Page 123 of Nikolai (Kansas City Reapers)

“What can I say? Maddy’s rubbing off on me.”

“From what I heard last night, she rubs off on Niko all the damn time,” Carrick interjected with a cackle, jumping into our conversation uninvited as he passed us on his way to the bathroom. The fucker.

I shook my head at them both, then pulled my phone from my pocket and headed into my office, dialing Quinn as I went.

“Mercado here,” Quinn answered on the second ring, sounding mildly distracted.

“Hey, Quinn. It’s Niko. Did I catch you at a bad time?” I asked as my old friend hissed and cursed under his breath.

“No, just trying to make dinner.”

“And failing, from the sounds of it,” I teased.

“I have never been good in the kitchen. Hey, do you think Sully could get over here in the next hour and cook me up something good?” He asked, sighing heavily as the sound of a smoke alarm beeped incessantly in the background.

“Gotta hot date or something?” I razzed the poor man.

“Erm… well…” he muttered awkwardly. My mouth dropped open in shock.

“Quinn Mercado, you sly dog. Youdohave a date! So.. what’s her name?” I asked in a sing-song voice, teasing him mercilessly. After years of serving together in theCorps, he fucking deserved it. In fact, it would be an insult if I didn’t razz him — and he knew it, too.

“Shut the fuck up, dude. But seriously, how fast can I get Sully over here?” he whined.

“No such luck, my friend. It’s Go Fish night.”

“Shit. You’re calling me on Go Fish night? What happened? Who died?”

“Come off it, bro. But seriously, I wanted to talk to you about something.” Suddenly, words failed me as I struggled to figure out just how to broach the subject.

“I’m all ears.”

“Uh…” I faltered. “Well, is there, uh, any new information on the case?” Smacking myself in the forehead with my hand, I plopped down into my office chair, internally chastising myself for my utter ineptitude when it came to discussing relationship things.

“Actually, yes. I wanted to call you, but I was going to wait until tomorrow, if I’m being honest.”

“I can call you back then if you’d rather,” I offered, suddenly hopeful at the thought of pushing this talk off as long as humanly possible.

“No, no. We’re on the phone now, might as well.”

“What about your dinner?”

“Meh, I’ll order a pizza. Let’s be honest… she’s not coming over for my cooking,” he said with a smirk I could literally hear over the phone. “But anyway… Listen, it’s pretty fucking obvious that hit was planned, which proves my suspicions that Maddy is important. She’s obviously a threat to them, after what she saw. The issue I’m running into now is that we had only set up her transfer to that safe house less than twenty-four hours prior to the move. Like I said in the car on the way back to my apartment that day, that can’t be a coincidence. Something bigger is going on here.”

I listened intently, remembering our tense conversation after the firefight. It made sense. How had the Dom Krovi gotten that information so quickly?

“There’s nothing concrete for me to go on yet, but I’m now completely convinced that there is a mole in the department. I just have no idea who,” he explained further.

“So, where do we go from here?” My tone had entirely changed, the lightheartedness I had felt having all my brothers home and my woman by my side fading into the background of the clear and present danger that Maddy was truly in.

“I spoke with Chief McCarthy about everything, and he agrees with me. He’s made me the sole detective on the case, restricting access to all the files from everyone in the department except him and me. He’s aware of you guys and what you’re doing for us, but we both agree that it should stay between the two of us until we have more information and more proof to get these fuckers behind bars.”

“I couldn’t agree more. So, how can we help?”

“The Chief has specifically asked me if the Reapers are willing to provide protection for any future VIP witnesses in this case, should it be necessary.”

“I think we can accommodate that,” I responded, already thinking through the logistics of how that would work. We had plenty of space, but not exactly plenty of rooms. We’d have to get a move on working on ourprivate cabins. At the moment, Jax was the only one who had even the framework built on his part of the property. But that could be easily remedied with a few tweaks to our work schedule. Especially now that Carrick was back.

“This case is far from over, Niko. And Maddy is the most important asset we have right now. I need you to keep her out of harm’s way, no matter what. I hate to do this to you, but it looks like I’m going to need her to stay with you indefinitely until I can nail this fucker and get him behind bars for good. I can’t let him slip through on a technicality.”

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