Black Sheep Read online

  An hour later, I know I should have thrown Drew out of my apartment immediately after I wiped the taste of her from my lips.

  Her laughter fills my office as she fucking beats me at the game I play almost every day by myself, and the sight of joy on her face is absolutely fucking breathtaking.

  When I said she was dangerous, I didn’t even know the extent of her powers of devastation.

  “We really should’ve played for money. Because I do believe I just crushed you again.” Drew points to her shuffleboard weights, which sit in the area that is awarded the most points.

  “How in the hell are you able to keep doing that?” The incredulity in my tone speaks for itself.

  Drew’s grin grows wider as she laughs. “You told me to take it easy, and I am. Otherwise, I’d have been overshooting for the last hour instead of kicking your ass. So really, it’s your fault.”

  I stalk around the shuffleboard lane, and as soon as she realizes my intent, her teeth click together and she backs up two steps.

  “Hey, whoa. Whatever you’re planning right now . . . slow your roll, big man. Don’t want to be a sore loser.”

  When I fake like I’m going to charge at her, she bolts for the door, exactly as I expected. I cut her off and grab her around the waist, lifting her into the air before she can get away.

  “I declare myself the winner, and you are my prize,” I say as she squirms in my grip.

  “Not fair!” she shrieks, trying to wiggle free.

  I walk out of my office, toward the broken-in sectional in the living room as I easily fend off her attempts. Readjusting her in my hold, I lower her to the cushions and drop my full body weight on top of her. Pinned beneath me, Drew tries to escape, and her dark hair is a wild mess.

  “You’re not going anywhere. Not until I let you.”

  She stills at my words and stares into my eyes.

  The blue-green color I’ve only ever seen in the waters of the Caribbean still takes my breath away. Her eyes are like a gut punch to the soul. They heat like she’s now thinking of things that have nothing to do with getting away from me.

  Her top teeth dig into her bottom lip. “What are you claiming for your ill-gotten gains?”

  I lean down and steal a kiss. “You.”

  “What part of me?” she asks, sounding almost breathless.

  “All of you.”

  28

  Drew

  Oh Christ. That’s not fair. He can’t say things like that to me. Because now my insides are melting, I have no panties to block the flood of wetness between my thighs, and I want to crawl out from under him and ride him until neither of us remembers our names. Real or fake.

  And the way he looks at me . . . no one has ever looked at me like that.

  Like he can’t see what I’m hiding, but he knows there’s something and just doesn’t care—because he wants me, secrets and all. Okay, so maybe I’m projecting that piece because I desperately want it to be true. Even though I know that this can end nowhere good. Right?

  Unless . . . Cannon Freeman spent most of his adult life on the right side of the law, working for Creighton Karas. It’s only been since Karas fired him that he’s been running the Upper Ten, which is technically also on the right side of the law, regardless of the mob meetings that take place there. But those could happen anywhere, right? That wouldn’t make him a criminal purely by association, would it? At most, maybe an accomplice of some kind?

  My brain is working overtime here, trying to come up with all the reasons why I can still complete my investigation and take down the Casso family . . . but keep Cannon out of the cross fire. So I can keep him.

  I’m crazy. Absolutely insane. This is the worst plan in the history of plans, and my father would tell me that you can’t ride two horses with one ass.

  But this man is special. It isn’t his fault he was born the bastard son of a mob boss. He can still be a good man. Right?

  There’s no one else in my head to agree or argue with my rationale, so I arbitrarily decide my instincts are on point and give myself permission to do exactly what I want to do right now. I maneuver until we’ve changed positions, with Cannon on the bottom and me kneeling between his knees on the cushion.

  My fingers slide into the waistband of his suit pants and his hard, flat stomach sucks in, as though he’s shocked I’m touching him there.

  “Drew . . .”

  When he says my fake name, I block it out. I don’t want him to call me that. I want him to call me by my real name.

  Someday, I promise myself silently.

  “Shush. If you’re going to be a caveman and declare yourself the winner despite the fact that I won, you should accept the spoils I offer.” I look up at him from under my eyelashes. “My mouth.”

  Cannon’s lips form the word fuck silently as I free the button and tug at the zipper. We both say it out loud when his thick, hard cock springs forward into my hand.

  Oh God.

  I didn’t expect his penis to be just as beautiful as every other part of him, but I probably should have.

  It’s got girth and is well-formed—long and thick and just slightly curved toward his belly. The head takes on a dusky reddish-purple hue, and a little pearl-sized drop of clear fluid drips from the end.

  I can’t help it. I lap it up, loving the salty flavor.

  Cannon shoves his pants down further and groans. “Fuck. God. Yes.”

  I wrap my palm around him and squeeze, milking more from him to lap up like it’s my prize. He widens his knees and lifts upward, bringing his cock to my mouth, and slides it against my lips. “Can you take me?”

  I reach out and tap the head with my tongue. “I can try.”

  And with that, he pushes forward, his cock tunneling between my lips, and I take him halfway, sucking hard as he pulls back.

  “Jesus. I need to fuck your face.”

  My thighs squeeze together, and I nod. “I want that too.”

  He lifts up and powers into my mouth. I take him deeper and easier with each stroke, and Cannon’s face contorts with pleasure.

  “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

  He’s fighting the urge to come, and selfishly, I want to push him over the edge, into the oblivion that I couldn’t resist when he was stealing my control.

  Finally, he tries to pull away, but I move forward, sucking him deeper. He finds my hand, squeezing it tight as he throws his head back and roars. His cock pulses in my mouth and I swallow eagerly, proud that I could take him to the same place he took me.

  The next time he attempts to move, I release my hold on him and his cock slides out of my mouth. Cannon tucks himself back into his pants before pulling me up his body so my head lies on his chest, listening as his heart pounds like a jackhammer.

  “Jesus fuck. I didn’t expect that. Didn’t—”

  “Shut up and enjoy the afterglow,” I tell him as I press a kiss to his stubbled jaw.

  I told myself I wasn’t going to do it. I told myself not to take the risk. Shockingly, I lied.

  As soon as Cannon’s breathing turns even in the living room, I slip out of the bed he insisted that I take for myself and silently creep across his apartment.

  Sounds from the city invade—sirens, horns, car alarms, yelling—and I’m thankful for all of them because I’m hoping they hide my movements.

  As I slip into Cannon’s office, I tell myself that the keystroke logger is going to prove him innocent, and not give me more information to make my case.

  This could save him.

  But my guilt still rages.

  I can’t help but ask myself—why now? After all of the people I’ve become to get the stories I broke for the world and the justice that followed, why am I now developing such an overbearing conscience?

  I slip the flash drive into the port on the side of his laptop and wait the thirty seconds it takes for the software to do its job. When it’s done, I pull it out again and tiptoe through the living room, praying I can get back to the bedroom without him knowing. As soon as I hit the doorway, it’s obvious no one is answering my prayers tonight.

  A light flips on in the kitchen area, coming from the fridge. I spin around to face it and freeze.

  Cannon stands there, a bottle of water tipped toward his lips, staring at me. He lowers the bottle, his gaze sweeping from the top of my mussed hair to the toes of my bare feet—and every naked inch in between.

  “You walk around my apartment like that in the middle of the night, and I’m going to take it as an invitation to come put you back to bed and stay there with you.”

  There is literally nothing I’d prefer more at this moment, even with the flash drive clutched tightly in my hand.

  “Then why don’t you come join me?” The words fall from my lips without thought.

  Cannon doesn’t miss a beat. He closes the fridge and the light extinguishes.

  “You’re not ready for that. But next time you ask, I won’t say no.” In the darkness, his deep voice sounds even more menacing as he delivers the promise. “Go to bed, Drew. We’ve got a lot to talk about in the morning.”

  29

  Drew

  The next morning, I do what all cowards do when they realize they’ve gotten in too deep—I run.

  Cannon is asleep on the couch as I sneak out of his apartment. Cringing at the clanging of the elevator, I shove my wig back on my head and hold my breath until I’m out of the building and on the sidewalk, doing the walk of shame in last night’s dress.

  I don’t know what he wanted to talk about this morning, but I know that I’m not emotionally equipped for any conversation with him right now.

  Thumbing the app on my phone, I receive confirmation that my ride will be arriving within two minutes, and I hope it’s fast enough to escape before Cannon realizes that I’m gone.

  As I stand on the sidewalk, a strange feeling pricks at me, and I glance to the right and across the street to an open car window and notice a cloud of cigarette smoke—coming straight out of a face I’ve seen before.

  GTR. The younger Rossetti from the meeting at the Upper Ten.

  Hell. That’s not good.

  I drop my attention to my phone, pretending I’m engrossed in watching the car on its way to get me as it loops around blocks and waits at lights. In reality, I’m silently chanting hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.

  Because now I’m caught between a rock and an awkwardly hard place. I’m going to have to tell Cannon who I saw as I was sneaking out of his apartment.

  Not that the awkwardness wasn’t going to happen anyway, since I have to work tomorrow and he’ll most likely be there.

  But can the Rossetti information wait that long?

  Finally, the longest two minutes of my life end, and the car with the sign for the ride-share app posted in the back window pulls up along the sidewalk. I check the face of the driver and compare it to the one on the screen. It all matches, along with the make and model of the car, so I climb in.

  Thankfully, he doesn’t try to make any small talk and focuses on driving, which leaves me to my thoughts and trying to decide if I should tell Cannon right now or wait.

  Fuck it. I’m not going to put him in possible danger in a mob rivalry because I’m a chickenshit who couldn’t stay to face him in the morning.

  I use the phone number Cannon gave me for emergencies when I started at the club and type out a text.

  * * *

  Me: I’m really sorry, I had to run. Thought you should know that as I was waiting for my ride, I saw a guy sitting in a car who looked like someone from the meeting the other night. The younger one from the R family.

  * * *

  I stare down at my text and decide that my attempt at being subtle leaves a lot to be desired, but I don’t know how else to give him the information. Before I can second-guess myself more, I hit send, hoping like hell Cannon is still asleep and I won’t have to deal with replying to him until much later in the day.

  My entire body jerks as my phone vibrates in my hand.

  * * *

  Cannon: You’re not stealthy or quiet. Come back up.

  * * *

  Me: Sorry, already on my way home.

  * * *

  Cannon: Then I’ll come to you.

  * * *

  Me: He’s watching your apartment. Do you really think that’s a good idea?

  * * *

  The rapid-fire text exchange comes to a halt when I don’t get a reply from Cannon, and I can only imagine what he’s doing. I can picture him walking across the street, naked, his dick swinging as he yanks GTR from the car and drags him inside to interrogate him.

  Okay, so maybe he wouldn’t do that naked, but I certainly don’t want to know what kind of interrogation tactics Cannon might use.

  For the rest of the ride back to my apartment, I stare at my phone and wait for another bubble of text to pop up.

  It doesn’t.

  Ten hours later, I’m munching on a Granny Smith apple tart enough to make my eyes water and drumming my fingers on my kitchen counter.

  My day off has been a bust.

  Cannon hasn’t typed a single word on his laptop. The keystroke logger program is alive and well, but there’s literally nothing to see.

  What if he doesn’t use that laptop? I don’t know how the hell I’d be able to get a program onto his laptop at the club because there are cameras everywhere.

  As soon as the thought hits me, I cringe, and the apple falls to the counter with a bruising thud.

  “What if he has cameras in his apartment?” I ask the empty walls surrounding me as my heart rate kicks up eighty-seven notches. “Why didn’t I think about that? Shit. Shit. Shit.”

  I’m not usually such an idiot when it comes to this stuff. The only excuse I have is that Cannon Freeman has thrown me so far off-balance that I don’t know what has happened to the normal me who has instincts like a bloodhound.

  Backing away from my laptop—where the camera has been covered with a little piece of electrical tape since the day I purchased it—I wonder when all my instincts for self-preservation deserted me.

  My best guess? Somewhere between getting jealous that my target was possibly screwing his employees, and my screaming orgasm last night on his desk.

  I have to pull it together. I have to ground myself and get back on track.

  The best way I know how to do that? Remind myself exactly what the Casso family is capable of.

  Pushing away from the kitchen counter, I snag my hot-pink Swiss Army knife out of my purse and head for the bedroom, which only takes four steps in my tiny apartment. Once I’ve located the flathead screwdriver, I go to work. With a few turns, one screw falls into my hand and the vent swings open, revealing a thick manila folder hidden in the ductwork. Silently, I drop into a cross-legged position on the boring white duvet that matches every other boring white thing in this place, including the boring white nightstand I rest the screw on.

  This isn’t my real apartment. Just like this isn’t my real name.

  The only real thing in this place is this folder, containing the pieces of my father’s investigation that got him killed.

  When I flip open the battered front cover, the first picture that greets me is one of Dominic Casso, except instead of looking like a fierce silver fox, his hair is dark like Cannon’s without a single hint of gray. The date on the picture reads February 12, 1994. The collar of Dom’s long black overcoat is raised to cover his ears as he walks down the steps of the courthouse.

  It was the first of many RICO cases where the charges didn’t stick. Teflon Dom isn’t his nickname because he likes to cook, after all.

  On the back, my dad’s handwriting is barely legible, but there’s a case number written.

  I pulled the records from the court system, but I couldn’t figure out what he was after. The charges were all about money laundering, and Dom’s lawyer managed to get him off with a jury verdict of not guilty.

  Could they have bought the jury? It’s a possibility, but not something that would be easy to prove.

  I turn to the next piece of information in the file, hoping the time and space since I’ve sorted through this will allow me to examine it with fresh eyes. Four stapled sheets of lined yellow legal pad slide out next. They’re filled with information about all the cases brought against Dom and the prosecutors who failed to gain convictions.

  It doesn’t matter what the charges were; they’ve never been able to get him on more than a freaking parking ticket. And even then, there was only one.

  Page after page, I leaf through until I see a picture of a man I couldn’t identify before, but now I know exactly who he is. Nearly a carbon copy of his son, GTR, who was watching Cannon’s apartment this morning, Giancarlo Rossetti also had to have been photographed when he was in his prime.

  The rest of the file is filled with photos and notes about incidents that were suspected to be part of the rivalry between the families, but no one has been charged in connection with any of them because there wasn’t enough evidence.

  “No one who will consent to an interview seems to know the cause of the resurgence of the feud,” my father noted, and I can only imagine how much that drove him crazy. “Other inquiries I’ve made about the Casso family have been met with suspicion and refusal to speak about anything. Several of my potential sources are either terrified, protecting someone, or both.”

  My father was a man who never stopped digging until he felt he’d gotten every possible answer. Then he’d go one step further—review all the unearthed facts as objectively as possible and try to spot the story that no one else could see. That was why Leander Lockwood was incredible at what he did, even before he took the job anchoring the national evening news for two decades. He never stopped investigating. Ever.

  “You can’t just report what you find on the surface. You always have to go deeper, and when you think you’ve found everything there is to find, dig another ten feet and then reassess.”

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