The money Nicholas gave me took away the anxiety of having to worry about how I would pay my bills, but I knew I needed something coming in eventually. I had no plans of relying on him or even Tremaine for help. I’d learned the hard way that, at the end of the day, I could only depend on myself. I needed to make sure that I could make ends meet with or without anyone’s help.
As much as I loved spending so much time with Bella, I wanted to feel like I had some kind of purpose other than being a mother. Working as a police officer made me feel like I was part of something bigger than me. It was all I had ever wanted to do.
I used to be so proud of my dad when he made an appearance on the news, even if he was just in the background. I loved listening to him tell stories about his day at work. I wanted to be just like him.
I didn’t know if I wanted to be a cop as much as I wanted to be like my dad. The more time I had at home, the more I was questioning my real purpose. Hopefully, whatever Hale had to tell me had something to do with me going back to work, because I was spiraling.
An hour and a half after Tremaine Hale hung up the phone in my damn face, I was still cursing his ass out under my breath as I drove to the station. The only reason that I didn’t call back and tell him how I felt was that I had already considered the possibility that the impromptu meeting might be related to my return to duty. Lord knows, I had been sitting around twiddling my thumbs for long enough.
When I walked in the building, the first thing I noticed was the way I no longer felt like I was walking into my second home. Things were moved and rearranged, making the office feel unfamiliar. I spoke to a few people as I kept a direct path to Tremaine’s office.
I noticed him sitting behind his desk before I walked through the open door of his office. As I prepared to give him a piece of my mind, the malice in my voice evaporated into thin air when I noticed two men in his office. One of them was in an expensive suit, and the other was in plain clothes.
“Close the door behind you and have a seat, Officer Sutton,” Tremaine ordered.
“What’s going on?” I asked, taking the seat across from his desk.
“This is Officer Benton from the Financial Crimes Department, and the gentleman to your right is Officer Christopher with the Lula Hills Police Department.”
“Lula Hills?”
“Nice to meet you, Officer Sutton. I’m Officer Alvin Christopher.”
“Excuse my manners, but what am I doing here?”
“Jameela, . . . Officer Sutton, Financial Crimes has been running surveillance on a multimillion-dollar money laundering operation for the past eighteen months,” Tremaine explained.
“Right, I heard something about that in passing.”
“You’ve come up in our recent cases.”
“Oh, OK. Which one? In my last undercover operation, we ended up with a -million-dollar sting.”
“You entered the investigation on more of a personal capacity.” Tremaine sneered.
My eyebrows snapped together in confusion. Why did he look so angry? I was used to him being in a pissy mood, but this was something else.
“Officer Sutton, you’ve been captured in some of our surveillance,” Officer Christopher explained.
“What does that mean?”
“You have been photographed on dates and spending intimate time with the suspect, Jameela!” Tremaine bellowed, almost blowing me back against the chair.
“What suspect?” I asked, turning to Officer Christopher.
Tremaine shoved a folder across his desk. Once it stopped, Christopher picked it up and opened it.
“Nicholas Toriano King is being investigated for fraud, racketeering, and money laundering. There is probably a laundry list of other crimes that he’s guilty of, but this will get usin the door so we can look around. His uncle, Darrell Hurst, ran one of the city’s longest running illegal gambling businesses. The uncle sent him to college and trained him to be a well-educated, articulate white-collar criminal. King is estimated to have a net worth of five hundred and thirty million dollars, and that’s just the so-called legal money.”
My mind hadn’t even caught up to what Officer Christopher was saying before Tremaine chimed in. “Did you know you were dating a criminal?”
“Officer Hale.” Christopher raised his hand.
“Our financial crimes department feels like you would be an asset to the investigation since you are already getting close to the suspect. We need you to see how much information you can get from him. Get your hands on any documents and get clear pictures. We are also going to need you to wear a wire,” Officer Benton finally spoke up.
“Are you asking me to investigate him?”
“We’re not asking you to do anything. You’re going undercover to investigate Nicholas King. You’ll keep things as they are so you can monitor him closely. We have been looking for a way in for the past four months since he popped up on our radar.”
