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He opens it to a photo of a man with dark, coiffed hair, even darker eyes, expensive clothes, gold jewelry, and a beard. The hair on his face and head have pepper gray sprinkled throughout, and if I had to guess, I’d say he’s a fit and flashy sixty-something.
“Tommy Cordone. He used to be Tommy Greco of the Greco Crime Family in New York, but that was before he pissed someone in his clan off about twenty years ago and ended up with a hit out for him that had him tucking tail out of New York with his wife and kids and starting fresh here in Nashville.”
“Witness protection?” Dom asks, and Mike shakes his head.
“Nope. Tommy is a one-man show. He changed his name, started a whole new life in your city, but instead of lying low in Tennessee, he built an entire criminal enterprise that consists of money laundering, racketeering, and gunrunning to some of the most disgusting criminal groups in the world. Though he learned some lessons from New York and wrapped his shit up in freight trucks, shipping for commercial companies, and legit business licenses. His company is called Cordone Freight and moves product coast to coast. Everything looks clean. But somewhere between the cereal shipments and the furniture deliveries, military-grade weapons vanish and reappear overseas and keep getting in the hands of terrorist organizations.”
I whistle low. “And all that out of Nashville.”
“Yep,” Captain Leonard says. “Cordone’s built himself the biggest gunrunning network in the country, and he’s done it right under our noses.”
“I know the name Cordone Freight. Hell, everyone in the city probably sees their trucks moving around to their favorite grocery stores.” Dom leans back in his chair. “But you’re telling me the same trucks that haul bananas and kiddie cereals are arming terrorists?”
“We’ve been tracking Tommy Cordone’s organization for close to two years now,” Mike updates us. “He’s clean on paper. No felonies, no direct ties lately to known mob or terrorist syndicates, but he’s running one of the most sophisticated weapons pipelines we’ve seen stateside. The FBI’s traced a few shipments, but they vanish before we can connect him directly. The CIA got involved once we realized those weapons were surfacing in war zones and in terrorists’ hands.”
“So, what?” Dom raises a brow. “You want us to pull Tommy Cordone over for a busted taillight and hope he confesses to international gun trafficking?”
“How about I finish briefing you on the case first, yeah?” Mike retorts, and his jaw ticks in a way that whispers shut the fuck up.
Dom does exactly that.
Mike slides Tommy Cordone’s photo aside and flips to the next page, revealing a photo of a tattooed, muscled-up-looking dude. He’s fairly attractive, with blue eyes and blondish-brown hair, and looks about half Tommy’s age. Mike puts another photo beside that one, and while there’s about thirty years’ age difference between the two of them, they definitely appear to be related. “This is Leonidas Murphy and his father, Damon Murphy. Leonidas is Tommy Cordone’s right-hand man. His record is clean, but his family history goes back years with the Irish mob. His father, Damon, moved them to the States when he was just a teenager, but when Damon got involved with Tommy Cordone, his son Leonidas followed suit. Now Damon is the CFO of Cordone Freight and Leonidas is head of operations.”
He flips to the next photo. Tommy Cordone’s son, without question. “Nico Cordone. Tommy Cordone’s son. He’s Cordone Freight’s director of cybersecurity.”
He shows a new photo. “Francesca Cordone. Tommy Cordone’s wife. We have ruled her out of being directly involved in Cordone Freight, but we’re still keeping an eye on her.”
And then, he slides out a photo of a woman I’d normally be doing everything in my power to sweet-talk into my bed and my hoodie. Dark hair and entrancing blue eyes give way to a much softer, kinder smile. Dom, having known me this long, doesn’t hesitate to discreetly nudge me in the side. “She looks right up your alley.”
Mike flashes a glare in Dom’s direction before continuing like he said nothing.
“This is Valentina Cordone. Tommy Cordone’s daughter. Runs a bagel-and-book shop downtown called The Hole Story. Or so she purports. In reality, we think this might be the hub of the dirty money. And we want you to get close—closer than we can—so we can find out for sure.”
“You want us to get close to Tommy Cordone’s daughter?”
Captain Leonard clears his throat. “Before you get too excited, Dunn, this isn’t a buddy-cop assignment. One of you is going in. The other’s staying put.”
“Going in?” Dom glances at me. “As much as I’d love to play James Bond, Hannah’s due soon. This shit is sounding a little intense for what I can offer at the moment.”
“Well, that’s good news, because you don’t have the face for this job,” Mike says and glances at me.
“I don’t have the face for it?” Dom’s head jerks back in surprise. “What does that mean?”
“It means you’re not the right fit. Detective Maddox is the one we had in mind.”
This time, I can’t hold back my laughter. “Uh-oh, Dom. I think I just won the beauty pageant. Don’t be sad. I still think you’re the most handsome boy in all the land, okay?”
Dom just smirks. “Maybe it’s that I’m too attractive.”
“No.” Mike shakes his head.
Count this as the second time I’m not able to hold back laughter since stepping into Leonard’s office. Mike spins on his heels to grab some other shit from his briefcase in the corner of the room, and I can’t stop myself from leaning toward Dom and whispering, “Is it just me, or does Mike kind of hate you?”
Dom mouths, “Fuck you.”
I mouth back, “I love you too.”
“We need you to go undercover, Detective Maddox,” Mike says, heading back toward us to drop a few papers onto Leonard’s desk. “But besides the people that are currently standing in this room right now, the only other person who will know that you’re undercover is Benedict Maddox.”
