Broken Hero Read online

  “Come on,” she said, picking up a bottle of what looked to be some very good whiskey and waving it in an extremely tantalizing way. “One little drink won’t kill you.”

  “But it might kill you,” I said, keeping up the charade.

  “Then draw the curtains,” she said. “They can’t shoot what they can’t see.”

  I couldn’t resist. “Fine,” I said. “Just a little splash of whiskey on the rocks.”

  “Good boy,” she said. “I was afraid I’d have to order you to do it.”

  She flashed me another smile before turning back to the bar. She set down the bottle, reached back, and undid the simple but professional ponytail she’d had her hair in. Her tresses fell down onto her shoulders, and something about the way her hair spooled out made my cock twitch to attention.

  Focus on the fucking mission, I told myself. But even that wasn’t as simple as it sounded. The mission was one nonstop lie.

  “Close curtains,” Natalie announced to the smart home.

  “Closing curtains,” responded the cool, female voice.

  With a soft, mechanical whir, the curtains closed. The apartment was now nearly entirely dark, only a line of warm light from the outside providing any illumination.

  “How about a fire?” she asked. “Something about the flames always manages to calm me down.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Fire, please,” she spoke to the invisible listener in the walls. “Level, let’s say, four.”

  “Fire, level four,” spoke the voice.

  A large, crackling blaze came to life in the fireplace after a quick, soft whoosh of gas.

  “There we go,” she said, nodding approvingly at the new ambience. “Perfect for a quiet evening.” Then she raised a finger. “One last thing,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief as though she couldn’t believe she’d forgotten. “Play Duke Ellington playlist. Start with ‘In a Sentimental Mood.’”

  The voice confirmed the choice, and slinky, moody saxophone came from the speakers, followed by the gentle tinkling of a piano as it picked up the melody of the tune.

  “Now we can relax,” she said. “Have a seat.”

  I undid the button of my white dress shirt and loosened my tie as I made my way over to the couch. I dropped into the soft fabric right as Natalie came over with her drink.

  It was strange—the music, the fire, the drinks, and, of course, the ridiculously hot woman in front of me—reminded me of some kind of domestic scene I’d never thought I’d have.

  “It’s so weird,” she said, echoing my thoughts.

  “Yeah?” I asked. “What’s that?”

  “This,” she said, sweeping her hand toward her apartment, as if trying to encompass the entire world around her with a single gesture. “How my life is now. You being here, all of it.”

  “Hope I’m not cramping your style,” I said, allowing myself a small smile.

  “Nah,” she said. “You’re actually making it nicer.”

  I made a special, mental effort to push all worries to the back of my mind. After all, if Natalie were to get the impression that there was something amiss, something that I wasn’t telling her, that would ruin this scheme as quick as shit. And she was a smart cookie—smart as they came. Staying one step ahead of her wouldn’t be easy.

  “Really?” I asked. “Having a trained killer in your home is making it nicer?” I took a sip of my whiskey after I spoke, savoring the wonderful, bitter taste.

  “No, not specifically that,” she said, folding her legs under her, her pencil skirt hiking up just enough to show off her gorgeous thighs. “But having a man here, having someone I can have drinks with after a long day at work.”

  “Never lived with a guy before?”

  “Not officially, no,” she said. “I had a boyfriend once back when I was still in law school. He was this jazz musician, played the guitar. Pretty damn good, too—hipped me to this music we’re listening to now. Too bad he was bad at everything else.”

  “Everything else?” I asked.

  “Everything else, as in knowing how to live like an actual, functioning adult. I had cute little apartment near Harvard Law, kept it up nice even though I was a broke-as-hell student. And he ended up more or less living there.”

  “And how was that?”

  “It lasted about a month, if that’s any indication,” she said. “He could strum and pick at that guitar, but paying bills and cleaning up after himself was another matter. About the third time I couldn’t get ahold of him because his phone got shut off for nonpayment was about when I decided that he and I were just on separate paths.”

  “And where’s he at now?”

  “Who knows?” she asked. “I don’t like to live in the past. He and I had our time together, and that was that.” She shook her head, as if wanting to drop the subject. “Long time ago,” she said. “But point is, this is more like what I imagined. Coming home with a well-dressed, handsome man, having some drinks, and talking about our day. Getting in a little R&R before going to bed and waking up to do it all over again. Conquering the world, my man at my side.”

  “There’s the little matter of the exact nature of our relationship,” I said.

  We were inching closer to odd territory. It’d be one thing to talk about this if we had nothing more than a friendly, professional relationship. But we’d had a little more than that. And sitting with her on the couch, the moody music filling the air, the fire roaring, the whiskey working its way through my veins, having her again wasn’t sounding like the worst thing in the world.

  “True,” she said. “But we can play pretend.”

  We sipped our drinks, our eyes lingering on one another’s as we did. I glanced down at the couch and saw that somehow, without me being conscious of it, our bodies had moved closer to one another’s.

  I was a man who lived and died—literally—by my ability to stay focused and aware at all times. But being here with Natalie was making me lose my professional edge. All I could think about was her body, her face, how good it had felt to have my cock buried in her.

  She chewed her lip softly, invitingly. It made me wonder if she had the same thoughts on her mind as I did.

  “Thinking of making another drink,” she said. “You want one too? Or would that be a bad idea?”

  It would be. But the very good kind of “bad.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could even think of what to say, a chime sounded through the apartment.

  “Incoming call,” spoke the disembodied voice. “Incoming call from Pierre.”

  “Shit,” she hissed, shaking her head as if she was trying to come out of a trance.

  “Pierre?” I asked.

  “It’s not his real name. You’ll see.”

  “Accept call,” said Natalie. “Put it on the speakers.”

  The music cut out.

  “Pierre?” she asked.

  “Claudette,” came a smooth, male voice.

  Now I was confused.

  “To what do I owe the honor?”

  “Need you to meet with me in an hour,” he spoke. “Important shit.”

  “You know I need details,” she said. “So, let’s have them.”

  “I got the ear of Simon Wharton,” he said. “Name sound familiar?”

  It did to me. He was some higher-up in the NYPD I’d heard about here and there during jobs.

  “He’s the NYPD brass you mentioned, right?”

  “That’s the one,” he said. “Took some doing, but I managed to get him alone in his office earlier today. Told him all about you and your situation with Emmanuel.”

  Someone was going to need to explain these French names to me, and fast. I had a feeling whatever they were talking about concerned me in a big way.

  “And?” asked Natalie.

  “And he wants to meet with you. Tonight. In an hour.”

  “Damn,” said Natalie. “Thanks for the notice.”

  “Figured you’d be more than e
ager to drop whatever you had going on for something that could get the case moving. Why, you got bigger plans?”

  Her eyes flicked from the bar then to me. It made me wonder exactly what was on her mind.

  “No,” she said. “Nothing important. But I’ve got my escort here, and I want him to come with.”

  “Fine,” said Pierre. “Bring him and meet me at Stoker’s on the Lower East Side. Tell the hostess you’re there for the French reading club. They’ll know where to take you.”

  “Sounds good,” she said. “See you then.”

  “Call ended,” spoke the voice.

  “Shit,” said Natalie. “This is big.”

  “Then let’s get moving.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  GARRETT

  We stepped into the low, moodily lit interior of the restaurant. The place was one of those old-school joints, the ones where you could easily imagine a group of ad execs circa 1955 discussing business matters over cocktails and steak.

  Wood booths with red upholstery lined the walls, a big, bronze bar formed a “U” in the center, and waiters in white and black moved quickly yet gracefully through the space. A smattering of well-dressed men and women were seated here and there, speaking quietly to one another under the mellow tones of live piano.

  The hostess, a pretty, young blonde with a bright smile, greeted us from a stand of dark oak as we entered.

  “Welcome,” she said.

  “Hi,” said Natalie. “We’re here for the French reading club.”

  The look of recognition on the hostess’s face made it clear she knew exactly what we were talking about.

  “Right this way,” she said.

  She took off toward the back of the restaurant and we followed closely behind.

  “What’s the deal with the French?” I asked.

  “Not sure,” she said. “I know they like their cheese and their black-and-white films.”

  She flashed me a winsome smile, and I couldn’t help but match it.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “It’s my contact with the NYPD—Lieutenant Walker Barnes. We’ve been working together for the last few weeks, and he’s big on code words and all that. Not sure what’s with the French theme. Guess he just likes the culture.”

  This was big information, information that Joey would be very interested in. I committed it all to memory, feeling like a total scumbag as I did. I was a spy. A fucking rat. And it was starting to eat me up inside.

  The hostess led us to a set of ornate double doors and gave them a gentle knock as she approached.

  “Come in,” came a voice I recognized as the one from the call.

  “Thank you,” said Natalie to the hostess, who departed with a pleasant smile and a nod.

  I opened the door for Natalie, and she stepped through, and I followed close behind.

  The doors led to a small but well-appointed private room, with a round table set for four in the middle.

  Seated at it were two men, one middle-aged and trim with fair skin and red hair, his face long and grim, like a mortician’s. He was dressed in a stylish gray suit without a tie. The other man was older, I guessed around mid-sixties, with a paunchy body packed into an off-the-rack brown suit, a horseshoe of cotton-white hair on the top of his head, and a bulbous nose on the end of his face.

  Both of them rose as we entered.

  “Glad you could make it to the book club,” said the red-haired man with a boyish smirk.

  “You really need to switch the nationalities,” said Natalie. “Maybe something Russian next time.”

  “Why, so we can call each other ‘Boris’ and ‘Natasha’?” he asked. “Talk about your espionage clichés.”

  “Is that what we’re doing here?” Natalie asked. “Espionage?”

  “Something close enough,” he said. “Something that will shake the criminal underworld of this city if we manage to pull it off.”

  The older man cleared his throat in a pointed manner.

  “Sorry, sorry,” said the red-haired man. “Natalie, I’d like you to meet Captain Simon Wharton. He’s the far-seeing brass who actually understands the gravity of what’s going on.”

  “Captain Wharton,” said Natalie. “Natalie Mayer. Thank you so much for coming.”

  “A pleasure,” Simon said, extending a wrinkled hand in Natalie’s direction.

  She took it, and Simon shook it an old-fashioned, courteous way that marked him instantly as from a different time.

  Then the two men turned their attention to me, the warmth fading as they took in my presence.

  “Who’s this?” barked Simon in a gruff voice.

  “This,” said Natalie, “is the man who’s keeping me alive through all of this. The NYPD didn’t see it fit to spare any men to watch out for me, so I had to handle it myself.”

  Walker’s face tensed up as Simon continued to regard me skeptically. I wondered if he, a cop who’d clearly been around the block more than once, could smell the stink of rat on me as soon as I walked in. But if he could, he didn’t say anything.

  “Garrett Shaw,” I said, sticking out my hand. “Of Shaw Security Services.”

  Simon’s stony expression eased a bit at the name.

  “I’ve heard of you,” he said. “Heard you do good work around town.”

  “I like to think so,” I said.

  “Natalie,” said Walker. “No need to give the captain any guff about not being able to spot you officers.”

  “Just saying,” said Natalie. “Doesn’t exactly give your witnesses peace of mind when they know the city doesn’t have their back.”

  Natalie clearly wasn’t intimidated in the slightest by the men in the room. She held her own, and I loved it.

  “Apologies about that,” said Simon. “But our stations are bursting at the seams with all sorts of gangbangers demanding protection for offering testimony against one rival or another in exchange for reduced sentences. And plenty of what they’re offering turns out to be not worth a damn. It’s hard to sort the wheat from the chaff, as they say.”

  “It’s fine,” said Natalie. “I feel better being watched by the crew I’ve picked out myself.”

  “Is he on the level?” asked Walker. “Because I want you to tell Captain Wharton everything tonight.”

  “So far he hasn’t given me a reason not to trust him,” said Natalie. “And I don’t expect that to change.”

  If only she knew.

  “And the more I know, the safer I can keep her,” I said, the bullshit spinning from my mouth like silk.

  “Good point,” said Simon. He gestured to the table. “Then let’s get to it.”

  We took our places. Walker began filling up our glasses with wine, but I stopped him when he got to me. I’d already had enough to drink, and I needed to keep a clear head if I was going to commit all this to memory in order to tell Joey at our next meeting.

  “Walker tells me you’ve got the details on exactly what this Monroe prick’s been up to around the city.”

  “That’s right,” said Natalie. “When I got wind that he wasn’t what he seemed, he let me in on it hoping that I’d lend him my legal services. I’ve got hard evidence on shipments of guns and drugs and other illicit materials he’s been bringing into the city. And I’m ready to take him down.”

  “And you know about all of this how, exactly?”

  Natalie gritted her teeth for a moment, her jaw clenching under her cheeks. “We were…involved for a time.”

  Simon narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. “You were ‘involved’?” he asked. “Tell me what you mean by that, exactly.”

  “I think you know what I mean,” said Natalie, her tone taking on a hard edge.

  “OK, OK,” said Walker, holding out his hands. “No need to make things tense.”

  Simon raised his palm to Walker, his eyes fixed on Natalie. “But you weren’t involved in any of his criminal doings? I’m supposed to believe that?”

  “Believe whatever y
ou want,” she said.

  I couldn’t help but be impressed with how fearlessly Natalie held her own with this guy. He was some of the top brass in this city and she didn’t seemed bothered in the slightest.

  She was a hell of a woman, that was for damn sure.

  But I couldn’t spend too much time mooning over the girl—I needed to be taking clear mental notes to bring back to Joey later.

  “We’ve discussed the matter already,” said Walker. “And Miss Mayer has impressed upon me that Monroe kept all of his criminal deals secret until she found out on her own.”

  “And when you found out?” asked Simon.

  “I went right to the cops,” she said. “I don’t screw around with crime. I’ve got enough to worry about without adding being an accomplice to a criminal boss on top of all of it.”

  Natalie spoke with a clear, authoritative tone, and if I hadn’t already known the truth, I would’ve been ready to believe her then. Simon regarded her for several long moments before sitting back in his chair and folding his hands on his lap.

  “And I suppose you’ll be wanting some sort of immunity for helping us.”

  “No need,” said Natalie. “I know the law, and I know I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “No need for immunity when there’s nothing you need to be immune from,” I said, echoing her point.

  She gave me a nod and turned her attention back to Simon.

  “Girl knows her stuff,” he said. “But let me ask you this: If you’re not counting on us for protection, why are you going to all this trouble? You could turn tail and flee the city, start fresh somewhere else, and avoid putting yourself at risk like this.”

  “Besides the fact that I don’t want to uproot my life because of some prick like Joey?” she asked. “Because it’s the right thing to do, how about that? I’ve been in the law game for enough time to know what men like him do when they’re out free. I’ve got the information to put him away for a long, long time.”

  She shook her head.

  “The things he told me he’s done… They’re things I can’t let keep happening. If I’ve got the power to stop him, then I’m going to do it.”

  I was liking this woman more and more by the minute. And judging by the look on Simon’s face, so was he.