Live Wire (6 page)

“Who is this?” All the humor left the man’s voice.

“Your boy gave me this number. He’s in trouble. My girl’s in trouble. You have a pack of angry Russians causing it.”

“Motherfucker.”

“Probably that too.” Sugar opened the door to her Range Rover and pulled herself into the driver’s seat, taking more than a moment to focus on not grunting and groaning into the phone. That stomach of hers was getting very large.

“Where’s Bishop?” the man asked.

“Crawling the rafters? Slinking behind treadmills? He said something about being Superman. So clearly, he thinks highly of himself, but still, he’s smart enough to know he needs backup.”

“Who are you again?”

“His pregnant partner in crime.”

“Hang on—” A minute later he was on the phone again. “I knew better to plan a damn honeymoon until every last one of them was behind bars. Text me your location. Stay out of sight. Be there in twenty.”

Sugar followed directions, texted as told, then called her husband.

Jared answered on the first ring. “Hey, Baby Cakes.”

“Heya.”

“See the maybe-new guy?”

“In passing.”

“So?” Jared said.

“Hire his ass. You want that dude on your payroll.”

He chuckled. “Ten-four.”

“Alright, call you later.”

“Hey, Sugar?”

“Yeah?”

“Whatever your sweet ass isn’t telling me, I want a full report later, baby. Stay safe, be smart.”

She couldn’t hide the grin. He knew her too well. “Absolutely. Later.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Jared leaned back in his office chair, tapping his fingers together, knowing full well that Sugar was beyond qualified to get herself out of whatever mess she’d found herself in. Otherwise, she would have flagged for help.

However, there was something in her voice…

He cracked his knuckles. Whatever she didn’t want him involved in would likely be entertaining, fun, or dangerous. All of which he wanted in on. No, she wouldn’t do danger while pregnant. She wasn’t stupid. But she would do an adrenaline rush.

He picked up the desk phone and punched Parker’s office extension. “Call Lexi. See what they’re up to.”

“I’m not getting into the middle of it with you two.” Parker typed in the background. “If Sugar’s giving you a headache, that’s on you.”

“Asshole.”

“Boss Man.”

“Pull up their phones,” Jared said.

The tone of voice did the job, because Parker stopped with the bullshit and didn’t have a comeback. “Alright. So…” He hummed. “Lex’s phone isn’t picking up on screen, and Sugar’s is stationary.”

“Stationary, where?”

“Strip mall, Maryland, forty-five minutes from here.”

“Comb the area. Give me everything you have within a half mile that looks a hair close to sketchy.”

“Are the girls okay?” Parker’s keyboard click-clacked in the background.

Jared looked at down at Thelma. Her instincts were spot-on, and the bulldog groaned and rolled over.

“What’s going down in that neighborhood?” Jared asked.

“Here’s something—a strip of real estate owned by an LLC that the FBI has flagged as belonging to the Russians.” Parker’s keyboard noises continued. “State PD has the area as a high point of interest. Task-force type crap.”

“
Shit…
”

“Shit,” Parker repeated.

“Run Bishop O’Kane’s file again. See if there’s anything we have about him working on a job related to the Russians.”

“There’s not, but let me look.” The typing stopped, and Jared wanted to know everything. “Man, you know our boy, Bishop—”

“He’s not ours yet.”

Parker hummed. “Let’s see if there’s a connection to Bishop and anyone working the Russians right now.”

“So?”

“Gonna need a second, Boss Man.”

“Work faster.”

“Is Lex in trouble?” Parker’s voice dropped.

“I don’t know what we’re dealing with. Why don’t you tell me already?”

“Alright. Shit.” Parker worked in silence, and time ticked by too slowly. “Bishop O’Kane has one connection, who… let’s see. There’s two solid points of connection but the same circle of friends. He has a buddy on the Russian task force.”

Jared grumbled. “Damn it to hell.”

Parker agreed. “You going to tell Sugar?”

“I think she already knows.”

“Right. And Lexi’s phone’s off—why?”

Jared rubbed his chin. “That, I can’t tell you.”

“Hang tight. I have some phone numbers for Bishop.” A minute ticked by. “Yeah, they’re not showing up anywhere.”

“Call Sugar.” Jared leaned back in his chair. “Patch her in.” A second later, the ringing phone made Jared’s gut churn. With each ring, he should have felt better. Lexi’s phone would go straight to voicemail. Sugar’s was still on.

“I said I’d call back,” she snipped as she answered.

Relief and irritation flooded him. “Baby Cakes.”

“What?”

Jared put the phone on speaker and then rested his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers. “Parker’s on the phone.”

“Hi, Parker. Glad it’s a party,” Sugar said. “I’ve found myself an off-duty copper named Steve Zellers if we’re talking about a guest list to the phone-call party.”

“Steve Zellers, lead on the Russian task force?” Parker asked. “Who’s set to go wheels up on his honeymoon in about ten minutes?”

“Man, you people know everything. Yeah. That’s me,” a man said, grumbling. “The Russians do nothing for months. I take a couple days off, get married, and we’ve got angst in the ranks of the Gornovsky clan.”

“What kind of angst?” Parker’s voice dropped low. “Lexi in there, Sugar?”

“Bishop’s got her in mind. He’s on his way to get her out.”

Jared knew that was Sugar’s most comforting voice, but he also knew Parker—a control freak to the max. Any man on their teams would go apeshit in that situation, wanting to grab his woman and bring her home. But Parker ran risk analysis. Jared knew that at that moment, Parker’s brain, whether deliberately or not, was running the mortality percentages, determining if Lexi would be a casualty or would walk away unharmed. Everything in Parker’s mind was a math problem of some sort—all jobs came down to risk, adversity, avoidance, and acceptance.

“Parker,” Jared said. “Bishop’s good. Top-notch. You told me that yourself.”

“Nobody’s better,” Zellers added. “So long as we keep this contained, I’ll be on my way to Tahiti by the end of the day.”

CHAPTER SIX

Bishop slipped back into the large storage room and identified Lexi immediately. There were two men who fit the demographic of the gym’s clientele. They were amped up and stupid enough to try something. Both had barbells in hand as though they would use the metal handles as weapons when the Russians came back into the locked room.

Exercise equipment versus Russian-made automatic weapons.
Genius.
Lexi, however, sat on a pile of old mats in the corner. She didn’t interact with the men. She simply stared at her phone.

Bishop emerged from the corner where he’d been watching. The two other men likely hadn’t noticed he was there to begin with, but she would have noticed he was missing.

“Hey.”

Her gaze warily bounced to his. “Hey.”

“I’m back.”

“I don’t know if that was smart or stupid.”

He popped a squat next to her. “I met Sugar.”

“Ah, smart.” Her defenses went down. “So you know about us.”

Bishop let a smile break. “In a manner of speaking.”

“Sugar does this kind of thing. I
do not
.”

He nodded. “What’s your specialty?”

“I’m a hacker.”

Her nerves looked to be getting the better of her. Fidgeting and tying herself into a little ball said loud and clear that she wasn’t a woman who had a ton of field experience. The last thing that he wanted was for her to be terrified—although the situation was unnerving. “Pretty cool.”

Lexi nodded. “Does me no good now, though.”

“You have me. Pretty sure Sugar’s told my partner by now we need a hand. We’ll be good soon.”

“Jared will have figured it out.” Lexi fidgeted with her phone. “And he’ll rain hell.”

“Titan does what Titan does.”

Lexi gave a weak smile. “You’ll like it there.”

Bishop nodded. “It’s a job. I’d like to get it.”
But that might be a lost cause now.
“Maybe one day. Maybe not.”

“Why?”

He rolled his lips into his mouth. “I tied Sugar to a chair.”

Lexi’s jaw dropped, and she turned to him. Finally, the nerves and fear were gone, and something—amusement?—changed her demeanor. “Get the hell out of town.”

He covered his face, rubbing his chin. “Yeah, well, you never know who’s an enemy.”

“Total Titan material.” Lexi’s eyes danced with humor. “Circumstances aside, I would have died to see that. Just so you know.”

He chortled quietly. “Yeah, I get the impression that might not be par for the course for her. She was actually giving me tips as I disarmed her.”

“Total Sugar.”

“She’d armed herself with paper clips and scissors. Not sure what she was going to do with them, but I have a feeling she could’ve done damage.”

“No doubt.” Lexi took a deep breath. “Who are the guys who brought us back here?”

“Russians. It sounds like they’re upset that someone on their team is missing.”

“That’s not good.”

He nodded. “So this is the deal. We hang tight. If I see an opportunity to get you out of here, I’m taking it. Otherwise, we sit pretty until my guy does something.”

“And what if he doesn’t?”

“Then I suspect Titan will blow the roof off the joint.” He made a playful
boom
noise, trying to prepare her, hoping not to scare her. “If that’s the case, I’ll just jump on you and try not to smash you. Deal?”

Her smile flickered and wavered. “Deal.”

They bumped fists. With every person he met at Titan, Bishop wanted the job more.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The metal door swung open, and Russian voices arrived before Lexi could see the men. “Up. On your feet.”

The two men with weight bars in their hands swung stupidly into action, just as Bishop had said they would do. And as predicted, the Russians quickly disarmed them. One moron nursed a head wound, and the other cried in the corner. Very manly.

Blood didn’t normally bother her. However, she hated that they made no attempt to clean up. Red drips ran down their faces. Her stomach churned, but she followed directions, standing next to Bishop.

Another man came in the room, speaking what had to be Russian, and they ordered the bleeders to their feet.

“What are they saying?” she asked Bishop as soon as they had enough privacy.

“I’m not sure.” His gaze darted. “I think we’re on the move.”

“To another room?”

“Not likely.”

“Why?”

He gave an intense, fact-finding look at the room. “Don’t know.”

“Why are they keeping us?”

“
That
I really don’t know. Doesn’t make sense.”

“Bishop…” Her stomach did more than churn. It was a churn-slash-ready-to-puke combo. “What, are they going to kill us?”

He didn’t answer, his eyes intent on figuring out what was going on. That didn’t bode well.

With a slight shake of his head, he relieved some tension. “If they were going to kill people, they would have offed Tweedledum and Tweedledee over there.”

Right. No need to just knock the guys around when a simple bullet would do.

“They’re typically not in the wet-works business,” Bishop continued. “They move drugs, chemicals, things of that nature. Sometimes weapons. They like to make a profit. Hiding bodies and creating a list of warrantable crimes in the US is not on their priority list.”

“So they won’t?”

“Never say never, but let’s just plan for the best, prepare for the worst, et cetera.”

Et cetera.
“Super comforting.”

“I’ll lie to you next time.” His eyes continued to dart around the storage room.

“Thank you,” she whispered and prayed Bishop would keep his promise.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Titan had eyes in the sky—surveillance hacked through as many systems as Sugar was sure Parker could manage on short notice. They didn’t have much to go on with the jammer in place, though. Sugar and Zellers watched all exit points from their covert position in the neighboring parking lot, waiting for the next move. The slow passage of time made her sick. She couldn’t imagine where Parker’s head was at.