He was a world-class prick. He'd accused her of some seriously messed up shit for no reason. That knowledge gnawed, and there wasn't a fucking thing he could do about it because he'd agreed to stay away. Little by little, that decision drove him insane.
He wanted to see her. No, he needed to see her.
He'd read her file, scoured the Seattle Times archives for more information on her past. What he'd learned sickened him. Marc Rivera had ruined her life for no fucking reason, and the press had shredded her for it. He'd gotten high and almost killed her, but they'd blamed her. And Tristan had accused her of deserving that.
The need to apologize continued to plague him, but even if he could have done so, he didn't even know where to find her. She hadn't returned to her house in eight days.
His lungs hurt.
His heart raced.
Physical exhaustion didn't ease the restless burn inside his skin.
With a sigh, he tossed the weapon aside, grabbed the remote, and then shut off the music. The noise wasn't helping him focus. He felt as caged as a lion behind iron bars and thick chains. Duty and responsibility were heavy weights resting on his sweaty shoulders.
He'd had about enough of both.
"About time," Jason panted from across the room.
Tristan grunted and grabbed his towel from the sofa he'd pushed out of his way and wiped sweat from his face.
"I'm too old for this shit." A chair creaked as Jason lowered himself into it, his own nunchaku falling to the floor beside him. Paper rustled as he shoved it around on the dining room table.
Tristan tossed the towel aside and headed toward the fridge, forcing himself to push thoughts of Lillian from his mind and focus. "The blueprints are wrong."
"You're sure there's a basement?" Jason asked, sweat dripping down his face.
"Yes," Tristan said, tossing him a bottle of water. "The GPR came back cold, barely even registered a crack in the subsurface, but that's a lot of concrete to penetrate. The building is old, so it may be lined or reinforced with lead. Hell, Anton may have had it reinforced himself. He wouldn't want to risk the bass from the club vibrating something off a table."
With the chemicals the bastard needed to run his little drug lab, a spill would be a disaster. The entire club could blow if the wrong shit mixed. Anton and Paulo were a lot of things, but as Tristan had learned over the last few weeks, they were far from stupid.
Jason took a swig of water then set it aside to massage the back of his neck. "You've got to get in there. Right now, we can't even prove the fucking basement exists."
"Yeah, I know." Tristan shook his head and grabbed a bottle of water for himself. "Is Kincaid checking out the Planning Office?"
Jason nodded. "Not sure how much good it'll do though. Anton Vetrov's owned the building for fifteen years. If he did swap out plans, there's no telling who he paid to do it or when."
Yeah, Tristan knew that, too.
"Show me where the storage rooms are laid out again," Jason demanded, leaning over the table to unroll the set of plans. He set his water bottle on one end and kept his hand on the other to hold it in place.
"Here." Tristan tapped the west wall on the document. He took a swig of his water, waiting for Jason to mark the location before he tapped the blueprints further down on the same wall. "This is the actual storage room in the corner here. Nothing in there but brooms, mops, and extra stock."
"No additional entrances or exits?" Jason asked, scrawling a note over the vertical X he made on the plans.
"Nope. Shelves are built right into the walls," Tristan said. "And it's not wide enough here for stairs." He pointed at the space where the bar was located. "Unless they're using a manhole, there's no way the entrance is hidden in there." Both he and Jason knew the Vetrov operation required more than a manhole to bring in chemicals and equipment and carry out the finished product.
"Bathrooms and lounge?" Jason asked.
Tristan pointed them out while Jason labeled them in his heavy scrawl.
"Aside from an emergency exit here," Tristan said as he pointed it out at the end of the hallway near the bathrooms, "there's not a damn thing back there. Offices upstairs are clean too. There's nothing at all on the second floor worth mentioning. And the dance floor is solid."
He stepped back and surveyed the plans laid out on the table, picturing the club in his mind. Jason leaned back in his chair, keeping his hand on the bottom of the roll. Aside from the one unidentified room, there was nowhere else in the club to hide anything, let alone a stairwell to the basement.
"What about an outside entrance?"
"If there is one, it's hidden away from the club." Trying to find it would be like looking for a needle in a fucking haystack, and they didn't have the manpower to start that kind of search. Not to mention, they couldn't afford for Anton Vetrov to figure out what the hell they were doing. Unloading a bus of federal agents in the neighborhood to undertake that kind of search would be the equivalent of hanging a neon sign telling him to move his shit and leave no trace.
"Shit," Jason swore, tossing his pen down on the table.
Tristan didn't say anything. There was an entire level of the building missing from record. It wasn't on the plans. GPR came back with nothing solid. Hell, they'd even tried an aerial thermal image of the building to no real end. The place was too damned big for the tech to trace all heat leaks and come back with anything definitive.
"You're sure it's there?" Jason asked again.
"It's got to be there." Tristan sat his water down on the edge of the table and rifled through the assortment of papers before pulling one out. "No one on Anton's payroll owns any other property in the area. If they aren't manufacturing it in the club, they're bringing it in from somewhere else, and surveillance came up with jack shit on that front. There is nowhere else."
"So it has to be the club," Jason said, the same conclusion they'd come to weeks ago.
"Yeah." Tristan was ready to go hand-to-hand with Anton Vetrov's people and fight his way inside that damned room. It'd almost be easier than trying to go in covert.
"We need a mole," Jason sighed.
"You'll never get one inside."
Anton was damn careful about who he hired to work in the club, which was why the DEA had put Tristan on the case. They couldn't get anyone placed in Anton's circle. And who else was crazy enough to stroll through the front doors every night when doing so could end in bloodshed?
"Yeah well," Jason answered, "we may have to bring in outside re-enforcements. Someone unrelated to the DEA."
"Forget it, Jase," Tristan warned him. "They'd tear a civilian apart or have him addicted in a matter of days." The last thing the DEA needed was another dead civilian, and Jason knew it.
"Son of a bitch." Jason grabbed the water bottle, allowing the set of blueprints to roll up on itself.
"Give me time," Tristan urged his friend. "One fucking way or another, I'll find the damn lab. You know I will."
"Yeah, well, you better fucking hurry," Jason muttered, shaking his head. "Before they figure out who you are."
"Lily, you can't go home," Jen argued as Lillian packed her things into her suitcase. She'd been in her friend's guestroom for eight long days, stewing, and she was tired of it. She loved Jen and Tony. She appreciated that they'd taken her in without hesitation, but enough was enough already.
She missed her bed. She missed her house. She missed the absolute silence and solitude it afforded her during the day when she needed it. She was going home. Jason Ames and Tristan Riley would just have to deal with it. She'd given them eight days already; they weren't getting another one.
"The door is fixed, and I've had a security system installed. Aside from Tristan, no one has bothered me since I moved in. I'm going home, Jennie," she told her friend firmly, folding a shirt and placing it into her simple black suitcase. "I'm not going to keep hiding out here because Jason Ames demanded I leave."
She didn't owe the man anything, and she wasn't goi
ng to let him keep her out of her house because it made Tristan's life easier. After Marc had attacked her, she'd spent months hiding out in Oregon with her parents, too afraid to face life on her own while she endured hours of physical therapy. Staying with Jen felt a little too much like the same thing, and she was done hiding.
She'd promised Jason that she wouldn't tell her father about Tristan, and she'd kept that promise, even going so far as to lie to him about why she was staying with Jen and Tony. She'd upheld her end of the bargain as far as she was willing to uphold it. Jason could take it or leave it. And if Special Agent Tristan Riley had a problem with it, he could kiss her ass.
Whatever was really going on in the club, it hadn't affected her life until he'd appeared on the scene, and she wouldn't let it affect her now. This was her life, dammit, and she was done rearranging it because he was an ass. Not that she expected him to care if she returned home or not. He'd gotten what he needed from her.
Eight days later, that truth still hurt more than it should.
That sad fact did nothing to soothe the anger brewing inside. If she saw Tristan again, God help him.
She had an entire list of things she wanted to say to him, and one of these days, she was going to say every single one of them. Starting with how he was an insensitive, clueless idiot. She'd just keep to herself how often she'd thought about him since he stormed out… and how often she'd dreamed about him. That she planned to bury deep in her subconscious. He'd humiliated her enough already, thank you very much.
"Lil, we don't mind you staying," Tony said from the doorway when she tossed another shirt into the suitcase, not even bothering to fold it this time. Another followed in the same vein.
She stopped tossing clothes and mentally cursing Tristan long enough to turn to Tony. "I know," she told him, offering the brightest false smile she could muster. It looked more like she was ready to bite someone. "And I appreciate that, I really do. But I didn't come back to Seattle just to be forced out of my house because the DEA doesn't know what they're doing. I love you both, but I'm going home." Her tone left no room at all for argument.
Tony sighed heavily and then nodded his dark head, giving up. "I'll drive you when you're ready to go."
"You'll call us if you need anything, right?" Jen asked.
"First thing," Lillian promised, stifling a sigh of relief that they weren't going to fight her on this. She really didn't want to argue about it, especially not with her friends. They had her best interests at heart, but they were slowly driving her insane with their solicitous questions about her leg, her day, and her mood.
Her leg was fine. Her days were long, and her mood was getting worse every time one of the two refused to let her help herself, instead rushing to get her what she was after. That was as much a reason to leave as anything else. She really didn't want to snap at one of them when they were just trying to help, but she was close to doing exactly that. And it wasn't really either of them she was angry at anyway. It was Tristan Special Freaking Agent Riley and Jason For Your Own Safety Ames who'd pissed her off.
She disliked both of them, and never mind what she craved from one of the two.
That one, she liked least of all.
As soon as Tristan slipped through the doors of Teplo, the scent of marijuana, sweat, and cheap perfumed hit him hard. The repugnant smell turned his stomach just like it always did, which pissed him off. He was sick of spending every night choking on the noxious, desperate scent no one else seemed to notice or care about.
"Fucking hell," he muttered, pushing through the crowd milling right inside the entrance.
A woman laughed.
He made the mistake of looking up, and into the eyes of a blonde.
"Hey, sexy," she slurred, jutting her chest out and smiling. Her bright red lips matched the artificial blush spread across her cheeks. Chipped red polish topped the trembling fingers she placed against his chest. Like so many others already crammed inside, she gave off that same desperate odor. "Wanna dance?"
"No," he answered shortly, removing her hand from his arm.
"Fine," she snapped, her bloodshot eyes narrowing. "Asshole."
Tristan didn't bother responding. She'd forget all about him as soon as he disappeared into the crowd. They always did, their memories short when a club full of other potential partners waited. Sooner or later, one would take her up on her offer to dance, and they'd finish their night behind the building, in an alley, or God knew where.
The sex, just like the high, would be temporary, easily had, and quickly forgotten.
The high sickened Tristan. And the sex? Well, that did too. He didn't want nameless, faceless, easily had, and quickly forgotten. He wanted her.
Lillian.
Tristan gritted his teeth – fighting the smell, the noise, and the desire to see Lillian – and waded forward. Toward duty. Toward responsibility. Toward a job he wanted ended so that he, like everyone else inside these four walls, could just forget. Forget warm brown eyes, dazzling smiles and light, floral scents. Forget sterile waiting rooms and teary-eyed nurses, caskets, and headstones, too.
Turns out, he wasn't much different than the nameless, faceless crowd after all.
Teplo was a never ending well of depravity, catering to the sick, the addicted, and the quickly forgotten. The place promised everything. Wasn't it just Tristan's luck he wouldn't find what he craved here?
He wanted this job finished so goddamned bad he could taste it.
Instead, he prowled through the crowd, balling his hands into fists when a group of girls jabbed needles into their arms on the dance floor. They giggled and squealed when their friends depressed the plungers for them, delivering liquid escape into their eager veins. Heroin, meth….
Who knew what they shot up or where they'd end up as a result?
Bad enough the same happened in clubs everywhere. Worse that it happened here, in front of him, when he couldn't do anything but endure it, tolerate it, and not say a damn thing about it. Anton and Paulo Vetrov were the big fish in this pond, the only target the DEA focused on inside these four walls. Anything beyond that, necessity demanded he ignore. It was a fucking miracle no one had dropped to the floor in convulsions yet.
A little further on, another nameless blonde stood sandwiched between two men who groped her barely clad body as she grinded into them. Her dilated eyes met Tristan's beneath the pulsing lights, her stenciled brow arching in invitation. He shook his head, the sight a stark contrast to how things had been with Lillian.
Jesus. Why the hell couldn't he get the ballerina out of his mind?
He didn't even know her, for fuck's sake!
Except… after having spent the last week reading up on every detail of her career, after having made her come apart for him, he felt like he did know her. Or knew enough to regret ruining his chance to get to know her better, anyway.
"Son of a bitch," he cursed, continuing his slow prowl through Teplo. Sometimes, he stopped to listen to the frenetic beat and giggles. Others, he forced a smile, a nod, or a mumbled greeting. Whatever he could do to blend in and disappear. It was an act he'd perfected over the years. One he hated. One as necessary as anything else he'd ever done in the line of duty.
And for once, he might as well not have bothered.
When the storage room came into sight, for the first time in days, there wasn't a Vetrov guard to be found. Tristan stopped yards from the door, not stupid enough to believe in happy coincidence. Divine providence wasn't that freaking divine.
It was a set-up. And he wasn't stupid enough to fall for it.
He walked away with his jaw clenched, repressed fury boiling in him. Anton Vetrov knew he was being watched. Or suspected he was. Either way, despite Lillian's innocence, Tristan's job had just become that much more damned difficult.
Duty. Responsibility. Some days, he hated that either mattered so much to him.
He stalked through the club, making circuits as he scanned the room… looking for the trap Anton had
set. He located the camera installed on the wall twenty feet away, pointed at the door. If anyone walked into that room, they wouldn't make it out alive.
Tristan didn't make a third circuit of the club, instead heading toward the doors and the promise of fresh air beyond, his heart hammering. Did they already know he was DEA, or were they just paranoid?
By the time he broke through the crowd milling into the rain outside, he ached to hit something.
He glanced at Lillian's house, regretting that he couldn't bury himself inside her until the clamoring roar in his mind fell away. He needed release and the quiet it afforded him, and both had been lacking since he'd fucked up with the beautiful ballerina. God only knew if he'd ever get the chance to apologize to her.
"Fuck," he muttered and spun away. He'd taken two steps toward the back of the club and his car before he realized a light shone brightly in the window of Lillian's house.
Before Tristan knew it, whatever promises he'd made to Jason to stay the hell away from Lillian were moot. He strode across the street in the drizzling rain, telling himself the entire time to turn around and let Jason handle the ballerina. He didn't stop walking though, his feet moving toward the light glowing in her window as if in a total disconnect from his mind.
When he stepped up onto her porch, his hand disobeyed too, reaching out to knock… and then knocking again.
She flung the door open on his fourth knock, muttering to herself. And then she blinked as if surprised to see him standing on her front porch. The furrow between her brows deepened. Wariness and anger mingled in her bright eyes.
She looked beautiful, dressed in nothing more than a little blue tank top and pajama pants. Her silky, chestnut hair cascaded in loose waves down her back. She crossed her arms over her breasts, and a little sliver of skin peeked from between the hem of her tank and the top of her pants.
Ravished (The Teplo Trilogy #1) Page 9
