Page 28 of Jacking Jill

“Ten years as a criminal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia,” said Kay with a sharp smile, her blue eyes studying Jill with some amusement. “We were trained to quickly assess someone’s personality and motives, pick up clues from body language and posture, clothing and makeup, intonation and movement. Then we put it together to form a narrative, a story.” She shrugged. “Looks like I got a lot of that story right with you. I see it on your face, Jill.” Kay smiled with unexpected warmth now, leaned close and placed her hand over Jill’s, squeezing gently. “Look, I got a read on you immediately, Jill, and I know you do not belong in a room of thugs and thieves, mobsters and monsters. I shouldn’t be saying this, but I’ve had a couple of whiskies and so I’m going to say it anyway.” She took a breath, exhaled slow. “Because there’s something sweet and innocent about you, Jill. Something untainted by the darkness that comes when you see things that can’t be unseen, when you do things that can’t be undone.” Kay pulled her hand away now, straightened her back on the barstool, sighed and shook her head. “Romeo told me Jack is former military, Army Delta. These Special Forces guys often join private security firms or off-the-books government-sponsored outfits. My guess is Jack is working undercover with DEA or ATF or some other Federal agency trying to get something on Romeo Carmine.” She sighed again, folded her arms over her flat chest. “He’s not going to get anything on Romeo. And judging from the way Jack lost his cool with Bobby in the parking lot, being around Jack might be dangerous for you, Jill.” She shook her head again, tightening her bony jaw and glancing down at the bar, her eyes darting left and right, like she was furiously fighting the whiskey-driven urge to say more than she should. Finally she looked up with a cold determination in her eyes that made Jill wonder whether Kay had won or lost that internal debate. “I saw you and Jack out there on the dance floor,” Kay said quietly. “I bet it felt real, but it’s not. It never is. Men like Jack are like those masterful politicians who can make anybody feel like the most important person in the world. But it’s just a skill, no different from learning how to play a musical instrument.” She shook her head sadly. “Don’t get played, Jill. I don’t know how you and Jack connected, if you’ve known each other for some time or if this is new, but everything about his background and body language tells me that he’s using you to get into this wedding, to get close to Romeo Carmine. He’s not going to get anything on Romeo. He’s not going to get anything except killed.” She took a breath, drained her whiskey, then slid her slim butt off the barstool and straightened her pencil-thin skirt. “Don’t get caught in the crossfire, Jill. Because sometimes the crossfire doesn’t kill you, and then you find out there are things worse than death, that you can be trapped in a place on earth that’s worse than hell.”

Now Kay glanced past the bewildered Jill’s shoulder, nodding at someone who silently walked past them. Jill turned just in time to see Romeo Carmine strolling languidly towards one of the corridors leading to the innards of the mansion. Kay was already following him, her footsteps brisk, her posture straight, her gait smooth enough that if she was drunk, she certainly knew how to hold her liquor.

Jill stood there alone at the bar, not sure how to process all of that. If she thought being around Jack had gotten her turned around and mixed up, she was now completely lost at sea, spinning off into space, tumbling down a rabbit-hole with no visibility as to whether it led to Wonderland or straight down to hell.

What was that stuff about being trapped in a place worse than hell, Jill thought as she held onto the bar in case the world starting spinning. She stared at the empty corridor down which Kay and Romeo had disappeared, then blinked dumbly as Kay’s startlingly spot-on words burrowed deep into her swirling subconscious.

Had Kay really put all of that together just from observation combined with some basic facts like what Nina had told Kay about the fight and what Romeo had told Kay about Jack being former military? Either way, why would Kay say all that to Jill? After all, by saying that, Kay had in effect admitted that Romeo Carmine was doing something illegal enough that some federal agency might want to take him down. Was it just the whiskey talking?

Maybe, but there was also something tragic behind Kay’s sad eyes, something in the way her voice had revealed a hint of despair at the end of that warning-filled speech when Kay had talked about hell on earth, about things worse than death, about being caught in a crossfire than doesn’t kill you but traps you.

The crowded hall now seemed distant, the voices and music fading to a background buzz that barely registered. It took several moments for Jill to get a hold of herself and decide that Kay’s warning came from a genuine place, a place that Jill sensed was dark with despair, heavy with regret, filled with a yearning to maybe save some other woman from being dragged to those depths where Kay was trapped.

And if all that was authentic, what about Kay’s final warning?

Jack’s going to get nothing except killed.

“Oh, shit, I should warn Jack. Wait. Where’s my fucking phone? Oh, shit!” Jill jumped back from the bar, looking around wildly for her little black clutch with her phone that had Jack’s number on it. “Oh, shit. Shit. Shit!”

The bag was gone.

The phone was gone.

Kay Steffen was gone.

11

“You don’t think she’ll notice her bag is gone?” Romeo Carmine closed the door to the room he used as a private office when he visited his sister and her no-good boy. He watched Kay Steffen take a seat in one of the straight-backed chairs facing the walnut desk. She crossed one long black-booted leg over the other knee, straightening her pencil-thin skirt, then digging into the small black bag she’d swiped from Nina’s friend Jill.

Kay shrugged, pulling out Jill’s phone and squinting at it. “Of course she’ll notice. But what’s she going to do? Come storming in here? Call the cops? Start screaming for help? Don’t worry, Romeo. I’ve got her all turned around and mixed up. She’s probably hyperventilating into a paper bag right now, wondering what the hell she was thinking strutting her ass into this den of snakes.” She smiled tightly at Romeo before glancing back at Jill’s phone. Kay tapped and swiped on the screen, which was locked. She flipped it over, opened up the back, pulled out the battery, and poked around in the space near the SIM card. “Nothing to indicate she’s working for any federal agency. No tracking or listening devices other than normal GPS and microphone.” Kay snapped the battery back into place but didn’t turn the phone on again. “It’s just a normal phone. Locked, but we can unlock it using these new AI hacking apps developed by the Israelis.”

Romeo sighed, stroked his clean-shaved chin, then strolled around his large walnut desk and sat down heavily in the leather swivel chair. He watched Kay connect her own phone to Jill’s device via a small black cord. Her long angular face crinkled up in concentration, lighting up a network of crows-feet and worry-lines that made the thirty-something lawyer look far older than her age.

Still beautiful, though, Romeo thought as Kay swiped and tapped and then smiled with an almost girlish delight at solving the problem of breaking into Jill’s phone. Yes, beautiful, but broken. Damaged beyond repair.

“Nothing interesting,” Kay declared after a few minutes of swiping through Jill’s phone. “Which tells me everything. She hasn’t known Jack Wagner for very long—in fact, there’s a text message sent to his number from earlier tonight. Looks like they only just exchanged phone numbers.”

Romeo blinked himself back from where he’d been running his gaze down Kay’s long lean body, wondering what she’d do if he tried to touch her. He quickly dismissed the thought. He knew damn well what Kay would do if any man touched her. Romeo wasn’t going to risk losing an eye or a testicle or maybe his life before he managed to overpower this broken butterfly. Besides, she was far too useful as his lawyer and advisor to risk losing her by trying to stick his dick into a pussy that was off-limits for not just him but for any man, every man, always and forever.

“Maybe he’s an escort she hired as her date,” Romeo said with a lazy smile even though the tension was mounting inside his body that wasn’t as lean now that he was well into his fifties, but—thanks to the testosterone injections—carried more bulked-up muscle than when he’d been a younger man. “Maybe she deleted all their previous messages. Maybe Jack got a new number. Maybe they’ve known each for years.” He ran his palm carefully over his styled hair which was still thick but dyed jet-black. “Look, I’m all for being cautious—even paranoid—with this new Zeta thing we’re trying to arrange with Diego Vargas. But this guy Jack Wagner might just be a coincidence. Sure, he’s former Special Forces. But so are a couple of my guys. Hell, there are dozens of guests in the hall right now who are former military. The U.S. Military has a big footprint, Kay. You walk into any crowded room in any part of America—including our prisons—and you’ll find folks who’ve served.” He took a breath, sighed it out, shook his head. “Besides, I saw how the guy reacted out there when Bobby called his woman a cunt. Jack wasn’t faking it, Kay. That was pure instinct. The instinct to protect his mate. It’s animalistic. Primal. Wired into every man who’s still got a pair of balls.”

Kay’s face twisted with a mixture of scorn and disgust. Her eyes darkened to the color of a night-sea, and Romeo stayed quiet and waited for the darkness to pass through this dangerously damaged woman. She didn’t respond well to these sorts of comments.

Perhaps because there’d been no man there to protect Kay when she needed it.

Still, what happened to Kay worked out well for Romeo in the long run. After all, it was what made that fiercely principled federal prosecutor switch sides, come to Romeo seeking justice.

The kind of justice that “civilized” society frowned upon.

The kind of justice that was primal, primitive, ancient.

And addictive.

Yes, Romeo thought as he watched Kay glance through Jill’s phone again before sliding it back into the bag and zipping the bag closed. Yes, Kay has acquired a taste of what it feels like to have power over life and death. And that’s a rush more addictive than any drug.

“All right, I admit, there is something about those two that doesn’t fit my story,” Kay said thoughtfully as she tossed the stolen bag onto Romeo’s desk. “I’m sure they only just met, but at the same time, there’s definitely some kind of spark between them. I saw them on the dancefloor. Yes, that guy Jack strikes me as a smooth-talking player with more notches in his belt than Genghis Khan. But their chemistry seems more than just an act, more than just cover for whatever Jack’s plan is.” She crossed her arms over her chest, exhaled heavily, looked down at her slim body, then back up at Romeo. “It’s possible this is about Diego Vargas,” she said quietly, her voice betraying a subtle tremble. “Maybe Jack is on Diego’s trail, not yours.”

Romeo’s face darkened. “How? You said this guy Diego is a ghost. Mexican Special Forces training, plus he’s tech-savvy, well-connected, and decently financed. Fuck, if someone’s onto Diego, then they might be onto you, Kay.” He ran his fingers through his long wavy hair now, undoing the careful styling as he felt his coolness threaten to unravel. “Shit, you know what? Jack Wagner left the mansion some time ago, before you walked into my office. My guards said he seemed to be heading back to the Winchester Hotel.” Romeo glanced grimly into Kay’s eyes. “Maybe he’s going to search your fucking room, Kay! Will he find anything?”

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