32. Chapter 32
Chapter thirty-two
The camera jostled as Anthony finally moved aside and the team entered the house, Grace trailing in last, deliberately taking her time.
Juan let out a breath. A not-so-small part of him had hoped that Anthony would die on the spot.
He’d turned red enough during his one-sided argument with the FBI that Juan wouldn’t even hazard a guess as to the man’s blood pressure.
There’d also been a tense few seconds when it looked like his verbal protest might turn into something more.
Not that Juan condoned the use of unnecessary force, but if the agents had subdued him, physically or with their weapons, he wouldn’t have been sad.
But no, the bastard hadn’t cooperated. At least not with Juan’s hopes and dreams.
In the end, Anthony stepped aside and let the team enter as he made a call. His attorney would probably show up in a few minutes. Not that it mattered. As Callie said, the warrant was tight; HICC wouldn’t have moved forward any other way.
Never having executed a warrant, he had little idea what to expect.
Back in the day, he and his team weren’t really the knock-and-announce sort.
No, they were more ram-the-door-and-storm-the-castle type.
Now that the agents were in, though, he recognized the patterns, the way they fanned out, the way they entered rooms. But that’s where the similarities stopped.
The two agents in the room where Grace now stood began systematically going through it—not necessarily politely, but they definitely weren’t tearing things up.
No books were yanked off shelves, no couch cushions slashed, no tables overturned.
Not that they didn’t search those things, but the process was a lot…
tidier than he’d anticipated. And way more boring.
“You said this will take a couple of hours?” Amber asked thirty minutes in. She still sat curled in his lap. One of his favorite places for her to be.
“Judging by the way it’s currently going, I’d say longer,” Sabina replied. “As we said, it varies. These agents are being considerate. But very, very thorough.”
“I guess we can’t be too upset about that,” Daphne said. “Even if this is as exciting as watching paint dry. Why couldn’t they burst in and just find the drugs?” she whined dramatically.
“There’s a big chance they won’t find the drugs at all,” Chad said. “And the computer forensics will take a while. We’re pretty much going to sit here and watch them disassemble the house.”
Amber snorted. “It’s worth it knowing how much it will irk Anthony and his need for control. I almost wish he was in the house so we could watch him try to hold it together.”
“Ask and ye shall receive,” Juan muttered as Anthony entered the room where Grace was thumbing through an Andy Warhol coffee table book. An agent preceded them, and a man they didn’t recognize walked by Anthony’s side. “The lawyer?” he asked.
“Yep,” Leo confirmed, his eyes on his computer as usual.
Juan wondered if he somehow managed to get access to other body cams and was surveilling the operation like an omnipresent sort of tech god.
It wouldn’t surprise him in the least. Then again, maybe he had other work and was just in the room for moral support.
That would also be just like him. Leo had grown up in a very different kind of situation from any of the Falcons, but Juan would be hard-pressed to name anyone who supported them more who wasn’t an actual Falcon. Or partnered with one.
For the next hour, they followed Grace around as she looked for hidden drawers, behind paintings, and inside boxes stored in the basement. She even took apart the coffee machine, although Juan was pretty sure she did that just for Amber and not because she thought the drugs might be hidden there.
“I think I love that woman,” Amber murmured when Grace left the parts strewn—tidily—across the kitchen counter.
“The computer and other electronic equipment have all been bagged and tagged,” Leo said. “It’s on the first van of evidence heading to the local FBI headquarters. The techs will start on it tonight.”
“Given the passport and bank information Toni found, are they worried about Anthony fleeing once the raid is over?” Amber asked, then added with a frown, “Do they even know what Toni found, or is that a secret?”
Sabina waved off her concern. “HICC received an anonymous tip about the location of the passport and bank information. One of the agents has already pulled it from the desk. We didn’t see it happen because Grace wasn’t in the room.”
He snorted. Anonymous tip his ass.
“At the very least, they have him on something, right?” Amber pressed. “After all, it’s a fake passport. In a different name.” Again. Hope threaded with concern laced her voice. She wasn’t the only one worried the day would result in nothing.
Chad nodded. “Yes, he forged a federal document. It is a felony, and they will likely arrest him. But if they don’t find anything else today, his lawyer will probably have him out on bail by tomorrow morning.”
“Surely he’s a flight risk if he already managed to get one passport faked,” Daphne said.
“They’ll confiscate his real passport, too,” Sabina said. “But yes, they’ll make that argument at the bail hearing.”
“Please tell me if they let him out, he’ll have to wear one of those ankle things,” Amber said. “The kind that tracks him like a wild animal.”
Juan laughed. He liked seeing this vindictive side of Amber. It wasn’t her nature, which made it kind of cute, and no one would argue that she didn’t have the right to feel it.
Sabina laughed, too, and others grinned. “Yes, they probably will make him wear one,” she said.
“Nice,” Daphne hissed under her breath as she reached over and fist-bumped Amber.
“When will we know what charges they’re bringing against him?” Juan asked.
“They’re on the line with a judge now. Given the fake passport, an arrest warrant is being issued, but they won’t finalize the charges listed on it until the search is over,” Leo responded.
“I really hope they get him on more than that today,” Daphne said on an exhale, giving voice to his thoughts.
“We all do,” Ethan said. “But we have to be prepared for that not to happen. His crimes are complex, and this is a long game.”
“As long as he doesn’t make a connection between this raid and Amber and Zoe,” Juan said.
Anthony would already be livid at having his life examined and questioned, like the common criminal he was.
If he managed to tie the actions of law enforcement to Amber, Juan doubted an ankle bracelet would prove sufficient in keeping him from going rogue and coming after them.
Amber stilled. His heart stuttered. “What?” he demanded.
“Uh, I forgot to tell you that my lawyer contacted the local police in Virginia today with all the information he has on Zoe and the crimes Anthony committed the night she was born,” she said.
“So, he’s um, probably definitely going to tie this to me.
He might not know how the two things are related, but he’s about to be hit with both on the same day.
He may be a piece of shit, but he’s not a dumb one. ”
Juan stared at her. “You’re shitting me?”
She rolled her lips in, then shook her head. “Weird saying, but no.”
“We should definitely let the FBI know about the local police report,” Sabina said.
“On it right now,” Leo replied.
Juan took a moment to digest what she’d said. He didn’t like the surprise but knew she hadn’t kept it from him on purpose. And, truthfully, the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. Liked the idea of Anthony’s entire world crumbling around him all at once. No one deserved it more.
“Okay,” he drew out the word. “You and Zoe, and Clara and Adrian, are not to leave the Falcons’ property until we know for certain Anthony is locked up for good.” He fixed her with an uncompromising look. No way would he risk any of them. Ever.
Without hesitation, Amber nodded.
His mind still raced a mile a minute with ways to keep the four of them safe; he didn’t doubt her word, and her ready agreement allowed him to take a breath even if it didn’t erase all his worries.
“Assuming the police investigate the information Amber’s lawyer provided, and the DA decides to press charges, can those be added to the FBI charges? Or are the police charges separate from the federal charges?” he asked, turning his attention to the HICC team.
“They will probably stay separate for now,” Sabina said. “Until they have a bigger case against him on the federal charges. Once they have that, they can fold in the state charges if they have any tie to the federal crimes.”
“How does that work?” Amber asked.
“A few ways, actually,” Daphne answered. Then with a grin, she added, “Writers know weird shit.”
“Like what kind of shit?” Amber pressed.
“Based on what we know, there are several possible federal charges. The consolidator and holding company that his money flows through are located outside of Virginia; that makes the crime interstate. Not to mention fraud can be a federal crime. As can the use of the internet to commit crimes. Then there’s the drugs—theft from a federally subsidized lab, as most pharma companies are, is a problem. ”
Sabina nodded. “And if the crimes against you and Zoe took place at the same time or around the same time, it’s arguable that his commission of them is tied to those federal offenses.”
Amber made a face. “Like he needed to silence a baby in order to keep committing them?”
Chad bobbed his head. “More like he couldn’t have anything disrupt his operation and a new baby would definitely do that.”
It seemed a bit of a stretch to Juan, but he’d bow to the more knowledgeable folks in the room. “It’s what we want, right? We want Zoe’s case to be rolled up into the federal charges? However that happens.”
“It would potentially impact his sentencing,” Sabina replied. “So yes.”