Queen's Ransom: A Fog City Novel Read online

  Helena lifted her gaze and surveyed the courtroom, counting counsel and defendants. The crowd had thinned out considerably since they’d first entered and claimed their spots on the last gallery bench, but Dex was last on the arraignment docket, and by her count, there were still five other defendants to go.

  “You’d think right.” She returned to scrolling through her texts with Celia. The message she’d sent yesterday afternoon had had its intended effect. Not another peep from Celia, and Helena had never been more miserable. Not the recent winter months she’d gone without seeing her. Not the summer and fall before then that she’d spent watching and wanting from across the garage bay. Not the sharp pang of desire she’d felt when she’d first laid eyes on Celia Perri.

  Monday night had been the single best sexual experience of her life, and she’d had her fair share, with men and women. But none of those had ever been as satisfying—or as emotional. She’d liked most of her past sexual partners, but that was as far as her connection to them had gone. As far as she’d allowed it to go. Until Celia. Celia had gotten under her skin, knocked down her walls, and now that Helena knew how good it could be, everything else—everyone else—paled in comparison. And yet, how could she put her own pleasure, her own happiness above Celia’s life? Above the life and livelihood of Gloria and the kids? There was the real push.

  “Just text her back,” Avery said.

  “And tell her what?” Helena snapped. “Her family’s life’s work was shot up, and she could have been killed because someone is after my family in order to curry favor with the Russian mob.”

  “We don’t know that.” Avery tilted her head toward where Dex sat in the front row with the other defendants waiting their turn. “Maybe it was a message for that asshole.”

  “You think he’s worth all this hassle?”

  Avery shrugged. “It’s a lot of debt, and he’s a known flight risk.”

  True, but Helena still didn’t see it. A borrowed car, jacked with custom parts, then abandoned. Because of Dex? “August said it wasn’t his brother. So it’s Lenny gone rogue, Lenny gone stupid, or Lenny working with Zima to climb the Bratva ladder.” She recalled what August had said yesterday. “These scenarios aren’t getting any better.”

  Avery shifted on the bench, crossing a leg toward her and stretching an arm out on the bench behind her, giving up any pretense she was paying attention either. “And this prevents you from pursuing something with Celia how? And don’t pretend like you don’t want to.” She lowered her voice and leaned closer. “If you don’t, you’re fucking blind, because one, she’s hot as fuck, and two, she’s good people.”

  “Which is why I need to steer clear. I’ve got nothing to offer her.”

  “That’s utter horse shit.” So much for keeping her volume low and so much for courtroom manners. Avery flipped off the few people left in the gallery who’d turned to glare their direction. They turned back to the proceedings, and Avery turned back to her, her dark gaze resolute. “You are smart, dedicated, and gorgeous.”

  “I’m dangerous.”

  “Stop making excuses. You always do this, come up with some reason to push people away. Your brothers won’t call you out on it, but I’m tired of watching you be alone. You get to be happy too.”

  “I can’t expose—”

  “Boss, can you honestly say she’s in any more danger from you than from Chris or any of us or from her ex or any of those other criminals he’s sitting up there with?”

  Helena hung her head, chuckling softly.

  “I was in danger too.” The drastic shift in Avery’s tone made Helena glance up again, only to find Avery’s gaze fixed on a spot over Helena’s shoulder, on a time in the past. “Amelia found me, got me out of that, and fuck, boss”—she refocused on Helena and on the present—“so far, besides your grandmother, Amelia’s been the most dangerous one of you. But if not for her, I have no doubt I’d be dead. I wouldn’t be here today, monitoring this asshole’s arraignment because, oh, let me think, we’re trying to keep his ex-wife safe.”

  Helena rested her head against her friend and colleague’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “You’re good people too.” Avery patted her knee. “Even if I do have to knock some sense into each of you sometimes.”

  “I just want to do right by her,” Helena said. “She was raising a kid when I was still acting like one. She shouldn’t have to worry—”

  “She’s a mom. She’s wired that way, whether it’s about herself, her kids, her family, or you. I know you’re used to losing people—your parents, your grandparents, Holt for a time, Amelia—but that woman, she’ll stick if you let her. And besides, is it your decision to make? Shouldn’t she be the one to decide how much risk she can handle?”

  As the last few defendants before Dex were processed through, Helena turned Avery’s words over in her head. And as Dex finally stood and the judge read off the charges, reviewed his rap sheet, and recounted his many, many absences, correctly determining he was a flight risk and denying his request for reduced bail, a lump formed in Helena’s throat and a knot settled in her stomach. The way she’d been treating Celia wasn’t all that different from the way Dex used to. Taking away her choices. Keeping her on the outside. Keeping her in the dark.

  She understood now why Celia had met with her support group counselor last night, and it made Helena sick to her stomach to think she’d put Celia into one of the very situations she was trying to protect her from. As for the other, Avery was right. Celia was strong, the strongest woman Helena knew. If she wasn’t afraid, if she was willing to take a risk on her, then Helena had to stop being afraid to do the same.

  Avery bumped her arm. “And that’s a wrap.”

  The gavel fell, and Helena pried herself out of her own head. They shuffled into the aisle, shaking hands with the departing public defender. At the front of the room, the judge and clerk exited one direction, and the bailiff led Dex the other way toward the prisoners’ entrance. At the door, Dex glanced over his shoulder and spied her and Avery. “This is your fault,” he sneered.

  “Nope,” Helena said. “Pretty sure all the evidence points to you.”

  “Because you planted it.”

  “Not this time,” she said with a wink.

  The bailiff dragged a fuming Dexter the rest of the way out of the courtroom, and Helena and Avery headed toward the gallery doors. Helena’s hand was on the handle when the unmistakable pop of a gunshot blasted from somewhere behind them.

  Helena didn’t have to give the order; she and Avery worked together as seamlessly as she worked with her brothers. They broke to opposite sides of the courtroom, crouching behind the last row of benches. She peeked over the bench. No one but them in the courtroom, confirming the gunfire had come from the hallway Dex had been led into.

  “Clear,” she said. “Shots in the hallway.” She and Avery had maybe five seconds before the guards charging the opposite direction, from the foyer, barged in. “Go!”

  They sprinted up either side of the courtroom, Helena grabbing weapons as she streaked across the front of the familiar space. Pens, wires, the bailiff’s Bible. Avery opened the door for her, and she ran through, two pens and the Bible at the ready. Not as good as her knives, but she could make do. Assuming she could get a lock on her target. Unfortunately, the elevator doors closed on Zima and a still-cuffed Dexter before she could strike. Zima, though, already had. The bailiff was slumped against the wall, blood oozing from a gunshot wound to his right shoulder. Helena dropped the Bible, stripped off the scarf hanging loosely around her neck, and flung it at Avery. “Apply pressure. Catch up.”

  Avery caught the scarf and dropped to her knees next to the bailiff, fast at work. “Copy.”

  Helena ran flat out for the stairwell door, flashing her access badge. She skipped down the stairs, landing and bounding off every third one, riding the momentum. She reached the ground floor only a few seconds behind Zima and Dex, who were hustling toward a
utility van, Lenny standing at the open back doors.

  She opened her mouth to call after them but then an arm circled her waist and a hand covered her mouth. “What do you think you’re doing?” Avery whispered from behind her.

  Their height difference gave Avery a few-second advantage, enough to haul Helena behind a parked SUV, but once they were out of sight, Helena bit the inside of her palm, rammed the insole of Avery’s foot, and wrenched herself free. Spinning, she traded three quick jabs with Avery, then finally got her calf hooked behind the taller woman’s and her forearm braced across her chest, shoving Avery against the side of the SUV. “Nice moves, but you have to let me do this.”

  “Which is what?”

  “Giving them what they want.”

  “They’ve got what they want. Dex.”

  And Zima was going to make off with him if she didn’t end this standoff quickly. But she had to make sure Avery took the right message back to her family. “Until they call and try to ransom him. Until Celia finds out and has to worry even more about her kids’ deadbeat dad. They don’t really want Dex. They want me. The queen.”

  Avery smiled. “And you think you’re not good enough for her.”

  Trusting she’d won the argument, and hearing another one escalating between Zima and Lenny, Helena released Avery and dug her phone out of her pocket. “You get the plates on the van?”

  Avery, always on the lookout, always acutely aware of their surroundings, rattled off the numbers and letters.

  “Good.” Helena handed over her phone. While Holt could track it to find her, so could any number of other parties who might try a third-party rip-off. And no telling what Zima or the Bratva would do with that phone if they got their hands on it. “Rally the troops. Come get me.”

  “You could just take him out.”

  “Or I could make sure this only goes as high as Zima and make sure no one else makes this kind of play against us.”

  “Copy.” Avery made an oof sound and pretended to fall to the ground, the noise interrupting Zima and Lenny’s argument.

  Hands raised, Helena stepped around the hood of the SUV. “It’s me you want, isn’t it, Adrian? That’s why you shot up the shop.”

  “What’s going on?” Dex said from where he lay sideways in the back of the van.

  “Yeah, Adrian, what the hell?” Lenny added. “I thought we were just gonna intimidate Dex again. Like with the drive-by. Convince him to give us the money he owes—”

  Zima popped Lenny in the temple with his elbow, a swift hard blow. The dealer folded like a rag doll, right into the back of the truck, unconscious.

  “Get in,” Zima said to her.

  She pointed at Lenny and Dex. “Let those two go. Bratva’s not gonna care about a drug dealer and a petty criminal.”

  “I think I’ll keep them. May ditch the one,” Zima said, a flick of his eyes toward Lenny before he pointed the gun at Dex, who squirmed farther back in the van like a fucking idiot. “He’s my insurance that you cooperate. If you’re willing to trade yourself for him, what else will you do?”

  Oh, if he only knew. She’d save that surprise for later when she had all the intel she needed. She climbed into the van, and Zima slammed the doors shut, plunging them into darkness.

  Until the fucking idiot among them let her know exactly where he was. “What the hell?” Dex whined. “This is all Celia’s fault. I told her you were bad—”

  She punched him square in the mouth, silencing him so she could think about how to make her next move against Zima and about the move after that—how to win Celia back.

  Chapter Twenty

  What was it Celia had said? If she never had to be back inside the police station again it would be too soon. Well, three days later was way too fucking soon.

  “Anything else about the phone call from Dex you can tell me?” Brax asked.

  She shook her head. “No, that was everything.” She bit her lip, afraid to give words to the fear that had been gnawing inside her since Grant had spirited her out of the shop two hours ago. But she was more afraid not to have an answer. “Is this because of me? Because of what I said to Dex? Did I do this?”

  Brax stood, circled his desk, and claimed the visitor chair next to her. Three days and another incident had not done the chief any favors. He looked even more flattened, more exhausted than he had on Sunday, but there was still something about him that calmed her, that made her believe he’d help make everything all right. “By all accounts, Dex had no idea what was going on. No matter what you said to him on that call, this would have likely still happened. This was not your fault.” He held her fidgeting hands in both of his. “It’s hard loving them,” he said, and the same pain that had haunted Holt’s face the past week emerged on Brax’s. He wasn’t talking about Dex or exes anymore. He was talking about the other people—the Madigans—who played a starring role in both their lives. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he licked his lips like he was searching for the right words to make her feel better. She appreciated that he gave her the truth instead. “I’m not gonna lie,” he said. “This will probably not be the last time we meet like this, but they always manage to pull through. We just have to have faith and do what we can to help.”

  “And pick up the pieces after?”

  “Someone has to.” He smiled, a weak yet fond thing. “I’m always here, Cee, if you need me.”

  She reversed her grip, squeezing his fingers, sensing Brax needed the comfort, the ally, as much as she did. “Thank you, Chief.”

  The door behind them opened, Chris poking in his head. “We need to get back to the house,” he said. “You good?”

  “We’re good here.” Brax released her hands and stood, offering her a hand up then circling back behind his desk. “Everyone else safe there?” he asked Chris, and while Celia knew he was asking generally, there were two people she thought he wanted to know about in particular.

  Chris nodded. “Everyone else is locked down at the mansion. We’ll keep you posted. Do the same?”

  “Of course.”

  They slipped out of his office and out a back exit. “Mom and the kids?” she asked as they hustled down the stairs.

  “Also at the house.”

  “Good.” She waited until they were out of the parking garage, she with Chris in Hawes’s borrowed Benz, Grant and Malik trailing behind them in her SUV, before she asked another of the questions that had been nagging her. “How did she get taken? Wasn’t Avery with her?”

  “Avery tried to stop her, but there’s only one person who can best Helena in hand-to-hand combat, and in this case, I’m not sure even Mel would’ve won.” He handed her his phone, a video ready to play. “She was determined.”

  By the time Celia finished the video, she was equal parts awed and furious. “She gave herself up?”

  “To protect Dex and to find out exactly what is going on.”

  “She mentioned the Bratva. As in the Russian mob Bratva?”

  At a stoplight, Chris took his phone back and dropped it in the cup holder. “You can’t—”

  Anger won out. “Fuck it, Christopher, just tell me what you can.” The full name got his attention, as did her tone no doubt. It was the same one their mother used whenever they got up to something they shouldn’t. When he continued to hesitate, she wound it up more. “I know there are limits, need to know and all that bullshit, but the woman I—”

  His face whipped her direction, brow arched.

  Fuck it. Helena had traded herself to keep her worthless ex safe. No doubt to keep her safe and to keep her from having to deal with the fallout. The least Celia could do was admit the truth. “My friend, who I would like to be more, just surrendered herself to the person who shot up the shop.”

  Once across King Street, Chris sped up, cutting down side streets and up those less crowded than Third, swiftly making his way through SOMA. “Dex and Lenny are idiots,” he said. “They got tangled up with a guy who is low level Russian mob and didn’t even know it.�
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  “The blond one?”

  “Adrian Zima. He’s trying to make a name for himself. Climb the ranks.”

  “By going after the Madigans?”

  Chris nodded, and Celia propped her elbow on the window, forehead in the palm of her hand, all the pieces finally coming together. “That’s why Helena’s been pushing me away.”

  “She was trying to protect you, Cee.”

  Fuck, that was all she’d ever been trying to do.

  “She has a hard time turning it off,” Chris continued. “Last year, she was the bait on one of our ops, and we had to talk her out of doing it again on another after she became the head of the organization.”

  Celia swung her gaze to Chris. “I thought that was Hawes.”

  “Not since last summer, and she feels more responsibility than ever. For everyone. Operatives, family, friends she might also like to be more.”

  And now she’d gone and put her life on the line, playing the bait again, to protect Celia and her family. From the Russian mob. “Are the Bratva enemies?”

  Chris impatiently drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel as they waited at another stoplight. “Relations are actually better than ever, but this situation is unpredictable.”

  That sounded ominous. “Meaning it might not matter?”

  “Hawes and Helena were supposed to meet with the Bratva tonight.” The light turned green, they turned onto Geary, and Chris gunned the Benz, home free for at least a few blocks on the cross-town expressway. “We were hoping to head this off.”

  “But now one of their people have her. The head of a rival organization.” And there she went, making it sound even more ominous. It wasn’t so much a hummingbird in her stomach now as a raven doing barrel rolls.

  “We can’t rival the Bratva,” Chris said, “but we can cause them trouble, unless we convince them Zima is more trouble.”

  Go with the giant black bird, then. She didn’t see how she had another option. Hold on tight, use everything Helena had taught her, summon up all the borrowed and earned confidence, and go save the woman she would like to have more with too. “All right, then, what the fuck are we waiting for?”