Unforgettable (Untouchables) Page 14

  The criminal mastermind was the invisible man. Many times the local PD, the DEA, the FBI, and the Justice Department had attempted to wrap a net around Sully, but he always managed to get away squeaky-clean. That alone would piss Blake off, but not enough to get him this deep undercover. He was on the task force for one reason only. To bring Sully down for murdering Mick’s brother Tommy. Oh, Sully hadn’t pulled the trigger, but he was the asshole responsible. He would pay.

  Blake pushed through a door hanging on one hinge. The rectangular room had once been an office, but now only a broken-down desk, a vinyl-covered couch, and a long table remained. A coffee machine and cups lay broken on the floor.

  Agent Stiles sat with a hip on the desk. The gray-haired agent rose to his full height when Blake walked in. Round metal glasses hid his expression. Not that Blake expected one. The agent was more machine than man. A forensic accountant, Stiles was a computer genius, but his people skills sucked. “Detective Reilly, have a seat.” Stiles gestured to the Naugahyde couch.

  The pockmarked sofa looked like the perfect breeding ground for infection and used needles. Blake remained standing.

  “Let’s go over the plan of action.” The agent reset a towel across the desk so he didn’t smudge his black suit when he sat down. Freaking desk jockey didn’t want to get his hands dirty.

  “Yeah, detective.” Dez shoved past him into the room. Today she wore a navy business suit. The only suit she owned—she liked undercover work—she habitually paired the boxy jacket and slacks with a white blouse and black loafers. “Why don’t we let the agent tell us how to do our job?”

  “Do you have a problem, Detective Harper?” Stiles asked.

  “As a matter of fact.” Dez kicked a chipped cup across the room. “I’m not real happy about getting benched.”

  “Talk to your partner.” A red flush crawled up Stiles’s wrinkled neck. “He brought the Calvetti woman in. Her very presence puts the operation at risk.”

  “I disagree.” Of course she did. If Stiles said the sky was blue, Dez would disagree on principle. Still, it was nice that his partner had his back.

  “Vicki Calvetti made you redundant, Harper. You want to know why you’re benched? Because your partner can’t keep his dick in his pants.” Stiles glared at Dez.

  Dez glared right back.

  “Knock it off,” Blake said. Stiles invariably needed to flex his power, and Dez inevitably pissed on the agent’s authority in retaliation. Blake sided with his partner—Stiles was a hard man to like—but they didn’t have time for the interdepartmental bullshit. “Where’s Sully’s psych eval?”

  Stiles handed him a folder. “They recommend stroking his ego.”

  “I’m sure,” Dez said. “Prick like Sully probably gets off on fawning sycophants.”

  He hid a smile behind the report. Dez loved to nudge Stiles. A friend of her father’s, Stiles had tried to recruit her out of college, but she’d told him to go to hell. Her IQ was off the charts and she would have made a great analyst, but she’d wanted to be a street cop. Dez liked to get her hands dirty. The rejection still pissed Stiles off. Why he’d allowed her onto the task force was another mystery hidden behind the man’s ugly glasses. “The report says just the opposite,” Blake said. “Sully wants a man who won’t back down from a fight.”

  Dez lifted her eyebrows. “Guess they chose the right man for the job.”

  “Ain’t that the truth?” He liked a good fight, and playing a fighter to bring Sully down made the operation that much more fun. “Did you pull his record for me?”

  Dez nodded and handed over a thick file.

  “That’s irrelevant,” Stiles claimed. “Old news.”

  Blake perused the computer printout while Dez and Stiles continued bickering. Sully’s arrest record went back more than three decades, but not a single conviction outside of a possession charge in his twenties in New York. The man had friends on both sides of law enforcement and well-paid lawyers who kept him out of prison. The U.S. attorney’s office had a hard-on for him now that Nick Calvetti was out of the picture. Evidence gathered following Calvetti’s death suggested the two groups were starting to commingle organizations here in Colorado. Eddie confirmed Calvetti’s interest in Patrick Sullivan’s operation. Blake took the job undercover because he wanted Sully any way he could get him. Preferably dead.

  Stiles and Dez went eerily quiet, their conversation ending on a growl. Blake looked up from the file. Tension swirled through the room. “What’s up?”

  “Nimrod here hasn’t gotten the warrant for a wiretap or cell-phone bugging.”

  The agent might be a computer genius, but he was a bureaucratic nightmare. Blake glanced at his watch. “The meet is in less than an hour. Why are we sitting here when you have work to do?”

  Stiles slammed the files into a briefcase. “You might want to remember you work for me.”

  “My paycheck comes from the police department,” Dez taunted.

  “And when you signed onto this task force, you became my property.”

  “Like hell.” Dez rushed into the thin man’s space. “If you wanted robots to do your bidding, you should have hired someone else. You hired us.” She gestured to Blake. “Because my partner and I have the best arrest record in the state and a top-notch conviction rate.”

  “Wrong.” Stiles towered over Dez, but she didn’t back down. Yielding wasn’t in her nature. “I hired you because I felt your father’s record held you back.”

  Dez’s eyes flared like someone hit an ignition switch. “You—”

  Blake stepped between the two and laid his hand on Dez’s shoulder, which shook with rage. Stiles had made a direct hit, and the smirk on his face said he knew it.

  “That topic is off the table,” he said. “Permanently. I think we’re done here.”

  “I say when we’re done.”

  Blake tapped his watch. “Clock’s ticking, Mr. Agent in Charge, and you’ve got a warrant to acquire.” He stayed in position until Stiles clambered down the metal steps and his lanky frame disappeared out the back door of the warehouse.

  “One of these days,” Dez said, her voice hard, “I’m going to deck that SOB.”

  “He might be a prick, but he’s a necessary one. The Feds have more access to information than we do, and much cooler toys. We need them as much as they need us.”

  Dez shook her head and stepped back. “So, you still playing house with the mob princess?”

  “We’re going to table that topic as well,” he told his partner. Time to change the subject. “No way Stiles will get the warrant in time.”

  Dez brushed dust off the seat of her slacks. “If all else fails, we’ve got roving bugs.” Roving bugs were one of those cool toys used by the Feds. They activated the microphone on a cell phone to allow the Feds to monitor a conversation. In this case, his phone would be a Trojan horse allowing the surveillance team to hear Blake and Sully’s meeting in real time without the need for Blake to wear a wire.

  Dez led the way down the stairs. “Is Mick your backup?”

  “I can’t think of anyone more motivated to get the job done.”

  “Does Stiles know?”

  Mick wasn’t a cop, but he frequently worked with Blake and Dez in their undercover operations. His involvement in the investigation was definitely not sanctioned. “He didn’t ask.” They reached the door, and Blake held Dez back. “I am sorry you’re riding the desk on this.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She shrugged the tension from her shoulders. “You owe me. And I will collect. Watch your back today,” she said before disappearing into the alley.

  He waited five minutes before heading to his truck parked a couple blocks down. His nerves spiked when he got a text warning him Victoria was leaving the club. The drive across town was spent worrying. He didn’t like her in the open. In the past two weeks, they’d settled into a routine. For the most part, she kept a low profile and stayed in the apartment. Out of trouble. When a band played, she’d come dow
n and listen to a few sets and keep Mick company. Every night, she was in Blake’s bed, where she damn well belonged, but keeping a high-energy woman like Victoria in place for an extended period of time was an impossible task. He knew a time would come when she’d need to stretch her legs, but he didn’t like that she chose today.

  Halfway to the café where Sully wanted to meet, Mick’s bike pulled behind Blake and followed him the rest of the way. In the parking garage, Mick left his bike and climbed into the pickup. They didn’t speak, figuring Sully had them under surveillance as much as they had him. Dez texted saying Stiles had failed to get a warrant in time. Big surprise, but the roving bug on Blake’s official cell phone was active.

  In addition to his main phone, he kept a burner phone to stay in contact with Mick and Dez, the only people he trusted when it came to life and death. Dez texted a picture of Stiles bent over a computer with a headset as they neared crunch time. Mick rolled his eyes. Of course the agent was at the computer while the rest of them risked their asses. Knowing Stiles could hear anything from this point forward, Blake and Mick remained quiet. The wait drove Blake batshit crazy. All he could think about was Victoria outside of his safe zone.

  Trekking outside the shelter of the club while Blake was tied up in a meeting sent his protective instincts into overdrive. He trusted Eddie. The old man would give his life for Victoria, had proven it the day she’d first shown up at Déjà Vu, but he wasn’t infallible, and the stakes were high, especially now.

  Mick and Blake stepped out of the truck and walked down the street to the address Sully had given them. Once inside, Blake introduced himself to Patrick Sullivan, a man he’d hated before he’d ever laid eyes on him. Before he even knew his name. The anger had been honed over the last decade until it was a sharp blade. One he wanted to shove between Sully’s ribs.

  Rage welled like a blister inside his soul, but he didn’t so much as flinch when he shook Sully’s beefy hand. Blake glanced at Mick, standing near the door with Sully’s bodyguard. Mick’s face was a blank canvas behind which he hid the hatred he’d nurtured over the years. Mick nodded as if to say he had Blake’s back.

  So he sat, ordered a breakfast platter from a frightened waitress whose hands shook as she wrote everything down. All the while, Blake imagined dismembering Sully, one limb at a time over an extended period of time.

  Sully should suffer for his sins.

  The man was midfifties, salt-and-pepper hair, round face, wide jaw, and a crooked nose that had been broken so many times it leaned to the left. He wore a smile on his pale lips, but there was nothing happy about him. His pale blue eyes were accentuated by a deep scar near his right eye. Blake kept his expression blank. The man across the table didn’t intimidate him.

  Sully had the look of an aging boxer, and his wide shoulders took up two-thirds of the booth opposite Blake. The older man took his time giving Blake the evil eye, not speaking until the waitress returned with two breakfast platters, coffee, orange juice, and toast. Sully pointed with a butter knife. “Dig in.”

  Breaking bread with a man you hated wasn’t exactly good for the digestion. The man was bold and wouldn’t think twice about killing Blake, the waitress, and Mick if the mood struck him. His freaking lawyers would get him out of the charges. But Blake was gambling that he had something to offer Sully.

  Déjà Vu presented a legitimate business through which cash flowed. The same business Calvetti had been using for money laundering at the time of his death. If Sully took the bait, they could follow the money trail and finally nail the SOB. If Sully killed Blake before an arrest happened, Mick would put a bullet between the older man’s eyes. Mutually assured destruction was the only fail-safe he needed. So he bit into the eggs as Sully dug into a story so full of BS it should have come with a shovel. They swapped stories while they ate, and when Sully leaned back the waitress cleared the table.

  “How long you been asking to meet?” Sully asked.

  Blake leaned back, rested an arm along the back of the booth. “You always ask questions you know the answers to?”

  “Best way to learn an opponent. You avoided the question. Another man might lie.” Sully lit a cigar. Smoking in a restaurant was illegal, but a man like Sully made his own rules. “You’re a cagey bastard. Took advantage of Calvetti’s death to rise up the ranks. Fast.”

  “Didn’t have a hand in his death.” Blake cocked his head to the side. “But I don’t mind using it to get ahead. Someone had to fill the void.”

  Sully nodded. “Calvetti had something I wanted. Only reason I agreed to work with him.”

  “More than the club?” That little nugget wasn’t in the intel. What did Nick Calvetti offer Patrick Sullivan? “Name it.”

  “Up until recently, I would have said you didn’t have a thing I wanted.”

  “What changed?”

  “Tell me, where’s your girlfriend this morning?”

  The taste of eggs climbed back up Blake’s throat. What did Sully know about Victoria? It worried him that she wasn’t safely ensconced at Déjà Vu. “Not a part of this.”

  “Of course she is.” Sully took a puff, blew smoke. “Victoria Calvetti is the reason you’re here.”

  Blake clamped down on the urge to yank Sully from the booth and kick his aging ass. Mick stiffened against the opposite wall. He couldn’t hear the discussion, but was reacting to Blake’s change in demeanor. He forced his fists and jaw to unclench. “How’s that?”

  Sully licked the end of the cigar, turned it in his fingers as he kept his gaze steady. “Couldn’t get a read on you. Something about you doesn’t add up, and your last girlfriend was a cipher. Too many variables I couldn’t control.”

  He shook his head. Dez had held him back from a meet with Sully? His partner’s cover went deeper than his. No way Sully had made her for a cop. “And now?”

  “The Calvetti girl interests me. She’s stayed out of the game most of her life, but now—”

  “She’s not in the game,” he insisted, but Sully’s recent agreement to meet suddenly made sense. Victoria had given him street cred, because a Calvetti was a known quantity in the criminal underbelly. He wouldn’t have imagined it in a dozen lifetimes. Members of the task force figured her presence damaged the operation, but she’d managed to blow it wide open. Blake appreciated the help meeting Sully, but he’d take the man out before he allowed Victoria any deeper. “What happens in my bedroom has nothing to do with my work.”

  “Sure it does,” Sully insisted. “When the woman in your bed is a Calvetti.” His eyes crinkled in what might have been a smile, but it came out a sneer.

  Blake sneered right back. Anger sizzled like a live wire on his skin. The possessive need to protect Victoria surprised him. She belonged to no man, obeyed her own rules, but Blake had told her the absolute truth. She was his. In the eyes of their peers, in the eyes of a man like Sully, she was a prized possession, and no one threatened her on his watch.

  “Twelve twenty-four Country Club Drive.” Sully’s home address, where his pretentious family lived in a mansion, a home paid for with the lives of addicts across the state.

  Sully took another drag on the cigar. “You got balls, kid. Go anywhere near my girls and I’ll peel your skin layer by layer.”

  “Same goes. Stay the fuck away from Victoria Calvetti.”

  Sully bit down on the end of the cigar, showing his teeth like a jackass. “Be a real shame if I have to kill you. I’m starting to like you.”

  The profilers said Sully respected a man who didn’t back down from a fight. Blake pushed more. “Are we going to talk business, or are we just going make threats and compare the size of our dicks?”

  “I’d win,” Sully said. “Either competition.”

  “In your dreams.” He had had enough of this lowlife. The more Sully talked, the more Blake wanted to kill him with his bare hands.

  “I like your club.” Sully flicked the ashes onto the tablecloth.

  Pig. Blake kept his expression
blank.

  “From what I hear—and my sources are good—the club has potential.”

  Sounded like Sully had an inside man. Blake figured as much, which is why he never broke character at the club. “Potential my ass. Déjà Vu is a wet dream and you’re not the only swinging dick that wants in.” He was playing fast and loose with the information the psych folks had given him. It was one thing to be ballsy, to push back against Sully’s ego, and quite another to provoke the monster.

  The red flush blooming on the older man’s face said Blake had pushed too far. “I remember your brother,” Sully said softly.

  Fuck. “You’ve done your homework.” Blake leaned forward, lowered his voice. “That piece of shit stopped being my brother long before you had him killed. He’s not why we’re here.” He had known his brother would come up, but it still screwed with his focus. “Let me save you a little time in whatever game you’re playing. I don’t give a flip about my mother, either. She was a tramp and an addict, and she got what she deserved.”

  The same was not true of Mick’s brother Tommy. Caught in the cross fire at too damn young to die. Across the room, Mick’s gaze held the same hatred flooding Blake’s blood. They made a vow the night it happened, watching Tommy bleed on the street. The fucker responsible wouldn’t live. Sully was the big fish at the end of the line.

  Too many years.

  “Neither my brother nor my mother is worth avenging, if that’s what you think this is about. You want to deal with me, deal with me. If not—” He rose, tossed his napkin on the table. “We’re done.”

  “Sit down, boy.”

  “No.” Adrenaline flowed so that he could barely breathe. His left leg twitched, shaking with anger and the craving for justice. He needed to get out before he beat the crap out of Sully. “We’re done. You want to talk business, you come to my club.”