Nick swore, his mouth going still at her neck. “I knew there’d be a catch.”

She laughed. “You’ll live.” She pulled back and cocked her head. “Can I ask you something? It’s been bothering me all night.”

“Fire away.”

“Puchalski is a federal agent? That’s some cover.”

“We placed him inside MCC two months ago. His cell-mate is one of the leaders of a south side gang—somebody we think is responsible for a string of murders. We’re hoping the cell-mate will get chatty and start bragging about his so-called accomplishments.”

“How’d you convince him to go along with stabbing my brother? Poor Puchalski. He’s probably in disciplinary segregation because of all this.”

Nick snorted. “To get him into the right cell, we had to coordinate with MCC. The guards know who he is. Your friend ‘Puchalski’ will be just fine. He’s probably hanging out in the warden’s office right now, drinking beer and watching TV while pretending to be in disciplinary segregation.”

“Well, I’m very impressed that you pulled it all off.” Jordan smiled slyly. “You know . . . this special-agent thing is kind of sexy at times.”

Nick grinned to himself. Good. Let the douchebag try to top that.

Twenty-five

XANDER HAD BEGUN to panic.

He was trapped in his home, under the guise that he was recovering from the stomach flu. Granted, his home was a three-bedroom, four-thousand-square-foot condo in the luxurious Trump International Hotel & Tower, so being trapped there wasn’t exactly a hardship. But all that alone time had given him hours upon hours to reflect on the gigantic, steaming pile of shit the FBI had just dumped on his doorstep.

His first thought had been to shred every account statement, financial record, and tax document connected to Bordeaux and his other clubs and restaurants. Then he realized this would be a worthless endeavor—his accountants, the banks, and the IRS all had their own copies and records of everything he’d ever filed. Not to mention, he kept most of that information in his office at Bordeaux, and he certainly didn’t want the FBI hearing him cleaning out his files. The one and only advantage he had right then was that no one except for Mercks knew he was onto them.

His second thought had been to turn himself over to the Feds and try to work out some kind of deal to testify against Martino. There was one problem with this: there was a hundred percent chance that Martino would try to have him killed before he ever got to testify, and about a ninety-five percent chance that he would succeed even if the Feds placed him under protective custody.

Not good odds.

Simply put, Xander didn’t want to die.

It seemed strange to be thinking in those terms. Of course he didn’t want to die; no one wanted to die. But in the last twenty-four hours, it had occurred to him that this was a very real, imminent possibility. And if Roberto Martino ever discovered that he had practically handed over the evidence of their money laundering to the FBI—for f**k’s sake, he’d given Nick McCall a tour of the lower level—that death was not only going to be imminent, but extremely painful.

Just days ago, he thought he’d been on his way to being king of the world. His biggest concern had been a woman. What he wouldn’t give to go back and freeze his life right there.

Xander stood in the kitchen, staring inside the massive subzero refrigerator that was stocked twice a week by his housekeeper—who he’d given the weekend off, using the flu excuse. At this point, he didn’t trust anyone. He needed to force himself to eat, despite the constant gnawing, queasy feeling in his stomach. He had to keep his energy up so he could think.

His cell phone rang. He reached into his pants pocket, pulled it out, and saw it was Mercks. “What did you find out?”

“You mean other than what they’re saying on TV?” Mercks asked.

Xander’s mouth went dry. “They’re talking about me on TV? Did the FBI make an announcement?”

“No, not you. I meant about Kyle Rhodes. It’s everywhere—in the papers, on TV, on the Internet. How have you missed this?”

Xander headed for his library. How had he missed some irrelevant story about Kyle Rhodes? Because television sucked nowadays, that’s how—all reality shows and hour-long dramas that introduced some mysterious event that was dragged out for seven seasons before coming to a wholly anticlimactic finale that explained jack shit. And while he normally read the paper, he’d been a little bit preoccupied with other matters over the last eighteen hours—primarily, how to keep himself alive and out of jail.

“Hold on—I’ve got the Tribune here somewhere.” Sure enough, he found it on the desk in his library where he’d tossed it with his mail earlier that morning, tucked under the new Wine Spectator. He pulled the newspaper out and read the headline: “Twitter Terrorist Released After Stabbing.”

“Rhodes is free?” he asked Mercks.

“Apparently, he was attacked in prison. The U.S. attorney released a statement saying that she agreed to permit him to serve the remainder of his sentence in home detention out of concern for his safety.”

“And this interests me because . . . ?”

“I can’t help but wonder if Kyle Rhodes was released because someone else paid his debt to society.”

Xander felt the sickening betrayal in his stomach. “You think Jordan made a deal? Me for her brother’s release?”