Her being hurt wasn't. A. Fucking. Option. The case, the deaths, Pedro Francisco…none of it mattered to him more than her. And she wanted him to really think about whether he wanted to quit or not? He didn't have to think about it. He knew he wanted to quit. For every reason he'd given her, and because he couldn't go through this shit a second time. Because Zoë had been right about something else, too.
Lillian was far too much like him for her own good. There was no way she would ever be content sitting at home while he did this shit. Sooner or later, when things got rough, she'd do something and put herself at risk to protect him. She was already doing so by doing this.
What happened next time, when she was out of this and he'd moved on to a different case? She wasn't Zoë. She wasn't designed to wait it out, to wait him out, and do nothing. That was so obvious to him even if she couldn't see it herself. She'd fought hard to keep dancing even when she knew she couldn't. She'd agreed to help on this case despite having every reason not to do so. She'd decided to do this, to approach the blond for Christ's sake.
He'd always thought he needed this job because the job all he had. Doing this shit was his punishment, his life, and his own personal purgatory all rolled into one. But he had her now and he wanted to keep her safe and sound and by his side more than he wanted to walk into places like Teplo and send fuckers like Anton Vetrov to prison.
He could do this job until he lost his mind, but it wouldn't change anything. His parents would still be dead. People like Emma Buford and Elizabeth James would still die every damn day. He fought a war he couldn't win because he'd spent half his life feeling guilty. He hadn't forgiven himself yet, but he wanted to.
She'd told him that his parents' deaths weren't his fault.
He thought maybe he actually believed that for once. Believed that, even had he told his parents about his uncle, things would have played out the same way. They still would have gone to his house that day. They still would have come to pick Tristan up. And that motherfucker still would have pulled up on them at the stoplight and started firing.
Seventeen.
That's how many bullets it took to tear his world apart.
Three minutes for his father to die.
Sixty-seven for his mother.
One-hundred and ninety two hours for his uncle.
And none of it was his fucking fault. He'd been a kid. A thirteen-year-old with a chip on his shoulder and a group of friends who'd thought he was the coolest thing on the face of the earth. It. Wasn't. His. Fault.
If something happened to Lillian though, that would be his fault. If it happened on this case or on a case five years down the road, it would be his fault. And that would never be okay, no matter how many people like Anton Vetrov he stopped. He couldn't risk her. Not when it frigging hurt letting her walk away to face the blond alone. Not when he wanted to fall asleep with her in his arms every night and wake up to make love to her every morning.
She literally consumed him—his heart, his mind, his body. Ever since he'd dragged her onto the dance floor that first time, he'd been owned by her. He didn't know why. He didn't think he would ever know why, but it was true all the same. He needed her more than he needed anything else. He wanted her more than he wanted anything else.
Risking her safety when her safety was everything to him wasn't an option. After this case, he was done. He was walking away and he wouldn't regret it. He wouldn't let her regret it either. He was giving up nothing and getting the world in return. How could he ever regret that?
"She's in," Jason said.
"Hurry baby," he whispered.
The headset in Jason's ear crackled as he paced back and forth in Lillian's living room, trying to remain patient. She'd been inside for less than five minutes, and nothing appeared to be wrong. Stephan had barely spared her a glance when he'd waved her through. Something didn't feel right though. He'd been an agent long enough to know that when something didn't feel right, you didn't ignore it. The problem was that he couldn't put his finger on exactly what felt off.
Actually, that wasn't true.
For a brief minute after Tristan and Lillian had left to find Simon this afternoon, he'd been absolutely sure they were overlooking something. And the feeling hadn't really left him yet. In fact, the more he thought about it, the stronger the feeling became.
It was the storage room, he decided as he paced.
Hell, when wasn't it that fucking room?
Vetrov had it boarded up, but Tristan had checked everywhere else in the club through every means available. If there was another way into the lab, they hadn't been able to find a whisper of it. The storage room was the only logical entrance. The problem though was that it didn't add up. Since Tristan hid the camera inside, no one had gone near the boarded up basement.
So why guard it like the damn thing was the entrance to Fort Knox?
Why go to all the trouble if they were simply screwing with Tristan? As careful as Vetrov was, why would he give Tristan a reason to keep coming back by guarding that room so tenaciously if he was only screwing with him?
Because Tristan had been right all along.
That room did grant access to the lab, and Vetrov wasn't stupid enough to risk Tristan getting inside. But he'd been wrong, too. The storage room wasn't the only way in. They had another entrance tucked away somewhere, one they'd taken to using once they started to suspect Tristan.
"Kincaid," he barked into the headset.
"Yo?"
"When you were in the Planning Office, did you find anything about tunnels or sewers in this area?"
"What?"
"Did you come across anything marking sewers or tunnels in this area of the city?"
Tristan stopped pacing and turned to face Jason, watching him with a hawkish expression, already connecting the dots Jason had only just connected himself. His wife's cousin was a pain in the ass, but he was smart.
"Naw, man," Kincaid said, his radio crackling, "I didn't find shit. That place was like a kindergarten classroom on the first day of school. Fucking chaos."
"Shit," Jason swore and pulled his cell phone out, dialing Janet's number.
"Yes, sir?" she answered on the third ring.
"I need you to do me a favor," he said, forgoing any type of greeting. "Simon's still down in IT. Get him to pull up sewer schematics in a five mile radius of Teplo."
"O-kay."
"Now, please."
"Yes, sir," she said. "One second."
"You think they're using a sewer entrance." Tristan said, and then cursed loudly.
"Is he looking for anything in particular?" Janet asked.
"Tell him to find out if anything runs beneath Teplo or near it. Mark anything with an entrance bigger than a manhole."
"Anything else?"
"Hey, Ames?" Kincaid's voice came through the headset, distracting him from answering.
"Shit, hold on, Janet." He lowered the cell. "Yeah?"
"What does the boss look like?"
"Which boss?"
"The boss that runs this fucking place."
"What the fuck is happening?" Tristan asked, resuming his pacing.
Jason held up a finger. "Graying hair, about six foot one, beefy. Why?"
"Because he's walking into the club now."
"Shit. You're sure?" Jason strode to the window, flicking the curtain aside to look out, but he didn't see anything out of the ordinary.
"Seventy, thirty," Kincaid responded. "It's worse than the fucking strip clubs out here, man. There are people dry-humping and milling all over the place. The little bastard at the door looks ready to beat them off with sticks, but he waved the old guy straight through without hesitating. Actually seemed surprised to see him."
"Jason, man, what the fuck?" Tristan barked.
"Shit. Hold on." Jason grabbed his cell from the coffee table. "Janet, tell Simon to call me as soon as he finds anything."
Kincaid's voice came over the headset. "This place makes me grateful I work with
gangbangers. These people make them look rational."
Jason ignored him, turning to Tristan. "Kincaid spotted Anton Vetrov entering the club."
Sheer terror flared in Tristan's eyes before he grabbed the spare radio sitting on the coffee table. "Kincaid."
"Yo?"
"Get her out of there now," he barked, his hand clenched so tightly around the radio his knuckles were white.
"Have you seen this line?" Kincaid demanded. "There's no way I'm getting in there in the next hour unless I start shooting people, T."
The headset crackled before Liam McGregor spoke up. "I can get in. There's no one back here."
Tristan hesitated, clearly torn. Jason knew how he felt. If they pulled Liam off the rear-exit, they were going to be blind on that side. Fucking hell.
"Get in and get out as fast as possible," Tristan decided for him. "Kincaid, cover his post until he gets back. I'll watch the front." He was already in front of the living room windows, his eyes fixed on the scene outside of Teplo.
"On it," Kincaid said.
"Ten-four," Liam responded. "I'm going in now."
"Report in as soon as you're out," Jason reminded him. The headsets were useless in the club. It was too loud for a fucking phone call to be heard, let alone for the headset to make a bit of difference. And wasn't it just their luck Anton Vetrov had decided to put in an appearance tonight? Nothing about this case had worked in their favor so far. Not a goddamned thing.
Why should tonight be any different?
"I fucking hate this case," he said to himself as he positioned himself in front of the windows beside Tristan.
"Fuckin' A," Tristan groaned, not even looking at him.
Michael wandered as casually as possible through the pathetic excuse for a line, grateful that he'd had a fuck-ton of time to practice a careless swagger. No one knew how to pull off the "I don't give a shit" walk like a teenaged thug, and Michael was nothing if not a quick study. That shit came in handy when you grew up in the projects, and he'd eaten it up with a spoon. As a result, he could swagger like a champion and no one took him seriously. Good thing too, because these people were nuts and he needed to blend like a fat fucker at a bakery.
He hadn't been kidding about the dry-humping. In no less than four places against the brick outer wall of the club, cracked out chicks in skirts barely covering their cheap panties grinded into cracked out men who smelled like ass. He'd stick out like a sore thumb trying to ease his way through the line and around the building without that cock-of-the-walk stroll.
As it was, it took him five minutes to wade through the crowd and slip around the side of the building. And wouldn't you know it? Once he got a good twenty feet in, it became harder to see than a black cat in a dark alley.
"Tell me why the hell we don't have flashlights?" he hissed into the headset when he stumbled over a tree root and nearly fell on his ass. He reached out and grabbed for the building to keep himself upright.
"Just smile, Kincaid," Tori suggested. "That'll light up the whole place."
"Don't hate on the pearly whites," he said when Garrison laughed in his ear.
He felt along the building as he made his way around to the back. It took for-fucking-ever, too. "The groundskeeper here is shit," he cursed. "No fucking lights, tree roots with no trees, and I swear to God, the sadistic bastard randomly dug holes in the ground to screw with me."
"Kincaid, shut the hell up and get to the back of the building already," Jason snapped. "We don't need a running commentary on the state of the ground for fuck's sake."
"Easy for you to say," he snorted. "You aren't walking through a mine-field with nothing but you assholes for company."
"Kincaid."
"Slow your roll, Ames, I'm going." Yeesh. The man was more bent out of shape about Lillian than Riley was, and homeboy was all kinds of fucked up over Little Mama. Not that Michael blamed him or anything. She was crazy hot. He wouldn't have minded wrapping those long legs around his waist and fucking her senseless a time or three. Not that he would or anything. He wasn't stupid. Riley would cut his balls off with a dull butter knife and feed them to him if he even thought about it.
As much as it pained him to admit it, he doubted he'd be successful with her even if he tried. The way she looked at Riley with stars in her eyes made it clear she wouldn't be leaving his lucky ass anytime soon. And that was cool with him. Riley needed someone to settle him down before he did something stupid and ended up in a body bag.
But still, Michael was a little bit jealous. Only the crazy bitches fell for him. Never the normal girls. And the closest he'd ever come to a dancer was that one stripper. He did not have pleasant memories of that time.
Although, the positions she could get herself in?
Da-yum.
Two minutes later, he was finally in position, crouched in the bushes a few yards from the door—with a branch trying to shove itself up his ass—like some creepy stalker. Definitely not one of his finer moments.
Teamwork fucking sucked. Hard.
Lillian's heart was in her throat as she wound cautiously through the crowd and slipped into the short hallway leading to the bathrooms. She wanted to turn around and flee to the safety of Tristan's arms. She knew if she did, however, there wouldn't be another chance. In three days, he, Jason, and their team were raiding Teplo with or without the information necessary to connect Vetrov to Francisco.
Even though she'd traveled the world, performing in front of thousands, she'd never really considered herself particularly brave. She damn sure didn't feel that way now. But this had been her idea. Not Tristan's. Not Jason's. Hers. The least she could do was suck it up and pretend she wasn't a complete coward.
All she had to do was speak to a guy in a crowded club.
She wasn't breaking into the storage room.
She wasn't raiding the club.
Sure, the guy in question might have been a deadly cartel member, but he couldn't very well murder her in the middle of the Teplo. She had a panic button in hand. She had Tristan, Jason, and a team of DEA agents in positions all around the place, there specifically to keep her safe. There were at least two hundred witnesses. He couldn't do anything to her here.
She still wanted to turn and flee.
"Stupid," she muttered to herself as she limped down the hall to the bathroom.
A pretty redhead stumbled out of the bathroom, her skirt hiked up far higher than it should have been as she stepped through the door. Her eyes flickered in Lillian's direction, widened, and then flickered away. Her body twitched as she stumbled past Lillian.
The sight made her stomach turn.
Why did people do that to themselves?
She could understand wanting to escape reality, but God, nothing was worth what they did inside these walls. Nothing. The hopelessness and sheer horror of this place, the drug abuse and casual sex, killed a little piece of her every time she walked through the doors. That anyone could become desensitized to so much suffering boggled her mind. All these weeks later, she still couldn't even begin to process it, let alone wrap her mind around the fact that people like Anton Vetrov capitalized on that suffering for their own personal greed.
The bathroom door swung open a second time. A group of girls in no better shape than the redhead spilled out amidst loud laughter and a cloud of cigarette smoke. Lillian pressed herself against the wall and waited for them to pass before slipping inside.
She halted right inside the door, stunned at the disaster within. Someone had discarded a used needle in the middle of the floor. Another stuck out of the trashcan, needle-side up, just waiting for someone to stumble and stick themselves. Paper towels, cigarette butts and Kotex wrappers littered the floor around the overflowing trashcan. Names, dates, and lewd comments had been scrawled across the walls. Something unintelligible about sex and rock'n'roll adorned the mirror in bright red lipstick. A pair of panties had been discarded beneath one of the sinks.
She shuddered at the mess and hurried into a s
tall, her hands shaking as she latched the door and reached into her bra for the tiny bottle of chemical spray Jason had given her. Unable to juggle her cup, the bottle, and the cap, she dropped the cap to the floor, watching as it rolled into the stall next to her.
Deciding there was no way she was picking it up, she turn to the task at hand. Within a matter of seconds, she'd coated the outside of her plastic cup with the chemical compound. Even though Jason had told her the spray was undetectable, she still stared at the plastic cup, expecting something to happen.
Satisfied when it didn't, she slipped the little bottle back into her bra.
For several long minutes afterward, she stood there, trying not to think about what she had to do when she left the relative safety of the bathroom stall. If she thought about it, she wasn't sure she'd be able to follow through. Being here alone didn't feel right.
The feeling wasn't like the other night she'd found out Emma had been murdered, when something had just been off, but it came close. Her stomach was a leaden weight. Her ears buzzed. Fear refused to loosen its grip on her. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't seem to convince herself that things were going to work out fine. She wanted to believe tonight would go off without a hitch, she really did. But she didn't believe it.
The sad truth was that she was a coward. That's what it boiled down to. She was a huge coward.
But she didn't get to back out now. She didn't get to let fear rule her or give in to the panic beating at her breasts. If she didn't do what she'd come here for, all the work and worrying and stressing that Tristan had done would be for nothing. Emma Buford might never get justice, and countless others would die like all the rest of Anton and Paulo Vetrov's other victims.
How would she ever make that up to Tristan?
How would she ever forget the look on his face—like letting her leave tonight tortured him—out of her head if she chickened out now?
Rhapsody (The Teplo Trilogy #2) Page 17