Justice for Francesca (Six Paths to Justice #1)

1. Someone Better Be Dead

1

SOMEONE BETTER BE DEAD

Tripoli

“ S omeone better be dead if you’re calling me at”—he glanced at his phone through barely open eyes—“five a.m. on a Sunday.”

There was a pause before the bar manager of Elysium spoke. “In about two seconds, you’re going to wish you hadn’t said that.”

Instantly, he was sitting straight up in bed. “What?” The caller made a nonverbal noise of confirmation. “There’s seriously a dead body? I was just pissed because I’d barely been asleep for two hours after I’d been awake for almost twenty-four.” Tripoli put the phone on speaker, set it on his bedside table, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Elbows to his knees, he scrubbed his face with his hands. “What happened? Was it a medical emergency? An overdose?”

“No. Tripoli, you better hop a plane as soon as possible. I can’t even begin to explain what Tilly found. This was definitely a murder.”

The bang of a flash grenade. A blinding light. Pain in his ears. Smoke. He fell to the ground. He saw outlines through the smoke of other bodies falling. Muted screams. Gunfire.

Shaking his head to try and clear it, he watched the scene shift.

Moaning. Someone else had been hit. A form in fatigues crouched over another form lying in the foliage. An arm in the middle of the path. No body. Just an arm. An arm in fatigues.

Suddenly, he was back in his bedroom, the flashback departing like fog being sucked up into a vacuum cleaner. There was no time to get lost in the past. His people needed him to shut his shit down and take care of things like he always did. Control was the name of the game when he’d been a Navy medic. Assess the wound. Stop the bleeding. Prevent infection. Provide aftercare. Observe. Reassess. He carried that same philosophy over into his everyday life as well, whether as the boss or with the people he loved.

“You said Tilly found the body?” he asked.

“Yes. Tilly and Triumph came in to clean after the private party from last night. She found the woman in the trapeze room.”

“Jesus Christ!” He scrubbed at his face again. Tilly had been one of eight victims of a sex trafficker two years ago and had yet to recover from the trauma. How much more could the poor girl take? “How’s she doing?”

Michael blew out a breath. “Shaken. Hysterical at first, but Triumph calmed her down. She’s in your office lying down.”

“Have you called the police?”

“No. They found the body ten minutes ago. I was just waking up when Triumph texted me. Calling the police was the next thing on my list.”

Tripoli nodded to himself, even though Michael couldn’t see him. “Good plan. You said the body is in the trapeze room? Do we know the woman?”

There was another pause. Up to this point, Michael’s voice had resonated short and clipped. Bordering on anger at the inconvenience the body caused? His response to the question seemed to lose some of its steam. “It’s… difficult to say.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Blinking the last of the sleepiness out of his eyes, he stopped himself. “You know what, never mind. Not important right this second.” With quick precision, Tripoli outlined what he wanted Michael to do. “Have Triumph call the police. Tell him to ask for Quint Axton. Hopefully, he’s available. If not, we’ll deal with whoever we get, but I know Quint, which might make some of this go smoother.

“Remind him and Tilly to touch nothing. Get to the club. All three of you stay in my office until the police arrive. At that point, they’ll probably separate you. Don’t panic. It’s normal.”

Michael grumbled under his breath. “Yeah, I’m familiar with police procedure.”

“Text the staff. If they had a shift tonight, tell them the club is completely shut down to all employees until Wednesday, no exceptions. I’ll pay them in full until we reopen.”

The bar manager’s confidence appeared to return. “What about the private party tonight?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of canceling it and making it up to them.”

“You think we’re going to be able to open for the private party on Wednesday?”

“Probably not,” Tripoli guessed, “but I don’t want to cause panic and gossip by saying we’re shut down indefinitely.”

A short bark of laughter floated down the line. “With this crew? You know I’m going to get a million return texts asking me what the tea and scandal is. What do you want me to tell them?”

Tripoli’s brain was wide awake and churning. “Tell them we have a burst pipe and have water damage. If someone needs something or has a question, they should call me directly.”

“Got it. And the patrons?”

He thought about it for a moment. “Say nothing just yet. We don’t open again until Thursday. Let’s see what happens today, then we’ll worry about next week. We’ll deal with the private party on Wednesday first, then worry about what we tell the general membership.”

Once again, the bar manager's voice sounded like he was going to be physically ill. “Tripoli, I swear to God. I checked every room last night. I checked every exit. We were clear and locked tight. I don’t know if I could have done something different, but she wasn’t there when I went through the club.”

“Michael, listen to me. You’re not responsible for the actions of someone else.” A sudden pothole in the road of his brain caused Tripoli to pause. “I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta ask. It wasn’t you, was it? Because I’d rather know and be able to help you somehow. I can get you a good attorney?—”

“No! I promise I didn’t do this. I understand why you’re asking, though, and I’m not offended. Police are going to ask the same thing eventually.” Michael sighed. “Fuck! This is going to get messy. I need to think.” The last comment was mumbled under his breath. “You gave me a chance when not a lot of others would. I would never disrespect that, and now I feel like?—”

“Michael! We’ve discussed your family several times over the last two years. You’ve got nothing to apologize for, ever. You answer only for yourself. Remember that,” Tripoli reminded him. He glanced at the clock. “All right. I’ll be with you as soon as possible. I have no idea when the next flight out will be. May have to call in a favor.”

“We’ll hold down the fort, Trip.” Michael cleared his throat. “As soon as I hang up, I’ll call Triumph and proceed as planned. When I get to the office, I’ll pull up the roster from last night as well as the guest list. The more I can have ready for the cops, the faster they’ll have what they need, and the faster this gets resolved.” He hung up without saying goodbye.

The bang of a flash grenade went off to his left. Blinding light, his arm raised to protect his eyes. His eardrums popped hard. He fell to the ground, covering his head when he hit the jungle floor. There was muffled yelling, gunfire, then screaming. He tried to rise, but everything was spinning. Looking up through the smoke, he searched for his team. Chaos. Mayhem. Oz. Tiguan. Honcho. Keys. He crawled and crawled, looking for them, calling out, but everything was hazy and muffled, like being underwater.

Then, as if nothing had happened, Tripoli lifted his head and found himself back in his darkened apartment. He allowed himself another minute, sitting on the edge of the bed, his hands dangling between his knees. With a physical shake, he stood naked, crossed to the window, and opened the blackout curtains. His arms at full extension in the window frame, he gazed out at the city he had called home for the last three years. Below him, Los Angeles was barely waking up. The smoggy haze filtered the sunrise over the city.

Tripoli sighed and returned to his phone. Standing there wishing for things to be different wasn’t going to make it so, and that wasn’t really his style anyway. Shit goes wrong. Don’t bitch about it. Don’t make excuses. Don’t assign blame. Doesn’t matter who is responsible; just fix it. His brain was already listing, sorting, and organizing what he needed to do.

First things first. He needed to get to San Antonio promptly. A quick search of the airlines showed the first available flight out of LAX to San Antonio was at three in the afternoon. He needed to get out sooner. His thoughts flew to Lobo. Lobo’s boss had a jet. Maybe he could buy a ride and possibly even some help from Lobo’s team.

His fingers flew to his contacts. On the second ring, a deep voice answered. “Problem?”

“Lobo. Sorry. I know it’s early, especially with you being at the club last night, but I have a situation. I’m wondering if you can do me a huge favor. I can pay for it.”

“I haven’t even been to bed yet. No worries.” There was a soft murmur in the background. Lobo must have covered the speaker on the phone, but Tripoli still heard a soft, “Go back to sleep, princess.” Lobo’s voice returned to normal volume. “What do you need?”

“I need to get to Elysium. The first commercial flight isn’t until three p.m., and my employees found a body at the club. I need?—”

“How soon can you leave?”

“Thirty minutes. I need to get to my staff as fast as possible, especially since Tilly found the body.”

“Jesus, that poor kid. What else can go wrong for her?”

“That’s what I said,” Tripoli agreed. “Just tell me what I owe you, and I’ll transfer it immediately.”

“We’ll worry about that another time. I’ll be in touch.” Lobo clicked off the line.

As soon as the line cleared, Tripoli went to his contacts and made another call.

The phone was just about to be transferred to voicemail when a voice, raspy with sleep, picked up. “Yeah?”

“Hey, Cosmos. I’m sorry to bother you so early, but… we’ve got a situation at Elysium.”

“What’s going on?”

“Michael just called. They found a body in the club.”

“They found a what?”

“You heard me.”

“Fuck,” Cosmos muttered.

“I need you to get to San Antonio yesterday. I’m on my way there myself.”

Two hours later, Tripoli was boarding a corporate jet along with Lobo, or TB as his co-workers called him, and a co-worker named Steel. The two men worked for Tribe Corporation, and they were going to hang out for a day or two to see if he needed their help. If not, they would head back. Tripoli didn’t know exactly what Tribe did. They went by nicknames, they lived in the building they worked in, and they didn’t advertise their services. All of that told him he probably didn’t want to know what they did. One thing he did know was that they exposed the sex trafficking ring that had abducted Tilly, which meant they were the reason Tilly and the other women were free.

A significant pain to the back of his head. Cold asphalt beneath his cheek. The blurry vision of a black high-heeled shoe on its side in the light from an open car door.

A shudder rolled through his body at the new flashback, reminding him of another woman who had been taken. Exhaustion pushed at him, but he refused to allow the past in right now. If he gave in, he’d relive Fleur’s kidnapping in an infinity loop, and it wouldn’t matter that she’d been returned because even that came with nightmares.

Tripoli thanked Lobo again. “I appreciate this.”

Lobo waved it off. “You helped clean up the aftermath of Tabitha and Gendry at The Library. The club is back open. More importantly, Tilly is safe, my Flame is safe…” He flashed a questioning look. “By the way, how’s your woman doing?”

“What woman?”

Lobo raised an eyebrow. “Don’t give me ‘What woman?’. Sweet little submissive you got conked over the head for, then haunted the hospital for nearly a week over. That woman.”

A sterile recovery room. A blonde woman connected to an IV, dark shadows under her eyes. Hair crudely chopped at the base of her neck.

Tripoli fought his way back again. “Oh. You mean the undercover cop.” Tripoli shrugged, trying to keep any emotion off his face and out of his voice. “No idea. Never saw her after she was discharged from the hospital.”

“Bullshit!” TB exclaimed in surprise.

“No bullshit.”

“You never even talked to her?”

“Nope. She up and disappeared.”

“Odd. I assumed she would have been hanging around, asking all sorts of questions since she was investigating the same case we were. Figured you two would be married with a couple of kids by now.”

“Wasn’t like that.”

“Oh, it was definitely like that. There were fucking tweeting birds over both your heads every time you looked at each other. Might have even been a singing princess or two in the background.”

“Not sure what you were looking at, but there was nothing between us.”

Lobo waved a hand. “Whatever. You don’t spend nearly twenty-four seven at a woman’s bedside if it ‘wasn’t like that.’” He punched the seat in front of him. “Steel, did Midas get you any info for Tripoli here?”

Steel popped up over the seat back, a tablet in his hand. “Midas and his flashy AI, Nova, haven’t entered anything into the system yet, other than a Jane Doe was found at Elysium at seven a.m. this morning. Lieutenant Quint Axton was dispatched when the call came in, and two additional units were sent to secure the scene.”

“I don’t want to know how you have access to that information, do I?” Tripoli asked.

“Probably not,” Steel agreed. “I’ll let you know if anything more comes in.” He turned and slid back down into his seat, then popped back up. “And by the way, he’s right. It was definitely like that.” Then he was gone again.

Tripoli stared at the empty spot above the seat in front of him. A chuckle to his right caused him to turn his head and look at Lobo.

“He used to be the scariest motherfucker of the six of us, which is saying a lot. Now he’s just broken. I got nothing.”

“Not broken, dude!” the disembodied voice tossed back.

“Sorry, my mistake.” TB rolled his eyes, pointed at Steel’s seat back, and mouthed, “Broken.”

“I saw that!”

“All the sex is scrambling his brains. If that’s what happens when you find your other half, maybe you’re better off without Fairy,” Lobo admitted.

“Fleur.”

“Who?”

“Fleur. Her name is Fleur.”

“Oh, yeah. Huh. I’d forgotten. I mean, it was two years ago and, well, you know… it wasn’t like that.” Lobo grinned.

“Shut up,” Tripoli bitched.

Yeah, it had definitely been “like that.”