Nasty.
I started snapping pictures the second those blacked-out SUVs came into view. The ticking came from the front vehicle as they eased down the alleyway. I furrowed my brow as my senses started to heighten. My hearing sharpened, becoming sensitive to each and every sound that happened around me. I followed the SUVs with my camera and wasn’t the least bit shocked that their license plates had those tinted covers on them.
Still, I snapped pictures in the hopes that Lancer, our tech guy, might still be able to pull something from them.
“Gordon,” a deep voice said.
I watched a broad man in a pristine suit lumber out of the back of the first SUV, and my stomach sank.
“There’s no fucking way,” I whispered.
“Hey, hey!” Gordon said as he lifted his hands into the air. “I was wondering when you guys were going to show up.”
I started snapping pictures as quickly as possible. Everything I could take a picture of, I captured. I watched bodyguards easily the size of Ranger pour out of the second SUV, and the look on Gordon’s face shifted from one of friendliness to one of fear.
He needed to be scared, too.
That man was meeting with none other than Tommy Gun Griggs.
The mafioso that had the entire West Coast underground criminal syndicate beneath his motherfucking boot.
“What the hell have you done?” I whispered.
“So,” Tommy said as he held out his chubby arms, “how were the mountains?”
Gordon nodded as he slid his hands into his pockets. “The mountains weren’t as beautiful as I figured they would be, but at least there was a nice lake to jump into every once in a while.”
“A lake, huh? No river to go fishing in?”
I double checked things in order to make sure their conversation was being recorded. It didn’t take a genius like me to know that they were talking in code. But, the fact that some police officer needed a reason to talk in code with the biggest mafioso on the West Coast gave me the missing piece that had been bugging me all damn day.
Gordon was a dirty fucking cop.
“You slimy little snake,” I murmured as a smile spread across my face.
Honestly? I didn’t think the man had it in him. The rumors I’d heard about Tommy Gun Griggs would chill even the deadest of corpses out of its grave. He was ruthless and took pride in the torture he brought down upon those who betrayed him. I heard through the grapevine that at one point in time, the feds almost had him. That is, until the witness testifying against him turned up with no head, no teeth, no prints of any kind, and his skin burned through and through.
Rumor has it that his head had been delivered to the man’s fucking wife.
Not good. This is very not good.
“What about the campfire?” Gordon asked.
Tommy’s head tilted off to the side. “I ain’t done with my questions yet.”
Gordon held up his hands. “Ask away, then. I’m an open book.”
Tommy snapped his fingers and two of the bodyguards lunged at Gordon. He started grunting and groaning, struggling aimlessly against the two men who kicked his feet out from beneath him. I continued to snap pictures and record everything I could as I watched things unfold with my own eyes. Gordon dropped to his knees as three bodyguards lined Tommy’s backside. With their guns drawn and aimed at the man, Tommy fisted the man’s hair and yanked his head up to meet his gaze.
I held my breath as I listened to his voice come alive in my headphones.
“Find the river, and don’t you fucking call me until you do.”
Tommy balled up his fist and socked it against Gordon’s jaw, forcing him to the ground. Then, with a snap of his fingers, he twirled his hand in the air, rounding up his bodyguards just like that. With Gordon groaning on the ground, blood dripping from his lip, those mountain men treated Tommy as if he were a precious woman. Opening the door for him, offering their hand to help him into the car.
“So, the mafioso is a pretty little princess,” I whispered.
I had no idea what to make of anything. As the SUVs backed down the alleyway, with that ticking sound following behind them, Gordon moaned and groaned on the ground as he struggled to get up. Part of me wanted to put a bullet in his damn brain and get things over with. It wasn’t as if the man deserved to live, after having his fiancée stolen from beneath him and not giving a rat’s ass in the world about it.
