Page 5 of Perfect Vengeance (FBI Strike Force #1)

Setting up an entire family in another city was an expensive endeavor. New ID , a place to live, a car, cash for food and other necessary supplies. Freedom from abuse wasn’t free, and it didn’t come cheap.

The corner of one of the boxes dug into her palm where she’d crushed it with her fingers. She glanced into the living room where the other women sat in a row on the sofa. From the gloomy looks on their faces, they’d heard every word of Linda’s message.

“ That settles it.” One by one, she locked eyes with each of her friends. “ I’m going back.”

“ Back ?” Kinsey leaned forward. “ Where ? You can’t mean Rocco’s .” Her striking amber-brown eyes widened.

“ Yes . To Rocco’s . Not tonight, but soon.” She strode into the living room and perched on the rolled arm of the love seat. “ You heard the message. Marilyn needs that money more than ever, and she needs it yesterday.”

“ You’re crazy.” Annabelle shook her head, making her shoulder-length, curly red hair shimmer. “ Rocco might be waiting. He might even set a trap.”

“ I doubt it.” Gina popped another lychee into her mouth, then held out the box to her friends.

“ Want any?” She knew they didn’t. They’d never understood the chocolate-lychee fetish she took to addictive levels.

Not even Kinsey , whom she’d first met at a chocolate tasting event put on by her family’s international cacao company.

“ Yuck .” Kinsey’s perfect, twenty-six-year-old’s complexion crinkled as she grimaced. “ Chocolate -covered raspberries maybe, but not that weird-ass nut-fruit.”

“ Me neither.” Annabelle held up her hand. “ I don’t know how you can eat at a time like this.”

Margo likewise declined, shaking her head. “ What makes you think you can successfully get into Rocco’s apartment again? He has to know you were there. Don’t you think he’ll move the cash to another location?”

“ I don’t think so.” She finished chewing and swallowed, feeling more and more certain their original plan could still work.

“ Even though Rocco showed up, I don’t think he has a clue anyone was inside the apartment with him.

Me or that FBI agent. We hid in the closet while he was in the shower.

He never got the chance to eyeball us. Plus ,” she added, tossing the boxes onto the coffee table, “ I never cracked the safe, so there’s no money missing. There’d be no sign we were ever there.”

“ That’s another thing.” Annabelle crossed her arms, tightening her jacket across her plump bosom. “ It’s way too risky now that the FBI is on to us.”

“ What do you mean, they’re on to us?” Gina held her arms from her sides.

“ They have no idea who we are. That agent might have seen my face, but he doesn’t know my name, and there’s no way he could have gotten the tag off our rental car, what with it being pitch-black outside and that little matter of him being unconscious.

” She prayed he wasn’t lying in a full body cast in some hospital.

“ You don’t think getting run over would be motive enough for a federal agent to track us down?” Annabelle’s accent was thickening to new levels. “ He’s the FBI . They know everything .”

“ Stop whining.” Kinsey faced off against Annabelle again. “ I was the one behind the wheel. If anyone’s going to get hunted down like a waterbuck it will be me.”

“ All right, calm down, both of you.” Margo angled on the sofa to focus on Gina .

“ I agree that under the circumstances it would be difficult for the FBI to identify us. We should consider having another crack at Rocco’s place, but first we need to analyze what went wrong and whether it could happen again. ”

Annabelle opened her mouth to object, but Gina cut her off.

“ I know what you’re going to say, but tonight was a fluke.

Everything else went like clockwork. Rocco’s alarm system was decrepit and simple to bypass.

” She reached into the pocket of her black warm-up jacket and plucked out the jumble of wires and alligator clips Margo had concocted, courtesy of having been a top-notch electrical engineer.

She tossed it on the table where it landed with a thump .

“ And with everything Sergio taught me about lock picking, I was inside Rocco’s door within thirty seconds. I can do it again.”

“ What about the safe?” Annabelle shot her a dubious look.

“ Your lack of faith wounds me.” She pressed a hand over her heart.

“ That safe is so ancient I could hear the tumblers falling into place from across the room. Besides , there hasn’t been a safe I couldn’t get into in the two years we’ve been doing this.

” Thanks to one of many unsavory people she’d known in her life.

Early on, Gina had explained to her friends that she once worked for a colleague of her father’s—a professional locksmith who repaired everything from simple residential locks to complex electronic security systems and specialized in troubleshooting and repairing safes.

Only after he was arrested for multiple burglaries did Gina realize Sergio Mattuci had a lucrative side hustle.

Sergio always said she had a natural talent— a gift —and he’d taught her everything he knew.

Gina grinned, her juices beginning to flow as they did whenever she talked about picking locks or safecracking. “ You really are a pessimist.”

“ I’m a realist.” Annabelle huffed again and settled back against the cushions.

“ I’m getting inside Rocco’s safe if I have to give it open-heart surgery.” She laced her fingers and cracked her joints.

“ What’s to keep Rocco from showing up again unexpectedly?” Margo asked. “ Your source told you he was supposed to leave yesterday afternoon for Atlantic City and be there for the entire weekend.”

“ I know.” She frowned. “ I should have been updated with any changes in his itinerary.” That particular mob informant had always fed her accurate intel in the past. He was a childhood friend, and she paid him well enough for his information.

“ Maybe he changed his plans at the last minute or postponed until next weekend. I’ll check with my source and find out if he rebooked at the hotel.

Either way, we can’t put this off. This location is our best opportunity to grab a large amount of money quickly. ”

Margo stroked her jaw again, and the sleeve of her brown jacket slid down, revealing a forearm toned from regular sessions with her personal trainer. “ It’s still a risk going back there.”

Gina balled her hands on her knees. “ We don’t have a choice.”

“ Maybe there’s another way,” Kinsey piped in.

“ Why don’t we pool our own resources again and donate more money to the Center ?

I’ve got nothing better to do with my trust fund.

My parents keep adding to it, hoping the bigger it gets, the less guilty they’ll feel for not having anything to do with me. ”

“ I can’t let you do that.” Gina shook her head, but overwhelming affection and pride for Kinsey nearly sent her to her knees.

At eight years her junior, Kinsey was the kid sister Gina never had.

Kinsey’s sad family state reminded her of her own life right after she turned eighteen, completely devoid of family.

“ You’ve tapped into your trust fund for these women enough as it is. But thank you.”

Next , she glanced to Margo , her dearest friend and confidant of five years now.

“ You have two children in Ivy League colleges, and the way your husband is pushing them, they’ll be going to grad school for their MBAs , MDs , PhDs , or something else that costs oodles of money.

” To Annabelle she said, “ And if your husband catches you withdrawing more cash from your accounts, you know he’ll threaten you with divorce again. ”

The three women sitting before her were amazingly big-hearted and generous to a fault, and despite their differing and unique backgrounds they’d forged a friendship she treasured above all others.

She swept her gaze through the living room and adjacent dining area, searching for something pricy she might have missed that she could auction off or sell at a local pawn shop.

“ Don’t even think about it,” Margo interrupted. “ You may be a hotshot investment banker, but you’ve already sold off far more of your stocks and personal property than you should have for the Center . No one would ever accuse you of being stingy.”

Margo was right. She might be living in a fancy, well-furnished apartment, but she’d sold off most of her gold and diamonds and couldn’t recall the last time she’d taken a vacation to somewhere with a beach, palm trees, and pina coladas.

Still , she would do whatever it took to effect the kind of change the women at the Center needed.

The kind of assistance her mother hadn’t gotten in time.

“ Then that settles it.” She slapped her hands on her thighs.

“ I can’t let us all go bankrupt, and there’s no need.

Not when there’s unreportable cash lying around that’s totally available.

Rocco and his buddies probably made that money running numbers, selling stolen goods, or loan-sharking.

He’ll never report it missing. And you heard Linda Hernandez .

Marilyn is running out of time. So is a long list of other women. ”

Judging from their furrowed foreheads, she still wasn’t sure whether she’d convinced her friends to go along with her plan.

She hoped so. Otherwise , the things that could happen to Marilyn were unthinkable.

Like getting beaten to death. Exactly what had happened to Gina’s mother after her father had been killed.

“ Based on our surveillance of Rocco’s activities, there should be thousands of dollars in his safe.

” Her blood pumped faster at the idea of hitting Rocco again.

He was one of Franco Falzone’s biggest money earners.

For her, the closer they got to stealing from Franco himself, the sweeter the payback.

For her father, mother, and the life she’d been forced to live without them. “ I have to go back.”

“ What do you mean, I ?” Kinsey shot Gina a look of disbelief.

“ What I mean is that I understand if you don’t want to come with me, and maybe that’s for the best after what happened tonight.”

“ No way.” Kinsey came around the coffee table to tower over Gina . “ You go,” she said, pointing a long, pink fingernail at her, then sweeping her arm toward the other women and adding, “we go.”

“ She’s right.” Annabelle had also come around the table and rested her hand on Kinsey’s slim shoulder. “ We’re a team. Remember ?”

Annabelle’s words tugged at Gina’s heart.

They were a team, a team of friends who loved each other unconditionally.

She couldn’t suppress the grin forming on her lips at the vision the two women standing before her made.

Annabelle would chew her ass out if she said so, but tucked in next to Kinsey , the two of them reminded her of Friar Tuck and Will Scarlett .

They were as different in physical appearance and personality as night and day and fought outwardly like cats and dogs. Secretly , they adored each other.

“ We knew what we were getting into when we formed our little band of merry women.” Margo joined them and drew Gina up from the love seat into their tight circle until they stood with their arms linked. “ We’re family. Whatever happens, we do it together.”

Family .

Guilt stabbed her deeply enough that she had to avert her eyes.

Each of her friends was in this with her because someone close to them had been a victim of domestic violence.

What would they think if they knew her real story?

Or that twelve years ago she’d legally changed her name to keep that story permanently buried?

She wasn’t about to risk them learning her original motives behind their scheme weren’t necessarily as pure as she’d led them to believe.

People you love will always leave. That had been her ironclad mantra since she turned eighteen.

Since then, she hadn’t gotten close to anyone.

Except these women. If she lost them, she’d have nothing.

She’d be nothing . Having their love and support, helping others who were powerless to help themselves, was all that mattered, all she needed in life to be happy.

Without it…her life would be empty, meaningless.

For a moment, none of them said a word. Kinsey began to sniffle, then Annabelle , followed a second later by Margo , and Gina couldn’t help but join in. Suddenly , they were all crying and laughing, hugging each other tightly.

A few minutes later, Gina walked her friends to the door. “ As soon as I confirm, we’ll reschedule.”

“ It’s a date.” Annabelle stood on the tips of her toes to drop a light kiss on Gina’s cheek. “ Let’s just pray there’s no story in the papers tomorrow about an FBI agent killed in a hit-and-run.”

“ Don’t start that again.” Kinsey dragged Annabelle out the door and into the hallway.

Margo was the last to leave. Her eyes held no small amount of understanding. “ He’ll probably just wake up tomorrow with nothing more than a major headache, a cast on his wrist, and a foul disposition.”

“ I hope so.” Yet the pressure in her chest only worsened. “ I really, really hope so.”

An hour later, she sat cross-legged on her sofa, staring at the empty chocolate boxes on the coffee table. With a grand total of five hours sleep in the last two days, her eyelids were closing but sleep eluded her. The mother of all worries glared in her mind like a neon sign.

That they hadn’t seen the last of FBI Special Agent Jack Gates .