Page 33 of Trick's Trap

He checked the time again. Calen tsked and shook his head. “Believe me, it’s better not to push when a woman is in a vulnerable state. You don’t want to overwhelm her.”

Trick rolled his eyes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, that’s the exact opposite of what you did when you met Maia and you know it.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

Calen wisely didn’t answer.

A knock at the door signaled the arrival of room service. “Finally,” he said, going to open the door.

But it wasn’t Constance, the maid assigned to the penthouse floor. It was Ethan, and he appeared more grim than usual.

“What is it?”

The FBI agent nodded at everyone in the room, except Liam. “I got some of the blood work back from the basement. It’s not all hers. Our perp was in there.”

“What?” They’d assumed Tahlia managed to escape her pursuer before her accident.

“How do you know that?” Liam asked.

Ethan opened a file folder he was holding. “There was fresh blood in two places. One was under the stairs. All of that was Tahlia’s.”

Trick rubbed his face and reminded himself she was awake and talking in the next room.

Ethan took a picture from the file. “But there were a few drops at the very bottom of the stairs, too. They belong to this motherfucker. Meet Tommy Casey. He did a four-year stretch upstate for assault and battery, and he has a string of lesser crimes on his rap sheet. He’s been keeping his nose clean the last few years, but according to rumor, it’s because he graduated to the big time.”

“So he’s local talent?” Calen asked.

The agent nodded. “Not affiliated with your family, I assure you,” he told him with a little smirk. “Whoever is after Trick’s girlfriend must have hired this guy to snatch her. He almost succeeded, but Tahlia got lucky. She knocked a step loose when she fell over the rail.”

“That was lucky?” Trick scoffed.

Ethan shrugged. “Tommy boy must have missed the gap in the dark. He fell down the stairs, landed at the bottom. My best guess is that he fucked himself up bad enough to abort the mission. Or else, he heard something that spooked him. Whatever the reason, he bolted without getting what he came for.”

That something was Tahlia. “Where is he?” Trick growled.

Ethan shrugged. “For now, he’s in the wind. We’ve got an APB out on him and we’re running down known associates, but it could take a while. But if we do dig him up, there’s a chance we can lean on him and get him to give us some dirt on his employers.”

Damn. “What chance do we have of flipping a career criminal? Do you really think you can get him to testify against Tahlia’s family?”

The agent shrugged. “I guess that depends on whether our hired gun thinks we’re more dangerous than they are.”

Trick’s hand fisted involuntarily. Something told him that wasn’t going to be a problem. He’d just need five minutes alone with Tommy Casey.

A door opened behind him. Maia came out of the bedroom. She closed the door behind her.

He was next to her before the door clicked shut.

Maia held up a hand. “Stop. She’s already asleep.”

He swore.

Maia grabbed his sleeve, turning him around to face the others. “She was wrung out after our talk. Let her rest.”

Ethan shifted his weight. “Did she tell you anything that explains why her family is after her? Or is it someone else entirely?”

“Oh, it’s them.” She patted her stomach, screwing up her nose. “You are not going to believe this…”

---