In his line of work, commitments complicated the job—if he still had one.
“Bitch,” the redhead hissed.
The curse along with a violent flurry of movement alerted Colin that the catfight was on. Carefully, he extracted his package and rolled, barely escaping before the redhead twisted and pounced on the little blonde.
He shook his head and yanked the redhead off Blondie despite the fact that their claws were digging into each other. Once he’d separated them, he reached for his jeans and yanked them on. He was over it.
“Now he’s leaving!” Blondie screeched at Red. And the fight was on again. It was time to go. Hissing and spitting like pissed-off kittens, the women rolled off the bed to the floor.
“Girls!” he shouted. “Knock it off.”
Like guilty children, they climbed back onto the bed.
“We’ll play nice, Colin,” Blondie said, pouting. Red nodded vigorously. To prove how serious she really was, she ran her hand along the swell of Red’s hip, pulling her closer. Red arched and ran her fingers down Blondie’s belly to her shaved pussy. Colin’s dick reconsidered his imminent exit. The girls smiled in tandem. They reminded him of the Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp. Only these pussies purred.
Encouraged by his hesitation, Red pushed Blondie roughly onto her back and spread her thighs. She looked over her shoulder at Colin and smiled an I’m-about-to-eat-the-canary smile. His dick swelled. Then she dove in, with her sweet little ass pointing right at him and her slick pink folds clenching and unclenching. It was a tempting offer.
Blondie mewed and moaned, and he knew it wasn’t an act for his benefit. Red was the consummate cock and cunt tease. His cock hurt just thinking about it.
Damn women!
He grabbed a condom from his back pocket, shoved his jeans down his thighs, ripped open the foil package, and slammed the raincoat on. He pulled Red’s sweet little ass toward him and dove in himself. She moaned, grinding against him. Blondie cried out as Red fucked her with her mouth and he fucked Red with his dick. He grit his teeth, closed his eyes, and let it ride.
He arched into Red and came in a harsh burst. At the same time, the “duh, duh-duh-duh” theme from Dragnet rang on his cell. His entire body tensed.
He was about to get an answer to the question that had been haunting him for months. Had he or hadn’t he been reinstated?
He jerked out of Red’s possessive pussy, grabbed his phone from his pocket, and hit the answer button. “Daniels,” he said roughly.
“Looks like you used up another one of those lives of yours, Sergeant,” Colin’s captain said, apparently not happy with Colin’s luck. No surprise there. Since Colin had joined the tristate task force four years ago, this was the third time the captain had called him to tell him he’d dodged another IA bullet with his name on it. This time it was a trumped-up charge of brutality. What the hell was he supposed to do when the bad guy resisted? Sing “Kumbaya”? Colin never pounded a bad guy who didn’t deserve it. Except this time his intel had been wrong. It was the bad guy’s brother. He’d said he was sorry. Wasn’t enough; the dude went after his badge. Almost got it too.
Colin grinned, spanked Red’s ass, and stalked toward what he thought was the bathroom.
“And a fine good evening to you too, Captain Moriarty.”
“Fuck you, Daniels. I want you in my office at oh six hundred, use the back entrance, and don’t tell a soul I called or the details of this call, including your union rep.” He hung up.
Colin zipped up, slid his cell into his back pocket, and strode back into the bedroom where the panting goddesses awaited. He grinned and grabbed his shirt from the floor and shrugged it on. “Duty calls, ladies.”
“No!” they cried, leaping off the bed toward him. He quickly made his exit, ignoring their pleas for him to stay.
The sun was just barely peeking over the eastern horizon when Colin strolled into a nondescript building in the Bronx, where the Federal Investigative Strike Team, or FIST, was housed. FIST was a combined task force of tenured police officers and seasoned feds in the tristate area of New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey, specifically designated to bite hunks of meat off the bones of the flourishing crime families in the area’s largest cities. It wasn’t just the Tony Sopranos anymore; it was the Irish, the Cubans, and the Russians. Crime in the tristate area paid big-time.
Captain M glared from his office to the left as Colin strode in whistling Dixie.
“Ah, the bulletproof prodigal son returns,” Special Agent Jackson Davies said from his cubicle, giving Colin a high five.
“More like they couldn’t get another sucker to deal with the devil,” Colin said. FIST had several nonnegotiable requirements before a potential candidate could even be considered for a place on this highly trained and covert team: must have worked narcotics, vice, and homicide. With the exception of management, the field agents must be and remain single. No family to explain long absences to. No love interests to tug on heartstrings, and no personal commitments. Not even a goldfish. The payoff? They got to put real bad people away for a very long time. Colin lived for this shit.
Jackson nodded. “You’re probably right, but make sure the next dirtbag you pound to salt is a real dirtbag.”
Colin grinned and poured himself a cup of coffee; the only decent thing in the task-force office. “I plead the Fifth, Davies.”
“Daniels, my office,” the captain bellowed from his doorway.
Colin raised his cup to another agent, Teague, and the rookie, Dimarco, and strut into the captain’s glass-walled office.
“Shut the goddamn door, hotshot,” he growled.
Colin obliged and sprawled out in the only other chair in the room besides his captain’s.
Captain Moriarty glared at him. He never had liked Colin and the feeling was mutual. Could have something to do with the fact that Colin had done his wife—before she was Moriarty’s wife—six ways to sundown for just as many days. Lisa Delveccio-Moriarty was one of the few women he had gone back to for seconds, and thirds ...
“Finally, the ladies’ man will meet his match,” the captain said. He shoved a manila file folder across his desk.
Colin set his coffee cup down on the floor and reached for the file. As he picked it up, Moriarty’s fist slammed down on it. His intense steel blue eyes locked on Colin’s. “You fuck this up, and I swear by all that is holy, I will fuck you in the ass so deep you’ll be giving me a blow job.”
Colin ignored the captain’s threat. He got it. Got that the captain could not handle the fact that he’d screwed his wife. Got that every time Moriarty looked at him, he conjured up images of Lisa and Colin tearing up the sheets. And although Moriarty went out of his way to make Colin’s life miserable, Colin got the pride thing too.
He might be a womanizer, but he wasn’t a prick who rubbed his conquests in another man’s face.
“Message received,” Colin said not breaking his stare.
The captain sat back.
Colin opened the file to find a single photo. He picked it up and nodded. Very impressive. An odd sensation skittered through him. And ... familiar. A woman’s stunning albeit not-too-happy face stared at him in moody silence from an eight-by-ten color glossy. A lion’s mane of thick golden hair haloed the classically structured face. Big green eyes stared at him from above a pert nose. And a set of glistening, full pouty lips beckoned, lips that he could envision wrapped around him—milking him one drop at a time.
Blood shot straight to his cock. It was a visceral reaction. She oozed sensuality, but something else caught him and it cooled his blood.
An angry fire burned behind the huge soulful eyes, framed by the longest, blackest lashes he’d ever seen. He felt the same fire ignite in his gut. Someone had damaged this woman. Though she’d tried to disguise it with makeup, there was a distinct scar running from the left corner of her mouth straight back to her ear. He looked up at the captain.
“Sophia Gilletti. Angelo Gilletti’s ver
y-soon-to-be ex.”
“What happened to her face?”
“He cut her for talking to another man.”
Colin shook his head in disgust. He may be a wham-bam-thank-you-very-much-ma’am kind of guy, but he always left his women with a smile on their faces and an orgasm or two to keep them warm. Not a scar. “Prick.”
“A prick, to be sure. It’s why she ran. It’s why you’re going to California and bringing her here to a safe house, where she’ll tell all to the DA.”
So she wasn’t a crook he was supposed to bust but a witness he needed to protect. The prospect of meeting the woman revved his blood.
“Where’s Gilletti?”
“We’re not sure. He blipped off our radar four days ago. Last seen entering Scalias’s in Little Italy, he never exited. He skipped town via the sewer system.”
“Perfect place for the guy.”
“He’s got a million-dollar contract on her. Go get her, bring her back here. She’ll stay in the apartment upstairs, where she’ll have round-the-clock protection.”
Colin looked up at his captain. “Who’s going with me?”
“You’re going it alone. We’ve put the word out that you’re done here, done as a cop, and that a warrant will be issued for your arrest. It’ll look like you’re on the run. No one will think you’re going to retrieve the state’s most coveted witness in history.”
Something about the captain’s plan didn’t sit well with Colin.
The captain drilled Colin with a glare. “I’ll need your badge and your weapon.” He reached down and lifted a small black duffel from behind his desk and set it down in front of Colin. “There’re one hundred rounds, two Sigs with the serial numbers filed off, a silencer, and three thousand in marked bills. You have twenty-four hours to get her back here before that warrant is officially executed. If it takes you longer, you deal with the repercussions.”
Colin pulled the bag toward him and inspected the contents. All present and accounted for, just like the captain said. Colin hesitated to hand over his badge and weapon. While FIST worked outside of the box as a rule, this was a little too far outside. Did Moriarty hate him so much he was setting him up? He looked back at the eight-by-ten. The green eyes haunted him. For her, he would go. For himself, once the mission was accomplished, he would call Moriarty out and take care of him once and for all.
“The clock is ticking, Daniels.”
Colin withdrew his Glock from his shoulder hostler and slid it across the desk to his commander then pulled his badge from his wallet and placed it beside his weapon. He retrieved one of the Sigs from the duffel, loaded it, then slid it into his empty holster.
“Where is she?”
“A private residence in Lake Tahoe.” The captain handed him a folded piece of paper. “She doesn’t know you’re coming. You’ll have to convince her to return with you.”
“How the hell am I supposed to do that?”
“Work that charm of yours on her.”
Colin loaded the second semi and said, “She doesn’t know she’s going to turn state’s evidence either.” He looked at his captain. “Does she?”
Moriarty set his lips and shook his head. “She’s running for her life. We were lucky to stumble on her whereabouts. One of the retired feds who worked to put Gilletti senior away recognized her, despite her disguise, at a gas station in Placerville, where he retired. Being the suspicious fellow he is, he followed her to Tahoe and called it in.”
“So, I’m supposed to show up on her doorstep, introduce myself, and say ‘I’m here to take you back to New York so you can turn state’s evidence against your husband who has a hit out on you’?”
“Drive home the fact that we can protect her, and once it’s over she’ll be buried deep in the witness protection program.”
“And you want me to do this in twenty-four hours or less?”
“There’s a reason you’re a sergeant,” Moriarty taunted. He stood up and added, “Use whatever means necessary to convince her to talk with the DA. Gilletti is a mad dog and out of control. He’s responsible for dozens of deaths in Brooklyn alone, two of which were police officers. The wife is our only hope. Get her back here.”
Colin stood and looked at the address on the piece of paper, then folded it up. “Who else has this address?”
“No one but the two people in this room and the retired fed. I thanked him for the info but blew it off as no big deal.”
Colin took out his lighter and burned the piece of paper, watching the ashes fall to the desk.
“Keep me posted on your movement, Daniels. I want to know where you are at all times.”
That was another first. While progress reports were part of the paper trail, each one of them in the unit had full discretion on how and when progress reports in the field would be issued. Colin had never been told to give a step-by-step play-by-play. He’d never been asked to surrender his weapon or his badge either.
“I’ll check in when I can,” he said, then grabbed the duffel bag, hoisted it over his shoulder, and walked out of the office, then out of the building.
He stood on the curb, soaking up the warm morning sun. Despite his uneasy feeling regarding Moriarty, excitement racked through him. The feds had been after Gilletti Jr. for years. He was a nasty gangster who thought he was a rock star. They nabbed the old man a few years ago, but he died in Rikers before his trial had begun. Getting the goods on junior would be huge.
Colin grinned when he thought of the wife’s big green eyes and pouty lips. Getting the goods on Sophia Gilletti was going to be his pleasure.
Colin stepped off the curb and into a careening black Lincoln gunning straight for him.
Chapter 2
Colin leaped onto the hood in a Hollywood-stuntman move then rolled over the top of the car and off the back onto the street. He hit the ground running. Tires squealed and screeched behind him as bullets whizzed past. When he made a hard left down an alley, the car roared after him, getting so close that he leaped up to a fire escape ladder, swung his legs up, and crashed feet first through the second-floor window of an office.
A secretarial pool screamed as he dashed through their morning coffee break. He broke into a hallway, down a stairway, and hit the adjacent alley in minutes. Soon he reached the street opposite the building that housed the task force. It was oddly quiet for a midweek workday, which made him hang back. A flash of metal caught his eye. He looked up to the three-story parking garage across the street and saw someone on the top floor duck behind the concrete railing.
His heart beat like a drum in his chest. To all appearances, the offices looked like your everyday run-of-the-mill private security agency. Had his cover been blown? Had the task force headquarters been compromised?
It would not be the first time FIST HQ had been compromised. The Bronx location was the third in as many years. Even though they acted like, looked like, and spoke like a security firm, there were times when the criminals they hunted, hunted them. Both sides played an artful game of cat and mouse.
With the explosion of high-tech toys on both sides, it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep one step ahead of the bad guys. It was why Colin always had a cache of necessities nearby, one he would access as soon as he took care of the problem in front of him.
He backed into the alley and worked his way around the block and up to the top floor of the parking garage where he’d spotted the gunman. The man was now wedged between two blacked-out Suburbans. Looked government issue, but could be Mafia. Colin slid his piece from the holster and dug in the duffel for the silencer. Quietly he screwed it on and, stealthily as a tiger, he stalked the gunman.
He worked his way around the vehicles one by one, crouched, quiet, and alert. Just two cars away the Suburban closest to him moved, just enough to tell him someone was inside.
Fuck.
They were waiting for him. He backed up. Just as he got to the duffel, the back doors of the Suburban flew open and men poured out. Colin took of
f toward the stairwell. Screeching tires and the pounding of feet followed, hot on his heels. As he rounded the second level, a convertible was pulling out of a space. Colin yanked open the door, grabbed the stunned driver, and pulled him out.
“Sorry,” he said, “but I need to borrow your car.” He shoved the man out onto the concrete and hopped in. He downshifted, hit the gas, and took off.
The Suburban was right behind him. Colin drove through the exit-gate stop arm and made a sharp right onto the street. He shifted, blew through a red light, made a hard left and blew through another red light. The little Fiat handled beautifully, but the Suburban was still in his rearview. He needed to shake the bastards.
Colin turned right at the next street, moving against traffic, and then made another hard right into a tight alley. He lay on the gas and blasted through the chained gates at the end. He slammed the car into park, grabbed the duffel, and ran into the back of a building. He was familiar with the old trading building and knew there were numerous tunnels connecting it to several other surrounding buildings. He hurried into the bowels of the structure and headed north. As he came up two blocks away, he snatched a messenger’s bike and pedaled to the Greyhound station several blocks away. Minutes later, he walked into the station, straight back to a wall of lockers. Quickly he opened the combination lock on one of them, took out one of his alias IDs, exchanged the three grand Moriarty gave him with three Gs of his own. He then retrieved an iPad, two throwaway cells, and a small leather duffel that he stuffed with his cache, turned off his personal cell phone and set it on the cash, then locked the locker. He hurried into the men’s room, where he took the Sig from his holster and shoved it into the duffel Moriarty had given him, then tossed the entire bag into the trash can.
Colin had survived for so long on instinct. And right now, his instinct was screaming at him to trust no one.
Nine hours later, he was driving along Emerald Bay Road in South Lake Tahoe in a rented SUV, less than a mile from Sophia Gilletti. The flight west gave him a lot of time to think about what had to happen next. His weapons were untraceable. The iPad was registered under a dummy name, connected to a dummy e-mail he’d created on a pay-for-use public computer in Maryland. He’d paid for access to it with a prepaid Visa card. While his activity was traceable, his identity was not. He had nothing to hide from his employer, but everything to lose if the bad guys got a lock on him.