Page 80 of Beautiful Vengeance
Teague already had his phone out.“Triplethe men on her.I don’t care if it’s rush hour.I’m on my way.”He pointed to Micah without looking up from his phone.“Put my sister in one of the guest rooms.Donotlet her leave.”
“Aiden, you said you gave Jude your word!”
Her oldest brother shook his head as he typed a number into his phone.“Teague’s right on this one.You’ll be safest here until this is over.If your man is still alive at the end of it, we’ll talk.”
She barely got a cry of protest out when Micah did Teague’s bidding, hauling her up the stairs none too gently.Aiden’s last words all but confirmed her suspicions.He might not want Jude dead the same way Teague did, but he wouldn’t necessarily step in to save him if something happened.
I have to be there.I have to fight for Jude.
No one else is going to.
***
Jude used the cover of pedestrians to slip through the door that led to the loft above the little shops littering the street.When East Cambridge underwent the gentrification process back in the nineties, most of the old factories had been turned into commercial buildings and residential lofts.He’d snagged a loft across the street from the restaurant the Sheridans frequented ten years ago, paying out the nose for the location.
His phone rang as he hit the stairs, and he cursed at the now-familiar number.“What do you want?”
“As convenient as it would be for me if you took a bullet to the chest—again, from what I hear—I want Romanov more than I want you.”
Jude had spent enough time as a man on a vengeance mission to recognize that trait in another person.As much as Romanov wanted the O’Malleys dead and gone, it appeared Aiden wanted the same for him—with interest.
Still, allJudewanted was to take out whoever Romanov had sent to frame him and get Sloan somewhere where they would be left alone.“I’m not interested in whatever war you’re planning.”
“Not war.Never that.”
“You’re wasting my time.”He started up the stairs.
“I know Romanov wants to use you against Colm.”
That brought him up short.“You seem to know a whole hell of a lot that you shouldn’t.”He might have tapped his brother’s phone, but there’s no way he could have tapped Jude’s.It struck him that he’d underestimated Aiden, and that didn’t sit well with him in the least.“I’m listening.”
“Romanov won’t take your double-cross well.There’s little he hates more than someone breaking their word.He’ll bring everything in his power to make an example of you.”
That was what worried him more than anything else.He could keep Sloan safe.He wasn’t worried about that.But Sloan was a woman who would crave roots—her time in Callaway Rock had more than proven that.It might take some time, but eventually she’d resent him for keeping them on the move and under the radar.
And that wasn’t even taking the kid into the equation.A life on the run was no way to raise a child.“You have thirty seconds to give me your pitch before I hang up.”
“I know that you do extensive research on both enemy and ally, and that you know things no one else can seem to pin down.I want what you have on Romanov—all of it.”
It seemed a small enough thing to ask, but Jude wasn’t the trusting sort.“I’ll pass it over with the condition that you tell me exactly what you’re planning—and keep me updated on the process.”
“Yes to the former.No to the latter.”
“Aiden, this isn’t a negotiation.”He needed warning if he was going to get Sloan out of wherever they were before Romanov brought his wrath down upon them.He paused at the top of the stairs.“Take out whatever Romanov has set up as a backup plan and we’ll talk when I deliver the information to you.”
“We’ll talk about my sister, too.We’ve reached the restaurant.”Aiden hung up, leaving Jude more irritated than he should be.His life had been so much simpler when he kept to the shadows and didn’t tangle with powerful men.Aiden and Dmitri might think themselves so different, but they were just two sides of the same coin.The only difference that mattered to him was that one had tried to blackmail him and the other was willing to work with him.
He took a careful breath, and then another, letting all that fall away.There was a fight waiting for him on the other side of the door, and he couldn’t afford to be distracted.
The door opened before he could move, revealing a man with tattoos crawling down his arms and up his neck, and whose face was marked with scars.His eyes went wide, but Jude didn’t give him a chance to call out a warning.He chopped him in the throat, grabbing his body as he started to tumble and shoving him into the loft.
The man hit the ground, gurgling, and Jude shut the door behind him and locked it for good measure.Someone could kick it down, even with the reinforced wood, but he’d hear them coming and have warning.
He kicked the fallen man, the force of it flipping him onto his back, where he lay still.He wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon.Jude stalked farther into the loft, avoiding the creaky boards.There wasn’t furniture to deal with, because he’d never bothered to furnish the place, and so he had a clear line of sight to the second man kneeling before the window, a rifle in his hands, his attention on the building across the street.
“Stop.”The man didn’t look up, didn’t move, his Russian accent confirming what Jude already knew.
He slipped his hand behind his back, palming the .45 he had tucked into his waistband.“If you pull that trigger, I’m going to shoot you in the back of the head.”
