“You killed two people. You left innocent men to die in that fire, and you nearly killed two firefighters on top of it,” James said, and there. There was the sore spot. The bruise to dig at in order to gain leverage.
The microscopic hitch in the word “firefighters” was everything.
But first things first. “Like anyone’s going to miss a couple of gang bangers.” Vaughn scoffed with the full power of his scorn. “I did you a favor.”
“What about the other people you put at risk? All the people you’ve hurt by working for dirt bags like Julian DuPree?” James shot back. God, he was making this so fucking easy.
“Collateral damage,” Vaughn said, utterly bored. “Come on, James. You know how risk/reward works. Shit, you made a killing off of it for years.”
More bruises. After a pause that was more telling than any words could possibly be, James said, “I never killed anybody.”
“You always did think you were so much better than everyone else.” The truth of it slipped under Vaughn’s skin, making his heart beat faster and his anger surge. “Tell you what. Let’s cut through all the bullshit, shall we? I have a deal for you.”
“You have a deal for me?”
There was no masking the surprise on the line, so Vaughn went straight for the jugular.
“By now you know the game I have in play, so I’ll make this easy for you. I want two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“You’re not seriously trying to extort a quarter of a million dollars from me,” James said dubiously. “I don’t have any assets like Nicky Bianchi or the Scarlet Reapers do. For Chrissake, I work for the RPD.”
Vaughn stopped mid-pace on the stupid, snobby-as-hell eco-friendly bamboo floorboards in his kitchen and fought the urge to gag.
“Please. Let’s not sprinkle sugar on this bullshit just so we can call it candy. We both know you could pull any one of a dozen scams that would earn you that money in less than a day. Hell, if you really want to be upstanding about it, I’m sure your precious police department has reserves for this sort of thing. I don’t care where you get the cabbage, or how. But you’re going to wire it to me by eight o’clock tomorrow night.”
“It’s the weekend, Vaughn,” James started, and the anger that had been simmering in his chest broke free and bubbled upward at the obvious diversionary tactic.
“I don’t give a shit if it’s Christmas fucking morning, Wraith,” he hissed, hammering his point home with the name. “Be grateful I didn’t ask you for the million Aldrich should’ve given me.”
Vaughn knew his limits, even if he hated them with the intensity of a thousand white-hot suns. But he was getting far too much pushback on these threats to be able to stay under the radar when he turned them into reality. Leave it to the vilest of Remington’s underbelly to be as dumb as they looked. Still, he needed one last payday so he could go underground and regroup, and thanks to that spineless wonder, Kinsey, Vaughn was now exposed in a way he hadn’t accounted for. No way could he risk stealing the money himself now that the spotlight was flying around. He might be good (okay, yeah, he was that good), but even a blind squirrel stumbled across a nut every now and then.
That the final payout would come from James and the RPD was honestly just poetic.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand is still a lot of scratch, even for a hacker,” James said. “What if I can’t come up with it by tomorrow night?”
Vaughn’s smile tasted like decadence and pure, dark evil. “You can. I don’t care who signs your sad-sack, hard-earned paychecks now, or how much you think you’ve repented. Underneath all that righteousness, you’re still just a common criminal. I’ll send you the account information tomorrow, and you’ll transfer the two hundred fifty K. If you decide not to, I’ll burn you to the goddamn ground. And not even an army of cops will catch me.”
Chapter 22
Shae stared at the cell phone sitting in the middle of the desk in Sinclair’s office, wanting nothing more than to hurl the damned thing across the room. Logically, she’d known there was a chance this case would end up in a showdown—Kinsey’s statement had been pretty damning for both the mayor, who was now in custody, and Vaughn, who was still in the wind. Using the news of Kinsey’s deal with the DA to draw Vaughn out of the woodwork had been a calculated risk. They’d known that once it went public, Vaughn could just as easily run as swing for the fences.
What they hadn’t known—what Shae had never expected—was that the move would put Capelli directly in that little bastard’s crosshairs.
“We’re going to need to craft one hell of a plan here.” Sinclair’s voice was surprisingly calm as he sent an unreadable stare across his desk at Capelli.
Oh, that she should be so lucky in the cool-and-collected department. “Can our strategy involve me having five minutes alone with this guy?” Shae muttered, her temper flaring enough to snap her arms into a knot over the front of her cream-colored sweater. “Sorry,” she amended. “I know we need to stay on the level. This guy just burns my freaking toast.”
“I don’t think you’re the only one who feels that way,” Sinclair allowed, putting just enough edge on the words to let Shae know a potshot at Vaughn was sky-high on his wish list, too. “But Vaughn is dangerous, and our move with Kinsey obviously pissed him off enough to take a serious dig. We’re going to need to play this exactly right in order to nail him without anyone getting hurt.”
Shae chanced a look at Capelli from the spot where she stood next to him on the business side of Sinclair’s desk. He’d been enviably stoic during the entire conversation with Vaughn, most of which they’d thankfully been able to record. Not so thankfully, Vaughn hadn’t been exaggerating about scrambling the cell signal like a dozen eggs at breakfast, and no way, no fucking way could they let him get away with any of this.
“Vaughn’s pissed, but he’s also strategizing. He’s looking for a payout to get him back underground,” Capelli said. His chocolate-brown stare was more serious than she’d ever seen it, and wait…
“You’re not honestly thinking of giving him the money.” Something twisted deep in Shae’s chest, the sensation doubling as he looked at her and nodded.
“Making the payout is the safest play. He knows he can’t stay in Remington. Between the heat and the bridges he’s burned, it’s too dangerous not to run, but he can’t get far without the means.”
“Agreed,” Sinclair said. “He’s got to be prepping to clear out. What are you thinking for bringing him down?”
Capelli tugged a hand through his hair, rocking back on the heels of his thickly soled boots. “We give him the money. There’s no way I can fake it,” he added quickly, before Sinclair could ask or Shae could get a renewed protest past her lips. “Vaughn’s far too smart not to have safeguards in place to make sure the transfer is legit. But once he gives me the account number, I can hack into the bank’s security system to track his activity. When he draws off the funds, we should be able to locate him and take him down.”
“Should be,” Shae echoed. “But it’s not a guarantee, right? And if he’s in some other country, or something, there’s nothing you can do.”
Sinclair’s ice-blue stare shifted from Capelli’s to hers. “No. It’s not a guarantee, but a clear and present threat has been made against a member of my team, and we know Vaughn will follow through if we don’t pay him off. If I’m going to make a riskier move, it had better be for a damned good reason.”
“Look, I know paying Vaughn off for now isn’t ideal,” Capelli said, almost certainly for her benefit. “But it’s strategically sound. We’ll recover the money when we take him down, and this is the most logical call if we want a solid chance at catching him.”
“And he’s counting on you to make it,” Shae shot back, her pulse clattering in her veins. “Like it or not, this is personal. He knows you. He knows exactly what you’ll do. He’s going to be ready for that.”
The look on Capelli’s face said he knew she was right. “T
hat may be, but there isn’t a better option here. Look”—he let out a slow breath—“Vaughn is a narcissist. He thinks he’s too good to get caught, but the reality is, he’s terrified of it. His biggest fear is being exposed as a fraud. As smug as he is, he’ll do anything to stay out of our crosshairs, which means we’re only going to get one chance to nail him.”
“So let’s take it.” Shae looked at Sinclair, and God, here went nothing. “I have an idea.”
One gray-blond brow rose. “Am I going to hate it?”
“No.” Her palms went slick, her gut pitching with unease. Still, she didn’t hesitate. “You’re not going to hate it. But Capelli is.”
“Shae,” Capelli started, but Sinclair—yes, thank you, sweet Jesus—leaned back in his desk chair and lifted one hand.
“Hang on a second. I’ve heard your pitch. Now let me hear McCullough’s.”
Shae inhaled, standing as tall as her frame would allow before saying, “Vaughn is armed with an awful lot of knowledge right now. He knows RPD protocol, and he knows how Capelli runs counter-surveillance. We can’t just outsmart him. We have to outmaneuver him, too. Which means that if we want to take him down, we have to do something he’s not expecting.”
Sinclair tilted his head. “So we don’t take the safe move and pay him. And then?”
Annnd here was the part Capelli was going to hate even more than bucking logic. “Vaughn’s M.O. is to destroy the thing that means the most to his target when he doesn’t get paid out. For Nicky Bianchi, it was the restaurant he used as a front. For the Scarlet Reapers, it was their meth lab and the men who ran it. For the mayor, it was status and political position. And for Capelli…”
Capelli’s chin snapped up with the full power of his obvious surprise. “It’s you.”
“So use me as bait.”
“No.”
The word fired from Capelli’s mouth before Shae had even finished her suggestion, and for once, he wasn’t hiding a single emotion. “Are you crazy? Using you to draw Vaughn out is way too risky.”
“It is risky, but that’s exactly why it’ll work.” Heart racing, Shae turned toward Sinclair. She had to keep her cool if she was going to get him on board with this. As much as it would drive her bat-shit crazy, she had to take impulse out of the equation and make a calm, logical argument.
“Yes, not giving Vaughn the money will piss him off and make him dangerous, but it’ll also make him sloppy. He threatened Capelli, and he thinks we’ll put all of our energy and resources into protecting him if we don’t pay up. Vaughn is arrogant enough to think he can get to me. If we give him the right set of circumstances, he won’t be able to resist making a move to try and hurt me.”
“And this is a smart move how, exactly?” Capelli asked from between his teeth.
Steady. Breathe in. Breathe out. “Because he won’t know we’re watching him. We’ll be in control of the whole situation. You’ll have me on coms, the team can run full surveillance. Then when he closes in, you can take him down before he gets a hand on me. We’ll have to sell it,” she emphasized, because even sloppy, Vaughn would still be cagey as hell. “But we can outplay him. You can outplay him, Capelli, but only if you take him by surprise.”
His shoulders snapped upward, forming a hard angle on either side of his neck. “We’re not doing this. We’re not even talking about doing this.” He must have calculated his odds of convincing Sinclair versus getting her to change her mind, because he turned to his boss and said, “Sarge, this is crazy. She’s a civilian. No matter how much backup she has, we can’t guarantee her safety. And if Vaughn gets his hands on her—”
“I understand the risks,” Shae said before he could finish the grim thought out loud, and God, she really did. But they weren’t going to catch Vaughn any other way. “I’m volunteering anyway. Run the odds, Capelli. You know using me as bait is our best shot at catching him.”
Before Capelli could launch the counter-argument he was clearly formulating in his mind, Sinclair gave up a slow nod.
“I’m inclined to agree with McCullough on this one.” He flicked a glance at the window overlooking the intelligence office, where all four detectives sat at their desks, hard at work, and Shae stood firm even though her knees threatened to wobble in relief. “Drawing Vaughn out will be easier than tracking him down, and no one does better counter-surveillance than you, Capelli. The team will take every possible precaution to keep Shae safe”—he shifted his stare to hers, and whoa, he meant business—“and I expect her to follow all plans and protocols to the letter. But coming up with a strategy to nail Vaughn before he ghosts is our best shot at taking him down. If we can catch him red-handed trying to hurt Shae? Even better.”
Capelli went bowstring tight beside her, like a coil being pushed hard and primed for release, and for a second, Shae was certain he’d fight back. A beat passed, then another, his expression growing more and more impenetrable, until finally, he let go of an audible exhale.
“I’ll start canvassing locations. We’ve got a lot of work in front of us if we have a prayer of outmaneuvering Vaughn, and not a lot of time to get it done.”
Eleven hours, three pizzas, and a metric ton of team strategizing later, Shae had to admit that neither her brain nor her body could keep up with her Kevlar-reinforced determination any longer.
“Hey,” she said, swiping a hand over her burning eyes before chancing a glance at the spot where Capelli sat at the far end of his desk, methodically reviewing the plan they’d all kicked into motion over the course of the day and evening. “Everyone else has gone home. Well, except for Sinclair.” Not that that really counted. In the handful of weeks she’d been working with the intelligence unit, she’d grown fairly certain the sergeant was just a permanent fixture at the Thirty-Third. “I don’t know how much more we can do tonight. Did you want to head out, too?”
Capelli adjusted his glasses, his plaid-shirted shoulders hitting the back of his desk chair with a soft thump. His expression was just as inscrutable as it had been ever since Sinclair had okayed the plan to use her to bring Vaughn out of hiding, but Shae knew far better. She knew him.
He’d probably rather die than admit it, but beneath that serious façade and even more serious work ethic, Capelli was scared.
“Sure. I guess.” Shutting down his laptop and the crime scene board, he skinned into his black canvas jacket and slung his bag over one shoulder. Shae followed him to the door of the intelligence office, going through the motions of saying goodnight to the desk sergeant and completing a covert yet complete check of their surroundings, just as she had for the last few weeks. Something unspoken pulled between her and Capelli, as constant and tangible as gravity, but oddly, it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was more of a tying together than a pressing apart, the way two magnets just seemed to know where they belonged and traveled toward one another by sheer instinct, and by the time they’d gotten to his apartment, she couldn’t hold back anymore.
“You’re mad at me for suggesting we go after Vaughn like this,” she said, crossing the floorboards until less than a foot of space remained between them.
“No.” At her arched brow, he amended, “Okay, I was mad. And I still hate the plan. But strategically, it’s sound. I know because I made it that way. And I’d trust the team with my life, so…”
“I trust you with mine.” Shae captured his face between her palms, looking him in the eyes so he would know how much she meant it. “This plan is going to work, Capelli. I know it.”
A smile, slight and wistful, pulled at one corner of his mouth. “Gut feelings are still largely unsubstantiated and mostly illogical, you know.”
Despite the gravity of the topic, she had to smile. “Not this one. This one says you’ll keep me safe and that we’ll catch Vaughn.” Her heart began to beat faster, but she followed it without a second thought regardless. “This one says the risk is worth taking.”
Capelli pressed his forehead to hers, his voice going ragged. “It’s still a risk.
If anything happens to you—”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’m right here,” Shae said. She shifted back, but only far enough to slide one hand between their bodies, letting her fingers splay over the center of his chest. “I’m yours.”
“I know,” Capelli whispered. “That’s what scares me.”
Her heart pressed against her breastbone, filling her rib cage with a strange brand of emotion she couldn’t quite identify. “It scares me, too. But I’m still here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
Sliding her hands to his shoulders, she slanted her mouth over his. He cupped her neck, his hands wide and strong on her skin, fingers moving up to hook in her hair. Capelli held her fast while he explored every part of her, swiping his tongue over her bottom lip, finding the sensitive spot at the corner of her mouth, deepening their contact with his lips and teeth and tongue. Unlike all their other kisses, this one wasn’t frenzied or rushed. Slow and far from sweet, this kiss was deeply erotic, urgent in a way that could only belong to the two of them together, and understanding sparked, low and hot in Shae’s belly.
The seriousness, the intensity, the keen intelligence that noted everything down to the last detail and always held it close. This was Capelli.
He was letting her see him. In his own way, with this kiss that Shae felt in every last part of her breath and bones and blood, he was letting her in.
Without speaking, she broke the kiss, sliding her fingers through his to lead him to his bedroom. The space was cloaked in shadows, nothing but the light from the hallway spilling in to cast a muted glow over the room, but that was okay.
Even in the pitch dark, she’d still be able to see what he was showing her. She’d know him, and he’d know her right back.
By heart.
Shae’s breath caught, but she stood firm beside Capelli’s bed. Her fingers curled tight against her palms—sweet Jesus, she wanted to touch him so badly. As if he’d zeroed in on her thoughts, he reached up, freeing the buttons on his shirt until the cotton fell away, then repeating the process with his jeans and boxers until he stood in front of her, completely and utterly bare.
Deep Burn (Station Seventeen Book 2) Page 27
