Rogue Love (Kings of Corruption Book 1)

by Michelle St. James

  “You said you have something,” Locke said.

  “I do,” Braden said. “But I’m not looking for practical help. I’m more interested in your thoughts. And of course, this is for your eyes only.”

  He knew Locke had a team, but he hadn’t seen a trace of them either time he’d visited the compound in La Jolla. Braden was anxious to meet them, anxious to know more about the men with whom he’d be breaking the law. It was difficult not to demand more information. His training made him want full background checks on everyone involved in Locke’s operation. Made him want to know everything from their parental history to their psych profiles.

  But that’s not how Locke worked. In his eyes, everyone had a past. They left it at the door when they joined together to fight the enemy. And how could Braden complain? How comfortable would the other men be knowing he had been with the Bureau so recently?

  “Goes without saying,” Locke said. “We’re between jobs right now anyway, and I could use the distraction.”

  The statement surprised him. Locke seemed like a man with perfect control over his mind. What could be fucking with him enough that he was interested in Braden’s personal project?

  It wasn’t his business. He pushed the file toward Locke and was aware that this was the point of no return, the point at which he divulged Bureau information to a civilian, and a criminal at that.

  “A dirty agent,” Braden said. “Maybe more than one.”

  “Taking money?” Locke asked, flipping through the pages inside the file.

  “I don’t know that yet, but I think it’s safe to assume that’s their motive.”

  Locke nodded. “What does it have to do with the arms raid you guys fucked up?”

  Braden looked up. “How do you know about that?”

  Locke met his gaze, didn’t say anything.

  “Right,” Braden said. He couldn’t help being curious about Locke’s sources in and around the Bureau, but he knew better than to ask for more information. There was a difference between an agent taking money and one who fed intel about the bad guys to someone like Locke: the former was in service to greed, the latter to laws higher than the ones that governed the FBI.

  Suffice it to say, Braden wasn’t the only one in or around the Bureau who saw merit in an operation like Locke’s. The realization made him feel better, even if it was disconcerting to realize he wasn’t the only agent with inside knowledge about Locke Montgomery.

  “I found something that might link one of our agents to the perps who went down during the raid,” Braden explained as Locke continued looking through the file.

  He held up the parking lot ticket, still in the evidence bag. “This, I presume?”

  “That’s it. Two sets of fingerprints, one belonging to one of the dead guys.”

  “And the other?” Locke asked.

  “Unidentifiable with our database,” Braden said.

  “Could be a coincidence,” Locke suggested.

  Something in his gaze told Braden he didn’t really believe it. “Maybe. But I don’t think so.”

  Locke leaned back in the chair. “Tell me why.”

  “Something about the raid felt wrong,” Braden said. “It was supposed to be a big shipment. So big that we expected Kalashnik to show up personally. Instead the container was empty, and his men seemed to be on a suicide mission from minute one.”

  “You think someone tipped them off.”

  “That’s what it feels like,” Braden said.

  “Why show up at all?” Locke asked. “The munitions weren’t there anyway. Why sacrifice two men or run the risk they’d be taken alive?”

  Braden took a drink of his beer. “I’ve been thinking about that, and the only thing I can come up with is that if they hadn’t shown at all, Alvarez would know it was a set-up.”

  “So Kalashnik sacrificed two of his men to protect his source inside the Bureau,” Locke said.

  “It would make sense. A guy like Kalashnik is playing the long game. Two low-level guys…” Braden shrugged. “I doubt he lost any sleep over it.”

  Locke seemed to think about it. “Any suspects?”

  “I included every agent with knowledge about the Kalashnik sting in the folder,” Braden said. “I’ve worked with most of them for years. Wouldn’t have suspected a single one before this.”

  He felt a twinge of guilt for not including Nora’s profile. She was part of the task force. She had as much knowledge as anyone else. But there was no fucking way she was part of a plot to tip off Kalashnik. She was as straight and narrow as they came. So straight and narrow he doubted she’d be able to forgive him for what he was doing with Locke. He wasn’t going to have Locke digging through her background. The Feds were bound by things like warrants and wiretapping laws. Locke was bound by nothing but his own rules, and Nico had made it clear Locke’s data operation made the FBI’s look like child’s play.

  “I’ll put some people on these profiles,” Locke said. “Let’s see if we can narrow the field.”

  “Sounds good,” Braden said. “I’m going to get in touch with some of our off-the-books sources. See if any of them have had contact with an agent that wasn’t reported in the file.”

  Locke nodded. “Makes sense.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help your group?” Braden asked. “I know you’re between projects, but I want to pull my weight.”

  Locke hesitated. “I have something that’s ongoing, but it’s personal.”

  “You said everything was personal,” Braden said.

  Locke tipped his beer in Braden’s direction. “Touché. But this one is more personal than most.”

  Braden couldn’t help wondering what had driven Locke to the semi-nomadic life of a reckless vigilante. He knew from Nico that Locke worked all over the world, was away from California more than he was here. The rest was a mystery — where he was from, if he had any family, what drove him to be so reckless. They were things Braden would probably never know.

  “Here to help if you change your mind,” Braden said.

  “I’m lining up another job now. Has to do with a bank that cheated a bunch of people out of their homes by delaying mortgage paperwork. But it’s not ready yet. I’ll keep you posted. You need a place to stay in the meantime?” Locke asked. “There’s a guest house on the property.”

  “Not sure yet. Still tying up some loose ends.”

  He hated himself for saying it. Nora was no loose end.

  She was everything.

  But loose ends were something Locke Montgomery understood. Braden wasn’t entirely sure the other man would understand his affection for a federal agent.

  “It’s there if you need it,” Locke said.

  “I appreciate it.” If things went to hell when he told Nora the truth, he might need a place to hole up.

  And things almost certainly would.

  16

  “Want to grab lunch after this?”

  Nora looked up at Mike as they stood in the lobby of First National Bank in Chula Vista. The drive from L.A. had been awkward at first, but everything had slowly normalized and now there was almost no residue of resentment from him.

  “Sure.” She didn’t love the idea of having lunch with Mike — she didn’t want to give him even a hint of hope that there was anything more than friendship between them —but declining would make it weird.

  “Cool.”

  A man — probably the bank manager they’d asked to see — strode toward them across the tile floors of the lobby. With his well-tailored suit, youthful tan, and sparkling teeth, he was the antithesis of the frumpy bank managers portrayed in movies. Nora wondered if he surfed. Everyone out here seemed to surf. For some reason it made her think of Braden — who didn’t surf and didn’t show any interest in surfing. He was a lot more like her brothers than she wanted to admit: totally uninterested in the opinions of others and carrying a kind of derision for anything that even hinted at the trappings of persona. Thinking of him took her back to thei
r night together and for a split second she was back in his bed, his head between her legs, his fingers inside her, his…

  “Peter Reynolds.” The man extended his hand. “I understand you want to speak to me about the robbery last fall.”

  “That's right,” Shields said. “Can we go somewhere more private?”

  “Of course,” Matthew Reynolds said. “But first, and I’m sorry to ask — ”

  Nora cut him off at the pass by producing her ID. “It’s no problem at all. You can’t be too careful.”

  He smiled, and she had the feeling it had worked its magic on more than a few California golden girls.

  “Exactly.” He looked at Nora’s badge, then took the one offered by Mike and gave it similar consideration before handing both of them back. “Follow me.”

  They passed through the main lobby and entered a small hall at the back of the building. A plaque next to the door at the end of the hall announced the office as belonging to Matthew Reynolds, General Manager.

  “Have a seat,” he said, indicating the traditional wing chairs in front of the outdated oak desk. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?”

  “No, thank you,” Nora said.

  Reynolds lowered himself into the chair behind the desk. “I don’t know what more I can tell you that I didn’t tell your colleagues the first three times, but I’m always happy to help.”

  “We appreciate that,” Mike said.

  In spite of Mike’s words, Nora could tell Reynolds rubbed him the wrong way. It was in the way Mike held himself, like he was preparing to be attacked when it was obvious the man across from him was utterly harmless to him in all but ego. Then again, most of the men she worked with were like that — more defensive about threats to their ego than their safety. Yet another way Braden was different.

  Nora pulled out the little notebook she carried. It was old-fashioned — most of the agents used their phones to keep notes — but she was paranoid both about a technology outage and the possibility of hackers.

  Her eyes skimmed the notes she’d taken from the case file. “You said there were four men,” Nora said. “Can you describe them?”

  “Like I said to your colleagues, they were wearing Guy Fawkes masks. Like in that movie, V for Vendetta?”

  Nora nodded. She knew the movie, knew that Guy Fawkes had become a symbol for digital anarchists like Anonymous. All the San Diego county robberies had been conducted by people wearing the masks, one of a few reasons why it was now assumed they were perpetrated by the same group of people.

  “Can you take me through each member of their team?” Nora asked. “Just give me anything you remember on their height, identifying markings, anything specific about the way they talked, moved, or walked?”

  She didn’t blame him for sighing. Being asked to repeat details of a traumatic event was one of the most annoying parts of witnessing a crime. But inconsistencies from witness to witness, and even one account to another by the same witness, were some of the richest possibilities for a break. Strangely, people didn’t always remember things clearly right after they happened. They were stunned and traumatized, often in shock, right after a violent event, and even in the days following it. Distance was an ironic magnifying glass. Of course, sometimes it worked the opposite, with witnesses becoming less certain of their recollections over time. The human mind was a strange and complicated machine.

  She compared Reynolds’ account with the descriptions in her notes — all men, one black, three white, all covered head to toe in black and wearing Fawkes masks. The black man spoke with the hint of an accent, although Reynolds hadn’t been able to place it even with the help of linguistics experts at the Bureau. The other men had been virtually indistinguishable from one another.

  “Were there any differences in their clothing?” Mike asked when Reynolds had finished. “Any deviation at all between the kinds of shirts and pants and shoes they wore?”

  Nora knew why he was asking; identical clothing meant a kind of uniform. It also meant an attention to detail that could only be attributed to experts, possibly former military or mercenary members.

  Reynolds seemed to think about it as he leaned back in his chair, and Nora wondered if the agents who interviewed him immediately after the robbery had bothered to ask the question. Shields was good that way — thorough, detail-oriented, leaving nothing to chance. It was one of the things that made him such a great agent.

  “No,” Reynolds said. “They were all dressed the same — black jeans, black turtlenecks even though the day was warm, black Doc Martens. I couldn’t have told them apart by their clothes.”

  Nora was writing it down when he spoke again.

  “Except for the necklace, I mean.”

  She looked up. “The necklace?”

  He nodded. “The one the leader wore. I told the other agents about it.”

  Nora flipped through her notes. She hadn’t seen any mention of a necklace. It was possible she had missed it, but she didn’t think so. Then Mike spoke and she knew he hadn’t missed it either.

  And that meant it hadn’t been in the file.

  “Tell us about it again,” Mike said.

  “The leader was dressed like the others, but when he bent over to zip-tie my hands, I saw a piece of rope around his neck. The kind surfers wear? Maybe hemp?” Nora nodded. “It had a buddha pendant hanging from it, but not the fat kind.”

  “Not the fat kind?” Mike prodded.

  Reynolds waved his hand a little. “Yeah, you know how there are a lot of different kinds of Buddhas: the fat happy ones, the skinny solemn ones?”

  “Go on,” Nora said.

  “This was one of the skinny ones.”

  “A skinny Buddha on a rope,” Mike said.

  Reynolds nodded. “I’m sure I told someone.”

  Nora wasn’t going to argue the point with him. Either he’d told someone and the agent had neglected to write it down or Mike’s question about the thieves’ attire had prompted a new memory. It didn’t matter. The detail was too specific to be fabricated and not specific enough to give them a real edge.

  She didn’t know exactly how many people wore Buddha pendants on hemp in Southern California, but the right answer was probably somewhere between a lot and a shit-ton.

  “Would you be able to pick it out if you saw it again?” Mike asked.

  Reynolds considered the question. “I think so.”

  They finished the rest of the interview without incident. All the other details checked out against the three interviews done with Reynolds immediately after the theft. By the time she and Shields walked out of the bank, the morning clouds had dissipated, the sun high overhead.

  “You want to run down local retailers that carry Buddha pendants on hemp or should I?” Shields asked.

  “I’ll do it.” She wasn’t looking forward to the rest of their follow-up interviews. As ambiguous as it was, it was rare to get a break like this one. They wouldn’t get another from that direction, and she was anxious for a task that might produce a tangible result.

  “A fucking Buddha,” Mike said as they headed for the car. “We’ve got us a mother-fucking enlightened thief.”

  17

  “Are you going to tell me about your new job?”

  The question took him by surprise, engrossed as he was in the feel of Nora’s naked body against his, the smooth slope of her shoulder as he trailed a finger down her arm.

  He opened his eyes, forced himself to keep his voice steady. “Still working out the details.”

  She flipped onto her stomach. The sight of her, post-sex hair framing the beautiful face that haunted his dreams even now after he’d claimed her, made his cock stand at attention despite the work-over she’d just given him.

  “You can’t tell me anything?” A hint of suspicion crept into her voice.

  He pulled her onto his body, relishing the feel of her spread out on top of him, his erection nestled between the still-damp mound between her legs. “I don’t want to s
ay anything until I figure it out.”

  A shadow passed in front of her eyes like a bank of clouds. “It’s dangerous, isn’t it?”

  He lifted his head, kissed her deeply. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. And I’d rather take you to dinner.”

  They’d come back to her place immediately after he picked her up from work and had fallen straight into bed. Wrapping his arms around her, burying himself inside her, was the antidote to everything that ailed him, but he hadn’t been foolish enough to think that the heat of their passion would give him an indefinite pass on the secret between them.

  He just hadn’t expected it to come up post-coitus.

  “I’m not hungry for dinner yet,” she murmured as she kissed her way down his chest, her hair sliding down his body like satin as she made her way to his throbbing cock.

  He groaned as she took him in her mouth. Getting lost in the pleasure of her wasn’t even a choice.

  Two hours later, they left the apartment and headed for Rosa’s, Braden’s body wrung out in the best possible way. After his conversation with Locke, he’d spent the day running down a few old sources from the Bureau. He’d been careful to stick to those who’d been cut off for one reason or another — a bad tip, a drug problem too bad to guarantee control by a handler, or anything else that would make a source a bad bet.

  It meant they weren’t the best bet for Braden either, but engaging sources still in play at the Bureau was too dangerous. The last thing he needed was for one of them to mention to their handler that they’d been contacted by Braden now that he’d gone rogue.

  And they’d made dubious contributions to his search for the mole anyway — right up until he got to Cletis Brown, a former meth dealer who’d gotten clean last time he was in the clink. After he’d done his time, Cletis steered clear of his old handlers at the Bureau. Luckily for him — and for Braden — they hadn’t attempted to re-engage him.

  Braden had been worried about the length of time between Brown’s last contact with the Bureau and his release from County. The longer a source was out of the loop, the less likely he would know anything of value.