Ryan lifted his chin. “Frankie’s the opposite of a damsel in distress.” If anything, she was too damned independent for her own good.
His captain kept going as if he hadn’t spoken. “She’s pretty, she’s been doing good things in the neighborhood, so you believed her.”
“I do believe her.”
“But you’re not stupid. You’re not just going to take her word for it. You need evidence. So she takes you to that storage facility where your name is written on everything. Then she disappears, leaving you neatly tied up here and out of her hair.”
Was it possible? He was a good judge of character, but his captain spun a convincing picture. Especially since he knew wolves were devious, political creatures. But Frankie wasn’t like that. “She wanted to hide the paper with my name on it. She knows it was a lie.”
He snorted. “She also knows you’d never hide evidence even if it lined you up for the electric chair.”
Ryan didn’t answer. Instead, he grabbed the water bottle and started chugging. He felt weak and antsy at the same time, and he didn’t like where this discussion was going.
“She drug you before or after you slept together?”
He choked, sputtering as he gaped at his superior.
“You didn’t accidentally drink any of the water. It got poured into you or shot straight into your veins. Do you know who did it?”
Of course, he did. But Frankie had been saving his life.
“You’re smarter than the average junkie. You don’t addict that fast. She couldn’t control you with the drug, so she went for sex, for damsel in distress, for any one of the many ways Mata Haris trick us dumb men.”
“She’s not some devious female spy.”
“No, but she is a princess in an organized crime family.”
He bolted upright at that. “They’re not organized crime. Their businesses and their money are legit.” He planted his hands on the table as he leaned forward. “We both saw the report on their financials. They’re clean.”
“Not if they poisoned Detroit. Not if they’ve declared some sort of territory war against the Griz and mean to go killing people in the streets.”
Ryan swallowed. That was true, and that was exactly why he’d gotten involved to help Frankie. And yet here he was, tied up with the police and absolutely unable to do anything but sit and feel useless. And doubt every decision he’d made in the last twenty-four hours.
Captain Abraham leaned back in his chair. “What’s the one rule of all gangs?”
Ryan didn’t answer. He didn’t want to follow this line of thought.
“Come on. First thing I taught you when you came onto my task force.”
“Don’t involve the cops.”
Abraham smiled. “That’s right. Do everything you can—lie, cheat, steal…” He leaned forward. “Poison or seduce. Anything you can to keep the cops out of it. The gangs take care of the gangs, and they’ll do anything to keep the cops away.”
Ryan gripped his half-empty bottle and tried to get hold of his emotions. It was hard. The addiction was riding him, making him sweat and ache all at once. And the captain’s logic was eating at his confidence, throwing everything that had happened into a bad light. Had he been played? He sure as hell had been abandoned, and that carried so many emotional echoes that it was hard to think beyond it.
“She came to me. She involved me. Why would she do that if she wanted me out of the way?”
“Did she? Or did you stumble onto her and she had to cover?”
He arched a brow and Ryan felt his face heat. Damn it, she’d come on him being shot and had saved his life. But he couldn’t say that because then he’d have to explain how he took two slugs to the chest and there was no sign of it now. And still the man kept hitting him with logic.
“Maybe she’s the best of a bad lot. Maybe she’s trying to do good here, but everything she’s done has been to get you out of their business. And look, she succeeded. You’re burned out from the drug, you’re trapped here getting interrogated, and when she could be right beside you adding her voice to yours, she’s gone. And that Brady guy, too.”
Was it true? God, he couldn’t think straight right now. Not when he was fighting the sweats and had had nothing to eat all day except bad coffee.
Even so, he pulled it together. He lifted his chin and gave the facts to his boss as clearly as he could manage.
“I’ll tell you who was organized crime. Nanook of the Griz. And I took him down, didn’t I?” Not exactly the truth, but Simon had ordered him to take the credit for it. “The bastard’s dead, and we got all the pieces to take out three other drug and gun operations.”
