Sinful Longing

“Wicked Jack,” Colin said out loud. “WJ.”

Anger rolled through him, and he slammed the door on his car. Who the fuck was this guy harassing his Elle because of Marcus? What did Marcus have to do with the Royal Sinners? Was it because he was in the Protectors? He couldn’t imagine gang members caring that much about a guardian angels–style group of volunteers, especially teenagers. The Royal Sinners trafficked in guns and drugs and stolen goods, so why would a group of unarmed vigilantes bother them? And why would they care that Elle was talking to Marcus?

Outrage filled his chest, but he forced himself to let it go, and set to work.

The thing about gang guys was they didn’t always realize that some types of technology were highly traceable. They might have mastered the burner phone and made its anonymity their ally. But Instagram? That social media service was like a dog with a microchip.

Every picture had a location attached to it unless you turned off the geotagging feature, and not everyone knew to do that. Or chose to turn it off—because street gangs tagged. They left their mark. They bragged.

Colin wanted to kiss the original investors in Instagram and thank them for the geotagging technology that made it possible for braggarts to be found. In a few minutes, he had a longitude and latitude. As he looked at the picture one more time, something else clicked.

“Wicked Jack’s” fingernail was black and blue.

It matched the description of Marcus’s convenience store visitor.

*

Her nerves were frayed and worn thin. They were nails bitten to the quick. As she dressed for Ryan and Sophie’s proposal celebration, slipping into a dress and fastening a necklace, her stomach dived. Twenty million times. She ran a brush through her long hair, tugging, pulling, and yanking. Punishing it. She tossed the hairbrush in a basket on the bathroom floor, left her apartment, and took her son to her mother’s house. “I’ll pick you up later.”

He shrugged. “Okay.”

There it was again. The dead voice. The empty tone.

She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a hug. “You always come first. You know that, don’t you?”

He managed to quirk his lips up in a small smile, then she said good-bye. Even if he didn’t believe her now, she’d prove it to him.

*

The second the call came from Marcus, Colin pounced on it.

“Talk to me,” he said, then glanced at the time on his wrist. He needed to leave the office any second to make it to Ryan’s event.

“I went in early for my shift, and I found the video from the other week,” Marcus said. “I just played it on the work computer in the back office and shot a video of it with my cell. You should have it any minute. I emailed it.”

“Let me see if it’s here.” He switched to his email program on his laptop, clicked on the new message, and hit play. The video was black and white, and the conversation was barely audible.

“Do you know who he is? You think this is the guy who’s sending harassing notes to Elle?” Marcus asked.

“I don’t know for sure,” Colin said, then zoomed in on the guy’s hands. Lo and fucking behold, there it was. The messed-up fingernail. A chill ran down his spine. “It has to be the same guy. The comments about the phone in his Instagram, then this stubbed fingernail, then the location. I just don’t know his name.” He crooked his head against the phone as he grabbed a screenshot and dropped it into a reverse image search. “But I’m going to call the detective after I plug this into a—”

His heart stopped beating. His blood froze. That last name. It echoed in his nightmares.

“You still there?” Marcus asked.

“Yes,” he whispered, his voice a hiss.

“What is it? Who is it? What did you find out?”

The photo had taken him to a Facebook page for Jerry Stefano’s teenage son. The photos matched the ones he’d found on Instagram.

“Lee Stefano. The shooter’s son. And it looks like he’s following in his father’s footsteps. He calls himself Wicked Jack, and he’s in the Royal Sinners.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT


Sophie’s hand was adorned with the most gorgeous diamond Elle had ever seen. Brilliant and vintage cut, it was one hundred percent Sophie. Elle held her friend’s left hand and couldn’t stop oohing and ahhing at the beautiful bling. Nor could Shannon.

The women and the men gathered around the blue plush lounge chairs in one of the bars at New York-New York, having just surprised Sophie with the proposal celebration that Ryan had put together for her. Elle focused on the diamond and on Sophie’s happiness, letting it distract her from the inevitable turn her own life was taking.

This was antithesis of what she had to do later this evening, but for now, Elle wanted to soak in the romance. She wanted to savor all her friend’s happiness. Sniff it like a fine perfume she could enjoy but never own for herself.