Chapter Two
Nico watched as Callie took in what he had just said. She’d already had plenty of surprise and confusion on her face, and that only added to it. But not fear. Not just yet anyway.
That would soon change.
Soon, she’d know the danger that would be coming at her. And he’d have to be the one to tell her.
Over the past eleven years since Callie had broken up with him, he’d imagined what it would be like to run into her again. He sure as hell hadn’t imagined this though. And while Nico had never held out hope of them rekindling their relationship, he was dead certain there’d be no chance of that now.
Despite the heat.
There was always the scalding attraction. That had never been a problem between them when they’d been together. Nope, there’d always been something else that had gotten in the way. His father mainly along with their heavy workloads right after they’d graduated from college. But now, there was something else.
Something that might get her killed if Nico didn’t do something to stop it.
“Who wants to murder me?” she demanded.
That was the million-dollar question, and he didn’t have the answer she would want to hear. “I’m not sure.” Which, naturally, earned him a huff from her.
He was ready to get into the reason for his uncertainty, but then decided it was best if he started from the beginning.
“What I’m about to say stays in this room,” Nico threw out there.
“Or what? If you tell me, you’ll have to kill me,” she snapped. But Callie huffed and waved that off.
Still no fear. Just plain old annoyance and distrust for him. But it was expected. Nico had given her reason to feel both of those things.
“About a month ago, the FBI moved a witness, Seth Mitchell, to a safehouse somewhere near Outlaw Ridge,” Nico explained. “Seth was on the catering staff at a large cocktail party, and while the crew and he were setting up, he witnessed an execution-style murder of the host. A wealthy businesswoman, Abilene Joyce.”
Now, there was a reaction, and Nico saw the recognition is her dark brown eyes. “The Austin real estate mogul.”
He nodded, not surprised that a cop would have heard about the woman’s brutal murder despite it not being in her jurisdiction. “Seth and two others on the catering staff saw someone murder her. Using a sketch artist and then later in a lineup, they IDed an ex-con with a long rap sheet, Zed Coulter, as the killer. Shortly thereafter, the other two witnesses were murdered to silence them. Seth is the only one left who can testify against him. But we know that Coulter wasn’t working alone. Someone hired him to kill Abilene, and we don’t know who.”
Nico could practically hear her cop’s brain spinning with possibilities. Abilene had participated in some shady business deals. Too many of them, in fact, to identify a single one of her former associates as having a motive to kill her.
“There were two attempts to kill Seth before he was moved here,” Nico went on a moment later. “And I’m using my undercover persona, posing as a hired assassin who wants him dead. Before you ask, I don’t know who hired me. Not Zed Coulter, the hitman, since he’s locked up in maximum security awaiting trial. I was hired through a portal on the dark web with the person calling themselves, The Fixer. So, it’s my job, my real job , to try to keep Seth safe and find out who wants to kill him so he can’t testify.”
“Your job,” she muttered along with some profanity. She groaned and shoved some of her short brown hair from her face. “A job that brought you here and one that put me in danger.” Callie made a circling motion with her finger for him to keep explaining.
Nico took in a long breath that he was sure he would need. “Since there has also been an attempt to kill me as well, I have to figure there are two factions at work. Faction A, The Fixer, who wants me to succeed in what I’ve been hired to do—find the witness and murder him. And faction B that I call the Guardian Angel who doesn’t want me to get anywhere near Seth.”
“That’s the person gunning for you,” Callie stated.
“And maybe the person who killed the man you found on the road. I believe the Guardian Angel killed another informant I had last month, and he or she left a note with the body. Faster than a stainless steel ride ,” he quoted.
He saw some of the color drain from her face. Yeah, he had already suspected what had been written in that note with the dead body, too. The Guardian Angel was using the notes like a sick calling card. Maybe a way of saying the informants deserved to be on death row and that he’d saved the courts some time by executing some justice.
Of course, the problem with that was neither informant had been convicted of murder. Yet, the Guardian Angel had doled the lethal sentences to them.
“Stainless steel ride,” Callie muttered. “I’m a cop, and I wasn’t familiar with the term.”
“It’s not that common, more street and jailhouse slang,” Nico admitted. “And, yes, I’ve considered that the Guardian Angel could have spent some time in prison. Or could be someone in law enforcement. That doesn’t narrow down the suspect pool much,” he tacked onto that.
But it was cause for concern if it was the latter. A dirty cop or agent would have an easier time covering their tracks. And worse, it could be someone he trusted. That could get him killed.
“How would this Guardian Angel have known The Fixer hired you?” Callie asked, drawing his attention back to her. “And are either of them aware you’re FBI?”
“I’m not sure on either count.” And Nico had to admit to himself that it was something that ate away at him like acid. “Only my handler and Owen know I’m here undercover and what I’ve been hired to do, but it’s possible there have been some leaks on The Fixer’s end.”
Callie huffed. “What does the dead guy have to do with all of this?”
Finally, this was something he could answer. Partially anyway. “This morning, I was supposed to meet an informant, Ted Morrelli, on the trail just off the road where you found his dead body.”
“Ted Morrelli,” she repeated. “His dad, Gavin, owns the gas station?”
“That’s the one. I have no idea what he was going to tell me because when I got there and parked my motorcycle in the woods, I saw him dead on the road.” He paused a heartbeat. “Then, you showed up.”
“You didn’t touch the body?” she immediately asked, the question surprising him. Nico had expected her to press him on any other details about who had perhaps killed Morrelli.
“No,” he replied.
“But you have blood on your arm,” Callie pointed out.
Oh, that . He nodded. “I scraped myself on one of the low tree branches. It’s my blood.”
She didn’t look as if she bought that, but it was the truth. “Who killed Morrelli?” she demanded, finally going with the question he’d expected.
Nico had to go with another headshake. He had some theories but, damn it, nothing definitive. Now, here someone else was dead, and he felt no closer to learning the truth. Added to that, Callie complicated the hell out of things, both for the job and personally.
That earned him another huff from Callie. “Then who will try to kill me?”
“The Fixer.” Nico didn’t hesitate. “He or she won’t want you in my way. An Austin cop has already died because of this. It was a cop who tried to arrest me when I was working with an informant to maybe get a lead on the Guardian Angel.”
And that death, that murder, ate away at Nico like acid. He wanted this sonofabitch to pay for that.
“The Fixer killed a cop,” Callie blurted in outrage. “And the FBI didn’t pull the plug on this operation?”
“Pull the plug, and we don’t find out who murdered the cop,” Nico pointed out. “Or who wants Seth dead. The only way we get to the truth is for me to keep working it.”
He only wished he had some guarantee of success. Or a way to keep Callie out of this shitshow. But at the moment, Nico didn’t have either of those things.
“Since the dead informant, Seth, and you are all in or near Outlaw Ridge, you must think you’ll find answers here,” Callie insisted.
Yeah. But Nico didn’t voice that for a couple of seconds while he debated how much to tell her. Bare minimum, he decided. Enough so Callie wouldn’t go poking around on her on and get herself killed.
“My cousin might have a part in this,” he settled for saying.
No need for him to clarify who his cousin was. Dante Salvetti. Callie had met him many times when they’d still been an item. Back then, Dante had been fresh out of law school and on the straight and narrow.
Well, straight-ish anyway.
Dante had always cut corners. Had loved toeing the legal line. But these days, he was building a nasty network for money laundering. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough evidence, yet, to arrest him and close him down.
“Dante,” she repeated. “He has a connection to the murdered heiress or the dead informant?”
“Both,” Nico admitted. He checked his watch. “I’m supposed to be meeting with him in about thirty minutes at my family’s estate, and I might have more answers then.”
There was a knock at the door that broke the silence that’d settled over the office. “It’s me,” the visitor said.
Nico groaned because he recognized that voice. His sister, Jemma. Or rather Deputy Jemma Salvetti.
“Lexa told me that Nico had been arrested,” Jemma went on when Owen didn’t invite her in. She muttered something else that Nico didn’t catch and then opened the door.
Jemma made a sweeping glance around the room, taking it all in before her attention settled on him. She looked at his wrist, no doubt noting there were no handcuffs. Probably noticing, too, that this was not the setup of an official interrogation.
Frowning, Jemma shut the door and went to Nico. She hugged him, but as usual, there was some hesitation in the gesture. Probably because she thought he was a dirtbag criminal. Still, he was her brother, and that apparently warranted a hug no matter what.
“What’s going on here?” Jemma asked. “Are you actually under arrest?”
“No,” Owen spoke up. “It was all a misunderstanding.”
Jemma didn’t exactly take a breath of relief. In fact, the tension stayed right there on her face.
“Dad just called me. Someone told him that Callie had arrested you and brought you in here in handcuffs.” Jemma shifted to Callie, and she sighed along with muttering an apology. “Our father’s very protective of his kids. That’s code for saying he can be an outright asshole if he thinks someone had wronged Nico or me.”
“Shit,” Nico grumbled. Jemma was right.
He so didn’t have time to deal with this kind of stuff with his dad. It was going to be tricky enough to have him around while he tried to question Dante. But this had been the quickest, and least suspicious way, of talking to his cousin. The visit would seem more like family catch-up time rather than an interrogation.
Callie did some grumbling of her own, more of that profanity under her breath. “Will the Rattler send thugs or someone after me?” she asked.
And she was serious, too. His father might be clean these days, but his reputation wasn’t going away anytime soon.
“No,” Nico assured her. “But we might need to do some damage control about that.”
“What kind of damage control?” she immediately wanted to know.
“The kind you aren’t going to like,” Nico was just as quick to tell her.
Hell, he wouldn’t like it either, but it could be a temporary solution until he worked out something better.
Nico looked at Owen. “My motorcycle’s in the woods, and it wouldn’t be very safe anyway in case Morrelli’s killer has me in his sights. Can I borrow a vehicle?”
Without hesitation, Owen took out a key from his desk drawer and tossed it to Nico. “It’s the black Hummer at the back of the parking lot.” He took something else out of his desk, too. A Sig-Sauer. “You might need this, too.”
“Thanks,” Nico told him, putting the gun in the slide holster at the back of his jeans.
Now, Nico shifted to Callie. “You’re coming with me.”
She folded her arms over her chest and shot him a defiant glare. “Where?”
“To my family’s estate. We have some business there.”
Callie opened her mouth, no doubt to question why he was taking her with him for his meeting with Dante, but then she must have realized she couldn’t say anything about the investigation in front of Jemma.
“Business with your father?” she finally replied.
“Yep.” Nico motioned for her to follow him, and he headed for the door. “We’ll have to convince the Rattler that you’re the love of my life and wouldn’t do anything to harm me.”
A burst of laughter left her mouth. There was no humor in it. None. Because Callie quickly filled in the blanks for what she needed to have.
This visit wasn’t just about convincing his father. No. There was someone else out there, The Fixer, who needed to believe that Callie wasn’t a threat. That she wouldn’t stand in his way of doing his murder for hire.
Because that might be Nico’s best shot at keeping Callie alive.