“That’s why they went after you. They’d fucked up and let Mouse slip through their fingers. They’d scheduled her replacement. Who knows how long she would have lasted if she hadn’t run?” Terrence put the truck into reverse and pulled from the parking space.
He nodded and called up the Deputy Commissioner’s home telephone number. It was dark already. He’d call Brie after he reported in. He glanced at his watch. After a week gone, he’d probably beat her home even with the three-hour drive and countless telephone calls he’d need to make to arrange his team’s responses. Check that. With the information he had, they might have warrants issued by the time they got back. It would be at least twenty-four hours before he’d be able to pull away from the operation. Hell, if push came to shove, he’d sleep at the team building in one of the holding cells. They’d all done that before at one time or another. He’d be lucky to see her in a week. But she knew what life with a cop was like. Damn, he was fucking lucky to have the woman he loved and a job that mattered. He nodded to himself as he called his new boss. He wasn’t lying when he told Sarah life could be damn good.
Brie stretched her back and glanced at the clock. Her conversation with Lola and Roger hadn’t gone as expected. It had gone better.
“It’s about time, Brie. You can’t keep living at this place.” Lola smiled. “Oh, can I make a suggestion?”
She blinked back her surprise. “Sure.”
“Let’s get an assistant hostess to work the lunch crowd and the start of the dinner service. I'll take over from her and deal with the receipts like I did last week. I’ll put the cash drawer into the safe after service and Roger can give me any information he has on vendors and deliveries. You can come in the next morning and work until I get here, and we can do a changeover.”
She narrowed her eyes at both of them. “You’ve been giving this some thought, haven’t you?”
Roger smiled. “Yeah, we’ve been talking. And that idea about another restaurant, I’ve put that on hold. I don’t see Matthew much as it is. If it is all right with you, we’ll just start using more of the product I want to use.”
"All right, that’s fine with me. I didn’t want to let either of you down.”
Roger chuckled. “Yeah, that’s why we figured this out. Your heart is so big that if we didn’t have a plan or said one negative word, you would have shelved the idea to have a life for yourself, wouldn’t you?”
She considered his question for a moment. “Probably.”
Brie chuckled to herself and glanced at her watch. It was only seven. She stood up and grabbed her purse. She would get home first and make dinner. Okay, well, she’d take some of Roger’s bolognese sauce and make some pasta and a salad. They could have a glass of wine and watch the boats in the harbor.
After locking her office door, she wandered through the busy dinner service, snagging the quart of the bolognese sauce she’d asked Roger to hold for her from the walk-in fridge. She made sure Lola saw her and waved at both her and Roger before she headed to the back door.
She stood on the top steps and drew a deep breath of the cool air. The alley light was broken again, but the light above the door to the restaurant cast a glow for quite a distance. She stared at the parking spots and chided herself for worrying. Glancing up at the small camera above the door, she mentally thanked Roger once again for installing the equipment. Regardless, she put her hand in her purse and wrapped her finger around the butt of her gun. Her finger was not on the trigger, but she was ready to defend herself should she need to do so. Her mom and dad didn’t raise a fool.
The crunch of rocks under her shoes made her jump. Damn, she was wound tight. There was nothing and no one around. She laughed at herself and let go of the gun, fishing for her keys.
“Welcome back, bitch.”
Brie spun, grabbing for the gun in her purse. She knew that voice. Blondie. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
“It would seem you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, my friend.” Another voice spun her again. A man with slicked back black hair and a diamond earring the size of her fist stared at Blondie but moved his arm suddenly. She gasped and pushed herself back into the truck. The end of a nasty-looking suppressor was pointed directly at her.
“Who the fuck are you?” the blond man snarled. He held a gun, one he hadn’t had before. Blondie lifted it and pointed it at the man who held a gun on her.
“None of your business.” A third man said from the darkness beyond the one who was pointing a gun toward her. Two muffled pops knocked Blondie into the wall. He seemed to lose the ability to stand and slowly slid down the brick wall while staring in the direction of the man who shot him. Blondie tried to lift the gun again, and the shadow man who shot him moved forward and put a bullet between Blondie's eyes.
She gasped, but the muzzle of that suppressor pushed against her head.
“Shut up.” The snarled command from Earring Dude registered when almost nothing else was making sense. Fear gripped her in its claws, and she froze. Froze. She didn’t move, couldn’t move. Her gun was in her purse. All she had to do was move her hand.
A scraping noise and then rapid footsteps sounded in the darkness. The second man bolted down the darkened alley. The first man gripped her bicep in a crushing
