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“Then there’s more to the story.” It wasn’t a question, but a demand for answers.
So I told her. I told her how we’d helped Donnie back to his lavish apartment and found a young girl, naked, bound and gagged, kneeling on his living room floor.
Told her how Donnie had squealed. How we’d found a lead that brought us to The Pampered Touch, a massage parlor that was a front for trafficking women. A small sting operation had brought that down, but I was sure to tell her it wasn’t us who went in.
“Then who was it?”
“That cop from New York.”
“That cop just happened to have S.W.A.T. on hand here in Chicago? And the resources to take down a trafficking ring all by himself?”
This time, Vinny cleared his throat. “That one’s on me, actually.” He sat up in his chair. “I let the cop’s friend use our computers. But she ran the whole operation. She set everything up, directed how everything should go down.”
A small smile tugged at one corner of his lips, but it was wiped off the instant he locked eyes with his cousin.
“She’s good,” he promised because Frankie’s disbelief was plastered right across her face. “Better than me. She’s the one who found Levi. She did what I hadn’t been able to do for a year.”
Frankie lifted her chin, then crossed her arms over her chest. “Officer Linden told me the mafia was somehow involved. Do I even want to know?”
Vinny’s swallow was visible as his gaze darted to me.
“That was the cop’s friend. Ain’t got a clue who she really is. She gave a fake name, but Vinny’s hacker friends vouched for her, said they’d worked with her before. Somehow, when we landed in KC, she already had a crew waiting to help us go in.”
“Already waiting…” Frankie muttered under her breath. She glanced behind me at the television screen, her frown becoming more pronounced. “And you blew up the warehouse because?”
It was my turn to frown. There were two ways to tell this: The way it actually happened, or the way the police were told it went down. Neither was ideal. The whole situation was too close to the line I tried not to cross, and I didn’t need Frankie on my case for walking right along that edge.
I’d been doing this for years. I’d been in the fuckin’ Marines, been working security since I got out. I followed the law, did what was right.
Sometimes, I had to dip my toes in that gray area to get things done.
“The warehouse they were holding Levi in was heavily guarded. We went in with the intention of extracting him, but there was heavy fire and a lot of people were killed.” Frankie’s face went pale as her eyes widened. I lifted a hand, trying to reassure her. “It wasn’t us. Other than Rylan getting shot, no one on our side was hit. We got the kid out but the warehouse looked like it’d just been through a shoot-out—”
“Because it had.”
With a curt nod, I continued, “Someone from their crew decided the best way to cover what really happened was to strategically blow the place up. They made it look like it was rigged to explode before we arrived, and our arrival triggered the destruction. Only thing that was saved was the computer systems, with the proof of this guy’s wrong-doing and all his crimes.”
Frankie took a moment to digest what I’d said, patting at the ponytail pulling her hair tight across the back of her head. When she opened her mouth to speak, my cell phone trilled, interrupting her interrogation. With her lips pursed once again, she raised a single, sculpted brow, then swept her fingers toward me dismissively; a gesture to answer the call.
I didn’t waste time retrieving it from my pocket. There weren’t many people who’d call my cell direct, not anymore. Not since Vinny reorganized the company and insisted upon my privacy. I’d had a lack of it beforehand, what with every client we had having my direct number, and half of them having no respect for personal lives.
The minute I saw the screen, Frankie’s interrogation suddenly felt like a walk in the park. With dread pulsing through every inch of my being, I swiped a finger across the phone. “Everything alright?”
Nearly a year had passed since I walked out of Kelly’s life, and it never got any easier. Her parents kept me up to date on how she was doing, even though hearing about her—and not being able to see her—killed me a little more each time. Still, calls from Donovan and Erin O'Connor were calls I refused to ignore. No matter how busy I was. No matter what time of day or night.
“Has she contacted you?” Donovan’s voice was the same strained, worried sound I’d been listening to at least once a month for over a year. “She isn’t answering our calls.”
I took a glance at my partners, staring back at me with unwavering curiosity before I stood from the table and tried to rid myself of the sudden restlessness that raged through me. I moved to the corner of the room, as if I could somehow hide myself away. As if it would make the movie of everything that’d gone wrong, that always ran through my head at times like this, any easier to swallow.
“Haven’t heard from her. How many times have you called?”
Donovan let out a heavy sigh. “Ten times today. She was supposed to call last night, and I insisted we give her the night. But Erin’s worried. We’re both worried.”
“It’s okay to be worried.” I sure as fuck was. But I always was, no matter how many times they told me she was okay. “She miss any other calls, or was it just last night?”
His silence was response enough.
“When’s the last time you talked to her?”
