He was also a valued member of the Brotherhood, with two tours hunting insurgents in Iraq and the scars to match.
“I think you’ve got two hours to get all the information you can on this woman to my desk. Come get the keys to her office, go in with Wyatt, and sweep the place. Do her apartment as well—see if there’s anything left there we can use. If we’re lucky, she’s gone on vacation to some exotic locale and decided to go silent and deep, maybe make a break from her life here. If not—”
“Understood. I’ll also contact LVPD, find out what I can about her time there.”
“Good. Two hours. If she is really missing, we’ve already lost too much time.” Dylan went back to his desk and picked up the photograph.
He reached out and drew his finger along the playful smile, and his gut twisted as he worried that he might never get a chance see her for himself. It was easy to imagine her sitting across from him with that same grin, daring him to make the first move. There was something about her that drew him in.
What did you get yourself into, Jessica Lyon?
And how am I going to get you out?
…
Jessie tugged at the metal bars again, hoping against hope that somehow in the last few minutes they’d weakened enough for her to pull them free.
Not a chance.
She rubbed her hands together, feeling the heated skin complain.
Al, one of the guards at the nearby table, glanced up at her from his laptop. A second later, satisfied she wasn’t about to burst free in a gamma ray-induced rage, he returned his attention to the screen, likely watching more porn. She’d heard some of the grunting and enthusiastic screaming before he’d decided to turn the sound down. The other four men ignored him, busy with their card game.
Now there was only silence, punctuated by brief comments from the poker players as they studied their hands.
Jessie slumped against the bars and slid down to the floor, cursing under her breath.
Five minutes.
All she had needed was five more frakking minutes.
She’d been so close to taking the entire outfit down, smearing their names all over the front pages and showing those assholes at the cop shop how to get the job done.
And, finally, getting justice for her father.
Al licked his lips and tapped the keyboard. He wore the generic suit and tie of Molodavi’s men, his nondescript features allowing him to fit in everywhere.
He might be the one ordered to take her out of the cage and kill her. A short ride out into the desert, a bullet in the back of the head, and then oblivion.
There was a good chance no one would ever find her body. She’d become one of Las Vegas’s missing, one of thousands that vanished every year in Sin City and only came to light when some kid found a hand sticking out of a sand dune or a pair of lovers tripped over a desiccated body in the wilderness.
But she wasn’t going to go down easy. If Edward Molodavi wanted to kill her, she’d fight and kick every inch of the way.
She’d make him pay.
…
Dylan used a cardkey to take the elevator to the bottom floor of the building, the secure level below the club’s facilities. Here was where the Brotherhood worked and existed, hidden away from the general public and club employees.
He had some time before Trey came back with the results of his search, and spent it making and devouring a fast meal in the communal kitchen before relocating to the mission room.
Better eat now while you can.
Some habits he’d picked up during his Delta Force years had never gone away.
He wasn’t there long before Trey appeared.
Appeared being the right word. There was no one beside Dylan as he sat at the table, then there was.
“Hey.” The dark-haired man grinned, standing at Dylan’s elbow. He wore the same informal uniform as the rest of the Brotherhood members while at the club, the black T-shirt tight on his broad shoulders.
Dylan resisted the urge to flinch, knowing Trey loved seeing people react to his presence.
Aside from his computer skills, the man had an almost otherworldly ability to move silently, making him a valuable asset.
And very annoying.
Trey smiled. “Gotcha.”
Dylan held up a finger. “You know you’re going to do that to the wrong person at some point and get yourself hurt…or killed.”
“Maybe. But until then I’ll enjoy seeing you, and them, jump.”
Dylan shook his head. This argument had been going on for years and showed no signs of ending. “What do you have?”
“Right.” The smile disappeared. “Keep in mind this is the bare bones. Two hours isn’t a lot to grab someone’s entire life.” Trey spread the pages across the conference room table, sliding the black and white photographs to lie on top of the printouts. “Jessica Anne Lyon. Only child, blah blah blah. Joined the Las Vegas Police Department after university and went platinum right out of basic—hard work, fast promotions, and ended up working undercover long before the rest of her peers. Then she crashed and burned a year and a half ago.”
Dylan raised an eyebrow. “Explain.”
“Drug money goes missing after a big bust. Internal Affairs gets involved, partner points the finger at her. IA suspends her while they run the numbers. Investigation shows she’s clean, case closed. No money retrieved, no one else charged, and no apologies for accusing her of being dirty.”
Dylan nodded. “So far, standard idiot procedure. Not surprising.”
“Seems it wasn’t the first time she’s been hung out to dry or targeted by her fellow detectives. Word is she complained about having to constantly play the hooker or the damsel in distress when working undercover. Woman wanted to do more than play a piece of ass. Put in requests to get shifted onto the big cases and got told she was more useful dressing up for the boys. Seems this last case pushed her over the edge. Her father passed away in the middle of the inquiry and, understandably, she snapped. Hangs in long enough to have her name cleared and up and quits the next day.” Trey looked up. “Can’t blame her. I talked to a contact I’ve got in the PD. She got a lot of grief from the other cops for no reason other than she didn’t have a penis. Still a man’s world there.”
“How did her father die?” Dylan asked.
“Beat cop, did his thing until he got shot and paralyzed from the neck down.” He kept talking, anticipating Dylan’s questions. “Came across a robbery at a store, didn’t call for backup, and went in alone to save the shopkeeper. Never saw who shot him, no arrest made. Pensioned out and cared for in a nursing home until he passed.”
Dylan nodded. “So Jessie walks away from the police, goes into private investigation, and now she’s missing.” He stood up and scanned the photographs and pages. “You tossed her office and her apartment. Anything there?”
“A whole lot. Personnel papers for working at Fluxxx. Extra uniform, pay stubs.” Trey held up three fingers. “That’s Fluxxx with three Xs.”
“The what?”
Trey let out a grunt. “You need to get out more. Big new splashy casino on the Strip, opened about a year ago. According to what we found, she got a job there as a blackjack dealer three months ago. Went full-time with rotating shifts, which explains why she didn’t see her friend too often.”
Dylan frowned. “So maybe she decided to give up being a PI and make some real money. Couldn’t hack it, got a steady job, and wanted to hide it from Lisa. She was embarrassed at not being able to cut it as a solo act.”
Trey balanced himself on the edge of the desk. “And then she ran away from home? I doubt it.” He eyed Dylan. “And so do you.”
“Yeah.” Dylan rubbed his chin. “What’s the word on Fluxxx?” He paused. “And what’s with the damned name?”
“It sounds cool, sounds naughty. Aimed at the young rich with too much money and too little common sense. Run by the Molodavi family.”
“Give me their background.”
&nb
sp; “Old-school mobsters, in a nutshell.” Trey tapped his tablet and spun it to show a young man in his thirties, smiling for the camera. “Run by Edward Molodavi, age thirty-one. Father passed five years ago and he took over the operation. Two younger brothers, mother still alive. Family started off small and stayed small, keeping under the radar while the big boys fought over the big pot. Official picture from the casino’s opening.”
Dylan studied the image, picking up the nuances. Expensive Italian suit, black hair cut short—professional-looking to give the illusion of the right side of the fence.
He was sitting behind a desk, his hands clasped in front of him in the classic businessman’s pose. To anyone else he would look like a respectable casino owner, ready to make a deal.
But Dylan saw the tension in his face, the thin smile that warned not to look too deep or pull back the curtain to see what was behind the cocky grin.
Edward Molodavi looked like a hungry man who could never get enough, cursed with an insatiable appetite.
“Duck and cover, pick up the crumbs. Bide your time until someone makes a mistake and the authorities come rushing in,” Dylan prompted. “Let them take down the guys at the top.”
Trey nodded. “Happened about three years ago. Remember that big series of busts, the DA on television crowing he’d ‘dealt a death blow to organized crime’? When the smoke cleared, the Molodavis were there, ready to pick up the pieces and expand their holdings. They’ve got their fingers in a number of pies, from money laundering to prostitution to drug running.”
“Why haven’t the feds moved on them?”
“They’ve tried. No one can get the hard data to make a conviction stick. Their connections are legion, and deep in old-Vegas roots.” Trey flipped the tablet around and swiped through the images, most of them crime scene photos. “Plenty of dead people left in their wake. A few weak convictions of low-level men, usually bargained down to involuntary manslaughter. They’ve got their friends on the inside. Nowadays everything’s run out of the offices at Fluxxx, their home base.”
Dylan frowned, the picture becoming clearer. “Let me guess. There hasn’t been a hope in hell of an undercover officer from any agency infiltrating the casino.”
“You would be correct. From the feds to the locals, no one’s been able to place anyone inside. Their security is top-notch, their computer system quarantined from the rest of the outside world.” He paused. “Means they can’t be hacked. Servers in the basement, isolated from the rest of the internet. What goes out and comes in gets locked away or scrubbed. Their men can smell a cop from miles away, and word is there’s a mole inside every level of law enforcement ratting the authorities out every time they even look at Fluxxx.”
“Until now.” Dylan tapped the photo of Jessie. It was an official police academy graduation photograph, her long blond hair tucked up under the uniform cap as she gave the cameraman a stern smile. “She’s there now, working as a dealer. It’d be perfect for an undercover cop looking to get hold of some information, get inside and gather what would stick to put Edward and his boys away.” He leaned back. “They’d run her the same as we have, see she’s a pissed off ex-cop. Wouldn’t send up a red flag, not if their rat inside the department confirms she’s not part of any official operation. Add in the way she left and they’d probably embrace her like a long-lost sister.” He looked at Trey. “Did her files have anything on Molodavi?”
“I found a lot on a variety of crime families, including Molodavi. But it’s not surprising—it’d be a wise move if she’s working as a PI to keep tabs on all the major players in town,” Trey said. “Her laptop was pretty plain, not much information on it. She might have kept a lot of data on her phone. If they grabbed her it’d explain why we can’t find it, and why it went out of service.”
Dylan nodded. “It makes sense.”
Trey frowned. “But she’s not a cop anymore. And she’s got no client, as far as I could tell. No paperwork dated since she started working at the casino. No one’s paying her to do this. What the hell is she doing?”
“I’ve got a starting point. Only a theory, but let’s run with this.” Dylan held up the personnel file. “Jessie Lyon left the LVPD because they wanted to keep her down, keep her working the sleazy undercover jobs, playing the stripper or the prostitute. She’s more than that and wants to show them by scoring a coup.” He snapped the pages in the air. “Taking down the Molodavis will do that.”
Trey shook his head. “The Molodavi family will kill her as soon as they figure out she’s running solo, just for the fun of it.”
“It’ll do for now.” Dylan tapped the photograph. “First, we verify they’ve got her. Once we do, we retrieve her. Snatch and grab, fast and furious.” He looked at Trey. “Bring Finn in and brief him on the situation. Update Ace and tell him to ride bodyguard on Lisa for the time being. Don’t want her becoming a target for bringing us into this.”
Trey nodded. “Better safe than sorry.”
“What can you do right now to find Jessie?” Dylan asked.
“It’s likely her phone’s been scraped for data and destroyed by now so we can’t tag her GPS and track her. So instead I’ll hack into Edward Molodavi’s phone and see where he is.” Trey slid his own phone out of his pocket. “Guy like that, I suspect he’s going to want to be hands-on when it comes to Jessie. He’s not going to want anyone else to interrogate her. Once I get into his phone we can track him from Fluxxx to his home and anywhere else along the way. I doubt he’d keep her in the casino—too much of a chance someone might hear her. He’d have some place set up for her to be hidden away, guarded and secure. But he’ll visit it at some point and then we’ll have the location.”
“Make it happen,” Dylan said. “Call me as soon as you get the hack set up. I’m going to go over to the casino, see what they’re all about and do some recon.”
Trey looked at the picture again. “Woman’s got fire in her eyes. She’s a survivor.”
“I hope so.” Dylan couldn’t resist touching the image, running his finger along her cheekbone. “I want to find out in person.”
Trey nodded and headed for the door, leaving him alone.
He picked up another photo. This one was of Jessie with her fellow detectives, taken at some gathering in a bar. The body language was clear as the men stood behind and beside her, no one brave enough to get inside her personal space.
Her smile was forced, the edges of her mouth turned up in a faux greeting for the photographer.
One edge of his mouth twitched up as he studied her face and thought for a minute, one wild crazy minute, what it’d be like to kiss those lips.
And if she’d bite.
Chapter Two
She was going to drown on dry land.
The bastards had taken a fire hose to her, spraying her with the hard, cold water until she’d slumped against the bars, unable to stand or fight anymore.
They hadn’t asked a single question, laughing as they doused Jessie’s white blouse and black blazer, the thin uniform pants offering no defense against the abrasive spray.
Her damp clothing stuck to her skin, itchy and uncomfortable. The sun crept along the floor, let in by the small windows set close to the ceiling of the building she’d woken in. It brushed against the edges of the pooling water on the cement floor near her cage, falling short of reaching her.
Jessie wiped her eyes, determined to not cry. She’d lost control only once—on the first night, when she’d sobbed herself to a troubled sleep, her sleeve jammed in her mouth.
Her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten a decent meal in days. Every once in a while Al, the only guard whose name she knew, would toss her an energy bar, just enough to whet her hunger. Wearing her down was the easiest way of torturing her, beginning the process of breaking her down before Molodavi came back.
The marks would be on the inside, not the outside.
All I need to do is keep quiet, Jess kept telling herself. As long as I keep quiet they migh
t let me go, might give me a hell of a beating and toss me out on the street in the middle of the night. I’ve been a good worker, a smart worker. The cash has flowed, and I haven’t flinched at the money laundering going on right under my nose.
The smaller, clearer, and more logical voice at the back of her mind informed her Edward Molodavi was not going to let her go, let a blackjack dealer he suspected of stealing information from him saunter out. He’d take as long as he wanted to find out who had sent her and what she’d learned. No one was looking for her, giving him as much time as he wanted.
Edward Molodavi was a bastard who loved his torture. The police files had been filled with examples of his work, a hands-on abuser who had no problem getting his hands dirty while having his fun. They’d never been able to connect him directly to any deaths, but anyone with two gray cells to rub together could see the link. The mole he had inside the cop shop kept everyone at bay, ensured all of his men would be safe from prosecution, let alone justice for what they’d done.
Bastard was the nicest way to describe him. Sadistic murderer was another.
Even if he believed her story he’d still kill her because it was entertainment, and no one would miss Jessie Lyon.
There was no doubt she was going to die.
Her thoughts went to her father, to the last visit she’d had with him.
“I’ll do it, Dad.” She clutched at his hand, seeing the light fade in his eyes. “I’ll take him down. That son of a bitch is going to pay for what he did to you—I promise.”
She bit her lip at the memory, grabbing onto the pain to steel herself for the next and possibly last meeting with her tormentor.
The question was how long she had left.
And how many of them she could take with her.
…
Not long after the water attack, the sadistic jerk appeared. The guard placed a chair in front of the cage and stepped back as Edward Molodavi sat down.
His voice was soft and strong, a parent talking to a wayward child. “You’ve had a bit of time to reconsider your position.” He crossed his legs, hands perched on his knees. “So I’ll ask you again. Who sent you here? Who do you work for?”
Hard Play (Delta Force Brotherhood) Page 2