Dawn of Evil_FBI Flashback

by Morgan Kelley

  * * * E l i z a b e t h L a R u e * * *

  Michael O’Banion’s

  Home

  Boston

  When the cop called, the mob man was having breakfast in the kitchen of his large home. He was alone, still in his silk pajama bottoms, and already irritated.

  The previous night had been a mess.

  He wasn’t happy.

  Not with Elizabeth LaRue.

  Not with Carl.

  Not with Joey.

  It wasn’t easy to find a doctor to remove a bullet from someone’s leg without alerting the police. It had taken a few favors, and a shitload of money to make it happen.

  And that pissed him off.

  “Hello?” he asked, answering the phone.

  “Sir, my partner and I were pulled from the case. I can’t follow the agent. I’ve been told to back way off.”

  He stopped chewing.

  “What?”

  “We just got called into the commissioner’s office, and we were told the FBI was handling it from here on out. My partner is now working on mob stuff fulltime. He’s on a mission to get this city cleaned up. What do you want me to do?”

  Was this man an idiot?

  He didn’t give a shit what the commissioner stated. He was running this show.

  “Find her. I don’t think I’ve made this clear. I want that woman as mine. She took out two of my men and did it in heels. That’s the kind of hellcat I want in my bed. Track her!”

  He wanted her beneath him.

  Struggling.

  Begging.

  That was putting it mildly. He wanted Elizabeth LaRue screaming his name as he broke her—and he would. Not since his dead wife had there been a woman he craved as much. Hussies came and went, but he could tell she’d keep him entertained for a long time.

  That mattered.

  He had his kids—and they were safely tucked away at a boarding school.

  Now he wanted his own retirement fun. A beach, a sexy ex-Fed, and more money than God.

  Yeah, he wanted it all, and he wanted it now.

  “Okay, sir,” he said. “I’ll find her.”

  “When you do, I’ll make it worth your while.”

  If the heat was on, and he felt worried about the Feds, he could always back off. He couldn’t lose her now.

  “I pay you well. Do your job!”

  The detective was good with that. He needed to pad his retirement fund in case he had to make a hasty retreat.

  When he hung up, Michael O’Banion sat there laughing. He was astounded that the shit was hitting the fan, and it was all one woman.

  He was going to take one more shot at her, and if she got away, he was going to have to make a choice.

  Keep going?

  Or let her find this killer?

  What did he care?

  People were expendable. He’d make sure he was well protected.

  He hoped the detective did his job.

  If not, he was going to have one hell of a problem.

  Michael O’Banion didn’t become the head mob boss in Boston out of luck.

  He’d earned it.

  One.

  Death.

  At.

  A.

  Time.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ethan Blackhawk’s

  Brownstone

  W hen he rolled over, she was still in bed—he could hear her breathing, and it rubbed him the wrong way. Ethan couldn’t believe he’d done it. After finishing his lecture on profiling, he’d headed home. When he got the call from the woman, he didn’t know what to say, so he went for drinks.

  One became two.

  Two became four.

  Next thing he knew, he and Melanie, the flight attendant, were at his place having sex.

  He never brought women there.

  Ever.

  Now he’d broken his own rules, and he was pissed at her and pissed at him.

  When he opened his eyes, she was watching him. The feral cat like smiled should have warned him, but it didn’t.

  The hangover was brutal.

  “Hey,” she said, straddling his hips.

  He stared up at her.

  “Wow, you look different with the lights on,” she stated, brushing her blonde hair out of her face.

  Uh, that couldn’t be good.

  “Do I?” Ethan asked, praying he’d been smart enough to use a condom.

  “Yeah, I didn’t notice that tattoo last night.”

  Well, it probably had everything to do with her being drunk off her ass, and him joining her. Hard alcohol always resulted in one thing with Ethan. It made him stupidly horny.

  “Yes, I have some ink,” he said.

  “It’s…something,” Melanie said.

  “You don’t like ink?” he asked, as she grabbed a condom from the nightstand.

  Well, he could relax about that. At least he wouldn’t be knocking a stranger up. That would be so very ‘Blackhawk’ of him.

  Oh, the irony.

  Ethan watched her as she expertly unwrapped it, and slid it down his dick.

  Yes, he was hard, but it was morning wood and nothing else. He wasn’t particularly in the mood to do it again. He was having regrets.

  “Ink is ink,” she stated.

  Honestly, he was getting that feeling that he’d just made a huge mistake, but what was he supposed to do? They were naked, she was bagging up his dick, and there was no doubt that if he said ‘get out’ it would create a scene.

  That was the LAST thing he wanted.

  “I’ll take that as you dislike it,” he said, running his hands through his hair.

  Yeah, now he was getting irritated again.

  Well, this was one hell of a rollercoaster ride when he first woke up.

  “I just don’t see the point,” Melanie said. “You have a hot body. Why ruin it?”

  He lifted a brow and was about to make a comment when she slid him into her.

  She began moving.

  Clearly, he was going along for the ride.

  What choice did he have? He was a man, and she was riding his dick.

  “Is your back tatted up too?” she asked, dragging her nails down his chest and leaving scratches behind. She liked the pink marks better than the black, ugly bird.

  “Yes,” he said, as she slammed down on his dick, driving his erection into her.

  She moaned and dropped her head back as she rode him.

  Ethan closed his eyes. He wanted it over and fast.

  What was he thinking?

  As she bounced, he was not even remotely close to getting off.

  He needed to switch this up since he didn’t have whiskey flowing through his veins.

  Rolling, he flipped her onto her knees, shoved her head to the bed so he could focus on her ass. Once there, Ethan drove himself into her body.

  Now he could focus.

  He really didn’t like blondes.

  What the hell had he been thinking?

  Kaya Cheek had been a blonde—not a real one—and that had been enough to turn him off to all of them. As a rule, he avoided them like the plague.

  Well, seeing that he was trapped, he might as well get off.

  Ethan closed his eyes and thought about cumming. There was no emotional attachment to her, but he wanted to get it done so she’d leave.

  He was only human.

  Pleasure was pleasure.

  While normally, he was selective, this time…he was wounded inside and needed to get his heart free.

  Desperately.

  He pumped his hips, and she came. Ethan wasn’t there, and he used his body over hers as a way of driving himself into her.

  As his balls tightened, his eyes were still closed.

  He was thinking about his dream woman, and that was making it so much easier.

  She would be his perfect match.

  She’d love his tats.

  She’d love him as is.

  She’d save him from the darkness.

  In h
is mind, he saw that woman he’d drawn at twelve years old. She had dark hair, piercing blue eyes, and a smile he’d die for.

  Ethan said a prayer to the Great Spirit. It was rare he’d go there, but this felt wrong.

  As the overwhelming need to explode overcame him, he roughly fucked Melanie for all she was worth.

  As he felt the explosion happening, he pulled out of her body, refusing to take a chance.

  There was no way he wanted kids.

  He wasn’t willing to risk a busted condom and a lifetime of regret to cum.

  NO.

  THANK.

  YOU.

  As he jerked himself the rest of the way off, he stayed on his knees. When he was done, she rolled over to face him.

  “You could have cum in me,” she said. “I’m on birth control, and we had the condoms you insisted on using.”

  Yeah, no.

  There was no way he’d ever go in a woman bare, and there was no way he’d go bare into a woman he’d just met yesterday. He wasn’t an idiot.

  Honestly, he didn’t even like her.

  She was a pussy, and that was it. He was rubbed raw by his brother being there, and he needed a way to get rid of some tension. So, he’d use her body as she used his.

  That was life.

  That was his life.

  “I’m going to shower. I’ll call you sometime,” he said, giving her the hint.

  He was done.

  He wanted her out.

  Ethan yanked off the condom and dropped it into the wastebasket with the other one.

  He was relieved. He’d never been so happy to see a rubber filled with all of his possible offspring than he was at that exact moment.

  “Uh,” she began, but he kept walking. Ethan knew him. At that moment, anything she said to him would just make him an asshole.

  He knew himself, and he’d fucked up.

  It was time to retreat.

  In the bathroom, he locked the door, turned on the shower, and let the water take him away.

  From his life.

  From his choices.

  From the woman outside in his bed.

  Ethan was a smart man, and he knew she was a mistake, but he really hated himself that much.

  He was full of regrets.

  But then why stop now?

  He was so good at fucking up.

  It was his birthright.

  * * * E l i z a b e t h L a R u e * * *

  Saturday

  Mid-Morning

  Maimee Scott’s

  Home

  When they arrived at the woman’s home, she was there and preparing for a funeral. She was trying to plan for her daughter to be laid to rest.

  Elizabeth got it.

  It wasn’t going to be easy for her. She remembered burying her mother, and it was hard.

  To bury a child?

  Yeah, she couldn’t even imagine.

  “Mrs. Scott, can we talk to you about Joy?” she asked, making the introductions.

  The woman had a balled-up wad of tissues in her hand as she furiously continued to wipe her eyes.

  “Did you find who did this to my daughter?”

  “Not yet, ma’am, but we’re working on it. Can you tell us if she was having any issues at work? We understand you both work together at the bank.”

  Maimee sniffled and then blew her nose.

  “No, she wasn’t having a hard time at work. Joy would have told me if she had someone bothering her. The bank is a pretty safe place.”

  Yeah, a bank owned by Michael O’Banion, with a ton of security cameras to protect the mob boss owner. That sounded like the LAST place Elizabeth would ever want to work.

  “What else can you tell me about your daughter? Was she seeing anyone? Did she have a boyfriend?”

  “No, she wasn’t and didn’t. Joy was busy working on her degree. She was going back to school, and she wanted to get a bachelor’s degree. She was so proud to finally be getting it too. When she first left high school, I couldn’t afford to put her through college, and she wasn’t ready. It took her a couple years to find herself, and she was ready to start her education.”

  That piqued Elizabeth’s interest.

  “Where was she going?”

  The woman looked immensely proud for a brief second.

  “My daughter was accepted at Harvard. She worked hard to get that acceptance. She was so excited. When you live by Harvard, you never think you’ll go there. That’s a school for rich people, and not us, but she received a scholarship from the bank.”

  Yeah, Elizabeth wasn’t buying that. Michael O’Banion was building loyalty. He was buying people off. He didn’t give one of his secretaries a free ride to Harvard because he was a humanitarian.

  He likely wanted something in return.

  “That’s wonderful,” Elizabeth stated. “What was she going there for?”

  Maimee had stopped crying as she talked about her daughter’s accomplishments.

  “She was going for business. She wanted to take after me. I’m a manager in the bank, and she loved finance—like myself.”

  She looked over at Alex.

  Immediately, he pulled out his phone and sent a message to his partner. They had another tie to the university and another tie to the mob.

  Interesting.

  “When did you see her last?” Elizabeth asked.

  “The detectives asked me all of this. Do I have to keep answering it?” she asked.

  “Ma’am, we need to hear it all from you. Sometimes, things get lost in communication from police to FBI. We don’t want to miss anything for Joy’s sake.”

  That seemed to help.

  She told them the whole story, from the time she dropped her daughter off at six to the time she went to pick her up when she didn’t show for work.

  “It wasn’t like her. She never did things like this. Joy was focused on a degree and then work. She was diligent.”

  Elizabeth offered the woman her condolences.

  “We appreciate the time, ma’am.”

  “You will find who did this, right? You will punish him for taking my only child, right? I need to know that she will get justice no matter what.”

  “We are trying, ma’am. I will keep going until I can get Joy exactly what she deserves.”

  What was that exactly?

  Was she involved with the mob and they wanted to cut ties?

  Was this killer out on his own? But then why was the mob protecting him?

  They had so many questions and very little answers.

  Yet.

  She would get them.

  Saying their goodbyes, Alex and Elizabeth headed out. They had more to do before they could stop.

  “Do you want to hit the girl’s home?” Alex asked.

  Elizabeth thought about it.

  She did, but something else was her focus at that moment. It was the big pink elephant in the room. Well, there were two.

  The mob.

  And Harvard.

  She went with the one she could actually deal with, without having to shoot anyone else.

  “Harvard seems to be coming up a whole lot in this investigation, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

  They had a dead professor.

  And a perverted one.

  Now, a second dead woman was killed, who took classes there.

  Interesting.

  Before they went to Joy’s home, she wanted to make sure that they locked down Professor Prince’s alibi. If they could do that, and she bought it, they might have to dig deeper into mob ties.

  And that worried her.

  She’d poked the mob hive a lot. She didn’t want to get stung, or anyone she cared about getting hurt.

  Elizabeth needed to do this right.

  “Let’s hit up the hooker for a lunchtime nooner, and then back to the morgue. I want to see what the hell is going on, and then I want to make sure we get this handled—and fast.”

  He laughed. “I really wish you’d let me take p
ictures,” he teased.

  She snorted.

  “Not on your life.”

  Alex grinned wickedly, as he pulled on his sunglasses.

  “That’s the story of my life, LaRue. The story of my damn life.”

  She didn’t even hear him.

  Elizabeth was thinking about something entirely different.

  This case was a runaway train.

  And they needed to find a way to stop it.

  * * * E l i z a b e t h L a R u e * * *

  Saturday

  Eleven A.M.

  To say that she was pissed was an understatement.

  When she found Debbie, the girl was going to be fired. If she didn’t have a good reason to not to show up and open the boutique, she was done.

  This would be a mission to find the key and shit-can someone so irresponsible that she’d skip out on work.

  Saturdays were their busiest days, and this stunt had cost them so much money. When she was awoken by a friend, asking why the store was closed, she nearly had a heart attack. She’d trusted her employee to be there to open up for her.

  Being a small business owner was hard, and she was desperately trying to compete with malls, and bigger chain stores in a competitive market.

  Every sale counted.

  Debbie had crossed a line by not showing up.

  Her boutique mattered.

  It was how she fed her family.

  So, at the house, she rang the doorbell and waited. The car was in the driveway, and no one was answering.

  When she went around back, the door was open a little, and that didn’t seem right.

  Pushing it open, she headed in and kept calling for her employee.

  “Debbie?”

  Nothing.

  At the living room, she peeked down the hall toward her bedroom.

  “Debbie? Are you okay? Are you sick? Do you need an ambulance?”

  There was that nervous feeling brewing. While Debbie not showing up to work was odd, this was even more unusual.

  “Debs?”

  Nothing.

  Heading down the hall, she saw the foot on the bed and knew someone was home.

  When she got to the doorway, she saw what was left of her employee. Her dead eyes stared up at the ceiling, and her mouth was wide open in a horrified ‘O’.