He scratched his chin and shifted his hand like a seesaw. "Sort of. It seemed I was getting closer, and I was really hoping it would help me get the job, especially since the company was worried about being audited."

"What happened then?" she asked, catching sight of Michael yanking open the car door in the parking lot.

His phone buzzed again at the table.

Grabbing it from his back pocket, he hit ignore without looking at the screen. Worry p.r.i.c.kled at the back of Annalise's neck. "What if it's important?"

He inhaled deeply and shot her a small smile. "I'm sure whatever it is can wait five more minutes," he said as the waitress returned with their plates.

"Eggs, and our famous breakfast potatoes," she said, depositing their meals as a bearded man in a black windbreaker pa.s.sed behind her. When the waitress left, Michael finished his story. "So they set up a trap, basically, at the club. The gentlemen's club we do the security for."

She nodded, recalling this part of the tale.

She picked up her fork and dug into her eggs, taking a bite.

"And as soon as T.J. was there in the cigar lounge at White Box-"

She choked. Grabbing a napkin, she brought it to her mouth, coughing up the bit of egg she'd inhaled.

"Are you okay?" he asked, knitting his brow and thrusting a gla.s.s of water in her direction. She waved him off. Her blood had gone cold, and all her senses warned of danger. This was the same feeling she'd had as a photojournalist when situations in war zones became too dicey.

"What did you just say?" she whispered. The hair on her arms stood on end.

"About the cigar lounge?"

She nodded, fear racing over her skin. "The cigar lounge. Where was it?"

"White Box," he said slowly, his brow furrowed. "Why are you asking?"

Her palms turned clammy. "That name," she whispered, her voice sounding haunted even to her own ears. "Your father said something the last day I saw him, something about White Box."

Michael blinked, confusion in his blue eyes. "What did he say?"

Like a diver rising up in the sea, the memory broke through to the surface. "We were talking about work. His company. The missing rides. When you'd gone to the car to get an umbrella, I asked him how everything was going, and if he'd learned anything."

"And what did he say?" Michael asked, gripping the table, his jaw tight, his eyes wide with concern.

Something so simple. So offhand. So nothing. It had never seemed like more than a needle in the haystack. Until now.

Until it wasn't.

She hurtled back in time to that last conversation.

"But it didn't help you get the job?" she asked Michael's father as they chatted at the diner, having finished their eggs.

Thomas Paige shook his head. "Nope. But there will be others, I'm sure. I'm thinking of maybe switching to another limo company. Once I tried to move up, it became like a white box of information."

She arched an eyebrow. She'd never heard those words used that way. Perhaps it was an American saying she wasn't familiar with. "What does that mean?"

"Stuff was just erased. Rides disappeared. That's what I heard some of the guys there calling it. They called it a white box, and then one of them said it was the white box of information. I guess the guy who ran the place used that term. I was going to ask Sanders about it, since he drove him around, but I've decided it doesn't matter in the end. I'm just going to let it go."

"What a funny little saying," she said with a small laugh.

Thomas chuckled too. "Yeah, don't worry about that one. It's not a common phrase you need to know."

The check arrived, and so did Michael. "Got the umbrella," he declared, joining them as the conversation shifted back to the future, to their plans.

The ground began to sway. The whole diner seemed unsteady. "Did he say who ran the company? I always thought it was a guy named Paul, but someone else owned it. West was his name," Michael said in a barren voice, while his world seemed to spin off its axis.

Annalise shook her head.

He wanted to believe it was a coincidence. He wanted to rea.s.sure her that those were just two words. White box. But when his phone buzzed again in his pocket, and the name flashing across the screen registered, all he could think was that it wasn't over.

He answered the call from Morris in a split second. "What's going on?"

"Hey, Michael. Need to give you a heads up. I've been hacked, and some of the online research I did into Luke Carlton was accessed. Someone put two and two together and figured out I was working for you. I got an anonymous call last night to keep my nose out of the case. Which is weird, since the case is over."

His blood chilled to sub-zero temperatures, and instinct kicked in. Get the h.e.l.l out of here.

"Any idea who it was?" he asked as he fished in his wallet, tossed a twenty on the table, and reached for Annalise's hand. He pulled her up and walked away as he talked to Morris, scanning the diner from the booths to the foyer to the exit as they left.

"No clue," Morris said, as Michael raced with Annalise to his car. "But I think I was followed as I looked into the piano shop. I think that tipped someone off. I'm sorry."

"I gotta go," Michael said, ending the call as he put Annalise safely in his car. He ran to the driver's side, slid inside, locked the doors, and reversed out of his parking spot. In his rearview mirror, he spotted a bearded man in a silver sedan pulling out, too.

"Michael, what's going on?" Annalise asked, her voice quaking as he drove.

"Nothing good."

He placed his phone in the holder, clicked on missed calls, and his heart sank when he saw John Winston had rung him twice.

As he turned onto the highway, he returned the call, but Winston didn't answer.

"s.h.i.t, s.h.i.t, s.h.i.t."

He gripped the steering wheel, trying to drive and connect the dots, but he couldn't f.u.c.king figure out how they were all tied together. The thing that kept nagging at him was why Sanders had been so G.o.dd.a.m.n evasive, and what, if anything, that man had to do with White Box.

Whether White Box was the club or something else entirely.

As he neared the exit for his home, his phone buzzed, and Michael wanted to thank all the stars above that Winston was calling back. He answered on speaker.

"What the h.e.l.l is going on with the case?" he bit out.

"Seems we've got some new information. I got a call from a federal agent this morning about some RICO charges that might be connected to your father's case."

Michael's head swam with this news. "RICO? As in racketeering?" He glanced at Annalise, whose eyes were wide with shock and fear.

"Where are you?" John asked. "I'm leaving my colleague's office. I'll meet you."

"Heading home," he said, then rattled off the address.

"I'm heading down the elevator right now, so I should be there in twenty minutes."

"Wait," Michael said, as tension gripped him. "Who's behind it? Who's involved? I need to know. Is White Box part of this? How the h.e.l.l could White Box be part of this?"

John started to answer as Michael reached his street, but the words came out choppy. His phone was cutting out. f.u.c.king h.e.l.l.

"What did you just say?"

John kept talking, but only words like informant, protection, guns, and drugs were clear enough to make out. The rest was garbled. Finally the line died, and a minute later, Michael pulled into the parking garage at his building.

His pulse pounded dangerously fast. As he cut the engine, he met the gaze of the woman he loved, and saw so much fear in her eyes, but a toughness, too.

"Let's get inside and wait for John," he said, and she nodded.

He slammed his door, walked to the pa.s.senger side, scanned the lot, and, when he was confident it was all clear, he opened her door. She stepped out and he tugged her close, wrapping an arm around his Annalise and scanning once more.

His breath fled his chest.

All the alarm bells in his head sounded. By the door to his building stood a man he was far too familiar with-waiting for him.

"It seems we have business to settle."

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE.

Normally, he liked to delegate-have his men handle petty tasks like shaking people down. But sometimes you had to clean up your own mess. Like Michael Sloan. He was a tough one. He was too close, he knew too much, and he had figured out more than he should.

He'd connected the dots, according to what his man eavesdropping at the diner this morning had told him. That was something no one else had ever done. Not since years ago, when Michael's father had veered way too close for comfort.

Since then he'd operated cleaner. Neater, under the radar. But with the case blasted open, he'd had to dart and dodge.

Now it was time to do his own dirty work. And Charlie Stravinsky hated doing his own dirty work.

"Your mother was easy to manipulate into doing what I needed her to do. I fear you might not be so pliable," he said, stepping away from the wall of the parking garage and walking closer to the blue-eyed son of the man he'd convinced Dora Prince to have killed nearly two decades ago.

"You're right on that count," Michael said crisply. "This won't be easy. There are people who know you're involved."

Charlie waved that concern away, stopping at a green Lexus as Sloan grabbed the auburn-haired beauty with him and pushed her behind him. f.u.c.king redheads. They were nothing but trouble.

Charlie nodded and clucked his tongue. "You're right. There are people who know enough to be dangerous, like you and like her. But that's going to end soon, isn't it? Unless you want to come work for me? Your mother did, for all intents and purposes."

Michael's eyes narrowed, burning at him, his jaw set hard. He was like a fuse waiting to blow, and Charlie was going to enjoy every second of setting him off. The man was too good, too pure. Watching men like him shatter into animals was such a high.

"This isn't about her. This is about my father," he spat out, seething.

But Charlie wasn't scared of Michael. He wasn't scared of a thing. He'd let go of fear many years ago. After his brother was killed at age nine in a robbery back in his home country, he'd vowed to never let anyone f.u.c.k with his family again. He'd done a fine job providing for all his brothers and sisters. His businesses made money that had put them through school. Years ago he'd moved them to America to keep them safe, along with his mother and father, too. His parents had since pa.s.sed on, but he still took care of all his siblings, thanks to his businesses and the way they turned money into more money.

So when someone tried to mess with his business, they might as well be s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with his family.

And no one went after Charlie's family and got away with it.

Thomas Paige had tried to, sniffing around in his limo company, asking far too many questions. Curtis Paul Wollinsky, his best friend, his comrade in arms, and the manager of West Limos years ago, had alerted him to Paige's queries. They'd tried to shut him up through T.J., their chief intimidator with the Royal Sinners, but that hadn't worked.

Then opportunity had presented itself. Once Charlie had learned that Dora Prince was already making moves on her own to order a hit for money, Charlie had his ironclad solution-provide the means for Dora to go through with it. That way she couldn't stop it even if she tried. d.a.m.n shame she went to prison. She would have made an excellent lieutenant in his operations. She was loyal to the core, cold-blooded, and willing to act, especially when he'd threatened her children that one time she tried to back out.

Oh, that woman was willing to protect them. He really should visit her one day and thank her. But he'd deal with that another time.

Right now he had her pesky oldest son to shut up.

He extended a hand in Michael's direction, even though he was twenty feet away. The nerve of him saying it was about his father; the boy didn't realize he still had so much left to lose. "Or perhaps it's about you, and the only chance you have before you," he said, scratching his chin. "As I see it, your only way out is to come work with me."

Michael shook his head.

"You can do it. Everyone is corruptible if you threaten their family. It worked for your mother," Charlie said, as Michael shifted his eyes to the woman behind him.

"I'm not working for you, Charlie," he bit out as the redhead cowered. She was tall, though, and Michael couldn't quite shield her completely.

"But you do work for me. I hired you. I knew who you were, and look what happened." Charlie flashed his winning smile. His plan had worked like a charm-ingratiating himself with the security brothers, making them think he cared deeply about doing the right thing. Donating to the community center. Playing the concerned citizen. "You wound up liking me. We got along so well, Michael. Cleaning up the city together. Ridding Vegas of those nasty Royal Sinners I wanted to eradicate. You helped me get rid of the bad apples from my street crew-like T.J. He was a good one, but he was giving me a bellyache by the end, so turning him in was a joy, and you made it so easy for me to be helpful."

Michael clenched his fists, holding in all his rage. Ah, what an absolute delight to watch the carefully controlled Michael start to boil over. "What do you want?"

Charlie stared at him like he was insane. "What do I want?" he repeated. "Isn't it obvious?"

Charlie took a step closer. Michael moved back, the woman now sandwiched between him and the back of his car. "Use your brain, Sloan. I want you to stop asking questions. If you can't do that, you can go ahead and join your father." He reached behind his jacket and took his gun from his holster, his eyes on Sloan.

Who moved like a G.o.dd.a.m.n cheetah. Before Charlie even raised his weapon, Michael's gun was pointing at his face.

Charlie didn't flinch. He'd stared down more frightening men. He'd stared down death. Besides, Michael wasn't tough enough. "You're not your mother's son," he hissed. "You're your father's son. You don't have it in you to fire that thing. You're too good, like he was. So we have two options. You either work for me, or we say good-bye."

"I'll take option three," Michael said, his finger nearing the trigger.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO.