Obediently, I passed my fingers from forehead to chest, then shoulder to shoulder. Spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch, or so they said. Hey, it wasn’t like I never took His name in vain, but it couldn’t hurt when Derek continued cursing at the newest evidence from the craziest case either of us had ever worked on. I could practically feel my grandmother, Nonna, shaking her fist next to me. Better safe than sorry.
Eric de Vries, Chairman of De Vries Shipping, spread a selection of photos across his entire desk. “My bodyguard took these when we found them,” he said quietly.
In spite of his designer suit and the glinting edges of his top-floor office, Eric had the pale, numbed look of a man still recovering from a war zone. It was something I was familiar with, having served in a few myself before becoming a prosecutor with the Brooklyn DA’s office.
It wasn’t Iraq, but the man had been through it over the past six months. Heir to one of the wealthiest dynasties in New York, he had returned from years away to marry Jane Lee Lefferts and claim his birthright. The only problem was that Jane turned out to be the illegitimate daughter of the de Vries family’s sworn enemy—a fact she hadn’t even known until she was about to walk down the aisle.
Jonathan Carson was a verifiable madman. Demonic as the devil. Slippery as an eel. And as the leading munitions manufacturer in the country, he had half the armed forces in his back pocket, which meant most of the federal agencies too.
Maybe they should have walked away. But that was never an option. And if you saw them together, you’d know it too.
Unfortunately, they were still suffering the consequences of that decision. Despite the fact that the de Vrieses have more money than God and enough evidence for the FBI to lock Carson up and throw away the key ten times over, all they had was…me. Apparently I was the last government employee not on the take from John Carson. And Eric and Jane’s last hope in vanquishing this psychopath.
If it had been anyone else, I would have walked the fuck away. But Jane and I had been casual friends for years. And truth be told, I had a soft spot for true romance. So despite the fact that Eric could be an imperious dick, even he deserved a shot at real happiness. So few of us get it in the end.
Oh, Matthew. You will.
That voice. That breathy, smooth, silky voice, husky with pleasure, full of promise. For a moment, she was here with me again. Urging me not to settle for less than she believed I deserved.
Why, I thought to a woman who wasn’t there. You coming back to me, doll?
She wasn’t real, of course. So there was no answer.
“Walk me through it one more time,” Derek said to Eric, gesturing at the pictures. “You’re locked up, so Jane goes to Korea to get her mom?” He shook his head. “What the hell was going on again?”
“Carson had me framed for securities fraud,” Eric said dryly. “Without bail, thanks to a bribable justice. Once my lawyers were able to change the judge, the suit was dropped. But it took almost two weeks.”
“And so he used that time to, what, kidnap your wife?”
“Her mother, actually.”
Eric pointed to one of the pictures, where a frail, glassy-eyed Asian woman I took to be Jane’s mother was curled on a stained cot. Sedated, obviously. I didn’t know Yu-na Lee Lefferts, but if she was anything like her daughter, she wouldn’t have gone without a fight.
“She was bait. For Jane. And then for me, I guess.”
“So she goes to Suwon, gets taken hostage, and then he waits for you so he can, what? Hit you up for some shipping deals?” Derek asked. “Seems like a bit much.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that.” Eric gestured to the pile of notes he and Jane had brought back from Korea a few days earlier, which he’d mentioned on the phone.
“Carson was building a plant on the border between North and South Korea,” I told Derek. “In conjunction with the Russians, potentially. We’re pretty sure he was getting ready to produce and sell nuclear weapons to the North Koreans.”
Derek looked up from the pad of notes he was leafing through. “What?”
Eric nodded. “You heard right.”
“But that’s…that’s…” my friend sputtered.
“Treason?” I filled in for him. Yeah, I’d been there. When Eric told me about these new revelations a few days ago, I’d just about lost it myself. I still wasn’t convinced there wasn’t someone with the feds who couldn’t help here. International arms deals were a bit above my pay grade.
But those calls had been met with silence. Copies of Eric’s notes had been received and filed away.
Meanwhile, John Carson was still at large.
“Carson’s only problem was that he couldn’t transport them across the border,” Eric continued. “The South Koreans couldn’t be bought, and DVS has nearly exclusive contracts on all private ports there. His plan was simple. Steal my wife and mother-in-law to make me ship his weapons north.”
I peered at him. “Would you have done it? If…” I gestured at the photos.
“I would have given him whatever the fuck he wanted to get my wife back,” Eric said softly. “Unfortunately for him, I found her first. Like that.”
All of us turned back to the photographs near the edge. These were the worst. Jane lying in a pool of her own blood. Face whitened, eyes starry and glazed. Black hair matted to her face from dried sweat and who knew what else. Alone. Scared. On the precipice of death.
The idea that his own flesh and blood mixing with de Vries DNA had proved to be too much for the sycophant. When he had discovered that his daughter was pregnant with Eric’s child, Carson had abandoned his plan of catch and release in favor of something much more gruesome.
“What kind of man takes a woman’s baby right out of her body?” Derek wondered.
“The kind who isn’t really a man at all,” Eric replied. “The kind who’s a fucking monster.”
His voice was stone.
Eric had this look about him, like he would do just about anything to end this madness. I’d seen it before. Men clutching a maimed arm or leg. Screaming “make it stop!” until a medic was able to run a sedative. Ready to cut themselves open or anyone else just to make something happen.
“Eric,” I said slowly. “This is…look, I hate to say it. But I think you need to keep trying with the CIA. Maybe not the director right now, but there are still good people over there. I still have a friend from the Marines I can check in with. And you know we don’t have jurisdiction with any of this.”
Eric’s gray—and right now, irritatingly familiar—eyes sharpened like steel. God, Nina’s eyes…they did the same thing. Shone like silver in some lights. Glowed like ice in others.
I blinked. I needed to focus. Forget the girl. Get the fuck back to work.
“So you’ve said,” Eric snapped. “About ten times. I’m traumatized, Zola, not an idiot.”
I held up my hands in mock surrender. Okay, I should give the guy a break. Eric de Vries was a kingpin in a city with plenty of illegitimate ones. But I couldn’t help it. I generally liked the guy, but there was something about him that made me want to knock him off his high horse. We’d known each other for going on five years now, friends of friends of friends. And even though I was helping his family out with this case, I couldn’t help goading him here and there. Even at a time like this.