The Bounty Hunters: The Marino Bros.: Box Set (63 page)

“Oh, yes, yes, baby,” she cried out slowly. “Oh, yes.” Her pussy quaked around his shaft, squeezing it as he pulled out, and then he allowed himself one more deep thrust as his balls tightened and his release came. He spilled himself into her, his cock pumping out until there was no more.

He rolled away and pulled her to him. “Bella,” he panted. “My beautiful, Bella.” He’d never be able to have enough of her.

One Day

A
fter Blaze and
Bella have gotten their fill, they finally got around to having their lunch although tardy. Blaze had been working on making pressed Cuban’s when Bella walked into the room and distracted him.

After dressing they went back out into the kitchen where Blaze finished his preparations. He added the pickles to the sandwiches and washed out the frying pan. It took only a few minutes for everything to be ready. They were both quite famished.

After lunch they enjoyed a walk on the grounds of the Rosen Resort. The hotel had many amenities including walking trails in the foothills of the Smokies. They stuck to the designated paths and didn’t venture too far. They only passed two other couples hiking during their hour-long walk which gave them plenty of privacy.

They didn’t discuss the specifics of the sting operation, but instead Blaze took the time to tell Bella about his childhood in New York. He wanted her to learn more about him and get to know his brothers before she met them. He also asked her questions about her childhood.

Their lives had been so different, but yet they shared a lot of the same passions. They both loved music and enjoyed listening to many of the same bands. And they both loved classic movies from the 40s and 50s. He was especially surprised to learn Bella knew a great deal about cars and had taken auto mechanics as her elective in high school. She took the class for economic reasons to help out her mom who had raised her alone after her father had passed away when she was very young.

Her father had been a firefighter in Tennessee who died in an accident when she was only two. And he told her all about his parents. His mom had been a teacher and his dad a police officer in Manhattan. He told her about growing up in Rosedale and his fond memories of the close knit community. His two oldest brothers had gone straight to the police academy after high school, but he and Nikko had both gone on to college to pursue other dreams, but still in the law enforcement realm.

He also told Bella about the circumstances surrounding his parent’s deaths. They had been murdered by a serial killer known as the Rosedale Romeo. The man had been from Long Island but had eventually ventured into the city for his targets. His first two murders had taken the lives of Rosedale residents. He killed two young girls, teenagers. He’d tortured, raped, and mutilated them. Six girls died at his hands before they had any real leads. Three of the victims had been from Rosedale, one from Ozone Park, one from Jamaica Queens, and another victim from Baldwin.

His eldest brother Andreas had just made detective. He was working the case with a senior officer. They had gotten the first clues to track down the murderer. When they finally got a name, it was Andreas who’d gone to the man’s house. He lived in Spring Field Gardens which was central to all of the other locations. The man hadn’t been home, but his wife was. Andreas questioned her and the woman was in shock. They searched the man’s house and found inside his basement a sealed room where he had kept souvenirs of his crimes. He had two young sons at home and the wife; terrified and appalled by her husband’s actions, she asked to be put into police custody. She had no other family in the area, and feared her sons would become targets by other kids once the news broke that their father was a monster.

Andreas helped her to arrange everything. She was given a new identity and a place to start over in return for testifying against her husband. The man, his name was Salvatore Erickson, blamed Andreas for destroying his life and taking away his family. He vowed revenge. He sent Andreas letters occasionally warning him he was not done with him yet. Then the man went silent. It had been over a year since the last letter arrived and the case had gone cold. When the Rosedale Romeo struck again, he got his revenge.

Nikko had come home one night late after going to a party and discovered his parents both murdered. Scrawled in blood on the living room wall were the words
beautiful no more
. It had been the Rosedale Romeos M.O. after every crime. The blood was their mother’s.

It had torn Nikko up seeing his parents’ bodies. It was one of the reasons he’d gone into forensics for his undergraduate degree. It was the science that had given Andreas the clues to find him in the first place. Blaze had been in college at the time already intending to study law. Andreas, too, had taken it very hard although he tried not to show it. All the brothers knew he blamed himself.

Blaze told Bella about Andreas’ fiancée. She’d left him after the murder of their parents. She’d been too terrified to stay with him fearing the Rosedale Romeo might come after her. Tiffany, that had been her name, went to Vegas to pursue her dancing career where jobs were plenty. He explained that was why Andreas was such a hard man. He’d never gotten over not being able to catch the killer. That was eight years ago.

Andreas worked that case for five years with no luck. All his spare time was focused on finding this serial killer.

When Nikko announced after four years of university he was going into the police force, Andreas made a decision; he was going to leave New York. And Gio was ready to go too. He had been through the ringer himself with the love of his life, the girl next-door who he dated all throughout high school and his first year on the police force. She married another man with no warning.

But Gio was back in New York now because Lisa, his ex-girlfriend, was apparently in some kind of trouble.

He told her it seemed only Nikko had his life together even though that wasn’t always the case. Nikko had been a reckless partier for a long time until he met the right woman. He told Bella about Ronnie, Veronica. She’d like her. She was tough as nails, loved the outdoors, and had just gotten a job working at a preservation for wildlife animals in Hillsboro County. She was in charge of keeping up their habitats. She’d studied to be a forest ranger. He told Bella she was nothing like her, but she was very down-to-earth and honest to the core; they had those values in common.

“Wait! Do you mean Ronnie Sears?” Bella asked stopping suddenly mid-stride.

“Yes. Do you know her?”

“No. Not personally, but I used to work with her mother. I never met Ronnie, but her mom talked about her all the time.”

“Holy shit. Small world.”

“I know. Right?” Bella laughed. “But Springhill isn’t that big. That’s actually where I met Anthony,” Bella admitted, wishing she’d never set eyes on the man because of the danger she was in now.

“Really?” Blaze asked not really wanting to know about her relationship with Anthony, but thinking it might help her situation if she told him more. Any tidbit of information she might recall could possibly shed new light on the case.

“Yeah, but I wish I hadn’t. I was younger then. I’d seen him at some parties but never really talked to him. He was working in the pharmaceuticals department a few floors below me. At first I thought he was okay.” Bella felt uncomfortable talking about Anthony with Blaze. But she didn’t want to hide anything from him.

“I don’t see Anthony Roman working at that kind of job,” Blaze commented wryly.

“He’d taken some sort of six-month course. He really wanted to work for his dad, but his dad didn’t want him in the business. I think that’s why he robbed that bank. He was trying to prove to his dad that he was a big fish too.”

“I guess that makes some kind of sense,” Blaze stated through gritted teeth.

“But he didn’t work there very long. He hated getting up so early. He mostly did deliveries, handled the bio-hazardous waste from the hospitals and doctor’s offices and brought them to be properly disposed.”

“Can I ask you a question, and I’m not judging, but why did you date someone like that?”

Bella sighed. She’d asked herself all the time after the break up and especially after the robbery. Hindsight was always better than foresight. After a moment she replied. “At first I thought he was just a regular guy. He was good-looking.” She saw Blaze frown and looked away but continued to explain what she had seen and Anthony. “He had a lot of friends and for someone like me, new to the area who didn’t have a very large circle, it was fun to be included in a big group. He always had invites to parties, got us into the best clubs and nightspots. It was fun. I was twenty-one, almost twenty-two when we met, and up until then it had been about work and my mom. I moved to Florida right after high school, so I didn’t have a great deal of friends living nearby, and I hadn’t experienced that kind of life before. I had no idea who his father was for the first six months. He never took me to meet any of them, only his younger brother because he came to a lot of the same parties we went to.” They were stopped now at a lookout point and watched the Little Tennessee flow by.

Bella kicked a stone and went on. “He’d hang out at my house on occasion, but he got bored easily. I was realizing I couldn’t keep partying all the time. Then my mom’s cancer came back. I started spending less time with him, because she needed me and I wanted to be there for her. He’d pout and complain and started acting like . . . I don’t know . . . a spoiled thug. I didn’t get it.” Bella explained. “At a party one night, I found out who his dad was. I’d heard the name before, but it kind of shocked me. I asked him about it. He clammed up at first. Then, after a few drinks, he loosened up. Told me his dad wanted him and his brother to have a straight life, but he wanted to follow in the old man’s footsteps. I was honest and told him I couldn’t live his lifestyle. He just laughed and told me not to worry about it. Over the next few months I began to notice things, him taking phone calls and speaking in low tones or leaving the room so I couldn’t hear, disappearing for an hour after getting a text. I just really felt uncomfortable and suspicious. So I broke up with him. Told him I needed to give all my time to my mom which was true. He took it pretty well and after a while said we could still be friends. I’d made a few friends with some of the girls and still got invites now and then. I’d run in to him, and he’d be okay, ask about my mother, but he was dating again, had moved on. A different girl each time. He was changing and I was glad I wasn’t a part of it.”

“Did that bother you?” Blaze had to ask.

“Not really. In the beginning of our relationship, I thought I might be falling for him, but,” Bella blushed and looked down, “I didn’t know what love was then. It was my first real relationship, and I knew he wasn’t the one.”

“Do you know now Bella, what love is?” he asked.

“I think so,” she smiled at him.

“You’re not sure?” Blaze’s voice peaked humorously.

Bella reached out her hand to brush it across his cheek. “I know I don’t want to lose you. I know I don’t think about my problems when I’m with you, I know I’m falling in love. I’m just afraid of making a wrong choice again, and when you fall, you often get hurt.”

“I won’t hurt you, Bella. I promise. I’ll catch you if you fall. I’ll lift you up, always.” He put his hand over hers, the hand that still rested on his cheek. “No one is going to hurt you again. I wish I had known you then, and been by your side when you needed someone, when your mother was so ill. I would’ve been there. Family is everything to me.”

Bella wrapped her arms around Blaze, and pressed her cheek against his chest. This man was everything she’d dreamed of, everything her mother had ever hoped for her. “Blaze, can this be real?”

“I’m real. This, between us, is real.” He held her and pressed a kiss onto the top of her head.

“One minute it’s a nightmare, the next a dream.” He heard her sigh, and he understood that to commit to each other now was too soon, and she had way too much going on to think about the future. He wouldn’t pressure her. He felt confidant she would let him know when she was ready. He was just glad he could be here for her now.

“This nightmare will be over soon,” he promised.

“We have one more day, just us. Let’s enjoy it. Let’s not think about what the future may hold.”

“Okay, baby. Okay,” he agreed. He too was scared for her. But no matter what happened after his brothers arrived, he knew one thing; Bella was going to be in his life for a very long time if he had anything to say about it.

His

B
laze needed to
check in with his brother, and so they returned to the cabin. He let Bella listen in on the conversation. He wanted her to be confidant that his brothers and he would be able to clear her. She sat on the sofa, tucked into the crook of his arm looking out at the amazing view of the mountains.

His brother had texted him earlier saying Nikko and he had been re-working the plan and to give him a call.

“We are going to have Nikko’s cop friend head over to Lemon Trees. That’s one of Roman’s nightclubs, and drop some hints as to your location tomorrow. He is a cop, and helping to bring down the hammer and get the evidence to put these thugs away will help him on the force. He’s in. He will do this when we tell him we’re ready. Can you fax us the layout of the cabin you rented?”

“Why do you need the layout of this cabin?” Blaze asked wondering what his brother’s plans entailed.

“We got to set the trap somewhere. These hit men are probably scouting Cherokee still, we hope. We have a guy monitoring the lawyer’s calls, and big daddy. We know Roman has been talking to someone in North Carolina, twice yesterday, and once so far today. We can’t get what they are saying, but at least with our connections at the cell phone company we have a location.”

Blaze fidgeted in his seat. “We can’t use Bella as bait. It’s just too risky.”

“Yes, I agree. Nikko and I are working on that. These guys are professionals, well, as close to that as they can get. It’s not New York or Chicago mob, but mob none-the-less, and they are all connected. We’re going to need a decoy, and yes, we don’t want to put Bella at risk either.”