rumors of the chemists working on this needing long-term subjects to test different variations of the drug's makeup. Rather than holding them at the drug processing location, they have them stashed around Texas. If the Davies-Smythes have Gidget, there's a damn good chance she's one of the test subjects."

Bianca's empty stomach roiled. If she'd eaten anything in the past six hours, she'd be fighting to keep it down. "So what can we do to help?" she asked.

"Forget it," Taz interjected, the vein at his temple throbbing. "We've done our part."

Anger whipped through her, reigniting all the fires she'd thought she'd put out long ago. No one told her what to do anymore, not since she'd survived the misery of St. B's. Spinning on the balls of her feet, she faced Taz, refusing to be intimidated by the muscles or the way he loomed over her like some kind of bad-boy protector. "Speak for yourself."

Unperturbed by her reaction, he crossed his sinewy arms over his chest and gave her a patronizing look. "Someone has to stop you from jumping into the total unknown."

"And you think you're the man for the job?" She snorted, putting every ounce of distain in the sound that she could muster.

One eyebrow went up in challenge. "Yes."

The sanctimonious prick. The bitches at St. B's hadn't broken her. The unlicensed clinic that followed, which had been more of a cult than anything, hadn't wrecked her spirit. Her family had come the closest, no need to call Dr. Freud to find out why, but she'd walked away from them and never looked back. Taz might make her knees weak and get her wetter with a look than any man had before, even the most hung, but that didn't give him the right to decide her path. Only she did that.