Wolf's Cut (The Nick Lupo Series Book 5)

by W. D. Gagliani

  “Keep it under my hat? What happened to the commando squad?” Her voice was suddenly high-strung, humming with released adrenaline. At least, that was what Lupo thought.

  “We killed ’em, Danni. These guys play for keeps. I keep enough firepower around to do the job.”

  “Shit! And now what? Is your place shot up?”

  “Shot up and bloody as hell,” he said, sighing. “I have, uh, some friends who trade favors.”

  “Friends I would know?”

  “I imagine if you tossed out a few names, one of ’em would ring a bell, yeah.”

  “You sound like you’ve…done this before.”

  “Danni, I know you don’t have to trust me, but believe me, people are in danger and I’m trying to keep them safe…”

  She was silent a long half-minute. “Lupo, for some reason I believe you. I’ve heard stuff about you, I’ll admit some of it’s pretty bad, but I always got a different vibe. I sensed there’s a whole outlier thing going on and…I can relate to it.” She laughed. “Maybe I need to make an appointment with Anders.”

  He winced.

  “I’m a little out of sorts, Danni,” he said finally. “I’ve got that problem brewing up north with someone I care about square in the way. And now this, right here. And I don’t think I can take it to Ryeland, not with DHS all over him. And me.”

  He heard a tapping. She was doing the pencil thing with her teeth again.

  “How can I help?” she said.

  Lupo let his eyes rove up and down the street, looking for anything out of place, anything that signaled danger. They’d located the hit squad’s parked SUV and were watching it from the park. Leaves whipped around them in the cool breeze. It all felt so surreal, again.

  “You mean it?” he said.

  Heather

  She’d seen a side of him that was relatively new to her.

  A bloodthirsty, almost out-of-control side.

  He hadn’t wolfed out, no, but he’d hesitated not at all in splattering the commandos’ guts and brains all over his own place. And he’d explained that he would trade favors with some shady group—maybe the mob?—who would clean up the premises for him. He wasn’t completely sure some neighbor hadn’t actually been home and called the cops on him, but Lupo had taken charge with a cold-bloodedness she found refreshing (for him!) and completely alluring.

  Now that was the Nick Lupo that melted her thighs. And pussy.

  But now that they’d been blown, he was all business. She couldn’t help it, she felt like pouting.

  “Nick, what are your plans now? I know what these guys are like and they never stop coming. They’ll just send more teams after us. The next one will probably be armed with silver ammo. After that, they’ll send wolves. I mean, I think they were caught flat-footed by what happened in Madison, when I was in the middle of it.”

  Lupo was hugging a tree, peering around it. They had a perfect view down his street, and so far nothing much had happened. She supposed soon a van would roll up and several barrel-chested men would take some loose carpeting upstairs and remove some slightly heavier carpeting later. Or something like that.

  “Look, Heather, I’m not sure I have any plans now. What I have is that I’m pissed off. They fucked up my house.”

  “Well, they were after me. Doesn’t that bother you? Not even a little?”

  “I’d give you to them if I thought it would keep them the fuck away from me,” he said bitterly. “But I figure it’s too late for that. Now they want me too, and they know where I live.”

  “You don’t mean that, do you?” She made a face.

  “I do. You’ve been nothing but trouble, and frankly I’ve got enough of it without you. What would you have me do? We’re not exactly in the position of calling on the Pentagon for help, are we? According to those files your guy gave you, the Pentagon’s rotten with these fuckers. They’ve got all the time in the world. We don’t.”

  Heather snarled. “Well, we’ve got to do something. We can’t just wait for them. Why don’t we head west and raid that house? Looks like they’re running things out of there. Wineacre has plans, directions, layout. We did it to Wolfpaw’s D.C. headquarters, what’s to keep us from a repeat performance?”

  Lupo was leaning out from the tree. “I don’t—” he began, but then he ducked back, quickly. “Get down!”

  She dropped flat like a panther, her wolf itching to get out and do what it did best.

  “What is it?”

  “Not sure,” he said. “I heard a buzzing just now. And I remember hearing it just before they broke down my door.”

  “Okay,” she said, unsure. She was half-wolfing, her eyes rolling and changing color, hair growing and retreating in long tufts on her arms and legs. She stifled a growl. The park was empty, but she wasn’t sure letting out her wolf here was a good idea.

  “Look, I’m gonna get the car and we’re leaving.”

  Before she could argue he was heading back toward his building.

  She smiled a wolf’s smile. He was mad because she excited him, and he couldn’t stand it. He was weakening. All she had to do was keep up the heat. Eventually he’d choose her over the Jessie-bitch.

  A few minutes later Lupo’s venerable black Maxima squealed to a halt across the sidewalk. Lupo leaned over and waved her across.

  She straightened and started to walk toward the open door.

  The high-pitched buzzing Lupo had mentioned suddenly drowned out every other sound, and suddenly Lupo was screaming “Back, back, behind the trees, get down!” and he was diving out of the car and rolling, and then there was an explosion that seemed to squash her head and rupture her eardrums, and the Maxima left the ground in a ball of fire. A second explosion rocked the sidewalk and tossed a nearby parked SUV into the air, ripping it apart when the gas tank ignited.

  “Down, get down, it’s looking for you!”

  She had no idea what was going on, but Lupo shouted once more, “Facedown, facedown! On the ground!”

  And she did it, and the buzzing increased its pitch until it sounded like a monstrous wasp and seemed to hover back and forth, and Lupo was rolling toward her, shouting for her to stay down.

  Not far away, the two demolished cars raged like an inferno.

  The buzzing increased, then retreated.

  “Jesus, what was that?”

  “Drones!” Lupo called out, grimacing. Debris was still raining around them. “I think they’ve got facial recognition.”

  And that’s not all, he thought.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Lupo

  When he took the phone call from Charlie Bear, something told him it was more bad news.

  “Lupo, things are going to shit over here.”

  “Thanks for confirming my fears,” said Lupo. “Here, too.”

  “We just were told we have a new head of the council and casino CEO. The board read Grey Hawk’s resignation and had a special vote about an hour ago. They voted in this guy who came back not that long ago, Bill Treewalker.”

  “What does Grey Hawk say about it?”

  “That’s the thing. See, no one can find him. It’s like he signed this long resignation, named a successor, and disappeared.”

  “Jesus.” This did not sound good, not at all. “What about his family?”

  “Haven’t seen ’im. Car’s gone, he’s gone. They’re going crazy. Treewalker says he doesn’t know anything except Bill had asked him if he was willing to take over the position. He’d said yes, and that was it until he got the call.”

  “Any chance it’s true?”

  “Given what Dr. Hawkins told us about the takeover? I doubt it.”

  “Yeah, I thought not. Shit.”

  “And, Lupo,” Charlie said after a long pause, “I saw that Treewalker had a carpet-cleaning service into the office. They wouldn’t talk to me, Lupo. He wouldn’t look me in the eye.”

  “Paid off?”

  “And threatened. I heard Treewalker tell Bill he’d h
ad some kind of run-in. He sounded scared. And now the office cleaning worries me. I think Grey Hawk was in the way of the takeover and got himself killed. Messy.”

  “How long before they come after you?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m very suddenly on leave of absence. I’m not showing my face at the casino until we can sort this out, and I’m packing extra hardware. I might be on their list.”

  “You might at that. I’ll call Jessie, see what she says.”

  Charlie was silent.

  “Charlie?”

  There was a pause. “I was hoping you’d know where she is. I called her, Lupo. Got voice mail. She’s, uh, not at the hospital. No one’s seen her.”

  Jessie

  Earlier, she had driven past the house’s driveway after following not-Bruce’s SUV. She’d spotted him pulling over and talking to the two thugs from the casino, in fact right near the casino.

  She was miffed at Nick, and it didn’t take long for her to make a decision. He’d told her to not play Nancy Drew.

  Damn him.

  Talking down to her. She could take care of herself, goddamn it. She had a Remington shotgun in the back of her old Pathfinder. She had proven she knew how to use it. Her run-ins with a serial killer and two bunches of Wolfpaw werewolves should have made that clear to him. But Nick was an old-time chauvinist, convinced not that he was better, but that she was weaker and needed help. She’d pulled his butt out of the fire more than once, didn’t he remember?

  Fuck it!

  She turned the Pathfinder and followed not-Bruce, wondering where the hell he was staying. Wondering if the mob had staked out some sort of headquarters. Made sense, didn’t it? She’d follow him, find the nest, and then she’d tell Nick where it was, wrap it up in a neat little package.

  Nancy Drew my ass.

  She drove, her anger fueled less by Nick and what he’d said than by the knowledge that the slut Heather was back in their lives—back in Nick’s life—and that meant trouble was sure to follow. Whatever she’d brought for Nick to look at was bound to cause them a shitstorm, of that she was convinced.

  She slammed her hands on the wheel.

  Damn you, Nick Lupo.

  You’re supposed to love me. Why is it that whenever the she-devil bats her eyelashes you drop everything to help her?

  It occurred to Jessie that she was overreacting, but really, she told herself, have you seen that sexpot? Could anything about her really be an overreaction?

  She followed not-Bruce’s taillights from as far as she could, because traffic was thin between the rez and Eagle River, except for the occasional buses full of gambling old folks.

  Heading for the cathedral, as the song said.

  When he disappeared she almost drove past the overgrown turnoff, but she caught a glimpse of red as he hit his brakes somewhere in the thicket, and she pulled off the road onto a sloping shoulder.

  She weighed her options. Shotgun or no?

  Damn it, Nick was right about one thing. These guys were dangerous.

  She took the Remington and a pocketful of 12-gauge shells.

  And she headed up the long and twisty rutted driveway.

  Colgrave

  Lupo and DiSanto met her in a diner a few blocks from the downtown precinct, where they all ordered coffee and burgers. When they were alone in an isolated booth, Colgrave asked Lupo for details about his situation up north.

  Lupo was fidgety and out of sorts, nearly out of his mind with worry because he hadn’t been able to get hold of Jessie. Her phone went straight to voice mail, which he said wasn’t like her.

  “I’m sure she didn’t listen to me,” he said. DiSanto nodded—he seemed to agree that Lupo’s lady friend was headstrong.

  Not to say stubborn.

  “So you think she poked around and got scooped up?”

  Lupo nodded. “Yeah, at least I hope that’s as far as it went. Think about it. If news about the planned casino takeover gets out, they’ll have feds crawling up their asses. So the best thing to do is take her out. I hope they’re too smart to actually kill her, but they may be deciding what to do. Frankly, I’m not sure these guys respect too many boundaries.”

  “And what they probably did to Bill Grey Hawk,” DiSanto added, “we can’t even figure right now, but it doesn’t look good.”

  They explained about the call Lupo had gotten from the casino security guy, and the strong possibility they’d tortured and killed Bill. Colgrave was a little shocked, but not surprised. Back in the day, this stuff was standard practice. Bastone was just the kind of wise guy to bring it back.

  “They installed their own puppet,” Lupo said. “A guy named Treewalker they apparently threatened earlier and who must have seen the light. The elders’ council held a special vote. They must figure they can control this new guy better. I just hope Jessie didn’t walk in on something.”

  Colgrave waited for the awkward college-age server to bring their food before answering. They waited impatiently as plates were juggled and dropped off.

  “So what’s your plan?” she said afterwards, taking a bite of her burger. She watched Lupo rip his rare cheeseburger off the bun, slather it with standard mustard, then wolf it down not so much with hunger but with a sort of controlled rage. She realized he wasn’t eating for enjoyment, he was fueling up for a fight.

  DiSanto was more delicate, taking a careful bite of his turkey burger. Health conscious? He kept sneaking looks at his large silver-and-black chronograph.

  “My plan,” said Lupo after swallowing, “is to go up there and look for Jessie. It’s a six-hour drive and I’d be going already if this other thing hadn’t happened. If she’s nowhere to be found, then I’m going to fuckin’ raid this Bastone’s place.” He smiled bitterly. “Call it a black op, Danni, because there’s no other way. Too much red tape, too much procedure, and too many untrustworthy bastards around. Ryeland might go for it, he’s just that kind of guy, but his hands are tied now.”

  She noticed for the first time that he had numerous tiny scabs and scars on his face. Recent trouble with sharp fragments? She also noticed his hands were scarred up as if he’d had his skin melted somehow and then healed, but not very well cosmetically.

  DiSanto said, “From what you said, it looks like the DHS guys have some sort of hard-on for Nick, too. We’re running out of time, and we have to go off the books.”

  “A rescue mission? Hell, I’m in.” Colgrave had a soft spot for long odds and black ops. She had a friend, a Vietnam vet named Rich Brant, who had taught her much, and she’d helped him out of a few jams, one especially hairy one over which she still had nightmares. Her police career was always hanging by a thread, so why treat this any differently?

  Lupo nodded, chewing the last of his bunless burger. Blood had pooled on his plate and he sopped it up with the last forkful of meat. “Good. But actually I have two situations…”

  “What?” She stared at him. “What are you talking—you mean this other thing you just mentioned?”

  He nodded. Plucked a thick manila folder off the seat next to him and slid it over to her.

  “What’s this?”

  DiSanto took over. Apparently they’d discussed their approach.

  “Nick’s gonna take care of Jessie. Her disappearance. But that’s not all, there’s something else going on…something with this asshole Hart-Bart and his minions. But we don’t know what or what game they’re playing.”

  She sighed. “All right…” She ate some of her fries, but she’d lost interest.

  They took turns giving her a basic rundown of the information contained in the Wineacre file, as well as what had just happened to Lupo and Heather Wilson.

  The whistleblower had assembled a treasure trove of information and names that would have made her hair curl, if it wasn’t already. She shivered as she listened to what they had to say and scanned grainy photographs.

  Lupo was winding it up.

  “I think they’ve managed to marry facial recognition soft
ware with drone missile guidance. The fucking drones homed in on Heather’s facial features. That’s just my theory, but I read something online recently that had been leaked by a software engineer, who later turned up dead in an accident. Imagine linking facial recognition with surveillance camera feeds from anywhere in the world… and maybe even tying in to spy satellites’ routine sweeps. They could target anyone, anywhere. Program their drones to become kamikaze killers. Sounds crazy, but it seems like a pattern in their methodology. Anyway, I’m guessing all they need is clear enough photos of me—anyone—and they’ll do the same.”

  She struggled with it all. It was too much to digest. “But if it’s true, how has all this been kept secret?”

  “Killings and disappearances, Danni,” Lupo said. “This is why I don’t trust DHS. They’ve put the lid on things. I haven’t tried to go public, but they’ve shut down any other avenue anyway. Those explosions at my place didn’t make it onto local news, at least not yet. It’ll be a sanitized neighborhood gas leak kind of story when they’re done with the spin cycle, bet on it. Maybe the bad guys have hijacked technology that’s supposed to stay secret. Pretty embarrassing, right? They’re scrambling to contain and cover up now.”

  Colgrave pushed her unfinished burger and fries aside. She felt a mix of disbelief and yet…acceptance. She knew things went on all the time. She’d been behind the scenes, had seen the sausage being made, as it were. Plus she had connections, and they had connections. She was savvier than most. She’d walked the line, many times. She’d teetered on that edge. Now she looked from Lupo to DiSanto. They didn’t seem to be scamming her. She could tell.

  She tapped the file. “I should read this? Now?”

  They nodded grimly.

  Lupo reached for her cold burger. “You gonna eat that?”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  DiSanto

  He had no idea why she wanted to meet with him, but he found himself doing it anyway.

  Heather Wilson was in a booth in a Third Ward bistro in which he could barely afford the water and lemon slice. She was munching on breadsticks and as he walked up, seeing her like that, a thick breadstick in her mouth, he was frankly relieved he could sit immediately.