Man Law

by Adrienne Giordano

  She wiggled her eyebrows. “It’s okay. You’ll make it up to me later.”

  Somehow, she always knew what he needed. Always made him feel like he wasn’t a screwup. He grabbed a pillow, threw it over his face and growled into it, his body bucking and convulsing under her.

  “Well,” Gina said, bending over and kissing his stitched up stomach again, “that was fun.”

  “I’ll say.”

  She peeked at the nightstand clock. “Fifteen minutes. Time to go.” She arched her back and stretched her arms. The sight of her, completely at ease in her nakedness, heated him up again. There’d never be enough. Then she slid off of him. Damn.

  “Oh, come on.” He grabbed her arm. “You know you don’t want to leave. We’re just getting started here.”

  It made her laugh, but she tossed his shorts to him and sauntered toward the adjoining bathroom. “Get dressed, big boy. This mission is over.”

  Feeling like he could run a marathon, he rolled to his side and stood. Nothing like a good spin with Gina to boost his energy. A minute later, she came back dressed in the killer bikini.

  “I’ll see you downstairs.”

  She smacked him on his bare ass, but he grabbed her hand, pulled her close and brushed a soft kiss over her lips. The quiet indulgence, the standing still and her ability make his world a happy place let him savor the peace for a minute.

  “I love you.”

  Whoa. His body froze. What the hell? He said it. He’d always imagined it to be monumentally difficult, but it just slipped out. He had even practiced it a few times over the years, but the words had never felt quite right, and now they just rolled off his tongue with no warning.

  The stillness snapped him to reality and he realized Gina was trying hard not to smile. She would understand what an important step this was for him, but would she push him on it? Would she make him talk about it? Please, no. No talking.

  “I knew you loved me,” she cracked. “I just didn’t want to say anything.”

  She spun and headed toward the door. She knew not to make a big deal of it. To play it cool and not make him explore it. He smiled as the bedroom door shut. Gina just might be the direction he’d been heading all these years.

  The hectic schedule of the last two days hung on Gina like an extra hundred pounds. On Sunday afternoon, she marched out Michael’s back door wearing her new blue bikini, made her way to her favorite lounge chair and plopped onto it.

  The French doors lining the back of the house were covered by the red-and-white striped awning Roxann had just opened and offered shade to anyone who chose to partake. Not her. She wanted the warm sun.

  Jake and Lily splashed happily in the pool while Michael, Vic and Matt fiddled with the boat. The better of it being they didn’t need to rush home tonight due to the long holiday weekend.

  Yesterday’s rain left behind a cloudless blue sky. She closed her eyes and blocked out the half dozen men scattered around the house on guard duty. She refused to let it get to her. The goal for today would be total relaxation.

  Gina opened her eyes as Roxann, in a black one-piece bathing suit, handed her one of two Bloody Marys.

  “I figured we could use these.” She took the chair next to Gina’s.

  “Thank you. Do you have ten more?”

  Roxann laughed and brushed something off her leg. “What is with Vic today?”

  “Ha. What’s with him any day? He’s our own version of the man of mystery.”

  After glimpsing toward the dock to see what the boys were doing, Roxann swung her legs to the side to face Gina. “Michael’s worried about him.”

  The nudge of alarm slithered up Gina’s back. “Why?”

  Roxann sipped her Bloody Mary, gave a thumbs-up. “I did good with this batch. Anyway, Vic came downstairs this morning and announced he loved us. Personally, I found it adorable, but your brother doesn’t know what to make of it.”

  Gina clapped her hands together and laughed. Yes, she would joyfully take credit for getting this man out of his own head and making him think about what was important in life. “I love it.”

  “Well, Michael doesn’t. He thinks the pressure of the last few weeks is getting to him, and wants to send him for a drug test.”

  Gina’s euphoria went south and she shot up to face Roxann. “He can’t do that. Please, Rox, talk him out of it. Vic’s not on drugs. I swear to you.”

  “What is going on around here? I feel like I’m living someone else’s life. And for a control freak, that’s not good. The three of you are acting completely out of character and it’s confusing me.”

  She was confused? She didn’t know the half of it. “Vic saying he loves you is a good thing, right?”

  Roxann did the legendary eye roll. “Of course.”

  “It wasn’t easy for him to do. I think it terrifies him because he feels vulnerable. Him saying it out loud is major progress.”

  “And if Michael makes him go for a drug test, he’ll be mortified.”

  “You know how Vic is. He’ll tell himself he shouldn’t have done it and he’ll close himself off. He already thinks his emotions get him in trouble. It’ll set him back again.”

  Roxann snickered. “And you’re working too hard to have him set back.”

  There would be no sense denying it. At this point, getting Vic to talk about his feelings was almost a science project.

  “He’s going through something,” Gina said. “I don’t understand it. None of us could, but I think he’s trying to figure out what makes him happy.”

  Male voices drifted their way and she twisted to see the men making their way up the lawn.

  Roxann waved. “Here they come. I’ll talk to Michael. Tell him to leave it alone. Given his penchant for interfering, it should make him deliriously happy. Don’t you think?”

  “We all know how much he loves to be told to butt out.”

  Roxann took a healthy gulp of her Bloody Mary. “And how awful he is at doing it.”

  For the millionth time, Gina tilted her head skyward and said thanks for Roxann. She was the ice to Michael’s fire and always managed to help her deal with him. “Thanks, Rox. I know I’m sending you into battle and I appreciate it.”

  She waved her off. “As crazy as these weeks have been, you seem happy. I like seeing you this way. And I always thought Vic was happy, but now I realize something was missing. Maybe you’re helping him figure out what it is.”

  “Hey,” Vic said stepping up to where they sat. “What are we talking about?”

  He straddled Gina’s chair, sat behind her and kissed the top of her head. The warmth of his skin made her tingle, and she snuggled into him, enjoying the ease of it.

  “Actually, we’re talking about you and how much we love you.”

  With a suspicious glance at Roxann, he hesitated a minute. “I love you guys too.”

  “Oh, boy. I think I’ve unleashed a monster.”

  “Yeah,” Vic laughed. “And now he’s out of control. What will you do?”

  Gina ran her hand along his cheek. “I’m not worried. I think he needs to be out of control awhile.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, clearly teasing her. “What if you get stuck with him?”

  Forget that. What if she wanted to be stuck with him? What if she got used to this easy banter and affection? Would it be so wrong?

  She shouldn’t even be contemplating it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Man Law: Always have a good wingman.

  “Hey, y’all,” Vic said when Duck and Janet hustled into the executive board room at Taylor Security.

  They sat next to each other at the table, laughing over something Duck said. They’d been circling each other for months and Vic wondered if it had moved to the next stage. Not that he cared, but he’d have to make sure they didn’t work together. He was currently experiencing the emotional chaos of working with someone he cared about, and he couldn’t have two of his best operators getting distracted.

&nb
sp; “Sorry to call you in on a holiday,” he said, “but I need to take stock of what we have. Feels like crap is flying everywhere.”

  After a wild weekend, one that included some great time with Gina and the kids, this was the last place he wanted to be, and he felt sure Bobby, Billy, Monk, Janet and Duck felt the same.

  “No problem,” Bobby said. He hadn’t bothered changing out of his ratty T-shirt and denim shorts, but Vic couldn’t blame him. Fourth of July, and they all should be finishing up a nice dinner after a day on the water.

  “Where’s Tiny?” Monk asked from his spot on the windowsill, where he enjoyed the warmth from the waning sun.

  Vic snorted a laugh. “He’s at the house with Gina and the kids. Roy and the new guy are there too. Lily said something about painting Tiny’s toenails, and I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”

  “It sucks to be Tiny these days.” Monk shook his do-rag adorned head.

  “Amen, brother,” Vic said.

  Janet booted up her laptop. “Ready, boss.”

  “Go.”

  She passed out a report. “I looked into the market. It does really well.”

  Vic skimmed the report. Financials. Damn, she was good. “In comparison to what?”

  “Flip the page and look at the spreadsheet. My guy at the IRS helped me with tax returns for three other similar businesses in the area. Our market has triple the revenue.”

  “Whoosh,” Monk said.

  “That’s impossible.” Bobby perked up, not necessarily questioning the report.

  The team liked to poke holes in a theory and they had all learned to take it in stride.

  “Why?” Vic asked.

  Bobby shrugged. “I’ve been on Conlin almost every day. He works different shifts and I see who comes and goes from the market. It gets about five customers a day and half of them don’t come out with any bags.”

  A lot of eyebrows went up. “I’ve been thinking it’s a front,” Vic said. “Maybe drugs. Do we have anything on the owners? Anything leading to Sirhan?”

  Please. Let her have something. Sirhan had to have a piece of the market. Janet flipped through her notes, passed a sheet of paper over.

  “It’s definitely a shell company. Sirhan isn’t listed on any paperwork, but it doesn’t mean he’s not the owner. One of his underlings could have signed the papers. The shell has eleven other businesses across the country.” Janet read from her notes. “San Francisco, New York, Dallas, Minneapolis and Boston. Four of them are markets and the remainder are check-cashing businesses.”

  “They must be dumping all the money into the shell company,” Vic said.

  “Any offshore accounts?” Duck asked.

  Janet tapped the tip of her nose with her index finger. “Bingo. The company is headquartered in Dubai, and I’m guessing that’s where all the money goes. Dubai has relaxed reporting standards. People walk into the bank with a bag full of cash and deposit it with no questions asked.”

  “Makes sense,” Vic said. “The launderers report higher earnings and wash the dirty money through the bank in Dubai.”

  “Something is screwed up here,” Bobby said.

  Vic jerked his head. “Go.”

  “Last week, I followed Conlin to work, but he didn’t park in his usual spot. He pulled in front of the store. I figured he was picking up his check or something. He came out a few minutes later carrying a bag.”

  He stopped and Vic recognized his hesitation. That moment when a thought crash lands and it takes a few seconds to sort through the debris.

  “And what?” Billy asked, getting impatient.

  “Son of a gun.”

  “What?” They all asked in unison.

  Bobby thumped himself on the head. “Conlin stopped at some ATMs that morning.”

  ATMs. Hot damn. Vic tapped a foot. Maybe they were finally on to something with this asshole.

  “They’re smurfing,” Bobby said. “I totally missed that.”

  “Yep,” Monk replied. “They’re cleaning the money through the ATMs. They deposit small increments into several accounts so they don’t go over the limit.”

  “The bank has to report any deposits over ten grand, right?” Vic asked Janet.

  She nodded. “It’s called a SAR—suspicious activity report. What do you think they’re running?”

  Vic sat back, propped his feet on the table. Lynx would love this. And there was no getting around the truckload of harassment he’d get when they, a handful of ex-special ops, cracked a Chicago-based terrorist ring the government didn’t even have on the radar. True, they’d broken a few laws to get the job done, but it was all part of the greater good.

  Yep, Lynx would take a good, long whipping on this one.

  “Vic?” Janet snapped her fingers at him.

  He bolted to attention. “Huh?” She’d asked a question. Right. “At first I was thinking drugs, but now I’m betting it’s a hawala. Could be both.”

  “A hawala?” Billy asked.

  “It’s an unregulated system for transferring money to areas that are underserved by banks. They usually run them out of small rooms off of a store. I had to use one in Afghanistan once to get cash.”

  “How do they work?” Billy asked.

  “Say you were in Afghanistan or Somalia. Pakistan even. They’re all over.” Vic waved his hand. “If you needed funds right away, I would take cash into the hawala and they’d charge me a fee to send the money. Once I pay, they call their contact in Afghanistan. Their contact makes sure you get the cash and they keep the fee. It’s faster than traditional wiring and there’s no paperwork. Terrorists love it because they can use the profits from the transaction fees to fund their activities. Innocent people use them as a way to send money to their families.”

  “No money actually changes hands?” Billy sounded skeptical.

  Vic shook his head. “Not a dime. They keep a running tally of what was sent and work it out later. They might settle up with goods rather than cash. If I’m the sender and I have some electronics they can’t get on the other end, maybe I’ll send the electronics to settle the tab. The receiver sells the electronics to recoup their money.”

  “Pretty slick,” Duck said.

  Vic sat up, scratched his head. “It’s actually simplistic, but it’s been going on for years and the government has trouble tracking it. There’s no paper trail to know how much money actually gets passed around.”

  The more Vic thought about it, the more he was sure Sirhan had set up a hawala in that damned market. A rather large hum of excitement sang in his ears.

  “Does the shell company own any other property in Chicago?” he asked Janet.

  She flipped through her notes again. “A warehouse on the far south side. Here’s the address.”

  She wrote the address down and slid it over.

  Well, well. What, pray tell, would they find there? They might be having a bitch of a time finding Sirhan, but even putting a crimp in the fucker’s operation would give partial satisfaction.

  “Let’s go check out a warehouse, boys.”

  “No fucking way.” Vic stared at the metal sign hanging on the crappy chain-link fence surrounding the warehouse.

  Monk grunted out a laugh while Vic dialed Janet. The night air hung hot and humid and Vic wiped sweat from the side of his face.

  After doing a drive-by of this dump of a warehouse, they’d parked two blocks away and walked back. The building, an old brick deal with a few windows along the front, one of them boarded up, sat at the end of a dead-end street. Large trees and weeds grew against the far side of the building. A few spotlights here and there left most of the building in shadows. Good for them, bad for Sirhan.

  The back of the building housed the loading dock and one entry door. Probably an office where drivers could check in when making deliveries. Vic had his eye on that door but stopped dead when they approached the fence and he spotted the “Premises protected by DSI Security” sign.

  DSI Security.

>   The company Taylor Security had acquired fifteen months ago. There was some fucking irony. He might own a piece of the security company protecting Sirhan’s illegal operation.

  “What’s up?” Janet asked, finally answering.

  “Are you near your computer?”

  “You bet. What do you need?”

  A car turned down the street and Vic, Billy and Monk ducked into the shadows behind a clump of trees. The car pulled into one of the long row of warehouse lots, turned around and headed back the way it came.

  “I need you to log into the office database and check this address. There’s a sign on the fence that says DSI handles this building.”

  The clacking of a computer keyboard seemed inordinately loud in Vic’s ear. Damn, he needed a break here. He needed this building to not have an active alarm. Not to mention cameras. If there were cameras, he was fucked. He couldn’t risk getting caught on tape and tipping Sirhan off.

  They needed Sirhan thinking they knew nothing about his Chicago operation. They needed to buy time for Lynx to get his precious probable cause and Vic didn’t want to jeopardize that. Freakin’ probable cause always took too damn long. It could take weeks, months even, for the feds to get enough evidence to secure a warrant.

  “They were a DSI client,” Janet said. “They canceled the contract in January 2009. They had an alarm system and cameras.”

  “How long has the shell company been leasing this building?”

  “Hang on.” Janet shuffled some papers. “Just over a year.”

  “Got it. Thanks.” Vic disconnected.

  “What do you think?” Billy asked from his spot against the large oak tree.

  “They killed the contract in ’09. If they had hired another company, the DSI sign would have been replaced.” He tapped the phone against his bottom lip while he absorbed the quiet and let his mind and instincts work. “I say we go in.”

  They worked their way through the trees to the back of the building, their feet occasionally landing on trash in the tall grass they trudged through.

  “I guess the landscapers don’t visit much,” Billy whispered.

  Vic stepped up to the gate. Locked. “I guess we’re going over.”