Chapter 23 Zach
ZACH
Rafe and I had been poring over files for hours.
He’d had pizza delivered for dinner from one of the restaurants in the casino, but we hadn’t talked as we ate.
We’d kept working, which was for the best since I had no idea what to say to Rafael if we weren’t working, fighting, or fucking.
And neither of us wanted to slow down. We were going to find the mole soon.
I was almost certain I was on the right track.
I knew to follow the money. I’d just gone to the wrong place.
“Rafe, what do you know about…?” I stopped speaking when I realized he was sound asleep.
He’d moved to the couch hours ago, and I’d taken over his desk, where I had access to larger screens and could check multiple angles at once.
More than once, I’d looked over at him, and he’d met my gaze, and I’d considered shoving the papers out of his hand, climbing on top of him, and taking him right there, but I’d told him getting fucked would be his reward, and I meant to stick to that.
I was sure he’d been up for nearly thirty-six hours at this point, so I wasn’t going to wake him. He needed at least a few hours’ sleep.
I rose and moved toward the couch, being as quiet as I could. I took the laptop from his hands. He protested but didn’t fully wake up. I moved the papers he’d piled up around him to the floor and swung his legs up onto the couch so he could lie down.
His eyes fluttered open. “Zach?”
“Go back to sleep. It’s fine.”
“I…”
I leaned down and kissed the top of his head.
He smiled as he closed his eyes. If there had been a blanket in the office, I would have tucked it around him, but he looked comfortable enough.
I stood there watching him sleep, marveling at how much softer he looked.
If he’d been in bed, I didn’t think I could have stopped myself from crawling in next to him.
I brushed the backs of my fingers over his cheek, then turned away. I had work to do, and I didn’t know how to handle this need to take care of him, watch him, touch him, even when sex wasn’t an option.
Rafe was still sleeping soundly when I found all the pieces I needed.
I knew who the mole was. It all made sense now.
Sending in a high roller would have been too risky, too potentially obvious.
Sending in a number cruncher was much more subtle than I’d expected, considering how irrationally Ivanov had behaved the last time he’d surfaced.
He exposed himself in the open with the thinnest of disguises.
Now we were closing in again, and this time, he wasn’t going to escape.
Rafe stirred on the couch, as if he felt the buzz of energy around me. “Zach?”
“I’ve got him.”
He rubbed his eyes. “What?”
“I found our guy.”
Instantly, he sat up, seeming fully awake. “Are you serious?”
“Very. He’s good. He’s really fucking good, but I’ve got him.”
Rafe scowled. He didn’t like me complimenting another man, and that did things to me it shouldn’t. “He’s not as good as us, or he wouldn’t have been caught.”
I grinned. “As good as me, you mean.”
“You’re only here at my discretion.”
“I’m going to make you beg again.”
He scowled and waved that threat away. “Show me who it is.”
He came around the desk and stood behind me as I pulled the guy’s bio up on the screen. “This is the guy, Joseph LeBlanc. He was hired around three months ago as an accountant.”
Rafe frowned. “How did you find him?”
I liked that he didn’t question if I was right, just how I’d figured it out. “When we didn’t find any good candidates among the high rollers, I realized there was another way to ‘follow the money.’”
“The cashier’s office.”
“Yes. I started focusing on people who handled the money coming in and out. I found some irregularities, and most of them—all of the big ones—could be traced to one employee, so I looked deeper into him.”
“All of this is there for anyone to see?” Rafe pointed at the screen.
“Not anyone. Someone with skills.”
“But you’re not some cybercop.”
“No, but I’ve picked up plenty of techniques over the years.”
Rafe huffed. “Tell me more.”
“He worked his way into places in the system he shouldn’t be. He’s been shifting funds around, putting them into a private account he created in your name.”
“What the fuck?”
“He’s setting you up, making it look like you’re embezzling from the casino. I think that’s how they were going to try to bring you down or—”
“Bribe me. Get me to work for them, launder their money, get them contacts in the New Orleans crime world again. Fuck. Ivanov really thought I would do it. He thought I would fall for that shit, and my brothers would assume I’d betrayed them.”
I frowned. “Would they?”
Rafe shook his head. “No. They might think I was stupid, but they know I would never steal from the family. They probably wouldn’t think I could do the math to set the shit up, but if Remington did think that…” The horror on his face made my chest tighten. “Where is the bastard?”
Rafe extracted a gun from his desk drawer and started toward the door.
I grabbed his arm, yanking him back. “Listen. We can’t—”
“Tell me where he is.”
“We need to move carefully.”
“I don’t care about any of your fucking government rules. I need to move fast.”
“No.” I hauled him back against me. “He’s working the night shift now. We don’t want to tip off anyone else that we’re onto him, so no storming into his office. After he gets off work, we’ll go after him at home, where we’ll have a quiet place to interrogate him.”
Rafe pulled free of my hold and turned to face me. “What if he already knows?”
“He doesn’t. He won’t have any idea about my investigation. I know how to cover my tracks.”
Rafe blew out a long breath. “Are you absolutely sure he’s the one?”
Now he was questioning me? “I’m as sure as I can be. If Ivanov didn’t send him, then we need to know why he’s diverting money to a secret account.”
“I can’t fuck this up.”
Would someone in his family actually hurt him over this? I would kill them if they did. “I can’t fuck up either.”
“You’ll just get another assignment. You’ll—”
“No, I don’t think I will.”
He frowned. “What does that mean?”
“I’ve ignored a lot of those government rules you think I want to follow. I hate rules, and I rarely follow orders. I’m a problem, and I’m on my last strike. I shouldn’t even have this assignment, but my boss fought for me to keep it. If I don’t bring Ivanov down, I’m out.”
“Would it be so bad to be free to make other choices?”
I looked up at him, and our eyes met. The tension between us was so strong I could feel it.
Would it be that bad? No, but could I say that to Rafe?
Would it imply I wanted something more, that I wanted to quit so being with a mobster wouldn’t get me fired?
“Maybe not, but I want to quit on my own terms, when I’m ready. ”
“And when will that be?”
I wasn’t going to make any promises. Even if—and it was a big if—Rafe wanted to keep seeing me after we eliminated Ivanov, it wasn’t like we could really be together. I’d still be a former agent, and he would still be who he was. The playboy face of the Theriots’ semi-legal empire.
What were the chances he’d want me on normal terms anyway. He might think he did now while the sex was new and hot, but he wasn’t going to want only me when he had the entire New Orleans club world of men and women at his beck and call, and I didn’t share.
“I’ll leave when I get tired of the work. That hasn’t happened yet.” I lied all the fucking time; why did it make me queasy to lie to Rafe?
His expression hardened. I’d hurt him. I wanted to take the words back. I wanted to remind him how much he wanted me to fuck him over his desk. He deserved a reward, but I didn’t say anything.
Rafe checked his gun. “I can get LeBlanc now and be discreet.”
No way in hell was I going to let him go off angry like this.
“No. Before we kill him, we need a plan for how to proceed after he’s dead.
Once he’s gone, the dominos start to fall.
He’s communicating with someone, even if he doesn’t talk to Ivanov directly.
Once it becomes obvious that he’s gone, the news will head right up the chain. ”
“You really think Ivanov would make a direct strike?”
I hoped not, but I wasn’t going to chance it. “He sure as hell tried it six months ago.”
He had. He’d been right there, right in Rafe’s path, holding Dante’s boyfriend hostage. “He’s crazy. More so now.”
“That’s on us. We moved in too fast.”
“Well, we can’t do that again. I think it’s time to bring in some more players.”
Rafe shook his head. “I can’t tell my family I’m working with you.”
“We can take LeBlanc out ourselves, but we need help to bring down Ivanov’s whole operation. It’s my guys or yours. If you want this to be your family’s kill, then we’ve got to talk to them.”
“We?”
“I can’t hide my agency’s interest.”
“No way. If my family decides not to trust you, if they don’t understand, they could kill you.”
I shrugged. “Then I’d be out of your way, and you could finish the operation.”
“Are you fucking crazy? I don’t—”
He turned and looked out the window. I didn’t say anything. I just stood beside him and stared at the slow-moving Mississippi. A river cruise was moving leisurely past the casino.
I knew Rafe didn’t want me dead. We were well past that, but I also didn’t think he cared as much as his reaction indicated. The way he’d looked at me, the pain in his eyes. Fuck. Now my head was going to be even more messed up than it already was.
Rafe laid a hand on my arm. “Let me make a call.”