by Anya Summers
Yeah, his arm hurt like a son of a bitch at times. Lately, between the doctor mandated physical therapy and his own need to return to his post, he’d been pushing his body and abused muscles to the point of exhaustion. That was the thing no one told you about recovering from an injury or surgery. It could be damn painful business.
The first time he’d run after his injury, he had tossed the entire contents of his stomach afterwards.
The chief steepled his fingers as he stared. Jack liked the man. He had a weight of responsibility that would cripple most people and he made carrying it look easy. The chief finally responded. “Be that as it may, I would rather err on the side of caution before tossing you back to the wolves. Which brings me to the gentleman beside you. Detective, I would like you to meet Special Agent David Carson. He has requested assistance on a case he is working in the area and I think it would be perfect for you.”
Jack nodded. See? A fucking Fed. “Good to meet you, agent. What’s this case you want the JHPD’s help with?”
Special Agent David Carson looked to be in his forties, given the gray dotting his black hair, trimmed in a short military style cut. Carson shifted his tall, lean form in his seat so that he faced Jack. “Let me start by saying, I’m glad you survived the injuries. Chief Sheffield informed me about the particulars of the case. It can be tough to get hurt on the job and have to go back. I’m a handler overseeing an individual who is in the US Marshalls’ witness protection program. It is the Bureau’s belief that her life is in danger. Again, unfortunately. Your job will be to tail her, keep an eye on her at home and at work.”
“You mean you want me to babysit?” Jack’s voice dripped with derision. The case was on par with desk duty.
Carson’s face hardened, which turned his hawk like features uber sharp. His blue gaze contained a cold fury. “Look. She helped the Bureau bring down the Giancarlo organization ten years ago. This town is the third place she has started over in the last decade. We believe Dominic Travino, the man who took over the mob connections from Giancarlo, is after her. Even after going underground and shifting his operation into online scams, he’s never stopped hunting her.”
Well, fuck me.
The Giancarlo mob case? Jack remembered seeing all the reports on the news about the case. It made whoever the witness was infinitely more interesting, and the stakes in tailing her that much higher. He tried recalling all the particulars of that case but drew a blank. However, the name Travino rang a bell. The man had a particular skill set for vengeance, and meting out that vengeance in bloody, brutal ways. He would execute someone only after he’d beaten them until their face was unrecognizable and dental records the only thing that could identify the victim. “And you think Travino is in Jackson Hole trying to locate the witness? Why not move her?”
“Yes, we do. Recently, he was sighted on street cameras in Laramie. That’s far too close for comfort. The Bureau does not want to move the witness again, if at all possible. Don’t get me wrong, we will if we need to, considering what our witness did to help us break this case wide open. The Bureau and I would like her to be able to live her life without constantly having to look over her shoulder. Our objective at this time is to force Dominic Travino into the open so we can apprehend him. We don’t know how many of his hired thugs he has with him. But knowing Travino, I’d say he has at least half a dozen men.”
Jack studied the agent and leaned back in his chair. “You plan to use this person as bait to catch him. Is it the Bureau’s policy to put someone under witness protection in clear and present danger?”
Agent Carson nodded in the affirmative. “More or less, that’s the plan. She already is in danger. Her life has been on the line since the moment she agreed to help us out and became an informant. I hate even contemplating putting her life in the line of fire once more, considering how much we owe her. But until we catch him, she will be running for the rest of her life.”
“What’s the catch?” There was a hell of a lot more involved here. And this case was proving far more interesting than a simple tailing job.
The agent’s brow quirked. Probably didn’t expect that Jack would pick up on that. But he’d been in law enforcement for too long to realize that nothing was as simple as it seemed. Even the best laid plans encountered hiccups. “She can’t know you’re tailing her. I’ve worked with her over the last decade. If she knows that Dominic has caught her trail again, she’ll run, and it will get her killed.”
“What does it matter to you whether she lives or dies? And why aren’t the US Marshalls working on this? I thought they were in charge of WITSEC, the Witness Security Program.” There was a part of the equation Jack was missing. The agent was far too invested in this witness. Why would a Federal Agent be involved and not the US Marshalls? Not that he shouldn’t care about an individual who helped them crack a huge case, Jack did with each of his victims, but he also kept an emotional barrier up between them. Emotions clouded one’s perception. The fact that they kept creeping into his cases lately had almost gotten him killed.
“When this case first began, to collect the evidence needed to convict Raoul Giancarlo, my partner Nicolas went undercover. He spent an inordinate amount of time with the witness. He began to worry that his cover was blown and made me swear that if anything ever happened to him, I would ensure she was protected at all costs. And there’s not a day that has passed since he lost his life on that case when I haven’t watched over her. It’s the least I could do. When she was placed into the Witness Security Program, I requested the US Marshalls keep me involved in her protection.”
Jack respected the hell out of that. It was never easy to lose a partner. His first partner had died of a heart attack a few years back. Even under normal circumstances, it had been difficult. Losing a partner in the line of duty was not something a person would recover from well—if ever. “And who is the woman your partner fell in love with undercover?”
“Raoul Giancarlo’s daughter, Victoria.”
“We have Victoria Giancarlo living in Jackson Hole? Get the fuck out! But her image was splashed all over the place by the media. Surely, I would have recognized her if I crossed paths with her.” Jack tried to recall images of Victoria Giancarlo. They had been plastered across the headlines for months following the trial. All he truly remembered were her haunted, sad eyes the color of burnt caramel.
“Doubt it. She underwent some plastic surgery after Travino found her the first time in Santa Fe. He beat her pretty badly. Broke her nose and jawbone before my team and I reached her. The surgery altered her features enough that she can play it off as a case of mistaken identity. And the fucker still managed to get away.”
“And what is her alias now?” Jack asked, more intrigued by the case than he wanted to admit.
“Before I go any further, I need assurances that you are one hundred percent in on this. That I can trust the information shared in this office goes no further—not your partner, not the other officers in the department, not your girlfriend. It is essential that her identity remain hidden. There cannot be a casual word uttered on Main Street and a journalist catch a whiff of it. She would be hounded, and the media would be able to get a clear image of what she looks like now while Travino is still on the lam. My office, in coordination with the Marshalls, is working to catch this fucker.”
Jack blew out a breath. He glanced at the chief. The chief gave him a blasé stare, leaving the decision up to him. It wasn’t his normal protocol. The chief was doing it to give him a chance to ease back into work, to take a job that would likely be more boredom than anything else. If Jack said no, the chief would put him on desk duty for the foreseeable future. That was worse than having to babysit. They had tag-teamed him and backed him into a corner. With a nod of agreement, he said, “You have it.”
“Her name is Rayna Thompson.”
Shock riddled Jack. And he wasn’t shocked often. Rayna was Victoria Giancarlo? Rayna, who steered away from him every time he got near her?
Rayna, with her sweet little body and heart-shaped ass, about whom he’d wondered more than once what she looked like naked.
Carson continued, “I’ll give you all her particulars; where she works, lives. There’s a townhome next to hers that is available, where we plan to install you over the next week, get camera surveillance installed and so on, as soon as we get a hold of the owner. The Bureau will pay for the housing and anything you might need in that vein. We’ll want to install surveillance at her home and places of employment, if possible. I’ll give you access to my files on Travino. Unlike her father, who tended to do his dirty work in the shadows, Travino has no problem airing the dirty laundry. Two years ago, we discovered a film of one of his executions on social media video sites.”
“I know the owner of the townhome personally. He’s a friend of mine. Served in the army for eight years and understands classified ops. If part of the plan revolves around installing me next door to the witness,” Jack struggled to keep the shock from his features regarding Rayna, “I believe we should bring him in on this operation, or at least advise him. He’s worked with the department before and is trustworthy not to go blathering to anyone. He’s also her boss at one of her places of employment.”
“You’ve met her?” Agent Carson asked, his eyes narrowing slightly as he studied Jack.
Not as much as Jack would have liked, he thought—in the physical sense, anyhow. He’d watched her at the club on more than one occasion. First, because she was a beautiful woman wearing next to nothing in club uniform: a skin tight, black halter top with the club logo across her ample chest, a pair of Daisy Duke style jean shorts, and a black collar and cuffs. Wearing that, paired with her hickory colored hair that fell in soft waves around her shoulders, she was a knockout. Of course Jack had looked. Not doing so would be like asking the sun not to shine. Second, she rubbed him the wrong way with her whole hands-off vibe and piss off attitude. She didn’t scene with anyone—that he knew about, anyway. Since she began working at the club eight months ago or so, she hadn’t expressed interest in anyone. It made her intriguing and different from the majority of the women who attended their club. But at least now he understood her behavior a bit more.
“We have friends in common,” Jack explained. He wouldn’t call the two of them friends, more like strained acquaintances. In this instance, it was a moot point. He would tail her, guard her back until they caught the perp.
Carson cocked his head to the side. “That will work in our favor, I think. I’d want to run a background check on the landlord first. I ran a check on the business, but this is another reason why I wanted to work with local law enforcement. You guys understand the area and the people here better than I do. But I agree, if we can work with the landlord, all the better.”
“We have Spencer Collins’ background check info on file from the last case he worked with us.”
Agent Carson gave Jack a patronizing smile. “Our background checks are a little more thorough. Get me his info and I will run him through our system. Then we can get you moved in this week.”
“Understood.” The Feds got all the cool toys. And yeah, Jack was green with envy and would love to have access to their system on some of his cases.
Jack pulled out his phone. Luckily, he still had Spencer’s personal info saved from the last case he had worked with the department on, when Garrett had been blackmailed by an ex-girlfriend. Jack had never deleted it, on some level he must have known he would need the information again.
The hum of eager anticipation to sink himself into this case helped him ignore the twinges of pain in his bicep. He didn’t like that Carson wanted to keep Rayna oblivious that a monster was hunting her. If it were him, he would want to be informed of the threat, and would be royally pissed that he wasn’t apprised of it. However, the decision ultimately rested with Carson, the Bureau, and the Marshalls as to the best course of action.
Her ignorance would make the case more challenging. The ploy of installing him next door meant he would be in her sphere a lot. And if his body revved to life in a way it hadn’t in months at the thought of being near her, he disregarded it. Rayna was a case, and only that. There was an unwritten rule about not getting involved as it tended to cloud one’s judgement. Although, it had floored him that he’d missed the fact that Rayna was Victoria Giancarlo, daughter of the famed New Jersey mob boss, Raoul Giancarlo.
In his defense, more often than not, his gaze had been trained more on her ample cleavage spilling over the top of her uniform, or her heart-shaped ass as she strode away, than on her face.
The fact that she made his dick twitch whenever she neared was a trifling matter. Jack had learned long ago not to let that part of his anatomy do his thinking for him.
Chapter 2
One week later
Rayna Thompson studied the moving truck parked in the driveway next door through the wooden blinds, lifting a slat up for a better viewing angle, the way she did everything—with suspicion.
The townhome had been vacant ever since Cora and Milo moved in with Garrett last year. As happy as she was for Cora at finding love again, Rayna missed having her and Milo as her neighbors. In the space of time they’d lived next door, she and Cora had become friends. Really good, close friends. The ride or die type who would help you hide the body if it was ever needed.
It was curious that the townhome had sat vacant for so long and made her wonder to whom Spencer Collins, her landlord and coincidentally one of her bosses, had decided to lease the place after letting it sit empty.
All she glimpsed through the window was a pair of muscular, sturdy legs, and a clearly defined male rear in gray basketball shorts that fell to his knees as the man bent over in the process of lifting furniture up. Who knew a guy’s legs could be sexy? They weren’t chicken legs either, which so many men had, but sturdy affairs that made Rayna think of a soccer player’s sexy legs. She wanted to shout out that he should lift with his knees and not his back because the way he was doing it, his back would not be happy with him over the abuse.
But if she did that, she would give away that she was spying on him—or rather, ogling his mighty fine behind.
Rayna let the blind slat fall back into place with a sigh. If the front was as attractive, perhaps she should invite the girls over to have watch parties, where they could ogle him together. Granted, most of the girls all had their own man to ogle daily, whereas she was one of the last remaining single gals. Hell, even Meghan, whom Rayna had assumed would be her single buddy for quite some time, had succumbed and married Spencer Collins a little over three weeks ago on Memorial Day weekend.
Besides, she would have to save the ‘hot man ogle watch party’ for another day. Duty called. Didn’t it always? Last night she’d pulled a shift at the Cuffs & Spurs Club waiting tables and didn’t get out of there until three this morning. Which meant she was bleary eyed after only four hours of sleep and would like nothing more than to crawl back beneath the covers and zonk out for a few more hours. Except she liked being able to eat. And if she didn’t work, she didn’t eat. Which was why she had to get ready for her second job, what she considered her day job—the lunch shift at the Grand Teton Diner near Main Street where she worked three lunch shifts a week: Friday, Saturday, and Monday. When she wasn’t working at the diner, she spent her time online day trading and building her savings.
The savings she toiled at building up kept the wolf from the damn door. They were savings she had been provided by the federal government and which she diligently slogged to increase. Her job as a server at the diner and club paid for everything else.
She’d learned how to manipulate the stock market from her father. Thanks to his business acumen, she’d become educated in the art of investing wisely, using the market to make a living, and how to transfer funds with no one the wiser. Before the shit had hit the fan with her family, Rayna had drained the bank accounts that held her inheritance from her grandparents and transferred the funds to a Swiss bank account. Once
she’d moved them, those funds disappeared from the tentacle reach of her father.
She never used or withdrew funds from that account. The money stored in the Swiss account was flagged for emergencies only. She kept that emergency fund, not dipping into it, in the event that she ever had to run and disappear. Again. Because if there happened to be a next time, she would need the money to pay a surgeon to truly alter her face.
Besides, the government funds kept her viable. All she had to do to earn it? Betray her entire family.
Rayna squelched the ever-present guilt over her actions. Nothing could be changed. She lived with the consequences of what she had done—that she had put her father, and her entire extended family, in prison. There was no absolution for her betrayal. No moving past the fact that she’d destroyed her family. Deep down, she acknowledged her actions had been the right course to take, that she had saved lives and helped bring criminals to justice. And lost her entire family in the bargain.
She retraced her steps through her modest size living room with its cheerful, fire engine red sofa set and ebony coffee table with a modern flair. Both were new, along with everything inside her place. Each time Travino found her, she was forced to run and start over. She took two suitcases, a backpack stuffed with essentials, and that was it. Everything else she donated to charities. She’d filled the living room with bookshelves stuffed with the latest paperbacks. A matching media stand held a reasonably sized flat screen television. It wasn’t one of those monolithic monstrosities that guys typically lusted after.
But since she had sworn off dating, she wasn’t trying to attract any men into her life, so she needed something to do with her nights off from the club. She had a thing for disaster films, HGTV, and baking shows.
Except the rub here lately was that she wished for someone to share the load, someone to lean on who wouldn’t crumble under the burden of her life, who would hold her in the dead of night through the worst of her nightmares. Those were typically dreams of her past, distorted images that left her sweating and in tears.