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Benedict Maddox—my uncle, and one of Nashville’s lead prosecutors for the last twenty-plus years.
Everyone in the station calls me Shane or Maddox. Civilians prefer the formal stuff—Detective Maddox. But my uncle Benny? He calls me an asshole.
He’s the only family I’ve got left—my mom and dad died when I was eighteen—so I know beneath his crusty exterior is a heart he pretends he doesn’t have, but what in the hell he has to do with my assisting the Feds in getting close to Valentina Cordone, I’ve no idea.
“Only Dom, Captain Leonard, and my uncle Benny can know I’m undercover?” I blink. “Wait . . . what kind of undercover are we talking about here?”
“The kind that requires you to live a new life until we get the information we need.”
Dom leans over and whispers again. “Your rootless existence fits the bill.”
Yeah, I imagine having no wife, kids, or family besides Uncle Benny does make things a little less complicated when the goal is to disappear.
“You’ll be moving into the same condominium building that Valentina Cordone lives in,” Mike says. “You will be fired from Nashville Metro PD and will be playing the part of a disgraced cop. And you will spend your days and nights trying to get as close to Valentina Cordone and her bagel shop as you can. We need to know everything you can find out. Her schedule. How she operates her business. How the money flows in and out of her business. Regular customers. Any business partners or employees that might be tied to Cordone Freight. We need every little goddamn crumb you can find on her.”
Dom snorts. “You’re telling me you have suspicion that the biggest gunrunner in America launders money through a bagel joint?”
“Apparently, cream cheese can cover a multitude of sins,” Mike says. I’m pretty sure it’s meant to be funny, but the dude is so damn dry I can’t decide. “The bagel shop isn’t his only avenue for laundering, but it’s a hell of a way to keep the majority of it under the radar. We need more info on Valentina Cordone. We need to find out how involved she is in the family business. And the only way to do that is to put someone in her orbit.”
“And that’s where I come in.” It’s not a question; they’ve left no room for it to be.
“We’ve already arranged the paperwork to make it look real. You’ll have a reputation, a chip on your shoulder, and be the perfect kind of guy that won’t raise any red flags for Tommy Cordone.”
“Because guys like him love dirty cops,” I say, and Mike nods.
“Exactly.”
Dom whistles low. “Oh, this is gonna be good. Shane Maddox, the fallen hero. I bet he hits on pretty women at diners and dive bars to hide the pain.”
I laugh. “So, I should just be you before you met Hannah?”
Leonard gives us a look. “You two finished?”
Dom grins. “Almost.”
Leonard sighs, rubs his temples, and slaps the file shut. “I think we’re done here. Nashville Metro will be hands off. Shane, don’t fuck this up.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Cap.”
“You’ll be reporting directly to me,” Mike says, cutting off any further sparring between me and my boss.
The two other guys in the room have yet to say a single word, but one glance in their neutral direction tells me they prefer to let Stoneface Mike run this show. Either that, or they’re only here as props, under the guise of keeping this “joint task force with the FBI” business in order.
“We’ll be in touch about the confirmation process, Detective Maddox,” Mike announces, and then he and the other two men in suits file out of Leonard’s office.
“You two stay put while I see them out,” Captain says before following their exit.
“Look at you, buddy.” Dom pats me on the back. “You’re in the big leagues now.”
Holy fucking shit.
My eyes drift to the folder that’s still on Captain’s desk, and Valentina Cordone’s photo stares back at me. Sweet face. Big smile. Zero gunrunner’s-daughter energy anywhere to be found. Instead, she’s fucking beautiful and soft and completely disarming.
And that probably means one thing—I shouldn’t underestimate her.
2
Valentina
