Covet (Fallen Angels 1)

And...the bruising that had been on her face was now gone. All of it. She was photo-op ready, as lovely and perfect as she'd been over dinner Friday night.

Ice-cold warning splashed through Jim's veins, the kind that had come only a couple of times in his life.

This was wrong. Way wrong.

Straightening in the truck's seat, he braced himself as he looked at the pavement down at her feet. In the light that was pouring out of the sky and creating echoes of objects large and small on the ground, she did not throw a shadow. She was form, but not substance, shape but not flesh. This was the enemy. He was looking at the enemy. He'd f**ked the enemy.

As if she heard his thoughts, Devina looked right where he was parked. And then her brows tightened and her face slowly panned from side to side - which he took to mean she couldn't see exactly where he was, but she knew someone was staring at her...

Her expression was stone cold. Nothing like the warmth she'd radiated in front of Vin or what she'd thrown around at Jim in the truck or in the car or in that hospital bed.

Stone. Cold.

Serial-killer cold.

Talk about a truth: She was a seducer and a liar and a manipulator...and she was after Vin. And not as in marriage, but as in owning the man's very soul.

In the center of his chest, Jim also had the sure feeling that she knew who he was and what he was. Had known from that first night when they'd had sex - because she'd seduced his ass on purpose. Hell, the logic was unassailable. His new bosses, the Four Lads, had put him on the field, and it looked like the other side had likewise sent an operative into the situation - who knew more than Jim did.

As that old refrain of "Devil with a Blue Dress" rolled through his head, he started to wonder about guys on Harleys who didn't cast shadows either. And probably were liars, too.

Goddamn it.

Devina scanned the parking lot again, snapped at some poor guy who backed into her by mistake, and then lifted her hand to call up one of the cabs from the line to the right. When a taxi came forward, she stepped inside and off they went.

Time to roll, Jim thought as he started his truck and backed out of his space. As she knew his ride but only in the dark, he had a veil, not a cover, so he had to settle in two cars behind her and pray that her cabbie wasn't in the habit of blowing through orange lights.

While he trailed her, he tuned up his cell phone for a call, and as he pressed send, nothing else mattered other than getting what he needed. Nothing he had to do was too much. No sacrifice was too great or too demeaning. He was back in the land of single-minded focus, as determined and unswerving as a bullet in midair.

"Zacharias," he said as the line was picked up.

Matthias the f**ker laughed low. "I swear I'm talking to you more than my own mother."

"Didn't know you had one. I thought you'd been spawned."

"You call me to discuss family trees or is there a purpose to this?"

"I need the information."

"Ah. Now why did I have the sense you'd come around."

"But I want the info on two names. Not just one. And I can't do a job for you until I finish what I'm working on in Caldwell."

"What exactly are you working on?"

"None of your business." Although Matthias was going to get a pretty good picture of the whos involved.

"How long are you tied up for."

"I don't know. Not six months. Maybe not even one month."

There was a pause. "I'll give you forty-eight hours. And then you're mine."

"I'm not anybody's, ass**le."

"Right. Sure. Expect an e-mail from me explaining everything."

"Look, I'm not blowing out of Caldwell until I'm good and frickin' ready. So send whatever you like, but if you think you're shipping me overseas the day after tomorrow to off someone, you've got your head up your ass."

"How do you know what I'm going to ask you to do?"

"Because you and all my bosses before you have wanted only one thing from me," Jim said hoarsely.

"Well, maybe we'd mix it up a little if you weren't so f**king brilliant at what you do."

Jim cranked his hold down on the cell phone, and decided that if there was any more of this bullshit banter, he was going to take up Vin's method of terminating connections.

He cleared his throat. "E-mail won't work. I don't have an account anymore."

"I was going to send you a package anyway. You don't honestly think I trust Hotmail or Yahoo! do you?"

"Fine. My address is - "

"As if I don't already know." More of that laugh. "So I'm guessing you want Marie-Terese Boudreau's rundown?"

"Yes, and - "

"Vincent diPietro?"

So not a surprise. "Nope. Devina Avale."

"Interesting. She wouldn't happen to be the woman who said good ol' Vincent put her in the hospital last night, would she? Why...yes, she is. It's right here on my computer screen. Terrible set of people you're hanging around with. So violent."

"And to think it's a step up from the likes of you."

Now there was a little less of that amusement: "How does that saying go? It's not wise to bite the hand that feeds you...Yup, I think that's right."

"I'm more likely to shoot than use my teeth. FYI."

"I'm well aware of how much you like guns, thank you very much. And in spite of your piss-poor opinion about me, I have all the intel on Marie-Terese right here." Matthias, to his credit, got to the point. "Born Gretchen Moore in Las Vidas, California. Age thirty-one. Graduated from UC San Diego. Mother and father deceased." There was a shuffling sound and a grunt, as if Matthias were switching position - and the idea that the guy had to deal with chronic pain was satisfying as hell. "Now for the interesting part. Married Mark Capricio in Las Vegas, nine years ago. Capricio is a bona fide card-carrying member of the mob, a real sick shit who has a personality disorder and a half, given his rap sheet. Total skull cracker. She evidently tried to leave him about three years ago and he beat her up, grabbed the kid, and split. Took her a couple months and a PI to find him. When she got the son back, she divorced the ass**le, bought herself the Marie-Terese ID, and disappeared, eventually ending up in Caldwell, NY. Since then, she's kept her profile ultra-low, and with good reason. Men like Capricio don't let their wives go."

Holy. Shit. So...chances were good that those two dead boys and that beaten man in the alley last night meant Capricio had found her. Had to be. Vin had said the second attack had been on a guy seen with her -

"But when it comes to her ex-husband, she has nothing to worry about in the short term."

"Excuse me?" Jim said.

"Capricio's been doing twenty in federal prison for a salad bar of felonies including embezzlement, money laundering, witness intimidation, and perjury - and after that he's got a bunch of state felonies to serve out, including accessory to murder, assault, battery. Guy could be an exam question in law school, for f**k's sake." Another shift around was marked with a soft curse. "Apparently, it was all crashing down on him right about the time Gretchen/Marie-Terese was going to leave him. Which is logical. He was probably getting more and more violent on the home front as the feds and the Nevada staties closed in on him. When he snatched the son, he was running from the law, not just his wife - which made the fact that he managed to disappear for three months a testament to the depth of his connections. Clearly, someone ratted on him, though - maybe her PI applied the right pressure at the right time by threatening to turn one of his protectors in. Who knows."

"But I wonder if his family's coming after her now."

"Yeah, I read about those two gunshot murders in that alley. Doubtful it's his family. They'd just kill her and take the son. There'd be no reason to expose themselves to any added risk by wiping out innocents."

"Yeah, and besides, you kill someone just because she's been with him, that's personal. So the question is, who's after her - assuming she is the common thread between Friday and Saturday night's attacks."

"Wait, someone else got blown, and not in a good way?"

"And here I thought you knew everything."

There was a long pause and then Matthias's voice came back - this time without its usual swinging-dick tone. "I don't know everything. Took me a while to realize that, though. Anyway, I'll do the Devina thing for you. Stay by your phone for my call."