High Stakes Gamble

Chapter Six

Weary and heartsick, Kai returned to his apartment to find a dusty, cold shell of a home. Captain Powers had made arrangements for one of the flunkies to periodically check the joint, pick up his mail, which was scattered over his table, and water his artificial plant if the Chinese pot now filled to the brim yielded a clue. Dumber than stumps, some of those guys. He shook his head, sighed and looked around.

At one time, he’d been proud of his place. His man-cave, he had all the guy things that make a residence home for a regular sports-loving, game-playing, popular with a lot of friends kind of dude. A big-screen TV took the central position against the wall and the man-size comfy brown leather couches and chairs circled it.

First thing he tackled—listening to his totally filled answering machine took more guts than standing in front of a maniac firing a weapon in his direction.

The first call had recorded her soft voice pleading for him to come back so they could talk. Telling him she had a reason for the actions she’d taken by killing Rhondo. Begging for his support during her ordeal while under investigation.

The inquest had happened quickly and he’d done everything he could from L.A. He’d written a statement to exonerate her, explaining that she’d returned fire and might have saved lives by her actions.

A misrepresentation, but the investigators didn’t need to know that. Both he and Cory had shot to disarm the crazed man; Aurora had taken the final unnecessary shot, aiming for his heart. A traitorous move since just moments earlier she’d begged him not to kill Rhondo, to let justice run its course.

He still had no idea how she justified her actions to the committee. The difference was that he now knew she could and her reasoning would be sound.

Her tear-filled voice during the next few messages, telling him she loved him and needed him, tore away all the armor he’d built up over the last months he’d been forced to stay away. Aware of how tough it would have been for Aurora to lower herself to plead made his shame intensify to where it was hard to contain.

The weepy invitation beseeching him to accept her love bit into his soul, leaving a scorching wound that weakened every bone in his body with regret and self-loathing. He pounded his knees with clenched fists.

Then the final message played. Aurora’s angry sobbing tore into Kai’s wretched conscience and ripped his heart to shreds.

“Kai, in case you give a shit, I’m going crazy trying to put our baby’s crib together. I have no doubt a lunatic—most likely a man—wrote these directions when he was either drunk or high. You are a piece of shit and if our baby falls when this son-a-bitchin thing breaks, it’ll be your fault. I hope you rot in hell for leaving me alone to deal with all this.”

The slamming receiver made Kai wince. Ruefully, he felt a small sense of relief when the answering device announced it as being the final call saved.

Her angry words left him shaken to the core. My God, I’m a daddy! Aurora had conceived his baby and had been forced to go through the experience without him. Oh God! Could it get any worse?

He slumped down on the dusty sofa and lowered his head into his shaking hands. The vision her voice resurrected gnawed into his sorry soul.

Deep undercover, he’d had no choice but to stick to the plan, give up all his contacts, all connections to his old life and live the lie he’d taken on since that never-to-be-forgotten night he’d stepped in to fight another man’s battle.

But he’d won his freedom. The case had ended well for the LAPD. Even though in the final battle he’d taken a couple of bullets, which still hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, the mob now resided behind bars.

The two Angeli men, Dominic and Sonny, were dead and the drug ring completely busted. The last weapon haul had revealed the Mexican connection and they were also squashed.

Eleven months of undercover duty had sapped a lot out of Kai, he knew it. Not only because of the barely healed wound in his chest and the burning pain in his arm, but the aching in his heart made him feel pitiful and lower than a slug looking for a hole to crawl into.

All the time he’d urged the doctors to release him after they’d operated and removed the bullet; he’d planned his strategy in getting Aurora to allow him back into her life. He didn’t hold out much hope that she’d let him love her again, but man, he had to try. Either that or he’d never be able to face himself while shaving again without wanting to cut his own throat.

That had been his plan up until hearing her words—words that delighted and terrified him all at the same time. Christ, he, Kai Lawson, womanizer and total prick, was now a father. A sob clawed at the back of his throat, fighting viciously to be released. Son of a bitch, he’d messed up big-time.

More tired than he could ever remember, he put his head back against the sofa, wiped the rogue tears staining his cheeks and let his exhaustion win. An image of Aurora cuddling his baby made his hand swipe his cheek yet again before he succumbed to exhaustion.

***

In Kai’s dream Sonny appeared shaken but victorious, blood stained his cheek and the gun clenched in his hand stunk from being recently fired.

To make sure Kai didn’t interfere, one of the new men had coldcocked him with a slam to the back of his head. The same prick he’d seen laughing and drinking with Sonny the day before. Slowly, he lurched to his feet.

“What the f*ck are you thinking, Sonny?” Kai’s voice sounded hoarse and weak even to himself.

Sonny turned to him, and for an instant, Kai read the fear in his eyes. Blinking nervously, Sonny scanned the room, moving from one uneasy man to the next. “I’m sick of taking the shit from old Dominic. I’m the man now and anyone who doesn’t like it can leave.”

Earlier, they’d been called into the clubhouse and led to the back rooms where Dominic held council in a space he called his own. Kai sensed a lot of tension. He’d noticed the quivering excitement in his skinny boss who’d strutted and preened more than normal—as if he alone knew something was up and couldn’t wait for it to happen.

Recently there had been a distinct unsettling among the men. Dominic had turned into a brutal dictator, pressured by the Mexicans to either deliver more markets or they’d find someone who could.

And keeping Sonny under wraps over the last few weeks had been more difficult than usual He’d found himself a woman. Secretly, the cold-eyed blonde bitch had tried to put the move on Kai and failed.

Sly, with one priority, Maylene worked Sonny like a lion tamer training a cat. With a lying, pandering tongue for her whip and a body men craved as her hypothetical chair, she had Sonny on his knees as her loyal, adoring worshipper.

In Sonny’s eyes, she could do no wrong. Playing him, she’d filled his head with nonsense about how strong and brave a man she’d found herself and Sonny lapped it up. Kai had no doubt she was behind Sonny’s decision for this takeover.

Obviously aware that Kai would try and stop him for his own good, Sonny had had Kai taken out of the scene while he’d killed Dominic.

Shocked by the unexpected state of events, Dominic’s personal bodyguard stormed to the door. “I’m not working for anyone who kills their own family.”

Before Kai could step in, the bullet from Sonny’s gun now in Maylene’s hand hit the retreating man square in the back. He dropped to his knees, and though he reached for his weapon, his face hit the floor first. That put paid to anyone else making the same choice. Sonny had become ‘the Man.’ With shinning eyes and a cruel smirk, Maylene handed back Sonny’s gun and stepped up to curl herself around him.

Within days, Sonny, between dealing with his hysterical mother who believed her husband had been shot by an opposing gang member, and the men who wanted strong direction for how things were to now work, started unravelling.

He turned to Kai constantly, and in no time, Kai had all the information he required about the times, drop-off zones and the names he’d need to bring the whole operation down.

Also, now that Sonny had Maylene to satisfy, he loosened the reins that had kept Kai tied to him like a pup on a leash. This had given Kai time to make other necessary arrangements which led to the final battle and his new set of nightmares….

The ringing of a doorbell dragged him from his realistic dreams and brought him back to the land of the living. Discombobulated, he looked at his watch and realized he’d been passed out most of the day.

Carefully standing up like a victim of old age, he moved toward the door to check the peep-hole. There were a very few people he’d open for, and after checking carefully, he realized one of them had given up the bell and was reaching with his big hand to fist-thump the door.

He unlocked it and stepped aside, waiting for the shit to fly. His suspicion that his old friend Cory had it in for him couldn’t be wrong. Beside the fact that Ashton’s anger was totally justified, Kai knew there was no way he could or would fight back.