Justice for Francesca (Six Paths to Justice #1)

5. An FBI Agent, Her Brother, and Her Would-Be Lover

5

AN FBI AGENT, HER brOTHER, AND HER WOULD-BE LOVER

Tripoli

A s soon as Francesca left the room, Tripoli sat back in his chair, thinking hard.

There was a knock at his door, followed by the muffled beeping that came when someone swiped their entry card at a door. When it opened, Cosmos, his head of security for all of the clubs, walked in, followed closely by Tripoli’s contacts from Tribe. While sending a text as he walked, Cosmos threw a thumb over his shoulder. “Look who I found skulking about.”

“If we hadn’t wanted you to find us, you wouldn’t have.” Lobo was a six-foot-seven, two-hundred-forty-pound behemoth with a deep, rumbly voice to match. Difficult to believe you could miss the giant, but he was accurate that unless they wanted you to know they were around, you didn’t.

The grin on Cosmos’ face was wide. “Always ruining my fun.” Text completed, he slid the phone into his pocket. “Triumph sent me a message. Video footage shows nothing from when Michael did his walk-through until Tilly entered just before seven a.m.”

Lobo threw himself into the chair Francesca had been sitting in minutes ago, sprawling as much as his frame allowed in the space. The damn thing actually creaked when he rocked it back on its hind legs. “All doors are locked tight. Logs show that no doors were opened or closed between Michael leaving and Tilly and Triumph arriving. Also, Triumph can’t find any signatures for a splice or a loop in the feed. Whoever did this, they’re good.”

“In other words, ‘Triumph good.’ Makes him more of a suspect,” Tripoli mused. “Probably doesn’t help that of all of the staff, he was the most vocal about his dislike for Mila.”

Steel leaned against the wall near the door. “Since the club space is on floor two, I did a walk-through of floor three. Nothing seemed out of place, and no one was hiding anywhere there. I couldn’t locate a basement.”

“Don’t have them in Texas. They would flood. Michael and Triumph cleared the main floor before anyone arrived, and I searched my residence and the rooftop.” Tripoli confirmed.

“They got everyone split up?” Cosmos asked.

“Sort of,” Tripoli explained. “I’m here. Michael is running around gathering shit up for them and doing door duty. Triumph’s been coding away on his laptop with Tilly. She had a total meltdown when the FBI tried to separate them, so he’s allowed to be with her, but they can’t talk to one another.” He looked at Cosmos. “You got an alibi for last night? Just in case.”

“Yeah.” Tripoli noticed the genuine smile on Cosmos’ face as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. Interesting. Before, his smiles always had a bite to them. Something must have happened on his recent trip to Chicago.

The man glanced at his texts, then frowned before sliding his phone into his pocket again. Cosmos reset himself to work mode. “Why would I need one though? I haven’t been here since the opening a year ago.”

“The body is Mila Sequeira.”

Cosmos stared at him. The only way Tripoli knew he was processing the information was that his nostrils flared when the man took a larger-than-normal breath. “They’re sure?”

“Yup. Fingerprint identification.”

“Fuck, Trip. That’s not good.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It’s been…?”

“Opening weekend was the last time I escorted her anywhere. I broke it off three days later. Well… such as it was.”

“I knew you were breaking it off, but then I had to fly to New York, and I put it out of my brain. My guess is she didn’t take it well?”

Tripoli shook his head. “Accused me of using her for the opening as a publicity draw.” He rolled his eyes. “Nothing to draw from since she rejected her family except for name-dropping purposes. It was more like I didn’t want her crashing the party, creating a scene because she was still pissed at me. It was just easier to hold onto her a few extra days than deal with that drama. There was so much to do here; it was easy to put it off.”

Cosmos whistled. “I’m guessing there’s more to it than that if you’re even bringing it up.”

“Sequeira?” Lobo asked. “The name is familiar.”

Tripoli sighed. “Mila is… was… the Sequeira principessa.”

Now it was Steel’s turn to whistle. “You dated a principessa? That takes balls, hermano .”

Cosmos sneered. “Oh, it gets better.”

Tripoli supplied the information he knew Cosmos would just belt out if he didn’t explain. “Mila owned ten percent of Elysium.”

“Which means,” Cosmos explained, “the Sequeira Syndicate now owns ten percent of the club.”

Tripoli raised a hand to halt the man’s conjectures. “We don’t know that yet. She may have had a will and left it to someone.”

Lobo argued, “Still tainted with her owning it. What were you thinking?”

“He wasn’t,” Cosmos snorted. “Or he was, just with the wrong head.”

“Cosmos, for the love of Christ, shut up about that.”

“Pictures in the papers looked like you two were awfully cozy.”

“Most of those were when I first met her, and we were conducting business regarding the property. You, as well as anyone, know that a photograph captures a split second in time. What people see is their own perception of that split second based on the angle, perspective, and interpretations of visual elements present in the photograph.”

Lobo chuckled. “Today’s guest lecturer, art professor Dr. Ethan Evans, presents his master class on ‘How to Deflect Your Sexual History Through Photographs.’”

Steel tacked on, “Also known as ‘Why the Paparazzi Still Suck.’”

Rolling his eyes again, Tripoli waved off the taunting. “Laugh all you want, assholes. I never slept with her. Even Cosmos knows I made it clear what I was looking for—her as a liaison to the seller of the London property. Ten percent of Elysium was her price for it. I figured she’d get bored with it after a while, and I’d be able to buy it back.”

“Does the FBI know about the connection?” Cosmos asked.

Tripoli tipped his head back against his chair, swiveling his chair right to left. “I doubt it, or it would have come up in the first round of questioning today. It’ll take about five minutes to discover it once they start looking.”

The room was silent. Tripoli noticed the shared look between Cosmos, Lobo, and Steel. He wondered which one of them would lose the silent battle of who got to ask the ultimate question.

“And Fleur?”

Tripoli was not ready to answer this question, so he attempted to distance her from him. “Special Agent McCabe?”

“Don’t play fuckin’ dumb with us, Trip. Act as unaffected as you want, but I know you. When she showed up at The Library, you staked your claim without even laying a hand on her,” Cosmos reminded him.

“Yeah, and after. You never left her when we had her in our infirmary. And you barely left her when she was in the hospital.” Lobo clearly knew the answer already and used the comments as a way to needle him.

“She was my responsibility. I got distracted, and she walked out in the parking lot alone and got taken,” Tripoli reasoned. “It was my fault.”

Panic! The smell of tar, blood, and fear. FLEUR! Where is she? Sounds. Running feet. Voices shouting. Someone turning him over. Vomiting. A bright light in his eyes. Sirens in the distance.

“Bullshit.” The curse word brought Tripoli back to the present. “Check on her, sure, I get that. But you don’t stay with her overnight for a week, especially with the club in ruins the way it was and you partial owner.”

“Look. No matter what I felt or what I may feel now, she is an FBI agent investigating a murder in our club. When you’re a suspect, or soon will be, it’s not exactly conducive to a relationship.”

Another knock came at the door. This time, it was Michael. “Sorry to interrupt, Trip, but umm… we may have another problem.”

Tripoli resisted the urge to groan aloud. “What’s going on?”

“One of the agents. I swear to God, I didn’t know. I knew she worked in Dallas-Fort Worth. I never thought…”

Tripoli felt recognition set in. “I knew there was something I recognized in her face, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Francesca McCabe is your sister.”

“Yeah, and she doesn’t know I’m here.” He swung his gaze around the room. “I haven’t seen my sister in fourteen years. She’s… let’s just say, she will not be pleased to see me.”