At Peace (The 'Burg #2)(48)
“Yeah. That surprise you?”
“Um… I guess not.”
Cal rolled into her, taking her to her back and got up on a cocked arm, elbow in the bed, his head in his hand and he looked down at her shadowed face as he ran his fingers in random patterns across the skin at her ribs.
“They call me in, I recon their houses, tell ‘em what they need, do the design, hand it over to firms who do the installs, maintenance and watch. Wiring is my signature, my systems are sound but my wiring is impenetrable. No one can do what I do, my designs are comprehensive, seamless but my wiring is what they pay for. ”
“But you used to be a bodyguard?”
“Natural progression.”
“Oh,” she whispered but he knew there was more.
“What?” Cal asked, she didn’t respond so his hand flattened on her ribs and he pressed in lightly before he repeated, “What?”
“If you only do, um… recon and design, how’d you get mixed up with Kenzie?”
It was then Cal understood her hesitation.
He blew out a sigh, rolled to his back and she rolled with him, coming up on an elbow with her head in her hand like he’d been moments before.
“Sorry, was that…?”
Cal cut her off. “Kenzie had a situation. Stalker. Bad shit. The guy was f**ked up. He broke into her house while she was out, did shit you don’t wanna know. They upped her security, he slipped through it, did his shit again. They called me to look into her systems, I made some modifications. She was there when I did the walkthrough. I have a reputation, she’d heard about it, she talked to her people, wanted me close and I didn’t blame her. This guy was whacked. She has three houses, I designed new systems for all of them in the meantime, until they caught this guy, I took her back at her request and she paid big for it. She took an interest while I was doin’ that. You know the rest.”
“Did you stop having her back after you two –?”
“Yeah.”
“So you were, um… having her back when you were gone so much before?”
“I don’t hang in Indiana in the winter, buddy. Got a place in Florida. I hang there. Come home to check on things every once in awhile. Kenzie got a message to me, I knew she was at my house, that’s why I was home that night. I came home to deal with her.”
“Oh.”
She fell silent and he could see even in the dark that her eyes were resting on the bed beside his shoulder. She was na**d beside him after he’d f**ked her, they were talking, another thing he never did with a woman, and she wasn’t touching him.
And Cal found, he didn’t f**king like that.
He reached out and wrapped his fingers around her forearm, sliding them down to her hand which he brought up to his chest and pressed it flat.
When he did this, her eyes came to his face.
“Did they catch him?” she asked quietly.
“Who?”
“Kenzie’s stalker.”
“Yeah, a coupla weeks after I quit her. It was in the news, buddy.”
“I must have missed that,” she whispered then asked, “Do you see a lot of stalker stuff with those people?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you help?”
“Yeah.”
“So you know a lot about it.”
He left her hand at his chest and curled his fingers under her hair where her head met her neck.
“Yeah, baby.”
Her body relaxed into his again. “Do they catch them a lot?”
“Always.”
“Always?”
“Yeah,” he told her, not telling her that the folks who got that obsessed sometimes crossed over the line, doing stupid but seriously sick shit and exposing themselves but usually terrifying the person they were stalking in the meantime.
“How do you know Daniel Hart?”
Cal didn’t hesitate in answering. “He killed my cousin in Chicago.”
Her body jerked at his words and she whispered, “What?”
“He killed my cousin. My mother was Italian, she was from Chicago, my cousin fell in with a family and the family he was in with is a rival of Hart’s. There was a skirmish for territory. Vinnie was whacked during the skirmish.”
“Who got the territory?”
“Hart.”
The syllable was loaded when she muttered, “Oh.”
“Mafia’s not big on givin’ up territory,” Cal told her.
“So um…”
“So, Vinnie hasn’t been forgotten.”
“How long ago was it?”
“’Bout seven years.”
The syllable was still loaded when she repeated it but it was a different weight this time when she murmured, “Oh.”
He put pressure on her neck, her elbow slid out from under her and he pulled her cheek to his shoulder. Her hand glided down his chest then to his side so her arm could wrap around his stomach.
“Sorry about your cousin,” she whispered into his skin.
Cal didn’t reply.
“Were you close?”
Cal replied to that but his reply was an understatement. He practically grew up with Vinnie Junior. Vinnie was like a brother.
“Yeah.”
“Sorry.”