Loving Leo (The Romanovsky Brothers Book 3) (7 page)

“I have a lot of things to take care of today. Yes, I was going to throw you to the elevator wolves, but it wouldn’t have been anything personal.”

His eyes fell to her lips and stayed there.  With a deep breath, he reached out and cupped his hand around her waist.

She straightened, gasping.

“Still hurts?” He frowned.

“No.”

“Then why did the air just leave your lungs, the moment I touched you there?”

She cut her eyes to him, pushing his hand from her waist.  Her lips parted, and she released the dollop of air she’d been holding.  “It’s a little bruised, but much less painful than it was yesterday.”

“I’m so sorry.”  His frown deepened.

“I’ll be okay, Leo.”  She smiled, thinking if he had any idea how many oily, piss-infested surfaces she’d crawled over on bloody knees, how many floors she’d skidded across while firing a Glock 22, how many broken bones she’d endured at the hands of people trying to kill her, and how many bullets had come flying at her head—all of which had blessedly missed her by the hair of whatever angel lived on her shoulder—he wouldn’t be so worried about that pathetic bruise on her waist.

“You look beautiful this morning.”

His sweet words sliced through her dark thoughts.  “Thank you, Leo.”

He looked off, licking his lips.  “Just to be clear, I didn’t follow you into this elevator to harass you sexually.”

She clicked her tongue.  “Damn.  And I’d gotten myself so excited.”  She watched his face light up.

“I just wanted to invite you to the office party tonight.”

Jessica’s eyes shone.

He watched it happen, fingering a piece of paper out of his pocket.  “It’s actually Rome’s birthday.  He doesn’t like a lot of fuss, so we’re just having a small get-together at his favorite lounge. The whole office is invited, and since you’re part of the office now...”

“I’ll see if I can make it.”

“I sincerely hope you do.”

“You don’t have to butter me up like this, you know.  I’m not going to sue you for running me down in your penis car.  And I’m definitely not going to sue you for all the sexual harassment I’ve been subjected to since the moment I walked through Novsky’s doors.”

After a moment of searching her eyes, he reached over and pulled the emergency stop toggle.

Jessica yelped when the elevator jolted to a halt, squinting at him.  “I feel like I should be afraid?”

Leo moved in, so close she was forced to step back.

“But, curiously.”  She hit the wall.  “I’m not.”

His eyes went to her lips.  “Ashley, I’m extremely attracted to you.  I think we’re attracted to each other.  I don’t know about you, but I have no interest in holding it in for another moment.”

“Twenty-four
whole
hours of holding it in, and you’ve already succumbed?  You wouldn’t do well under torture.”

“It is torture.”  His eyebrows jumped.  “Pretending that I don’t want you with every fiber of me.  When Val told me he gave you the job, I wasn’t sure if I should jump for joy or curse the gods.  Keeping my hands to myself while you parade around in skirt suits like this?  Nothing short of torture.”

This son of a bitch is bolder than I thought
Jessica clutched the new hire file to her chest.  Only men who’d grown used to women falling to his feet in worship had the balls to be this forward.

She knew this wasn’t about attraction.  It wasn’t about her.  It was about his ego.  She’d refused to kiss him the night before.  It was a blow he hadn’t been prepared for, and now he would stop at nothing to get between her legs.

“Can I take you to dinner?  Friday night?” he asked, pressing up so close she could see the designs in his eyes.  He watched her bottom lip like he wanted to suck it between his own.

She couldn’t help it when her gaze went to his lips too.  The same lips that used to whisper, “Beer Belly Borgia,” in her ear when he passed her in the halls.

She seethed.  “I’d love to go to dinner.”

Any other day she’d take great pleasure in rejecting this arrogant bastard.  The last thing in the world he was expecting at that moment was for her to say no.  She wished to God she could crush his ego to pixie dust right there.

But she
needed
to close this case.  She needed it more than she needed to see Leo’s ego take a beating.

Searching her eyes, he licked his lips, and then reached over, releasing the emergency stop button.  Moments later, the elevator dinged open in the lobby.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said.

“See you then.”  She stepped out and waved good-bye over her shoulder, waiting until the elevator doors had closed before she broke into a jog, desperate to get to Chet.

She blazed through the doors of the lobby and into the cool air outside, heels clicking to a stop when she caught sight of Roman leaning against a column to her right.

With a furrow at his brow, he clicked at a sputtering lighter, the cigarette hanging from his lips going lonely.

Jessica could not believe her luck, doing everything she could to bite back a cartoon villain cackle as she pulled a lighter out of her purse.  One of the many toys the FBI gifted their agents, this lighter was equipped with a voice activated microphone and camera.  It could hear through clothes and see twenty feet ahead.

Roman’s icy eyes rose when her heels clicked to a stop in front of him, but the irritated gleam in them dissipated when she lifted her lighter, kicking up the flame with the heel of her thumb.

He leaned in, letting the tip of the cigarette burn under the fire, his face relaxing in an instant as he took a heavy drag.  He savored the toxic clouds filling his lungs, eyes closed serenely, before opening them and meeting Jessica’s eyes.

He nodded his thanks.

“Keep it,” she said, raising the red lighter between them.

Roman hesitated, and then took the lighter, nodding again.

Jessica moved away, wondering if that pretty boy
ever
spoke.  She realized she didn’t care when, from the corner of her eye, she saw him slip the lighter in his pocket.

***

“Audio on Reggie, audio in Val’s office, camera
and
audio on Roman, and the moon hasn’t even finished rising,” Chet said from where he sat alongside Jessica at the stakeout table in Westchester.  “You deserve a medal.”

“A medal? The boys at the office would never see that happen,” Jessica muttered, adjusting the headphones on her head.

“Bugging your suspects and waiting them out will never be the popular plan of attack when you’re surrounded by trigger happy feds with guns.  They want the shoot out, they want the danger, they want to
play
. They’ll never understand the power of a slow crawl, learning your suspect’s hot buttons, their soft spots, their deepest weaknesses.  Things they’d only dare say in the dark.  It’s poetic, Jess.  We might have this damn case closed by tonight.”

“You’ve never had this much praise for my work before,” she mumbled.

“I’ve never meant it like I do now.”

“
Fucking brilliant
is definitely not the term they’d use at headquarters.  Thank god for Harp.”

Even though Special Agent Sam Harper was a pain in the ass, Jessica always felt blessed to have gotten him as a supervisor.  Not only did Harper understand her unorthodox style, and why she needed to place cams and microphones on her suspects—he supported it.  Bugging a suspect wasn’t cheap, and Harper had gone to bat for Jessica more times than she could count.  He understood that she
wanted
her suspects to find her cameras, her bugs and her taps. Her strategy was to break her suspect down mentally, to find their weaknesses and exploit them until they finally told on themselves, confessed, or got nervous enough to show their hand in an actionable way.  Sometimes her style took months.

She knew it wouldn’t take that long with Val.  He was already showing all the signs of a man on the verge of complete mental collapse.   All she had to do was wait him out.

Jessica suddenly shot up in her seat, pushing the headphones to her ears.

“Hold on,” she said, leaning over and turning up the volume on her headphones.  “Do you hear that?”

Chet clicked a few buttons on his computer.  “It’s Reggie.”

“He’s moving.”

“Who’s he talking to?”

They both pressed the headphones harder to their ears as a muffled conversation came crackling through their headphones, growing clearer as Reggie moved closer to the person he was speaking to.

For several minutes they listened and, soon, the smiles had been wiped clear from Chet and Jessica’s faces.

They could hear everything he could hear, in real time, and tonight, Reggie was visiting his dear old dad.

With focused eyes, they listened, chests heaving, take-out food forgotten and abandoned on the table in front of them as a conversation between Governor Victor King, Reggie King, and an unidentified male wafted into their headphones.

After ten minutes of listening in, Jessica and Chet looked at each other with horror-stricken eyes.

“We need protective detail on Angie Colt, starting tonight, at all times.” Jessica swallowed as Chet nodded his frantic agreement, already grabbing his cell to make a call to their station’s Protective Services Department.

Apprehensive butterflies fluttered in Jessica’s stomach.   A gasp left her lips when her heart stalled.  
Again
.

She slapped her hand over her chest, eyes widening.

Cell phone at his ear, Chet’s eyes grew concerned as they fell to her quaking hand.  “Did you take your pill today?”

“Eyes on Angie Colt,” Jessica said, wheezing as her heart shuddered back to life.  “Until this case is closed.”

Across the river, Reggie King watched his father with fear in his eyes.

Three arched windows lined the wall behind Governor Victor King, curving to the top of the twenty foot ceiling.  Moonlight spilled in, making the mahogany leather office chair he sat in stand out in the darkness.

He leaned back in the chair, thick fingers clasped at his lips as his eyes moved back and forth between the two men on the other side of his desk.  Victor’s home office was the largest room in his New Jersey mansion.  Bookshelves lined every wall and climbed from floor to ceiling, chronicling his forty-year journey from police cadet, to law school graduate, to police chief, to Governor of New Jersey and, now, to his biggest dream.  His only dream.  His pinnacle.

Reggie knew his father’s lifelong climb could only end at President of the United States.

“I’ll be damned if I let some know-it-all piss-ant in Harlem destroy what I’ve worked for,” King said, ignoring Reggie’s eyes and meeting the eyes of his right-hand man, Mitch Gallagher.  “I need you to shut her up.  I can’t trust Harry to do it.” Victor licked his teeth.

Reggie watched as Mitch shifted.  Mitch was heavyset, but knew how to make his weight work to his advantage.  An advantage that, more often than not, involved strong-arming anyone who got in his way, even if that strong arming ended in death.

“Vic,” Mitch said.  “We removed any file with your name on it before we sent her office up in flames.  Scared her so much she stopped looking into the Blacks completely.  Trust.  Angie Colt is a non factor.”

“She knows too much,” Victor said.  “Shut her up.”

“Dad.  All due respect, Angie Colt really is nothing to be concerned about.  Without her office, she’s not even a blip on our radar—”

Victor lifted a hand.

Reggie’s eyes grew vulnerable, and he reared back, gaze falling to the floor.

The silence lingered for several long moments before Victor put his attention back on Mitch.  “There’s too much at stake,” Victor said.  “Angie found Knox, and she’s pulled Val’s mug shot.”

“She couldn’t have pulled it, Vic.  It’s not possible—”

“She has it. I don’t know who she got it from, but I
know
she has it.”

Reggie pressed his lips together, clasped his hands in front of his body, and looked away with a shake of his head.

“I’ve been trailing her for months,” Mitch said.  “She’s just a freelance investigator, and a shitty one at that.   She’s been stumbling in the wrong direction for ten years trying to find the truth about the Blacks, but she has nothing.  Setting fire to her office crippled her.  She has no money.  No power.  She cannot touch you.  In the grand scheme of things, she’s utterly insignificant, so much so that fucking with her might cause more harm than good.  You’re not in a position to make too much noise, Vic.  You’re officially a candidate.  There are going to be more eyes on you now than ever before.”

“Mitch, I’ve asked you two times.” Victor held up two fingers, shaking them.  “Are we going to try for three?”

Mitch’s spine straightened.  He lifted his chin.

“Shut.  Her.  Up.”

With a sharp nod, Mitch left the room, already pattering away on his cell phone.

Reggie avoided his father’s probing gaze. Even as he heard him push away from the desk, saw him stand and felt the heat of his body as he came in close, Reggie kept his eyes lowered.

Close enough to touch, Victor’s towering presence was always jarring, and that was never truer than it was in that moment.  Reggie felt his bottom lip trembling.

“I asked you to do one thing, Reginald.  One thing.  Acquire Novsky
.
” Victor stepped away, running his hand over his mouth before charging forward.  “I asked you to do one thing!”

Reggie jolted, pushing his eyes closed.

“You can’t even do that, and you have the audacity to challenge me in front of someone else?” Victor threw a finger toward the closed door of the office.  “How dare you!”

Reggie’s blurry gaze locked to his father’s Italian leather shoes.  “I’m close, Dad.  I’m so close to getting Novsky, I can almost taste it.  You should have seen me at the meeting today, Dad—” Reggie lifted his eyes and met Victor’s gaze just in time to catch the back of his father’s hand as it flew across his cheek.  Reggie’s head flew to the side and he stumbled back as the power of the blow nearly took him off his feet. Victor followed, snatching the cuffs of his jacket in tight fists.

He yanked Reggie forward until they were nose to nose, spit flying from his lips as he spoke, shaking him.  “Val is becoming a captain of his industry, a magnate, not just more rich and powerful than me, but every billionaire in Manhattan! 
Stop
him.”

“I’m trying, Dad…” Reggie’s eyes fell once more.

“If the Romanovskys become more powerful than us, there will be nothing we can do to keep them quiet.  Maintaining supremacy over them is paramount, not just to our lives, but to my election.”

“Dad.  I will get Novsky.  I swear to you I’ll get it.”  His breathing picked up.  “And… believe me… the Romanovskys will
never
reveal the truth.  Zoey Black is pregnant with Val’s kid.  They’re about to be married.  Val would sooner die before he’d let the truth come out.”

King’s breathing slowed, but he still glowered at Reggie.  After several moments, he released his hold on Reggie’s jacket before running his hands along the lapels, straightening them.

“You had better be right, Son,” Victor said.  “Or I’ll see to it that you go down right alongside them.”

“You can trust me.”  Reggie kept his head lowered as he made his vow.  “I’m going to make you proud of me, Dad.  No matter what, I’m going to make you proud.”

Victor turned away, scoffing a laugh.  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Reginald.”  He plopped down into the seat behind his desk, taking in Reggie’s curled frame.  “Please get out of my sight.”

***

Jessica was thankful that her private office was located in the Financial District, just a few blocks away from Novsky.  It had given her time to set up a last-minute meeting with her supervisor before heading to the party.

She leaned against her desk, one of many in the abandoned police precinct that was now utilized only by her as a private office, facing her boss.

Supervisory Special Agent Sam Harper had made the drive out to Lower Manhattan from the FBI’s Headquarters in Federal Plaza.  To ensure she didn’t get made, Jessica never met her superiors at the corporate office.

She bit the corner of her lip as the audio she and Chet had picked up that night wafted into the air, tapping the heels of her feet against the concrete floor.

Harper considered her when the audio finished, arms crossed tight over his chest, muscles pushing against his button down shirt.

Jessica nearly groaned when he shook his head.

“It’s not enough to request an arrest warrant,” he said, his Asian accent sneaking in between every other word, betraying his first generation ancestry.

“King hiring a hit man to kill an innocent woman isn’t enough?” Jessica asked.

“We’re not going to swoop in on him with charges that will only leave him with a few scratches, B.  We’re trying to cripple him.  Tear him limb from limb.  We’re trying to scatter those limbs all over the country, burying them under every prison that has ever been built.  We’ve still got guys looking into his ties to the mafia and the many, many,
many
illegal campaign contributions.  We have to wait them out before the sting, and even if we didn’t…” He pointed to the computer where she’d just played the audio.  “This is still not enough.”

“Angie Colt is an innocent woman.  If she gets killed because we were dragging our feet, waiting for the evidence we need to drown King, I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Since when are you such a bleeding heart?”

Jessica shifted.

She couldn’t tell him that Angie Colt was the reason this case had been reopened. That, without the new information Jessica had stolen from
Angie, the death of the Blacks—and King’s connection to it—would still be a cold case.  That, without Angie, they would’ve never known that, during his reign as Chief of Police at the NJPD’s 5
th
Precinct ten years earlier, corruption and cover-ups had run rampant under King’s order. Angie Colt had inadvertently blasted open a dead end that could sink a Presidential candidate.

Angie, however, had not been after Victor King.  She’d only been trying to help Zoey.  Because of that, the thought of her being hurt made Jessica physically sick.  She was aware it was making her more emotional than she normally would be. If Harper found out that emotion was spawned by a connection to Angie, he would deem Jessica unfit, blinded by emotion, unable to handle the weight of this investigation.  He would pull her in an instant.

“It could take months,
years
to bury King, that’s all I’m saying,” Jessica said.  “Are we really going to allow this monster to sit in our Oval Office?  Wasn’t the possibility of this monster sitting in our Oval Office the very reason this case was fast tracked?  How many people will die while we’re sitting on our hands?”

“How many have died at his hand already?” Harper shrugged.  “Too many to count.  The only problem?  We can’t prove it.”

Jessica could see that Harper was as frustrated as she was.  Quietly monitoring King’s every move for a decade was bound to aggravate anyone.  The bureau always took their time gathering as much evidence as possible, piling one criminal charge on top of another, making sure they’d built a case so strong that once they finally swept in, there would be no choice left but to bury the suspect under the jail.  The plan had been to start a slow crawl, and then sweep the rug out from under King when he least expected it.

Now that he was running for President, time was no longer on their side, and they had no choice but to take him down after one last push to gather all the evidence they could.

Harper sighed.  “B, I want him too.  I want him bad, but…” He faltered.  “Even if this audio was enough to convict, which it isn’t, we still couldn’t use it because we can’t prove it is King speaking.  The sound is also jumbled and breaks in and out at various intervals.  It’s not admissible, and even if it
were,
King is careful not to use words that are actionable.”

“Yeah, he knows better than that, doesn’t he?” Jessica asked.  “Men with ice water running through their veins usually do.”

He turned to go for the door.  “Please don’t call me unless you have something we can use.”

“We both know that King has killed hundreds,” Jessica’s voice rose, stopping Harper in his tracks.  She waited for him to face her again, and he did, sighing deeply.  “Maybe even thousands of people, Harp. Even if the blood isn’t on
his
hands.  We know about his deep ties with crime bosses and drug lords.  We know that the illegal donations to his campaigns, made by these people, date back to his years in city council.”

“And not a single deposit slip to prove it.”

Jessica ignored that.  “All in exchange for police protection, because he controls the NJPD
and
the NYPD.  We know the mob is bankrolling his run for President because they value that control.  That they’ve been bankrolling him for decades.  How many informants has he silenced? How many fake alibis? How many people does he
own
? Does he own the Romanovskys? Why haven’t we arrested this son of a bitch?”

“B, that’s why I put you on this case.  To find something that is
enough.  You’ve yet to do that.  All you’ve done is play me an audio recording so cryptic, any judge worth his salt would throw it out in an instant.  Call me when you’ve got clear audio of King confirming that he knows who killed the Blacks, and that he helped to cover it up. Call me when Tony Romanovsky is ready to talk about the coordinated corruption that went on at 5th. Call me when Knox Jefferson shows up, ready to talk about where that mug shot went, and why that streetlight footage was altered. This…” He pointed to the computer.  “Is garbage.  I put you on the Romanovskys because they can get us somewhere.  If you nail this family, we can use them to nail King.  I turn my head to your process, because I trust your process.  I truly do.  Having said that, I’m begging you to stop wasting my time with this
Harriet the Spy
bullshit.”

“So… I guess you’re not going to give me permission to arrest Governor King tonight?”

Harper didn’t dignify that with a response.  “Did I make a mistake going to bat for you to get this thing reopened?”

“It’s been less than two days, and I already have an in with the Romanovsky family
and
Novsky,” she said.  “I’m on my way to a party with them right now.  By the end of the week, I will close this case.  So fuck you for saying that.”  She nodded at him.  “You know, there’s a reason we nicknamed you Harp.”

Harper smirked, letting that blow by.  “Case closed by the end of the week, huh? Seems ambitious.”

“I’ll get you your confession.”