Page 36 of Ruthless Redemption

He turned back to me. “You’re not. And that’s exactly why you’re not about to screw this up for me.”

I ignored him and turned to the man whose identity I didn’t know. I was beginning to get the feeling that he was the one in charge. Not my father and definitely not Ms. Turner. “Where is Houston?”

“What’s your interest in him? Are you part of the club?”

I hesitated, unsure of where to go with my answers. But until I knew for sure this nightmare had ended one way or another I was going to stick to the script.

“He’s my husband.”

Frank literally growled at me when I said it. “Whore.”

“That’s enough.” Kelly grabbed my father’s arm and tried to pull him away from me.

He jerked his arm free. “I’ll say when it’s enough. Our deal had nothing to do with her getting involved. That makes her mine to handle. Or you can forget getting anymore of my help.”

He said something else under his breath that I didn’t hear, but whatever it was it made Kelly go shockingly pale and for a second I got another niggle in my mind about her that I didn’t understand.

“You’re help is questionable at best, Frank and we both know it. You’ve yet to deliver on anything,” the man seemingly in charge growled.

“Bullshit,” he roared. “I gave you more than enough to take down Marco. So what the hell are you waiting on? Do your job.”

I was getting more and more confused by the minute. Who the hell—were these— “Are you cops?”

My father turned a beady gaze on me. “Seriously? It took you that long to figure it out? You really are an idiot. I could smell them coming a mile away and you should have too.” He tried to lean closer, but the other man blocked him. “Those MC clowns should have left you with Marco. At least there you could have been useful.”

My churning stomach was threatening to cause me serious trouble. Between my confusion and my father’s insults I was feeling maxed out and at the end of my rope.

“Get Mr. Mazzeo out of here. He is of no use here.” The man from the shadows dropped his arms and came in my direction while the other guard grabbed Frank and dragged him to the door.

“I’m not done talking to my daughter.”

“Yeah, you are.” He turned to Kelly. “Get him back out on the street as soon as possible and keep me apprised of what happens. I need to know the minute Marco contacts him.”

“Yes, sir,” she responded, her gaze going to the ground before meeting her boss’s.

Frank was right. I was missing something really important here.

My father glared at me one last time and I plainly got the message that he would see me dead or worse soon. I didn’t know what kind of deal he’d cooked up with the cops, but that didn’t leave me in the clear. Far from it if he managed to walk away from this in the clear.

The second the door closed behind the other three, the one remaining cop moved toward the chair across from me. Of course the minute he got close I saw the insignia on his chest.

FBI. Great. Maybe I was an idiot for not figuring this out. But the idea of my father cooperating in any way with law enforcement took me by surprise. It went against everything he stood for.

“Where’s JD and the rest of the club?” He held out his hand in my direction with the palm facing up.

I stared down at that hand with no clue of what he was trying to communicate. “I have no idea.” At least that was the truth. They’d gone after Marco, but I didn’t have the kind of details they needed to find them.

“There is no point in lying. We’ve been surveilling The Sinclair all day. We saw you arrive with them and we saw them leave at the time of the party.”

“Where is Houston?”

He ignored me and shoved his hand closer, almost touching me.

I reared back as far as the seat would allow. “What?” I asked. “What do you want?”

“A lot and I expect you to give it to me. Starting with whatever is in your hand. You were fairly subtle, I will give you that. But not subtle enough. Now hand it over.”

A new stab of fear pierced my chest. I did not want to hand over my only lifeline if this all went south. I couldn’t keep going if I didn’t have a worst case scenario back up.

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