Loving Leo (The Romanovsky Brothers Book 3)

by Burns, Trevion

  “Mitch, I’ve asked you two times.” Victor held up two fingers, shaking them. “Are we going to try for three?”

  Mitch’s spine straightened. He lifted his chin.

  “Shut. Her. Up.”

  With a sharp nod, Mitch left the room, already pattering away on his cell phone.

  Reggie avoided his father’s probing gaze. Even as he heard him push away from the desk, saw him stand and felt the heat of his body as he came in close, Reggie kept his eyes lowered.

  Close enough to touch, Victor’s towering presence was always jarring, and that was never truer than it was in that moment. Reggie felt his bottom lip trembling.

  “I asked you to do one thing, Reginald. One thing. Acquire Novsky.” Victor stepped away, running his hand over his mouth before charging forward. “I asked you to do one thing!”

  Reggie jolted, pushing his eyes closed.

  “You can’t even do that, and you have the audacity to challenge me in front of someone else?” Victor threw a finger toward the closed door of the office. “How dare you!”

  Reggie’s blurry gaze locked to his father’s Italian leather shoes. “I’m close, Dad. I’m so close to getting Novsky, I can almost taste it. You should have seen me at the meeting today, Dad—” Reggie lifted his eyes and met Victor’s gaze just in time to catch the back of his father’s hand as it flew across his cheek. Reggie’s head flew to the side and he stumbled back as the power of the blow nearly took him off his feet. Victor followed, snatching the cuffs of his jacket in tight fists.

  He yanked Reggie forward until they were nose to nose, spit flying from his lips as he spoke, shaking him. “Val is becoming a captain of his industry, a magnate, not just more rich and powerful than me, but every billionaire in Manhattan! Stop him.”

  “I’m trying, Dad…” Reggie’s eyes fell once more.

  “If the Romanovskys become more powerful than us, there will be nothing we can do to keep them quiet. Maintaining supremacy over them is paramount, not just to our lives, but to my election.”

  “Dad. I will get Novsky. I swear to you I’ll get it.” His breathing picked up. “And… believe me… the Romanovskys will never reveal the truth. Zoey Black is pregnant with Val’s kid. They’re about to be married. Val would sooner die before he’d let the truth come out.”

  King’s breathing slowed, but he still glowered at Reggie. After several moments, he released his hold on Reggie’s jacket before running his hands along the lapels, straightening them.

  “You had better be right, Son,” Victor said. “Or I’ll see to it that you go down right alongside them.”

  “You can trust me.” Reggie kept his head lowered as he made his vow. “I’m going to make you proud of me, Dad. No matter what, I’m going to make you proud.”

  Victor turned away, scoffing a laugh. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Reginald.” He plopped down into the seat behind his desk, taking in Reggie’s curled frame. “Please get out of my sight.”

  ***

  Jessica was thankful that her private office was located in the Financial District, just a few blocks away from Novsky. It had given her time to set up a last-minute meeting with her supervisor before heading to the party.

  She leaned against her desk, one of many in the abandoned police precinct that was now utilized only by her as a private office, facing her boss.

  Supervisory Special Agent Sam Harper had made the drive out to Lower Manhattan from the FBI’s Headquarters in Federal Plaza. To ensure she didn’t get made, Jessica never met her superiors at the corporate office.

  She bit the corner of her lip as the audio she and Chet had picked up that night wafted into the air, tapping the heels of her feet against the concrete floor.

  Harper considered her when the audio finished, arms crossed tight over his chest, muscles pushing against his button down shirt.

  Jessica nearly groaned when he shook his head.

  “It’s not enough to request an arrest warrant,” he said, his Asian accent sneaking in between every other word, betraying his first generation ancestry.

  “King hiring a hit man to kill an innocent woman isn’t enough?” Jessica asked.

  “We’re not going to swoop in on him with charges that will only leave him with a few scratches, B. We’re trying to cripple him. Tear him limb from limb. We’re trying to scatter those limbs all over the country, burying them under every prison that has ever been built. We’ve still got guys looking into his ties to the mafia and the many, many, many illegal campaign contributions. We have to wait them out before the sting, and even if we didn’t…” He pointed to the computer where she’d just played the audio. “This is still not enough.”

  “Angie Colt is an innocent woman. If she gets killed because we were dragging our feet, waiting for the evidence we need to drown King, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “Since when are you such a bleeding heart?”

  Jessica shifted.

  She couldn’t tell him that Angie Colt was the reason this case had been reopened. That, without the new information Jessica had stolen from Angie, the death of the Blacks—and King’s connection to it—would still be a cold case. That, without Angie, they would’ve never known that, during his reign as Chief of Police at the NJPD’s 5th Precinct ten years earlier, corruption and cover-ups had run rampant under King’s order. Angie Colt had inadvertently blasted open a dead end that could sink a Presidential candidate.

  Angie, however, had not been after Victor King. She’d only been trying to help Zoey. Because of that, the thought of her being hurt made Jessica physically sick. She was aware it was making her more emotional than she normally would be. If Harper found out that emotion was spawned by a connection to Angie, he would deem Jessica unfit, blinded by emotion, unable to handle the weight of this investigation. He would pull her in an instant.

  “It could take months, years to bury King, that’s all I’m saying,” Jessica said. “Are we really going to allow this monster to sit in our Oval Office? Wasn’t the possibility of this monster sitting in our Oval Office the very reason this case was fast tracked? How many people will die while we’re sitting on our hands?”

  “How many have died at his hand already?” Harper shrugged. “Too many to count. The only problem? We can’t prove it.”

  Jessica could see that Harper was as frustrated as she was. Quietly monitoring King’s every move for a decade was bound to aggravate anyone. The bureau always took their time gathering as much evidence as possible, piling one criminal charge on top of another, making sure they’d built a case so strong that once they finally swept in, there would be no choice left but to bury the suspect under the jail. The plan had been to start a slow crawl, and then sweep the rug out from under King when he least expected it.

  Now that he was running for President, time was no longer on their side, and they had no choice but to take him down after one last push to gather all the evidence they could.

  Harper sighed. “B, I want him too. I want him bad, but…” He faltered. “Even if this audio was enough to convict, which it isn’t, we still couldn’t use it because we can’t prove it is King speaking. The sound is also jumbled and breaks in and out at various intervals. It’s not admissible, and even if it were, King is careful not to use words that are actionable.”

  “Yeah, he knows better than that, doesn’t he?” Jessica asked. “Men with ice water running through their veins usually do.”

  He turned to go for the door. “Please don’t call me unless you have something we can use.”

  “We both know that King has killed hundreds,” Jessica’s voice rose, stopping Harper in his tracks. She waited for him to face her again, and he did, sighing deeply. “Maybe even thousands of people, Harp. Even if the blood isn’t on his hands. We know about his deep ties with crime bosses and drug lords. We know that the illegal donations to his campaigns, made by these people, date back to his years in city council.”

  “And not a single deposit slip to prove it.
”

  Jessica ignored that. “All in exchange for police protection, because he controls the NJPD and the NYPD. We know the mob is bankrolling his run for President because they value that control. That they’ve been bankrolling him for decades. How many informants has he silenced? How many fake alibis? How many people does he own? Does he own the Romanovskys? Why haven’t we arrested this son of a bitch?”

  “B, that’s why I put you on this case. To find something that is enough. You’ve yet to do that. All you’ve done is play me an audio recording so cryptic, any judge worth his salt would throw it out in an instant. Call me when you’ve got clear audio of King confirming that he knows who killed the Blacks, and that he helped to cover it up. Call me when Tony Romanovsky is ready to talk about the coordinated corruption that went on at 5th. Call me when Knox Jefferson shows up, ready to talk about where that mug shot went, and why that streetlight footage was altered. This…” He pointed to the computer. “Is garbage. I put you on the Romanovskys because they can get us somewhere. If you nail this family, we can use them to nail King. I turn my head to your process, because I trust your process. I truly do. Having said that, I’m begging you to stop wasting my time with this Harriet the Spy bullshit.”

  “So… I guess you’re not going to give me permission to arrest Governor King tonight?”

  Harper didn’t dignify that with a response. “Did I make a mistake going to bat for you to get this thing reopened?”

  “It’s been less than two days, and I already have an in with the Romanovsky family and Novsky,” she said. “I’m on my way to a party with them right now. By the end of the week, I will close this case. So fuck you for saying that.” She nodded at him. “You know, there’s a reason we nicknamed you Harp.”

  Harper smirked, letting that blow by. “Case closed by the end of the week, huh? Seems ambitious.”

  “I’ll get you your confession.”

  “Get me my arrest warrant,” Harper said. “Your career might just depend on it.”

  ***

  Jessica had no idea when she’d started to care about Angie Colt.

  It was early in the party, and Leo hadn’t arrived, but the rest of Roman’s friends and family had, drinking and dancing as hip hop music blasted from the sound system in the darkened lounge. A lamp cast a dull red light on Angie Colt from where she was bent over the lounge’s only pool table, her cat-eye glasses falling to the tip of her nose. Even with that blond behemoth Roman bent over the pool table behind her, Jessica still found herself glaring at anyone who came too close to Angie.

  Unable to take another second of that strange maternal feeling, Jessica paid for her drink and hurried outside. The cold air encircled her, but spring was coming, so the nip wasn’t unbearable. Still, she tugged her cropped leather jacket around her breasts, eyes searching the Soho street packed with intoxicated kids talking gibberish that made her feel old. Cars honked nonstop and police sirens roared in from what sounded like every angle.

  Catching sight of a black sedan parked at the corner, Jessica jetted down the sidewalk, banging her fist on the tinted window, scoffing in disgust when it rolled down.

  “Rodney,” she spat, leaning down to get a look inside the car. “You’re supposed to be watching Angie Colt. Why aren’t one of you in the lounge fucking watching her?”

  “We’re watching the door, Borgia. We know King’s go-to men. We know what they look like.”

  “Funny thing about the mob,” Jessica said. “There’s a shitload of them. How the fuck can you say you know what they all look like? She is in danger. I need eyes on her, and I don’t have the luxury of looking over my shoulder every five minutes to make sure you’re doing your fucking job.”

  Rodney lifted his hands, cradling a coffee and a burger. “Fine.” He frowned, grumbling, “Poisonous bitch,” once she turned away.

  Jessica ignored that, stomping back inside the lounge. Once inside, her eyes shot straight to the pool table.

  Angie was alone now, banging the end of her pool stick against the floor, frowning at the balls on the table, contemplating her next shot. She had no idea that there was a man in the shadows behind her, glaring at the back of her head, closing in with determined eyes.

  Jessica’s heart blasted with fury, and she was across the lounge in seconds, taking the man’s arm just as he was reaching for Angie, kicking his leg out from under him and slamming him to the floor. He hit the ground, face down, screaming as Jessica craned his arm behind his back and buried her high heel in his neck.

  “Who do you work for?” Jessica spat down at him, bending his elbow harder and eliciting another scream. “Who sent you, you son of a bitch?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talk—”

  She bent his elbow more.

  “Ow! Jesus, fuck!”

  Jessica bared her teeth. “I saw you sneaking up behind her. Who the fuck are you?”

  “She has a piece of paper in her hair. I was just trying to help her.”

  Stunned, Jessica’s eyes shot up to Angie, who was now watching her, green eyes wide behind her glasses. Sure enough, a brown piece of paper peeked out from Angie’s curls. It was the same color as her hair, blending in and almost invisible to the naked eye.

  Jessica released the man and leapt to her feet, giving him apologetic eyes as he stumbled to his own, cradling his elbow.

  “Crazy bitch,” he wheezed, too fearful to say the words with any heart.

  Jessica watched him hurtle out of the door. Rodney stepped inside a second later.

  Angie held the pool stick out at her side while pushing her cat-eye glasses up with the other. “As awesome as that was, I gotta ask, Jess, what the hell was that?”

  Jessica’s breathing slowed. “I thought he was going to hurt you.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  When Jessica didn’t answer, Angie’s face immediately sobered, realization narrowing her eyes with understanding.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “King has your name in his mouth, and he’s agitated.” Jessica lowered her voice. “Stay close to Roman.”

  Angie’s eyes widened again, but she nodded.

  “In fact, don’t leave his side. Don’t even leave the house.”

  Angie swallowed, nodding again.

  “Keep your phone close and charged.”

  Angie’s breathing picked up.

  Sensing Angie’s fear, Jessica ignored her heart when it stopped beating again. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” she said. “I promise.”

  Angie swallowed thickly. “Why does King want me?”

  “He doesn’t want you. He wants silence. He wants a muzzle on anyone who knows too much. Kind of like the muzzle he’s put on every member of this fucked-up family.”

  “Why does my muzzle end with me dead in a ditch?” Angie’s voice picked up.

  “It won’t.” Jessica lifted her eyebrows. “As long as you stay close to Roman, and stay indoors, like I just asked you to. Don’t tell him why, though. It’s important that we don’t make him suspicious.”

  “How can I stay close to him and stay in doors all at once? He’s going to leave the house eventually.”

  “So let him, but you stay inside.”

  “Oh God…”

  “Calm down. I’m taking care of it.” Jessica’s eyes searched the lounge. “Where did Roman go?”

  “Bathroom.”

  “Has he seen the case report you stole from my office?”

  “No.”

  “I know you keep that red folder in your bag.”

  “I burned it,” Angie said. “I moved everything to a disk. There’s no way Roman saw any of it.”

  “Get rid of the damn disk.”

  “Okay.”

  It was the most agreeable Angie had ever been. Terror had a funny way of doing that to people.

  “I don’t think I need to say how damaging it would be to this case if Roman ever found that mug shot. The Romanovskys can’t know that we’re lookin
g into the family.”

  Angie blinked, eyes widening. “What mug shot?”

  Jessica looked away in disbelief, taking a moment before looking back. “You just told me Roman hasn’t had access to the files.”

  “He hasn’t—”

  “Now you’re telling me the mug shot is missing?”

  “I must have overlooked it,” Angie corrected herself, but her eyes told another story.

  Jessica didn’t have the energy to chide her, catching Rodney’s gaze across the lounge. “We have eyes on you, but that doesn’t mean go lax, Angie. Have Roman take you home right now and stay inside. Stay alert. I’m working as fast as I can to close this.”

  “You’re a good friend, Jess,” Angie said. “Thank you.”

  “I’m not your friend.” Since the moment they’d met in high school, Jessica had never had the heart to push Angie away completely, and because of that, she was now responsible for the target on her back. She’d never make that mistake again. “I’m doing my job. We are not friends—” She straightened when Roman approached and curled his arms around Angie from behind.

  Angie looked up at him. “Roman, can we go home?—” She took a deep breath. “I know we just got here but… I just got super tired.”

  Roman squeezed her. “Of course, Mama.”

  Angie nodded, taking the kiss Roman pushed to her forehead while looking at Jessica with worried eyes.

  Jessica waved good-bye and watched them leave. Rodney followed about ten feet behind them, nodding to Jessica before he left the lounge too.

  “Am I crazy?” Leo asked, stepping into her view out of nowhere. “Or did I just see you put some grown-ass man on his back?”

  Jessica’s wide eyes met his, and she sputtered. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “I just got here. Just in time to see that Bruce Lee dropkick.” He squinted at her. “What the hell did I miss?”