Renegade Protector

by Nico Rosso

  Charlie rolled his eyes, then fixed his gaze on Mariana. But he still spoke to Ty. “Down here getting dirty in the country, Detective?”

  Ty shifted so he stood between Charlie and Mariana. “I like digging in the dirt. You find things. Sometimes treasure.” He stepped toward Charlie. “Sometimes rot, in the roots. And then you slice it out.”

  The crook was in his fifties, still fit. His scarred knuckles and replaced teeth proved he hadn’t spent his whole career in crime intimidating people with phone calls. The small twitch in his right eye told Ty that Charlie’s cool could splinter. “Detective...” he said like a warning.

  Ty bared his teeth. “Let’s get dirty.” Mariana backed him up.

  But the desk sergeant stood, hands out to defuse the situation. “Guys, this is not how we’re doing things...”

  “Absolutely right, Sergeant.” Charlie shrugged casually and stepped backward. His narrow gaze flicked between Ty and Mariana. “We’ll play when I want.”

  Ty stood his ground. “Or when you least expect it.”

  Charlie chuckled. “Not while you’re out of your jurisdiction.” During the syndicate man’s dismissal, Captain Phelps came through the rear doors, face tight with concern.

  Ty eyed the fifty-year-old captain and squared up with Charlie. “Maybe I’m applying for a new job.”

  Charlie laughed like a shotgun blast. “Good luck with that.” He turned on his heel and breezed out of the police station.

  The collar of Captain Phelps’s shirt seemed too tight for his bulging neck. His small blue eyes bore into Ty. “Detective Morrison, even if this isn’t your station, I expect you to treat private citizens with the same respect—”

  Ty shut the captain down with two words. “Seventh Syndicate.” He’d never discussed them with Mariana, but from the sober look on her face, she understood there was impact in the revelation.

  Captain Phelps tried to deflect. “That’s an accusation with no foundation—”

  “I’ve seen his work.” Ty was completely over hearing the watered-down press releases from Phelps. “I’ve done my job.”

  “Not under my command you haven’t.” The captain’s face reddened.

  Before Ty escalated things with a volley of insults related to how the captain ran his district, Mariana stepped in with an even voice. “Why were the suspects from yesterday transferred to another hospital?” Ty and the desk sergeant also waited for the answer.

  Phelps waved away the question. “I don’t know. The feds took over and won’t tell me anything.” It was a lie. Ty knew that if the FBI had been behind the transfer, Vincent would’ve been on top of it.

  “So you don’t know that Charlie Dennis is Seventh Syndicate.” Ty tried to keep himself as steady as Mariana remained, when all he wanted to do was tear the badge off the captain’s uniform. “And you have no idea where the shooters who tried to kill Mariana yesterday are. What do you know, Captain Phelps?”

  Despite his efforts, Ty raised his voice enough to bring another man through the rear doors. Pete emerged, in uniform and on duty. Phelps held up a finger to him, stopping the officer in his tracks. The captain glared at Ty. “I know that the real trouble didn’t start until you showed up. So maybe a call to your captain will convince you to get out of our town and back to your work in the city.”

  A mean-feeling grin broke out on Ty’s face. “Please call my CO.” Talking this way to a captain was downright insubordination, but his tenuous respect for this man had slipped to absolute zero once he’d seen Charlie Dennis in the building. “Turn up the pressure,” Ty taunted. “Let’s see who cracks first.”

  The captain locked his jaw. “Get out of my station.”

  Ty deliberately turned from Phelps to look at the sergeant. “Thanks for your help today, Sergeant. Be safe.” With Mariana at his side, Ty exited the building.

  As soon as they were outside, she exhaled. “Dios.” She kept her eyes ahead and her voice down. “You’ll have to explain what the hell the Seventh Syndicate is.”

  “They’re who’ve been trying to kill you. Looks like they own Phelps and came down here for some damage control after yesterday.” He fought from being overwhelmed with the thought of taking on the entire organization that several law enforcement agencies across state lines hadn’t been able to shut down.

  “Mariana!” Pete hustled out of the police station and to them. “What was going on there?”

  Ty and Mariana stopped to face the officer. Ty inspected his face, seeing genuine confusion and concern there. “You don’t know?”

  Pete dropped some of his police authority to speak with more emotion. “I get that you think we’re a bunch of country idiots, but we can handle our business.”

  “Then step up and handle it,” Ty urged him. “Mariana had made a complaint long before someone jumped her in the parking lot or tried to shoot her on her property.”

  Pete had no answer.

  Mariana took a gentler approach. “I know you know what you’re doing, Pete, but this is big. Bigger than what usually runs through town.”

  “The feds are here.” Ty watched the gravity of his words sink in to Pete. “We’re going to need everybody. Everybody who’s clean.” Pete’s mouth pursed and he glanced quickly at the police station. With a tell like that, Ty knew Pete had never worked the streets out of uniform. Ty also looked at the station, then back at Pete. “Question authority.”

  Pete blinked, stunned. Ty and Mariana left him like that. The officer still stood on the sidewalk when they reached her truck. The shocked expression had left his face by the time they drove past him. In its place was a somber frown. The man’s eyes were opening. Ty knew it was hard to discover what the officer now started to see.

  Mariana turned off the street with the police station. “Where now?”

  He took out his phone and texted Stephanie and Vincent about Charlie Dennis of the Seventh Syndicate paying Chief Phelps a visit. He bet the charities Innes paid to were shells for the syndicate. “Your place. Then San Francisco. We have names now.” No more waiting. “We have people to go after.”

  They reached her house and he collected his duffel, in need of fresh clothes. Mariana put out extra food for Toro and called Sydney to tell her where they were headed. Once she was done, she looked at Ty for more direction. The woman was fierce, and he’d seen how hard she’d fought to protect herself. But they were stepping into a different kind of battle as aggressors, on someone else’s turf. Tension showed in her face, and tightened her posture.

  He reached out and took her hand. “You don’t have to come.” Her palm was cold.

  But her voice was hot. “Frontier Justice started at my house. The home they attacked.” She shook her head. “They’ve got to find out that they picked the wrong woman.”

  “This time,” he told her, “we’re the ones in the shadows.”

  Her shoulders set with more confidence. A steely edge shone in her eyes. “Together.”

  “All the way,” he pledged. And he would keep her safe at any cost. Because they were definitely headed toward danger. “Take the gun.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Driving to San Francisco with the revolver and box of shells in her backpack behind her seat was like riding with a live cobra somewhere in the truck. The legality of it was questionable at best, but Ty’s badge might help smooth that over. The lethality, though, was unavoidable. The gun was hers, and she might have to use it.

  The closer they got to the city, the more traffic clotted around her. Her heart pounded harder, as if her veins were congested with the cars. People tailgated and cut each other off just to gain a few feet. The mass aggression started to infect her and she wondered if she’d be able to think straight at all once they reached San Francisco.

  Somehow immune, Ty leaned casually in the passenger seat, eyes not resting on one spot for too long. “What di
d you go to college for?”

  “History. I was going to map out how the Italian and Mexican American experience wove together in California.” She laughed. “Ironic, considering how little I knew about the land I was standing on.”

  “You weren’t going to learn any of that at school.”

  She hit the brakes as someone cut her off to veer across her lane. Cursing in Spanish barely helped vent the stress of the drive.

  Ty remained unfazed. “A BA in criminology barely taught me anything I used once I hit the streets.” Traffic slowed to a stop. Her grip tightened on the steering wheel. “They’re not hostile.” He waved his hand at the cars on the highway. “It’s just another way of being.”

  “Don’t know if I could ever get used to it.” The flow resumed and she eased the gas.

  “You don’t have to.” He reassured her with a gentle stroke up and down her thigh. “You’ve got two shovels in the bed of the truck that are crusted with the dirt of your land.”

  She’d forgotten about the shovels, but thinking of the mud she’d cleared to open a small irrigation channel helped slide her mind away from the anxiety of the drive. Ty had such an easy way of finding her.

  “There’s a good record store in my neighborhood. They know their stuff if you’re looking for anything in particular.” He spoke in a steady, calm stream. “I know a great place I think you’ll love. We’ll hit it up sometime. No liquor license, so we’ve got to bring our own bottle of wine. Or beer if that’s what you go for.”

  He was almost able to make her forget about the .44 Magnum she brought to a fight somewhere in the city. “Wine.”

  “It’s a date.” He straightened his jacket. “Wear something nice. No one will believe you’re out with me.”

  She scoffed. “I doubt that.”

  “Ask around. If I’m not eating at the station, I’m getting takeout for home.”

  “You wear that suit and we’ll show them all.” Though she didn’t have anything in her closet that equaled his level of style and a shopping trip would be in order.

  He growled approval. “It’s definitely a date.”

  But she knew that there were no guarantees. Not that she doubted Ty’s commitment. The man had proved as tenacious as the sunrise. What this night would bring, however, was completely unknown.

  The city grew closer and more freeways converged on their route. Night fell, transforming the cars to rows of white headlights and red taillights. Ty had them exit long before she was used to when going to San Francisco and navigated her through city streets that outpaced the traffic that slowed on the wide concrete ribbons they’d left behind.

  Staying in motion helped keep the anxiety down. After a hard turn, she heard the shovels clanking in the bed of the truck and gained confidence from that, too. Still, the pistol rode behind her, a diablo constantly reminding her that deadly trouble lay ahead.

  Ty checked over his phone, light from the screen illuminating his stern features. “No word from the others.” He turned it off and was lit only by the passing streetlights. Whatever thoughts were in his eyes were hidden from her, but his voice was calm. “First stop is my apartment.”

  “I knew this whole thing was just a ploy to get me to your place.” She thought back to the first time he entered her shop and wondered what that cup of coffee would have been like if she’d mustered the courage to ask him. But maybe this was the only way the two of them could be thrown together.

  He laughed. “I’m into really elaborate foreplay.” They pushed deeper into the city. He continued to give directions, and it was a good thing. She was completely lost by now in the neighborhoods. Sitting up straighter, he scanned the street. “This is it.” He pulled a garage door remote from his duffel and a large metal gate slid open at the base of a five-story apartment complex. She drove down into the fluorescent-lit concrete labyrinth. Exposed pipes snaked across the ceiling and down the walls. Cars of all varieties parked among thick pillars, scraped with a multitude of paint colors. Ty pointed out his spot and she brought the truck to rest.

  The elevator didn’t reach the parking lot, so they had to walk up the ramp to a lobby door next to the gate. Her phone rang just as Ty opened the door for her. “Private caller.” She showed him the screen. The door swung shut and he nodded for her to answer.

  The familiar rough voice of the bald man came through. “You missed me.”

  She fought the chill that the man evoked up her spine. “So you were the coward who rode off my back hill before the fight was over?”

  A beat of silence. The man growled a threat, “I might still be there.”

  “You’re not,” she answered. “Because the motion lights would be on you.” A lie, but he didn’t need to know that.

  “Keep trying.” The man forced a casual tone. “It’s cute. But your luck’s going to run out. Should’ve sold out when you could. Now it’s a guarantee that you’re going to fail. You’re going to die.”

  Fury tightened her shoulders and neck. Pure hate shone in Ty’s eyes. She spoke through clenched teeth into the phone. “You failed to stop me in the parking lot. You failed to kill me on my property. Your luck’s going to run out.”

  The bald man clipped out a laugh that didn’t sound as brave as she thought he wanted it to.

  Ty wrapped his hand around hers and she felt the vibrating strength in him. He leaned close to the phone. “When I have my foot on Charlie Dennis’s neck, I’ll be sure to tell him that you were the one who couldn’t get the job done.”

  The bald man’s voice came through a little too high-pitched. “Now, that doesn’t sound like a man of the law—” She hung up the phone.

  Ty released her hand and paced off for a moment before returning. He looked like a gladiator entering the ring. Fists flexing, face stony. If she didn’t know him, she’d be terrified by the deadly resolve that emanated from this man. But she did understand there was a human beneath the iron facade. Someone who cared for others, who put his life on the line for her. His gaze found her and softened. He stepped to her. “They’re not going to stop until we stop them. But we will stop them.”

  “Yes.” She matched his resolve, though still feeling the uncertain weight of the pistol in her backpack. “We will.”

  The door to the lobby opened and an Asian man in his late twenties bounded out and said casually as he passed, “What’s up, Ty?” He smiled sheepishly when he saw he’d interrupted a moment between her and Ty. But he couldn’t have had any idea they were just promising the destruction of a criminal syndicate to each other. “Later,” the man apologized and hurried down into the parking lot.

  “Later, Matt,” Ty called after him. The man threw up a wave without turning around. Ty caught the lobby door before it closed and swung it wide for her. The brief encounter with Matt had helped bring her back to the humanity of the normal world. She breathed easier as she stepped through into the somewhat-dated space, tiled in deep brown and gold-veined mirrors.

  The elevator door rattled open when Ty pushed the button and the two of them stepped into the narrow space. More smoked-glass mirrors surrounded her. She leaned back into Ty’s chest. His hand rested on her hip. “This building,” he said like a connoisseur, “is a sterling example of late-disco-era architecture. Only the finest brass.” He toed a brass rail that ran around the base of the elevator.

  “I can’t wait to see your shag carpet.”

  “It isn’t allowed,” he whispered conspiratorially, “but I sneaked my waterbed onto the fifth floor.”

  “Scandalous.”

  They reached the top floor and got out into a windowless white hallway. The walls were scuffed, carpeting well traveled. Each apartment had a little sconce above its number. The specter of the bald man’s phone call still chilled the air she breathed, but she found herself walking without hesitation beside Ty. When the intimidation had first started, each event would send h
er day into a tailspin. Now, with Ty’s help, she was able to process her fear and anger and keep moving.

  Ty unlocked his door and stepped in first. One hand hovered over where he wore his gun, the other he held out to slow her steps. Cautiously, he swept through the front room quickly, then waved her forward. She moved amid the comfortable couch and antique furniture. Most of the surfaces were clean, except for a pile of mail on a side table. Ty checked the other rooms, then returned as she was looking at a painting on the wall of a barn on fire in a field of dry grass.

  “My sister’s.” Pride filled his voice. “These, too.” There were several more, some abstract in earth tones, others of somewhat twisted pastoral scenes, like the first. “Grandpa made these.” He knocked his knuckles on the long table that held the mail and pointed at a sturdy coffee table in front of the couch. “Hungry?”

  She should be, not having had anything to eat since breakfast, but couldn’t locate any need for food. “Maybe later?”

  “I get that.” He went into the small kitchen that was separated from the living room by a brief counter/bar. “Just let me know.” After rummaging in the refrigerator, he pulled out a cup of yogurt and ate it standing up.

  A neatly organized dark wood bookshelf next to the television drew her attention. There were many technical books on law and procedure, then rows and rows of nonfiction history books. Most of them dealt with the Western expansion of the United States, and there were several volumes on California alone. “I might’ve read these if I’d stayed at college.”

  “You’re welcome to them. Anytime.” He finished his yogurt and poured out a handful of trail mix from a bag. A fantasy took over her mind. Her sitting in her chair by the window, reading one of these books, Toro comfortable on the rug next to her. And Ty shifting the floorboards of her house as he moved about his day.

  She put her backpack, weighed by the too-heavy cargo, on the couch. The fantasy seemed close enough to be possible, and impossible in the face of what the two of them stood against. “Thanks,” she said vaguely.