“Hey, Gaby. You doing okay?” Jeff leaned over Gabrielle’s partition only moments after she’d had her first sip of her morning coffee. “You look tired.”
“Yeah. Just … didn’t sleep well last night.” Now that was an understatement. She’d spent the entire night trying to find out which police agency had Luca, and which station or jail he’d been taken to. She’d never realized just how many agencies there were in the LVPD or how hard it was to track an arrest.
“You don’t sound so good.”
“I must be coming down with a cold.” Or maybe she’d talked herself hoarse on the phone asking the same questions again and again.
“You want to go for lunch? The deli down the road makes great chicken noodle soup.”
“No, thanks. I’m not hungry. Did you need something?”
“I have good news.” His face brightened, and he held up a phone. “I got a lead on the guy who vandalized my car. I had charged up his phone to see if I could crack the password and someone called and asked for Paolo.”
“Paolo?” Her blood chilled and she stared at the phone. Luca’s young associate was named Paolo. He had looked after Matteo when they found the dead body, and he’d ridden with them in the car to Mrs. Rizzoli’s house for Sunday dinner. “Any last name?”
“No, he hung up when I asked who he was, and the damn phone wouldn’t let me access the contacts or any information without the password. But I’ve got his number. I’m going to reverse track it to see if I can get an address or some kind of record. Maybe I’ll be lucky and it was someone calling on a landline. But if that doesn’t work, I’ve put a tracer in the phone. Next time someone calls, I’ll trace the number and use the friend to find him.”
Gabrielle clenched her hand in a fist on her lap. It couldn’t be a coincidence that a guy with the same name as Luca’s associate had been at her house the same night Luca showed up. Paolo was young, and he seemed like a nice kid, although why he threw a rock at Jeff’s car window, she didn’t know. She needed to warn him, or better yet, she needed to get her hands on the phone. “That’s a lot of effort to find a car vandal.”
“He owes me two thousand dollars for the repairs because the rock hit the hood and damaged the paint. I think the time spent will be well worth it when I catch him.”
She glanced down at the files on her desk, almost laughed to see the solution literally staring her in the face. “You’ve come to the right place,” she said, smiling. “Missing phones are my specialty. I’m looking into a crime ring that buys them up and ships them overseas, so I’ve got copies of all the missing phone reports filed in the city. Why don’t you leave it here? I’ll go through the paperwork and see if anyone reported it.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll track this guy down myself.”
Damn. She scrambled to think of another way to get her hands on the phone. “Well, at least let me take down the serial number and I can run it through the database. With those old models, the number is engraved on the SIM tray.”
“Good idea.” Jeff gave her the phone and she used a paperclip to remove the SIM tray from the side of the device. After copying down the number, and replacing the chip, she returned the phone. She could only hope Paolo could use the number to shut it down.
Jeff tucked the device in his pocket. “I need to keep it on me in case one of his friends calls again,” he explained when she lifted a querying eyebrow. “No way am I going to miss a call. Some jobs you just have to do yourself.”
Gabrielle stared at the files on her desk and sighed. “That’s what I thought, and then I got shot and now everyone is hunting for Garcia except me.”
Jeff patted her back. “Are you feeling sorry for yourself?”
“I suppose I am a bit. I’m back to where I started. Sitting at a desk, pushing paper while he’s out there killing people and selling drugs that destroy lives. I just wanted to stop him from hurting people.”
“I thought you wanted revenge,” Jeff said, leaning on her partition. “Have you given that up?”
“Yes.” The word slipped out before she could catch it, but it felt right. Revenge was a cold, empty, lonely place without joy or love or happiness. Luca had shown her that there was something else worth living for. He had made her look forward not back, at a world new and exciting and filled with hope and possibility—a world worth fighting for. She still wanted Garcia caught, but not for David. She wanted him off the streets so little boys didn’t walk into their daddy’s restaurant and see a man hanging in a meat freezer, and so people didn’t destroy their lives with drugs and leave their families to suffer.
“I still want justice,” she continued. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed that Agent Palmer and his team find him soon so he can spend the rest of his life in jail. I just wish I was involved.”
“Hey, there.” Jeff mocked a downturned smile. “You know it’s for the best. You were wasting your time chasing after a guy who is never going to get caught. Now, instead of banging your head against the wall, you can focus on something positive. There are lots of thieves out there just waiting for you to catch them. I know you’re disappointed to be off the case, but you don’t always make the best decisions, so it’s good Agent Palmer finally took you in hand.”
“What do you mean I don’t make the best decisions?”
Jeff shrugged. “Look at the fling you had with that mobster.”
Her blood chilled. “What mobster?”
“The guy I met at your house. Luca Rizzoli. He’s Italian. Violent. Runs a restaurant downtown. He had mob written all over him. I mean, come on, Gaby. You’re a police officer. Weren’t you even suspicious when he showed up at your house and only a few hours later two guys arrive with AKs and start shooting? Did you not make the connection?”
No, she hadn’t made the connection. She had always assumed Garcia sent the shooters and they were after her. Maybe she was wrong. And if she was wrong about that, she could have been wrong about other things, like just how involved Luca really was in the Mafia world.
“And then he attacks me?” Jeff continued, his voice rising in indignation. “A police officer? You were risking your career for what? Was he really that good in bed?”
“Jeff, you’re out of line.” She stood, folding her arms across her chest, a bolder, stronger, more assertive version of herself. “He owns a restaurant. And he’s never told me he’s in the mob.”
“He can’t. He’s bound by omertà—a blood oath of silence. He’ll die before he tells anybody anything. Although with the right incentive, you can make anyone talk.”
“I don’t know anything about Luca being part of the mob, and I’m uncomfortable having this discussion with you.” Despite the small seed of doubt he had planted in her mind, she was beyond angry with Jeff. He had well and truly gone too far. “It’s one thing to be jealous. Something else entirely if you’re accusing him of being a criminal.” Her stomach clenched at the irony. Luca had just been apprehended on criminal charges and here she was defending him.
“Sorry.” He held up his hands in mock defeat. “I just worry about you. I don’t want you to get hurt again. Guys like that make a lot of enemies and they wind up dead. You need someone stable in your life. Someone who will always be there for you. Someone you know and trust.”
“Gabrielle Fawkes?”
She looked up just as the internal courier placed an enormous foil-wrapped bouquet on her desk. “Are those for me?”
“Even bigger than the last bunch. Someone really cares.”
Her heart skipped a beat as he walked away. Luca must be out on bail and trying to apologize. She pulled open the foil and her nose wrinkled at the bold, gaudy colors and garish arrangement. The flowers were the opposite of anything she would ever have picked for herself. Even the scent was overpowering, thick and sickly like stale perfume. She thought Luca knew her, but maybe she’d been wrong about him in more ways than one.
“You don’t look happy,” Jeff said, frowning.
“They’re not really…” She trailed off, not wanting to say anything bad about Luca in front of Jeff.
Fighting to hide her distaste, she tore open the card.
Miss you. Let’s start over. Jeff.
“Jeff?” She stared at him in shock. “You sent these? They’re…” Garish. Ostentatious. Inappropriate. Unsettling.
“Beautiful. I know. And different from what you’re used to, but different is good.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Beautiful women should have beautiful flowers especially at the start of what’s gonna be a great week. Tomorrow I’m going to make dinner for you. I’ll cook a special Mexican dish and bring it to your place with a bottle of wine. And on Wednesday, I have another surprise … a sparkly one.”
“Jeff. I don’t…”
“I do a great cochinita pibil,” he called out as he walked away. “Almost as good as my mother used to make. I’ll see you tomorrow at seven. And this time I won’t take no as an answer.”
* * *
Luca jerked his hands, testing the steel cuffs around his wrists. The chain attaching them to the metal table in the room clattered, jangling nerves already raw from being knocked unconscious after he was secured in the back of the police van. Talk about police fucking brutality.
And what the hell kind of police interrogation room was this? No two-way mirror. No cameras as far as he could see. The ceiling tiles were stained and cracked, revealing sagging beams, rusty piping, and exposed electrical wires. A single bulb cast a stark glow over the cinderblock walls. It looked like someone’s basement. Where the fuck was all his tax money going? The police department needed updating in a very bad way.
Well, he wouldn’t be here long. No doubt Charlie Nails or one of the other Toscani crime family lawyers would be on his way to bail him out, and then they’d go to court and deal with whatever charges had been laid against him. He still didn’t know why he was here, although if he had to guess they had probably tied him to the Albanians who shot up Gabrielle’s house, or maybe Jason Prince had squealed, or had someone figured out the scam he and Nico had pulled to get five hundred grand out of the casino?
Someone like Gabrielle.
Christ, she’d betrayed him just like Gina had betrayed him. How had he miscalculated just how badly she wanted revenge? Was she out there right now getting ready to buy her way into a meeting with Garcia and putting herself in danger all over again?
Fuck it. He didn’t give a damn. He was ice. Cold. Hard. Dark in a way he hadn’t been after Gina’s betrayal, because only love could rip out your heart and leave it bleeding on the fucking floor. He hadn’t loved Gina. But he loved Gabrielle. Loved her so much he’d been blind.
But it didn’t make any sense.
The door opened, and Gabrielle’s cop friend, Jeff, walked in, flanked by two of the police officers who had apprehended him in the casino. One look at Jeff’s face and his gut clenched in warning. This was about to get personal in a very painful way.
“Nice to see you again, Rizzoli.” Jeff sprawled on the chair across the table. “You seem to always be where trouble is at.”
“I’m not talking without my lawyer.”
“I guess I’ll have to do the talking then.” Jeff smirked. “So, first we have two Albanians who are running a protection racket for a drug lord named Garcia that includes a convenience store and a nightclub both on the same street as your restaurant. And then one day they disappear. Where do you think they went?”
“Maybe they went back to fucking Albania.”
“I don’t think so. And neither does Mr. Prince, the nightclub owner who pays you money every week to protect him. He says you told him they’d gone on a permanent swimming vacation.”
Fucking Prince was about to lose the remaining interest he had in his business as well as a couple of limbs. But Luca wasn’t worried. Prince didn’t have any concrete evidence tying him to the crime.
“Extortion is against the law, Mr. Rizzoli.”
“Glad to hear you passed that exam in police school. And why the fuck are you involved? I thought you were in Narcotics.”
Jeff lifted his ankle to his knee and leaned back in his chair. “I have a diverse range of interests including arresting people who try to fleece casinos for cash. As for the Albanians, I think they were operating on territory that you thought was yours.”
“My territory is a restaurant plus ten yards for outdoor tables and ten parking stalls out back. I pissed in all the corners so everyone knows it’s mine.”
Jeff’s nose wrinkled slightly in disgust. Good. He wanted a reaction because he was beginning to suspect Jeff had nothing on him, although how did he know to talk to Prince?
“And then there were the two guys who shot up Gabrielle’s house when you were there. They were Albanians, too. Again, tied to Garcia. He must be very upset that someone has been taking out his workforce. We found them in the desert, by the way. They’d been beaten so badly their faces were pulp. But they didn’t die from the beatings. They died from being hogtied in a very special way. You know what that is?”
“I’m in the restaurant business, not the pig business. Can’t say I do.” Sweat trickled down his back. He fucking hated being toyed with. If Jeff had something on him, he wanted to know.
“It’s very ingenious and a painful way to die,” Jeff continued. “When they struggled to escape, they strangled themselves.” Jeff shifted his weight. “Did you know only the Mafia use that kind of hogtie?”
Luca shrugged. “Then I guess you’ll be looking for some mobsters.”
“Or I could be looking for a particular mobster who might want these Albanians dead. Say, for example, someone who was angry that they shot up his girlfriend’s house while he was fucking her inside.”
Luca’s hand tightened into a fist by his side. Those last four words told him everything he needed to know. Jeff was pissed that Gabrielle had chosen Luca over him, and he was going to use the law to get his revenge.
Don’t react. Don’t react. But it was so damn hard.
“I think any man would get angry if he was interrupted while he was fucking his girl,” he said evenly. “But I guess you wouldn’t know about that.”
Fuck. He needed to control his mouth, but everything about Jeff pissed him off, from his smarmy face to his supercilious attitude, and from the fact he was a cop to his fucking blatant desire for Gabrielle.
Mine.
Seemingly unaffected by Luca’s little dig, Jeff folded his arms across his chest. “I think you punished the Albanians for shooting up Gabrielle’s house, and you handled it the way all mobsters deal with these things—with a total lack of respect for both the law and the people who might be hurt by your actions. You’re lucky Garcia didn’t find you first. I can’t imagine he would let four deaths go unpunished. Incidentally, murder is also against the law.”
“I get it.” Luca faked a laugh. “I’m Italian so I must be in the mob. Well sorry to disappoint. I own a restaurant. I pay my taxes. You want to see my books or take a tour of my kitchen, I’m happy to oblige.” Luca was so fucking done with this. “You got any other interesting stories you want to share with me? More things you learned in police school? I’ve got a call I’m entitled to.”
Jeff’s face tightened and he pulled a phone out of his pocket. “There’s one last thing. Someone vandalized my car outside Gabrielle’s house. Again, you were there. I picked up his phone. Managed to get a name. Paolo. You know any Paolos?”
“I know lots of Paolos,” he said carefully. “It’s a common Italian name.”
“Of course, it is.” Jeff tucked the phone away. “I’m just waiting for someone to call him again. I’ve got a tracer on the phone. I’m going to find his friend and then I’m going to find him. Nothing pisses me off more than someone damaging my car.” He hesitated. “Actually, there is one thing that pisses me off more and that’s someone fucking my girl.”
“There it is.” Luca laughed for real this time. “Why don’t you just be a man and admit that’s really why I’m here? You obviously have nothing on me or you wouldn’t be throwing shit around about Albanians and mobsters and hoping something sticks.”
“Actually, I’ve got the girl.” Jeff smiled. “She’s having dinner with me tomorrow night. She loves Mexican food and I’m making her something very special. Too bad you won’t be able to join us and expand your culinary repertoire. But, thanks to Gabrielle, you’ll be spending some time in a very special cell where men like you pay for their crimes, and I think food will be the least of your concerns during your stay.”
So Gabrielle had betrayed him? It didn’t make sense. First, except for the unfortunate situation with Little Ricky, and the unintentional visit to the clubhouse, he’d been careful to keep his mob-related activities quiet so she would never be in a conflict situation. She didn’t have any knowledge of the crimes Jeff had accused him of committing. Second, she wasn’t the betraying type. Although she’d decided to work with him to find Garcia, her motives were altruistic. At heart, she was a good person, a protector who was always putting others before herself. Why risk her life to save him at the clubhouse if she planned to have him arrested? And third, she loved him. Although she’d never said the words, he saw it in her eyes, heard it in her voice, felt it when they were together. Love had ripped her apart, and she was afraid to embrace it again, but the feelings were there just the same.
So how the fuck did he wind up here?
“What crimes?” he asked Jeff. “What evidence do you have? What the fuck are you charging me with?”
A slow smile spread across Jeff’s face. “Crimes of the heart.”
* * *
Gabrielle drove down her street, squinting into the late-afternoon sun. Unable to focus after Jeff’s visit, she’d taken the rest of the day off to visit every police station, detention center and jail, trying to find Luca. There was no record of his arrest in any database, which meant he hadn’t been processed or charged, and since she couldn’t find him in any waiting room, holding center, or interrogation room, she had to conclude that he’d been released shortly after the police apprehended him and he was too angry to call.
Why did the officers think she’d called in a tip about Luca? She’d tried to find them, but no one remembered three officers coming in to any detention facility last night with a man of Luca’s description, and the beat cops who covered the Freemont Street Experience, where Nico’s casino was located, had not been informed about the arrest. Well, she wasn’t going to give up. She’d texted Luca and left him voice messages, and she’d keep texting until he answered.
She pulled up in front of the house and groaned when she saw Clint’s truck parked at an angle in the driveway. Goddammit. He shouldn’t be here. Nicole had obtained a protection order against him and he was prohibited from coming to the house or going to her casino.
She reached for the phone to report his breach of the order, and then pulled back. Clint knew about the protection order. His presence here was deliberate, and she had a strong feeling he hadn’t come to apologize and profess his love. He clearly didn’t care about his recent conviction or the fine he had to pay or even the repercussions of showing up at the house. Calling the police last time hadn’t made a difference. Why would it make a difference now?
Luca would have made a difference. She was pretty damn sure Clint wouldn’t be here if he’d spent ten minutes in a dark alley with Luca.
Or with her.
You were magnificent.
Damn right. And although she still believed in the law, Luca had made her see that the world wasn’t black and white; there were shades of gray where mobsters and cops could be together and bad deeds could be punished with justice of another kind.
Fuck Jeff and his garish flowers and his platitudes. He wasn’t her friend. Friends didn’t break your door or insist you owed them because they’d been there when you needed them. Friends gave and expected nothing in return. Friends saw into your heart and told you the truths you needed to hear.
Fuck Agent Palmer and the pile of cases on her desk. She was no paper pusher. She didn’t want revenge, but she did want justice. She’d worked damn hard for it and no one was going to take it away.
Fuck Luca who refused to answer her calls. She hadn’t done anything wrong. And if he wouldn’t come to her, she would go to him. She loved him and she was damn well going to let him know.
Her rebel heart pounded in her chest as she tucked her badge under the seat and stripped off her holster and gun. If Clint was inside on his knees begging forgiveness, she would leave him be. But if he’d hurt Nicole in any way, he would learn the lesson he should have learned in the alley. The lesson she’d learned from the mafioso who had stolen her heart.
No one fucked with her friends.
Heart pounding, she crossed the drive and opened the front door. She could hear Max barking in the back yard, something he would never do if all was well. Taking a deep breath she walked into the living room, still smelling of fresh paint and sawdust. Clint had his back to her as he slammed his fist into Nicole’s face.
“Stupid, ugly, fucking bitch,” he snarled. “This is what you get for calling the fucking cops. You deserve this, Nic. You asked for it. You and that cunt who got in the way. I don’t give a damn that she’s a cop. I’m not afraid of her.”
“You should be,” Gabrielle said from the doorway. “You should be very afraid.”
It took her three minutes to teach him a lesson he would never forget, and two minutes to drag his limp body out the door. Although she would have liked to go full Mafia and dump him in the desert, she wasn’t strong enough to lift an unconscious two hundred pound man into a pickup truck, even with Nicole’s help. But she did roll him down the steps and call the police to report an assault, and the paramedics to report an accidental fall.
No doubt he would be charged with assault and breaching the order, but she knew that wasn’t what would keep him away. It was the fury of her fists, and the heat of her anger. It was her refusal to recognize limits, and her willingness to take risks and break rules. And maybe, just maybe, it was the fear she put into his heart when she told him what would happen if he ever came near Nicole again. Something about … neckties.
Luca would have been proud.