They both wanted a family, they wanted one like their parents had and they were willing to put the effort into it. Sonny was worried about his job getting in the way, so they had talked about it in great depth. When the sun began to rise this morning, they had come to the conclusion it didn’t really matter if the timing sucked, they had found the woman they wanted to get to know and, determined that she was the one they had been looking for, so timing be damned, they would deal with it as it came.
“I don’t know, she is a female, they are weird,” Tank said.
“Man, we are gonna have to get a handbook for dummies about this relationship shit. I mean, neither of us has had a relationship, like at all. Pretty much bumpin’ uglies and then we are out. Plus, dude, pretty sure we shouldn’t say females are weird, at least not out loud.” Sonny laughed.
“Speak for yourself.” Tank snorted. “I at least make an attempt to be nice.”
“Yeah, well I haven’t met anyone who I would actually want to be nice to, so I guess this is a first for me,” Sonny said.
“First things first, we deal with the case and then worry about the rest,” Tank said, pulling out the fixings for French toast—his mother loved the stuff when she was emotional. Tank could remember their fathers making it for her when she got all weepy.
Sonny’s phone rang and Tank paused when his brother swore loudly then looked at him. “Little fucking bastard.”
“Who?” Tank asked.
“Weasel named Skinny. He is the one who told me about Kit to begin with,” Sonny said.
“Maybe he has something new,” Tank said and motioned him to answer the phone.
“Yo,” Sonny said into the receiver and then rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Skinny, I know I should have said hello because it is the polite way to answer the phone. I knew it was you because of caller ID. My day is fine, what the fuck do you want?”
There was silence as Sonny listened to the conversation and Tank was grinning at the thought of a CI telling Sonny how to answer the phone politely, he hadn’t done that since he was a teen.
“Who are we talking about?” Sonny said briskly and Tank paused at the irritated tone of his brother.
“Get me the info and watch them, let me know if they make any headway will ya,” Sonny said and then rolled his eyes again. “Please, Skinny,” Sonny said and then pushed the end button and shook his head. “Little fucker is all about manners.”
“What’s up?” Tank asked.
“Apparently Kit didn’t just catch our eye at the club. Jimmy B, a thug who works Colfax Ave, is smitten. He got the plates from the truck and is trying to get info about us.”
“Great, just something else to worry about,” Tank muttered.
“Nah, he is like a fly, if we swat him a time or two he will be stunned enough to kill,” Sonny said and they continued to make breakfast for Kit.
She came into the room much like she had the day before. Slyly looking around the corner to see where they were and then slowly entering along the wall until she reached the table.
“Hey, babe,” Sonny muttered. “Coffee or juice?”
“Coffee please, I would kill for my thirty-two ounce mug about right now,” Kit said then grinned. “I can mainline coffee in the morning, it is my drug of choice.”
“Good to know,” Tank laughed and turned back to the stove. He had a heaping plate of French toast when he was done and turned back to the table. Kit had already gotten her coffee ready, and was sipping it with her eyes closed when he set the plate on the table. Sonny shrugged then cleared his throat.
Kit’s eyes popped open and she blushed. “Sorry, first sip is always the best.”
The men snorted and sat down at the table, this time they sat closer to her, pushing their chairs so she was wedged in between both of them. She could feel the heat from their thighs as they pushed against her own. Damn, they are sexy.
She didn’t realize how hungry she was until she saw the stack of tempting treats. No use being shy now, she thought and reached over and plopped several pieces on her plate and proceed to slather them with butter and syrup, grinning like a little kid. The room was silent and she looked up and saw both men were watching her with amused expressions.
“What?” she said slowly.
“Nothing, babe,” Tank said with a grin and she blushed again.
“Okay, so sorry about the whole freak out yesterday.” Kit sighed and looked up at the men. “I am sure you have much better things to do than to deal with me, so let’s get down to it. You want to know what I saw, yeah?”
“First, we want to know how you are dealing with the stuff from yesterday,” Tank said slowly. “I am sure it had to be a shock. We want to make sure you are okay before any of this other stuff gets brought up.”
“It was and I am dealing with it,” Kit said briskly. “Things are a little out of control and I am not an out of control type of person, so everything is a mess. But I will deal.”
Tank and Sonny both frowned and then let the subject go, they would deal with it later. “Okay, babe, we are going to let that go but know that we will be talking about this later. You don’t hide shit like this from us,” Sonny said. “Let’s talk about why you’ve been hiding out. Then we can talk about the new thing that just came up.”
“Shit,” Kit groaned and leaned back. “New thing? Guys, I really can’t deal with much more, I mean seriously. And what is it with the whole, you don’t hide shit from me thing? We are strangers.”
“Don’t worry, we won’t be strangers for long.” Tank smiled. “We are gonna help you.”
Kit frowned and looked from one to the other, deliberately ignoring the spike in the sexual tension in the room. What the fuck was going on? she wondered, and then shook it off. She didn’t know what they meant by helping her; however, she had seen this in the past with other cases.
She really wished that were true, that they were going to help, but she knew that once she told them the information she had, they would be all hot and bothered about dealing with it. She would be left alone to pick up the sad pieces of her life all alone. Well damn, how’s that for depression, she was going to have to invest in Xanax if she kept this up.
“Okay, so about a month ago, I was working late at the courthouse. A lawyer who had been a pain in my ass for a few months was looking for me. Needless to say, I decided I was better off hiding from the asshole than actually confronting him. Last time wasn’t pretty, so I was in a closet and I heard the DA, Judge Kivet, and three other men talking about how they were going to handle a drug smuggling case. I was a little shocked with what they were saying because to be honest, it didn’t sound like they were talking about the case they had going against some drug suspect. So I cracked the door and saw three FBI agents I had seen around, don’t know their names, only know they are FBI. Anyway, they said if they could get the case against the drug guy dropped, they could use his pipeline, which apparently is extensive, to get rid of the guns they had left from the last deal they made that went sour. They proceed to go on about being able to stock up on product and lay low for a few months because people were all big in investigating the smuggling thing. They went on to mention to Brett, and whoever Brett is, the guy is going to have a price on his head because all the digging around he was doing was causing a shit storm for them,” Kit said then cut into her breakfast and began eating while the two men leaned back in their chairs.
“Oh,” Kit said after taking another sip of her coffee. “They also said the money from their operation was being moved to a safe place. They said they needed to cover their tracks this time or else the whole thing was going to fall apart.”
“You said there was a DA and Judge you knew, right?” Sonny said and Kit nodded.
“Yep, the others I kinda knew from around but I don’t know their names,” Kit said.
“And how did they find out about you?” Tank said and Kit sighed.
“Well, I stayed in the closet for as long as I could and when I came out they wer
e gone, I thought I was safe, so I went back to the office where I was working. I was going to call my bosses and see what they thought about everything I heard. Anyway, so I was walking in my high heels that I usually wear, which are extremely comfortable I might add. They don’t have soft soles unfortunately so you could hear me walking in the hallway, and a may have trip a little leaving the closet, I didn’t realize they had just walked around the corner when I snuck out of the closet I was in. So when they came back and saw me, I kinda freaked and ran.” Kit sighed. “I know I should have played it cool and just been calm and got the heck out of there, but they startled me and everything. I grabbed my purse and ran out to my car, but when I made it back to my house, I saw a black car parked in front waiting so I just left and went to a hotel. Been on the run ever since, went back to my house once to make sure everything was secured, I had to sneak in through my neighbor’s yard, which was really difficult to explain, but I did.”
“Do you know Jimmy B?” Sonny asked slowly.
“Jimmy B? Nope, but it sounds like a mob name,” Kit giggled. “Like Finger O’Callaghan or something.”
“Babe,” Sonny said and shook his head. “The word on the street.”
“Okay, wait a second. The word on the street? What street, we are in the mountains, and what does that mean anyway, ‘the street’ it sounds evil and scary, like someone is standing in a dark corner and talking about me,” Kit said nervously. She tended to babble too when she was uncomfortable, and people on some random street talking about her made her nervous.
“Babe,” Sonny said shaking his head.
Way to make an impression of a sane person, Kit thought, she had this all planned out in her head when she had been showering, trying to make the right impression after looking like a lunatic yesterday. During the night she had thought about the two episodes as she was referring to them now, one in the car, and one in the kitchen, both made her look crazy.
“Sorry, you were saying?” Kit said and shifted in her seat.
“Jimmy B is a mid-level criminal who thinks he is part of the mob, and has taken a liking to you apparently. He was at the club when you were dancing the other day and was intending on claiming you as his woman. Tommy apparently worked out some kind of deal with him, and now he is looking for you. Told anyone and everyone who would listen that Tank and I kidnapped his woman and he wants her back.”
“And the hits just keep on coming.” Kit grimaced and then frowned. “Tommy made an arrangement with him for me. Like I was a whore or something, that little fucking bastard knows I don’t do that stuff, he tried to get me to do lap dances and I refused, he tried to make me do parties and I refused. Little shit, I can’t believe him doing this.”
Tank smiled. “You were working as a stripper.”
“Out of necessity,” Kit snapped.
“Anyway,” Sonny said, frowning at Tank who was still smiling at the glaring Kit. “We need to shut him down and call our bosses and come up with a game plan here.”
“Great,” Kit said, pushing herself back from the table. “I will wash up the dishes, you guys make a game plan, and then you can take me home.”
“Not going home,” Tank said easily.
“What?” Kit frowned.
“We will talk about it later, but know that you are not safe in your home by yourself,” Tanks said and pushed himself away from the table and left the room. Sonny nodded and did the same, leaving her in the kitchen stunned that she had finally told someone what was going on and she still couldn’t go home. And her brain was focusing on the feeling when both of the guys left her alone, if was as if her safety net had been taken away.
Chapter Eight
Tank leaned back on the rail of the deck and spoke to his boss in the phone. “We need her protected, and in less than twelve hours both Sonny and I are supposed to be reporting for our assignments. There is no way this is going to work now; we blew our cover when we walked into the club looking for her. Harper, everyone and their brother is looking for us right now.”
He heard her sigh and then she said, “Right, I will call the LT and we will get others in place. Zero and Sting are already in Denver; one of them can take your place and be backup. We will run the investigation like we planned, even with her ID, there is no way we can make a solid case unless we see how far this reaches. And I have a feeling if we have DAs and Judges involved, this is going to be far reaching. So, for now, you stay with Kit in the cabin and we will figure out what to do from there. But you need to talk to your brother, because this has basically put him on the fast track for retirement. I am sorry.”
Tank looked at his brother who was standing next to him talking on his phone to his LT. His brother already knew it, if the look on his face was anything to go by. Damn it, he hated sitting on the sidelines and not doing a damn thing to figure this out. It sucked.
“Yeah, well we will deal. Let me know what you find out, and what we need to do from here,” Tank said and Harper hung up.
He looked back into the kitchen and watched Kit moving around cleaning up the dishes. She had been quiet when they got up to make their calls; he really wanted to know what was going in in that cute head of hers. They had touched her a little, going slow, but now that he was going to have more time on his hands apparently, he was going to touch her a hell of a lot more to get her on the same page as him and Sonny.
Not everyone accepted ménage relationships, and most women thought they would be interesting to try but long term, no. They were going to have to feel Kit out about the matter. Ménages only worked if people were willing to work together, there was no jealousy or tension, his parents showed him that. But yesterday, when he mentioned Harper and her husbands, Kit had never even flinched or looked confused, she had just nodded. What could that mean?
Sonny hung up his phone with a curse then turned around to stare at Kit the same way he was. “So, cover was blown as Taskforce, pretty much useless now, the LT said I could be on a desk until I decided where I wanted to transfer to, homicide has an opening, but I told him I was done. Asked him to draw up the paperwork, will be ready to sign in the next week or so and then I am free. Looks like I am in need of a job, big brother.”
“That’s no problem, Harper already wants you on, so it’s a matter of just talking to her. She is going to assign you to Kit as well, both of us are in the crosshairs on this one right now, Jimmy B wasn’t exactly tactful that he was looking for us because we kidnapped his girl. Dipshit doesn’t know what the fuck or who the fuck, he is dealing with. Sting is gonna pay him a little visit to get him to back off, but I am not going to hold my breath,” Tank said.
“Well, a mini vacation? Sounds like a plan,” Sonny said, rubbing his hands together.
“Yeah, not going to happen. Harper wants a safe headquarters here in Colorado while we are working on the mission. We can’t drive back and forth to Healing all the time. I offered the cabin,” Tank said slowly.
Sonny looked at him with a surprised expression. “How we gonna do that, man, we have three bedrooms with two filled. If people come up we won’t have a place to put them.”
Tank nodded then pointed to several cabins that bordered their property, they knew the owners, and no one was here right now. “We call and ask to rent or buy the cabins bordering us.”
They had money, their parents had been well off when they passed away and truthfully, none of them actually needed a job. But that wasn’t their way, so they invested, and it had paid off over the years. If they had to buy the cabins bordering their land, they would, because something bigger than what they thought was going down, and Kit was sitting right in the middle of it. It was their job to protect her.
∞ ∞ ∞
The day was spent making plans. They shared with Kit the latest update and plan that they would remain at the cabin until things were safe. She didn’t like it but she agreed, especially when she found out that fifty thousand dollars was the price put on her head by someone. Also, Jimmy was trying to find
her as well.
She made a list of food and supplies they would need for all of them then Sonny went to town to shop. Tank made the calls to the neighbors and after a few hours one the phone, the trust now owned two other cabins in Nederland, Colorado.
They were putting away the groceries and supplies when she finally snapped. They had been kind and sympathetic all day, which would have been awesome considering the shit she was going through, but they had also been touching her. A slight brush of the shoulder, or a kiss on the forehead when she was cleaning and dusting the place. It had been empty for a while and even though they had been there a day, the only place without a layer of dust was the kitchen, and that was because they had cleaned it when they arrived.
Now she was trying to stay busy so she didn’t think about the feelings the men were raising in her, it was confusing. She didn’t understand it, because they were both touching her, yet neither of them seemed to mind when the other was doing it. So either she had her wires crossed, which was a complete possibility since she sucked at gauging men, and they thought of her as a sister, or they were fucking with her. Either way, it made her confused.
“Babe, you know how to cook?” Sonny asked and startled her out of her thoughts.
“What?” she said.
“Cook? Do you cook?” Sonny laughed. “Just curious, it doesn’t matter much.”
“Oh yeah,” Kit said. “Sorry, I was thinking, of course I can cook, would you like me to make dinner?”
“Nope, I got it tonight, maybe tomorrow. So you grew up in Denver?” Sonny said and Tank paused what he was doing, turned, and leaned against the counter. Kit picked up the cans she had been putting away and nodded.