by Sal Bianchi
I woke with a start, the events of the dream still fresh and clear in my mind. My heart was racing, and my face felt hot. I sighed as my heart started to slow into a more normal rhythm. It had been a while since I’d dreamed about that night. My meeting with Alessandro must have stirred up some bad memories.
I sat up in bed and glanced at my phone on my bedside table. It was six in the morning, which meant I’d only slept for about five hours. I rubbed a hand over my face and through my hair as I thought about the dream. I used to wonder a lot what might have happened if things had gone differently that day. It was pure coincidence that the police officer was there that night. If he hadn’t overheard us, or if I’d run away when Alessandro told me to, maybe things would have turned out differently.
No, they definitely would have turned out differently. I would never have met Jase or started working with the SDCT. I probably wouldn’t have gotten my Criminal Justice degree or even have gone to college. Alessandro wouldn’t be the mafia boss, though, so all those sacrifices would have been worth it.
I threw the covers off of myself and got out of bed. There was no point in ruminating about the what-ifs now. What was done was done. Speaking of which, I was still alive, which meant that no one had come to kill me in the middle of the night while I slept for what I’d done to Giovanni last night. I needed to get down to the SDCT office and let Flint know about the DeFiore Family being somehow involved in the case. After that, I should probably see about improving the security at my office as well.
After taking a quick shower and changing out of the rumpled clothes I’d fallen asleep in last night, I took a quick glance around my apartment. Nothing appeared to be out of place, and my front door hadn't been unlocked or tampered with, which was a relief, but also a bit disconcerting. I was sure the mafia would want to retaliate for what had happened, so now I’d have to look over my shoulder constantly, waiting for them to strike.
I got into the car and drove down to the SDCT office. It was significantly earlier than I usually showed up, but maybe this way, I’d be able to bypass Bette on my way to Flint’s office and avoid her verbal assault.
The sun was just starting to come up when I arrived in the parking lot, and there were only a few other cars in the lot. I headed into the building and up to the SDCT office on the eighth floor. The lights were off, and there wasn’t a single other soul in sight.
The immature desire to rifle through everyone’s things suddenly struck me now that there was no one here to stop me. On second thought, though, there probably wouldn’t be much to see aside from official case paperwork, and I’d get caught on the security cameras even if there wasn’t anyone here to see me right now.
My next plan was to give Flint a scare when he came into his office. If I picked the lock and waited for him inside, I’d be able to spook him when he came in that morning. I grinned at my own plan and walked across the office to kneel down in front of Flint’s door. I took the mini lock-picking set I carried with me out of my wallet and got to work on the door. Luckily it was a pretty standard lock without any electronic components, so I had it popped open in just a matter of minutes.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside before closing it behind me and locking it again. All that was left to do now was wait for Flint to get in. I wasn’t sure exactly when he would arrive, but as the director, he was sure to be one of the first ones in. It probably wouldn’t be long now.
I settled into one of the chairs across from his desk and pulled my phone out of my pocket to wait. About fifteen minutes later, I saw the lights in the main office area come on through the closed blinds and tensed in anticipation. I could hear footsteps outside the door and then the sound of the lock turning. My stomach churned unpleasantly as I realized this must have been how Franco felt yesterday when he’d hidden in the shadows of my own office, but I pushed the thought away before I could sink too deeply into it.
The door opened, and Flint flicked the light switch on as he stepped inside. His face remained stony even as he looked up and made eye contact with me. To my disappointment, he seemed completely unaffected to see me sitting here, almost as though he’d expected it.
“Good morning, Nick.” He greeted me as he moved to set his things down on his desk. “You’re here unusually early.”
“And yet to don’t seem all that surprised,” I sighed, dismayed that my prank had fallen flat.
“I saw your car in the parking lot.” He informed me as he took a seat in his chair. “If your plan was to be stealthy, I’m afraid you failed.”
I frowned as I realized that my own car had given my presence away.
“You’re no fun.” I frowned.
“I didn’t get this position for nothing,” Flint chuckled, a rare smile breaking across his face. “I’d be a pretty poor excuse for a director if I didn’t spot something that obvious. Anyway, why are you here so early?”
“I met with Alessandro last night,” I replied. I might as well get straight to the chase.
Flint’s smile slipped off his face in response to my answer.
“What happened?” he asked gravely, his face back to its usual morose frown. He hadn’t always been so somber. His drastic personality change was just one more thing that I held the mafia responsible for.
“The Family’s involved with the case,” I replied. “I’m not sure exactly how, but I received a friendly warning last night advising me to quit the investigation. Alessandro didn’t outright admit it, but it was pretty clear that someone in the Family has their hands in this.”
“I see.” He clasped his hands together on the desk in front of him. “What do you want to do?”
“What do you mean?” I asked him, confused by his question. “You’re the director, you tell me.”
“I mean about quitting the case.” He clarified. “Do you still feel comfortable staying on as a consultant?”
My eyes went wide as I realized what he was asking.
“Of course, I’m staying on the case,” I retorted. “I’m not going to let them cow me into submission.”
“I understand your feelings,” Flint sighed. “But you have to be reasonable right now. You’ve been a tremendous help to the SDCT up until now, but this will be the first time you’ve gone up against your own former Family. Are you really okay with that?”
He was asking out of concern for my safety, but that ship had already sailed, considering how I’d made the first move by shanking Giovanni last night.
“Doesn't matter now.” I shrugged. “I already declared war on them, so there’s no going back now.”
“You did what?” Flint gasped, alarm clear in his voice. He was showing an unexpectedly wide range of emotions this morning.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to hear the answers to.” I smirked. “Let’s just say something went down at the bar, and I highly doubt they’re going to take it lying down.”
“Oh, Nick,” he groaned in frustration. “All right. Well, if you’re really determined to carry on with this, go stake out the bar with Jase. If they really are involved, the quickest way for us to find something will be to catch them in the act. How privy are you to which businesses in Miami are owned by the mafia?”
“Oh, I think I can remember most of them,” I replied. “I wouldn’t know about any that were established in the past three years, though.”
“Okay.” Flint nodded. “Come up with a list and give it to Agent Stein. I’ll have him comb through their bank records to see if any suspicious transactions pop out at him.”
“Most of them are used as money-laundering fronts,” I scoffed. “They’re all going to have suspicious transactions.”
“We’ll focus on ones for the past three months in the five-thousand-dollar range,” Flint replied. “That’s the number that keeps coming up during each of the cases.”
“Okay.” I agreed. “I’ll get started on that and let you know when it’s ready.”
“Good,” Flint grunted. “Let me know if th
ere’s anything else you need.”
That sentence was a dismissal, so I got up out of the chair and headed out into the office. It had come alive while I was having my meeting with Flint, and the familiar hustle and bustle immediately surrounded me as agents moved and chattered around me.
I spotted Jase sitting at his desk by the entrance and grinned impishly. I hadn’t been able to scare Flint, but maybe I could still get Jase.
I crept up behind him. It was loud enough in the office that I was able to sneak up close to him without being heard. He hunched over his desk, working on something, so I leaned in as close as I could before slamming my hand down on his desk and yelling his name.
“What the--” He yelped and jumped in his seat before turning around to stare at me indignantly. “What is wrong with you?”
“Lend me your desk,” I replied instead of answering his question. I pulled a chair away from an unoccupied desk and pulled it up to sit opposite Jase. “I need to write something down for Agent Stein.”
“When did you even get here?” Jase asked as he looked up at the door. “I didn’t see you come in, and I didn’t hear Bette yelling at you, either.”
“I’m sneaky,” I replied vaguely as I racked my brain to remember all the mafia-owned businesses I could. As the underboss, part of my duties had been to stay aware of all the mafia’s business ventures and keep track of our records, so I was pretty familiar with everything the Family was involved in.
Still, it had been years since I’d even thought about it. Once again, I frowned as I realized how easily I was slipping into old habits, as though I’d never left at all. I told myself that it was different now since I was doing this to solve a crime. It was all I could do to convince myself that I wasn’t making a mistake in pursuing this.
32
Jase
After he’d given Stein the list of all the mafia-owned businesses that he could remember, Nick and I headed out to the bar to conduct the first night of our stake-out. Even though we’d been joking and chatting for the entire day as we waited for nightfall, now that we were here, he seemed a little sullen. Normally we would play cards or something while on a stakeout, but today he only seemed interested in staring at the bar, and people walked in and out. At first, I just thought he was just really focused on the case, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was getting into another funk.
To be honest, it hadn’t shocked me to learn that Nick’s former mafia Family was involved in the case. I’d already suspected as much, but I still felt bad that Nick had to deal with it.
“Whatever happened with that girl from the bar?” I asked in an attempt to distract him from whatever he was fretting over.
“What?” he asked blankly. "Which one?"
“That one girl you went home with last week.” I clarified as I glanced up at the bar. “With the curly hair. You kept telling her you were Italian, remember?”
He actually might not, now that I thought about it. He was pretty wasted by then. Even in the darkness, though, I could see his ears turn red at my question.
“Did I really bring it up that much?” he sighed. “Anyway, yeah. Her name’s Roxanne. We went out again the other night.”
“Really?” I asked, genuinely surprised. That was kind of unusual for Nick, who seemed like he had a different girl on his arm every night we hung out.
“Yeah, she’s pretty cool,” he replied. There was a faint smile on his lips as he spoke, and I wanted to tease him about it, but I was worried that would just send him back into his funk again.
“Oh yeah?” I grinned. “What did you guys do?”
Nick opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, his phone chimed to indicate he’d received a message. I watched as he picked his phone up out of the cup holder where it was sitting. He’d barely glanced at the message before his face went white.
“What is it?” I asked as I leaned over to look at his phone. He held it toward me so I could see it better.
Did u really think we wouldn't see u there?
I gasped as I read the message and looked frantically through all the windows of the car. We had parked pretty far away, in an unmarked car, and sandwiched between two other vehicles.
“Where is he?” I asked nervously as I continued to glance around. I spotted movement out of the corner of my eye and snapped my head around to see what it was. A painful ringing exploded in my ears as a hail of bullets began to tear through the back of the car.
Nick cried out in pain, and I shoved him into the footwell of the front seat for cover. I wrangled my gun out of its holster in the confined space and waited until there was a pause in the gunfire. The moment it was silent, I jumped back up and looked through the shattered rear windshield. I raised my gun at the man I saw standing there and fired without hesitation. The bullet hit him in the arm, and he let out a shout as his gun fell to the ground.
I threw open the door and sprinted around the side of the car toward the back. The man turned to look up at me as I approached and began to flail the gun around wildly with his uninjured hand, spraying bullets in every direction.
I threw myself back behind the side of the car for cover and waited. The shots sputtered to a stop, and I wanted for a few seconds to make sure he was actually out of ammo before I ducked out from behind the car.
I hurried back around to where he’d been lying. He was struggling to stand up, and I quickly kicked the automatic rifle away out of his hands before leaning down to restrain him. He struggled and threw punches and kicks at me haphazardly. Even with a bullet wound in his arm, the man was pretty strong, and I was having trouble turning him onto his back to get his hands cuffed.
“Stop it,” Nick growled as he suddenly appeared beside me. He punched the man in the face twice, hard enough that the back of his head struck the pavement beneath him.
I was a little stunned to see Nick standing beside me since he’d clearly been hit by a bullet just moments before.
“I’m fine,” he grunted, as though reading my mind. “Hurry up and cuff him before he gets back up.”
Despite his assurances that he was fine, I could tell that he was struggling. His left arm was hanging limply at his side, and he was clearly having trouble keeping his breathing steady. I had to focus on the suspect now, though. I crouched down and quickly turned the dazed man over to secure his hands behind his back. He groaned weakly as I did so but otherwise didn’t put up a fight. Nick must have hit him hard enough to knock him out.
Once the handcuffs were in place, I immediately pulled my phone out of my pocket to call an ambulance for Nick.
“Crap,” he muttered just as I finished dialing. I looked up to see what had caused him to say that and froze when I realized the bar doors were open. Several men had wandered out and were now curiously approaching the scene. I grimaced in frustration when I realized they must have heard the gunshots.
“Stop!” I yelled as authoritatively as I could.
The men halted their approach and turned to look at each other warily.
“This is an active crime scene.” I continued. “I’m on the phone with dispatch right now. Police are on their way. Go back inside.”
I held my phone up above me for emphasis. I hadn’t actually called for police backup yet, but they didn’t need to know that. In any case, there was no way the nine-one-one dispatcher wouldn’t alert the police after hearing me shout all that.
The men continued to talk among themselves quietly for a few more minutes before finally retreating back inside. I sighed in relief and nearly collapsed to my knees as I brought the phone back to my ear. That could have ended extremely badly if they’d decided to call my bluff.
“Hello, sir?” The dispatch operator called. “Can you hear me?”
“Hi, I can hear you,” I huffed in response as I struggled to catch my breath. I suddenly felt as though I’d been completely drained of energy. “I’m Agent Park with the SDCT. My partner’s been shot and needs an ambulance. We also need some police
backup in transporting a suspect.”
“What’s your location?” the operator asked.
I rattled off the address of the bar. My hands were shaking now from the sudden rush and loss of adrenaline. The operator assured me that the police would be here soon, and I shoved my phone back into my pocket before going to check on Nick.
He was leaning against the side of the car now. His face was pale, and even in the darkness, I could see that it was covered in a thin sheen of sweat. He was staring down at the suspect, who was still prone on the ground, with an intense look of contempt.
“You okay?” I asked as I approached him to examine the wound on his arm. Dark red stained the shoulder and collar of his shirt, and he was still holding his arm limply.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “It barely hurts.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” I muttered. “It could mean you have nerve damage.”
“I said I’m fine,” he grumbled. “Anyway, good shot back there. You got him on the ground with one bullet.”
“Of course I did,” I smirked proudly in spite of the situation. “You really should sit down, though, while we wait for backup.”
After helping Nick into the backseat of the car, I turned to look back toward the bar. Even though the men had gone back inside and everything seemed to have returned to normal, I couldn’t shake the feeling we were still being watched.
33
Nick
I didn’t like hospitals. I didn’t like being stared at and analyzed or being poked and prodded. Jase wouldn’t stop nagging at me to go, though, so I’d finally relented and agreed to ride in the ambulance to the hospital while he accompanied the police in transporting the subject back to the station.
