Tough Justice: Trapped (Part 4 of 8)
highlight_author
Gail Barrett
highlight_reads
17,9K
highlight_chapters
9
Harlequin
HarlequinChapter One
It was one of life’s ironies that the most stunning man she’d ever met had the vilest heart.
Lara Grant sat behind the glass partition at the federal maximum security prison in Selden, Long Island, everything inside her tensing as Moretti sauntered into the room. The man was insanely good looking with his hard, chiseled face, the desperado beard stubble shadowing his jaw, that wickedly carnal mouth. He was tall and lean, all masculine angles and energy, his broad shoulders padded with extra muscle now that he’d spent months pumping iron behind bars. And even handcuffed, even dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit with armed guards on either side, he exuded an aura of power.
He was every woman’s fantasy. And nightmare. His raw beauty masked an evil heart. Devoid of any conscience, he threatened every principle Lara stood for—and was murdering everyone around her in his quest for revenge.
Are you rattled yet? His ominous message still reverberated through her memory as she waited for him to take his seat behind the protective glass. Hell, yes, she was rattled, because the threat behind that tiny silver charm he’d sent was clear. The baby’s family was now in this killer’s crosshairs.
And she didn’t have a clue how to keep them safe.
His gaze met hers through the glass. A frisson of fear slithered through her, and it took all her effort to conceal her response. His eyes were shrewd, mocking. Amused. As if he’d orchestrated this meeting merely to torment her.
Knowing him, he probably had.
And she despised playing into his hands. The last thing she wanted was to cower before this monster or dance to his twisted tune. But Victoria was right. Her daughter’s kidnapping—and the message the kidnapper had sent through Anna—had substantially upped the stakes. It was a taunt, a warning that he could target anyone, including that baby’s family. She couldn’t predict how, where or when he would next attack.
Moretti settled in his plastic chair. The guard retreated to a spot beside the door. Even then, Moretti continued to watch her, making no effort to pick up the phone—as if he was controlling this meeting, even as a prisoner.
Proving that he was the one in charge.
Her temper flared. Moretti was powerful, without a doubt. On the outside, he’d amassed a fortune. He’d commanded a criminal network so extensive it had taken the FBI years to unravel it all. But no man was invincible, even Moretti, as she’d proven. And she intended to stop him. Now.
His movements unhurried, he picked up the phone. “Lara.” His deep voice rumbled through the wires. “It’s a pleasure, as always.” The slight emphasis on pleasure had her hardening her jaw.
But if she’d learned anything in the years she’d spent taking down this criminal, it was that showing any reaction would be a mistake. He thrived on manipulation. Revealing her emotions would signal a weakness, encouraging him to continue his retaliation.
And more innocent people would pay the price.
Inhaling, she got straight to the point. “I’ve come for answers.” Just as he’d expected.
“Have you?” The amusement in his eyes increased.
“Who kidnapped Anna?”
“What makes you think I know?”
“You know.” He had to. Nothing else made sense. He was toying with her, punishing her for her deception. Kidnapping her boss’s daughter was only his latest ploy. “So who did it, Moretti? Was that your work? I expect some answers this time.”
“Answers.” He leaned back in his chair, as if savoring the word. “And what do I get in return?”
Nothing. That was the hell of it. She had nothing to offer. And he knew it. His grin turned insolent.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said, relenting. “I’m in the mood for a story. A bedtime story, if you will. It’s been a long time since I’ve had one of those. And maybe if you amuse me enough...” He arched a brow, his suggestive tone making her stomach roil.
“A story about what?” she asked, determined to ignore the innuendo.
“You already told me about how the FBI found out about the Moretti syndicate. Now I want to know about the arms broker, Andrew Moore.”
Her heart skidded hard. “Forget it. I’ve got nothing to say about him.”
“Too bad. That’s my price for the information you want.”
Her belly churned. Protests swarmed inside her, every cell rebelling at his demand. She wanted to get up and walk away. She wanted to condemn this bastard to the depths of hell. She wanted to forget he’d ever existed and end his repulsive game.
But she couldn’t afford to tick him off. Not now. Not yet. Not until she had the answers she desperately needed to keep the people around her safe. There were too many lives at risk.
He shrugged. “Fine. Have it your way.” He reached out to disconnect the phone.
“All right,” she said. Too fast. His grin widened, the triumph in his eyes making her loathe him even more. “So, what do you want to know?” she asked.
“Everything. How you met. Exactly what happened between you.” He leaned toward the glass, his dark eyes suddenly intense. “And especially how he made you feel.”
Her face turned hot. She curled her hands into fists, trembling with the need to lash back, to smash through that wall of protective glass and knock the smirk from his handsome face. This was an obvious attempt to humiliate her and subject her to his control.
But she could do this. If she wanted to save that family, she had no choice.
God knew, she’d done far worse.
With effort, she dragged in a breath, struggling to separate herself emotionally from the sordid past. Shifting her gaze, she focused on the dark stains streaking the concrete wall, trying to block out the hurt and shame. “You already know what my mission was, to infiltrate your crime syndicate.” To catch him, Moretti, the kingpin no one had ever seen.
“To do that, I went undercover running guns, as you know.” She pushed that thought aside, not wanting to dwell on the time she’d spent as Eve Johannsen, committing crimes with the dregs of humanity in an attempt to gain their trust.
“I learned that Andrew Moore was in charge, so I engineered a meet. I facilitated the sale of some high-powered rifles he was after. Turns out, he liked what I’d brought.”
Moretti’s lips quirked up. “And you liked him.”
Liked him? The man had blown her away. He was intelligent and strong. Gorgeous in a blatantly virile way. But more importantly, he’d struck a chord. He’d seemed to share her same inner drive for justice, the same determination to fight for what he believed in—or so she’d thought.
Even so, she’d tried to resist him. She’d done some murky things over the years in her efforts to solve a case, but falling for a criminal was something else. It was wrong. Taboo. It violated every moral scruple she possessed.
And yet, Andrew Moore had tunneled through all her defenses. She’d gradually come to trust him—as nauseating as that now seemed.
“I liked his story,” she corrected.
“His story. Right.” Moretti shot her a knowing look. “And what was that?”
“You already know it. There’s no point—”
“The story, Lara. That was the deal.” The barked command stopped her cold.
Stifling a spurt of resentment, she managed to nod. Her dignity didn’t matter. She had too much riding on this meeting to end it now, no matter how much her confession galled.
“His childhood was a lot like mine,” she said. “We both grew up in New York. Both our fathers were blue collar. Mine was a cop, and his worked for the city. And both our mothers died when we were young.” His to an accident, hers murdered. But the loss had shaped them both.
“He lost his brother in a house fire.” She had a half sister she’d rarely seen. “He went into the army after high school. I went to college and joined the FBI.” Both had been searching for a purpose to give meaning to their fractured lives.
“You didn’t find the similarities coincidental?” Moretti asked.
“Maybe at first. But his story checked out. The Bureau verified all the facts. He’d even been wounded in Afghanistan like he’d said.”
“A war hero. How patriotic.”
Lara ignored the snide remark. “The war disillusioned him.” Or so he’d claimed. “After he got out, he floundered for a while, drifting from job to job, mostly working as a mercenary. But he said he’d had a buddy in the war, a friend who’d died, and he’d made him a promise to look out for his younger sister when he got back. But by the time he looked her up, it was too late. She’d gotten involved in drugs and sold to your syndicate.” And trafficked as a sex slave, experiencing the most heinous acts of depravity.
She paused to catch her breath, her revulsion for the man opposite the partition making her want to retch. How could anyone inflict anything that despicable on another human being?
“He said he felt responsible,” she continued, struggling to keep the emotion from her voice. “He thought if he’d looked for her sooner, maybe he could have seen the direction she was heading and kept her safe. So he vowed to track her down. He started running guns for the syndicate, then worked his way up the ranks to broker. He figured the higher up he went, the better chance he’d have to find her. He’d already made arms broker when we met.”
“Touching story.”
The story had touched her, damn him. She’d sympathized with Andrew Moore, a tortured ex-soldier struggling to honor his promise to his fallen comrade, no matter how long it took. She’d respected his desire for justice, his need to bring closure to his painful past. She’d believed him. She’d slowly begun to confide in him. And in the end, she’d fallen for him. Hard.
But what mortified her the most was how close she’d come to blowing her cover and revealing the truth about her job. She’d nearly confessed it to him so many times—that she was an FBI agent, that she was trying to bring down Moretti just like he was, and that she was on his side. Only the need to protect her fellow operatives had held her back.
Thank God for that.
“Who initiated the first...intimacy?” Moretti asked.
Her cheeks burned. She closed her eyes, fighting the collage of erotic images the thought evoked—even knowing what a fool she’d been. “We were in Englewood selling some guns. The deal went south. The buyer tried to cheat us, and we ended up in a shoot-out with his gang. We barely escaped. We made it to an abandoned warehouse and were waiting until it was safe to leave...and that’s when he kissed me.” A predictable enough reaction in the circumstances: life-threatening danger, adrenaline rocketing through their systems, the very human need to confirm that they’d survived.
But the brutal truth was that Andrew Moore had compelled her from the start with his dark, hypnotic eyes, that sensual mouth in his gorgeous face. That raw strength and masculinity that hid a tender heart.
And when he’d kissed her... She shivered at the memory. It had been fiery, molten, explosive. Like nothing she’d ever felt.
“Good memories?” Moretti taunted.
Lara snapped open her eyes. She met Moretti’s smirk, and a tsunami of shame flooded through her—exactly as she knew he’d planned. She hated how he sat there gloating, hated the control he had over her.
And she especially hated knowing how badly she’d erred. She’d done more than ignore the rules. She’d crossed a line so completely that her judgment had been impaired. She’d disobeyed every FBI mandate, broken her own ironclad moral code. And she’d gone from doing what was necessary to crack the case to falling in love with Andrew Moore.
“No,” she said evenly, meeting his gaze dead-on. “What I have are regrets. Andrew Moore was a huge mistake.” The worst one she’d ever made. And she’d paid for it—physically, mentally, emotionally—which was exactly what she deserved. But now others were paying, too.
And it was up to her to make it stop.
“A mistake,” Moretti mused. “Interesting choice of words.”
Her belly tensed. Wary now, she studied his face, wondering what diabolical plot he was hatching behind that inscrutable facade. But that was exactly what he wanted—to make her worry and wait. And she’d be damned if she’d let him gain the upper hand.
“I’ve told you what you want to know,” she said. “Now it’s your turn. Who kidnapped Victoria’s daughter?”
He didn’t answer, and she leaned forward, her face inches from the glass. “Come on, Moretti. You owe me answers. Who kidnapped Anna? Who ordered those hits on Dunst and Nadia Green? What about Olivia Conner and the others? Who hired the sniper and murdered them?”
And the baby? she wanted to scream. Did you send those photos? The rattle? Do you know who and where she is?
But she clamped her lips together, knowing better than to tip her hand. She couldn’t reveal the baby’s existence on the off chance that he didn’t know.
One dark brow arched. “That’s a lot of questions.”
“And I’m waiting for a lot of answers. Did you order those hits or not?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it was the Black Stamp Serial Killer? I read about him in the newspaper.”
Anger erupted inside her, a furious blaze of resentment that took every ounce of strength she had to control. Damn him. He’d played her. He’d never had any intention of answering her questions. This interview had been a sham!
Moretti’s grin widened, laughter dancing in his dark eyes. “I like the way this is working out, though, that you’re the one being destroyed now—after all you’ve done to ruin me.”
“Ruin you?” She scoffed at that. “Because we took apart your syndicate?” If she knew Moretti, he probably still had millions of dollars squirreled away.
His eyes flashed. He shifted forward, his sudden show of temper causing her to flinch. “You took away my freedom. And you’ll pay for that, Lara, I promise—assuming you’re still around to see the grand finale.”
Grand finale? She swallowed hard, his veiled threat shaking her more than she cared to let on. But she couldn’t let him intimidate her. Her team was depending on her for answers. She couldn’t leave without some clues.
“You helped me the other day,” she reminded him. “You warned me about Victoria’s daughter, that she’d be targeted next.”
“Did I?” Suddenly sounding bored, he motioned to the guards, signaling that he wanted to leave. “If so, it didn’t do you any good. The FBI still screwed up. Pretty nice deal for the kidnappers, though. They collected a million bucks.”
A guard stepped forward and unlocked his handcuffs. Moretti began to rise, and her desperation surged. “Come on, Moretti. We had a deal. I told you my story. Now you need to do your part.”
He came to a halt, his gaze arcing back to hers. And once again, his beauty struck her, his sheer masculinity making her heart race, despite the abject depravity that lurked behind those potent eyes. “You’re right. I do owe you something. And you’ll get it. You can bet on that.”
He paused, letting those ominous words sink in. “In the meantime, how’s this for a clue? There’s no place like home.” He laughed, the low sound strafing her nerves even after he hung up the phone. Seconds later, he exited the room.
Lara stayed in her seat, her pulse suddenly chaotic, her thoughts in disarray. Home. What did he mean by that? Was he talking about the Bureau? The baby? The little girl’s family? Was he going to target them next?
She slowly got to her feet, knowing she’d been a fool. Moretti had told her nothing. This visit had been a waste of time. While she’d humiliated herself telling him stories, the killer was out there, drawing closer to his next victim.
And she had no idea when he would strike.
