Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed. “No one is violating your civil liberties, Mr. Lee. We have a search warrant signed by a judge.”
“I saw.” Lee’s lip curled. “One of your fellow jackbooted thugs waved that little piece of paper in my face. Signed by Judge Thibodeau, wasn’t it? Isn’t he running for reelection soon? Seems like a strange campaign plan, sending police to harass a potential voter like myself.”
Lorenzo crossed his arms over his chest. “We’re not here to harass you. We’re conducting a search for illegal drugs.”
On either side of him, Lee’s goons let out derisive chuckles. Lorenzo had shown Remy and the other SWAT cops photos of Lee’s personal-security-slash-lieutenants during the mission briefing, and while both men wore similar amused expressions on their ugly mugs, the two couldn’t have been more different.
There was Shelton Quinn, a muscle-bound guy easily as big as Brooks. The man had a shaved head and a couple tattoos showing on his arms and neck that looked like they’d been done in a prison or someplace equally primitive. According to Lorenzo, Quinn specialized in physical intimidation and breaking everything from kneecaps and heads to spirits. From the looks of him, it was obvious the guy spent a good portion of his life in the gym, though the sour scent coming off him seemed to indicate at least some of those gains were the results of steroids or something more exotic.
The other guy, Chad Roth, was whipcord lean with wiry muscles he liked showing off under a tight athletic shirt. His dark hair was trimmed close to his head, with three parallel lines etched in it above his right ear. The man seemed to have a thing for gold earrings, too. He had three in each lobe that glinted brightly against his dark-brown skin. It wasn’t the unusual hairstyle or the earrings that caught Remy’s attention though. Instead, it was the man’s calculating eyes. As he watched, the thug scanned every cop in front of him—not in a quick, shifty manner, but with an intent look that told Remy the man was memorizing every detail he took in.
When Roth got to Remy and his pack mates, his eyes narrowed at the sight of the DPD patches on the front of their tactical vests. He locked gazes with Remy, staring straight at him. Remy stared back.
Lorenzo had said Roth was the smarter of the two lieutenants, and even though he’d only been associated with Lee’s organization for a few years, it was likely he’d take over running the show someday, assuming Lee ever stepped aside.
Remy listened with half an ear as Quinn ribbed Lorenzo about how the search for drugs was going, asking if maybe the cops needed some help looking, since it was obvious they didn’t know what the hell they were doing. All the while, Aaron Lee stood there with a smile on his face, letting his lieutenant have his fun with the narcotics detective.
Roth slowly slid his gaze from Remy, casually taking in Max, Brooks, and Zane. Remy watched the man’s open perusal, trying to understand the funny vibe he was getting off the guy. Whereas Lee was calm and serene inside, sure the cops weren’t going to get anything off him, and Quinn was a pile of juiced-up energy, getting off on his chance to stick it to the cops, Roth wasn’t putting off anything. He wasn’t merely calm; he was shut off. Like a dead man walking. Remy had never experienced anything quite like it and couldn’t help but wonder if maybe it meant the guy was a cold-blooded serial killer.
“Search as long as you like, Detective Claiborne,” Lee finally said, interrupting Quinn’s fun. “You’re not going to find anything, but you can be sure that my lawyers will be talking to the city about the damage you’ve done to my property, as well as the amount of income lost waiting for you and your cop buddies to finish here. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the reimbursement came out of your paycheck.”
Lorenzo’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say anything as Roth opened the back door of the Caddy for Lee. Before climbing in, Lee turned to regard Remy and his pack mates thoughtfully before looking at the narcotics detective.
“I always thought you and your people were incompetent, Detective Claiborne, and bringing in outside muscle isn’t going to help you pin something on me.” Lee’s mouth twitched. “Not unless they can sniff for drugs better than your dogs.”
With that, Lee climbed into the backseat of the car. Roth went around to the passenger side while Quinn got behind the wheel.
As he started the engine, Quinn gave Remy and his pack mates an amused look. “Ruff, ruff, little doggies. Ruff, ruff.”
Beside Remy, Max growled under his breath. “You wouldn’t be laughing if I sank my little doggy fangs in that steroid-filled ass of yours,” he said as Quinn drove away.
“You can bite his ass if you want,” Remy said softly. “Me? I’m going for his fucking throat.”
Chapter 5
The sun was just going down as Remy headed to the voodoo shop to pick up Triana for dinner. He still couldn’t stop seething about how badly the raid had gone. They’d stayed at the docks for another three and a half hours after Aaron Lee had left, checking every little nook and cranny of the warehouse and the cargo ship. As Lee had predicted, they’d found nothing. And while the drug dogs had alerted on several places within the warehouse, they hadn’t found any actual crystal meth. It was frustrating as hell, too. Not only because they knew Lee had slipped the meth out shortly before they’d gotten there, but also because the man had been so damn snide about the whole frigging thing.
Lorenzo had promised them this wasn’t over, that Lee would have to store the meth somewhere in the city until he could get around to breaking it down into smaller packages.
“Breaking that much ice down and stuffing it into baggies is going to be a slow process,” the detective added. “My informant will get word to us soon, I can promise you that, so keep your phones on. When we get the next warrant, I want to move fast.”
Remy prayed Lorenzo was right, but he wasn’t holding out much hope. Lee hadn’t gotten where he was by being sloppy.
He shoved those thoughts away as he opened the door to Gemma’s shop. The one thing he didn’t want to do was ruin his evening with Triana because he had a bad taste in his mouth over failing to bust Aaron Lee. He’d been looking forward to spending time with her all day. The moment he walked inside and breathed in Triana’s scent, it was like a heavy, wet blanket lifted off his shoulders. Everything seemed lighter and he found thoughts of Aaron Lee and his freaky lieutenants fading away.
“There you are,” Gemma said, coming out from behind the counter to give him a hug. “I was worried that if you didn’t get here soon, Triana would primp until she passed out. That girl has been working it in front of that mirror upstairs for nearly two hours.”
“Mom!” Triana scolded from the top of the stairs. “Don’t tell him that.”
Gemma laughed, her dark eyes dancing as Triana started down the steps. “Why not? I’m just subtly letting Remy know how much effort you put into this date, so he makes sure to properly show his appreciation.”
Remy laughed, but the moment Triana’s bare legs came into view on the staircase, her smooth, light-brown skin flexing as she carefully descended each step in her heels, the sound caught in his throat. The sight of her in the flowing yellow sleeveless dress was enough to ramp his heart rate up to the danger zone. Combined with her long, wavy hair, smoky makeup, and flowery perfume that accentuated her natural scent, the complete package was almost enough to make his heart stop beating altogether. Damn, damn, and double damn! Right then he was as sure as heaven above that he’d never met another woman as beautiful as Triana Bellamy.
She held his gaze as she sidled over to him, her head cocked to one side, the tip of her tongue just touching the center of her upper lip. All at once, her heart sped up and her body put off the most delicious aroma on the planet. It was the same scent of arousal that had surrounded her last night as they’d kissed. The mere hint of it made him go hard in his jeans. The idea of saying the hell with dinner and heading straight for “dessert” was suddenly the only thing he could think about. His fingers itched to scoop her up and carry her back upstairs. He might have done it, too, if Gemma hadn’t spoken.
“Cold shower, anyone?” she asked, a knowing smile curving her lips.
