Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“I’ve seen some crazy things in my line of work, and I won’t say this is the craziest, but it’s definitely a top twenty,” Special Agent Barb Hershorn said.
“When the entire Sweet Dreams empire falls, I bet they are going to regret sending Weeks and Beeker after you,” she added, looking at Lovell, her corkscrew curly red hair bobbing like a buoy in a rough ocean.
After a quiet night in, he and Daphne now sat in a small FBI office in lower Manhattan, with several HICC staff dialed in, talking with the team Stella had looped in.
Lovell nodded. “I don’t know how much money they make in their illegal activities—”
“North of twenty million a year,” Callie said over the line.
“They have minimal staff, mostly security, and the rest of the people in their network they pay on contract or in cash. As of two years ago, they own their property outright. I’m guessing Chanel-slash-Nicole nets close to eight million a year. ”
Lovell shook his head. Daphne remained silent, watching everyone in the room in the way he’d seen her do before. Not suspiciously, but as if cataloging expressions, reactions, physical responses.
“If we can stop this trafficking and sex ring, then I’m glad they did hire Weeks and Beeker, but it does seem like a gamble when they had no idea the size of the inheritance.
” He paused. “Actually, Chanel is legally dead, so she wouldn’t have seen any financial benefit from my death.
Which makes me think it was Malcom’s idea and she went along with it. ”
“Probably to bring you down a peg,” Daphne said.
Everyone looked at her. “If they succeeded, you’d be dead, so that probably isn’t the right phrase—writing is way easier than speaking when it comes to getting words right—but you did something they couldn’t, you got out.
For that reason alone, I could see someone like Chanel agreeing to Malcom’s plan out of sheer spite. ”
“I may have gotten out, but not entirely,” he said, more to himself than to anyone else. “Not if Malcom can drag me back in, even if only to put a bullet in me.” Daphne nodded in understanding. “A sick motivation,” he added.
“Jealousy often is,” she said.
“Regardless,” Barb continued. “She’ll regret agreeing, if that’s the case. We’ve talked with Henry Jefferson and Chief Warwick, and they are sending over everything they have. The lawyers are doing their lawyer thing. Once we have all the intel, we’ll make a plan.”
“Is Weeks coming through?” he asked.
Hershorn nodded. “He’s telling us what he knows and what he’s heard. There are a few existing task forces that are picking through the intel, connecting it to other information we have. We’ll conduct the physical raid, but most of the evidentiary work will be driven by those units.”
Lovell shifted. He planned to be a part of that raid one way or another, only he wasn’t sure of the best way to make that happen.
He knew the value of teamwork and didn’t intend to pop up unannounced.
But he also didn’t want to ask and be given a hard no.
Showing up and forcing their hand was bad enough.
Going against a direct order? Well, he wasn’t sure he could bring himself to do that either.
One of those ask forgiveness rather than permission things, only in this, going the forgiveness route could seriously fuck up their op. Also a risk he didn’t want to take.
“We’re targeting four this afternoon for the planning session,” Hershorn continued. “By then, we should have schematics of the house and a distillation of the relevant intel from Weeks. Come by at three and we’ll get you kitted out.”
He blinked. “Pardon?”
“You’ll need standard-issue equipment if you’re joining us.
Tologodor can help,” she said, nodding to one of the three agents in the room with them.
A tall man with gaunt, pale features, dark hair, and a mustache.
The other two were Khafra, a short, stocky man of Southeast Asian heritage, and Charnette, a tiny woman with an even tinier build but with a mane of blond hair pulled into a bun, low and tight at her neck.
Everything about them was intentionally nondescript.
Except their eyes and the sharp intelligence behind them.
He nodded, a slow motion up and down. He wasn’t about to question the decision, but he didn’t understand how it had come about, and he didn’t like not being in the know. Not about something like this.
“Go, enjoy our fair city for a few hours,” Hershorn said, rising. As if pulled by strings, the rest of them rose as well. “Be back at three,” she added.
“Give me a call when you’re back at the hotel,” Callie said over the speaker.
Lovell glanced at Daphne when she didn’t immediately respond to her sister.
Her dark eyes studied him, as if looking for something.
No, not something, a reaction. In rapid fire, his mind sifted through fragments and theories.
Two breaths later, the truth hit him like a wrecking ball to the stomach.
However his involvement in the raid came about, he’d bet his eyeteeth it originated in the conversation between Daphne and Callie the night before.
But he wouldn’t ask her about it now. He didn’t want to give the FBI any reason to second-guess their decision.
“We’re not far, we should be back in less than twenty minutes,” he said, replying to Callie’s question while shooting Daphne a what-did-you-do look.
The smallest of grins was the only reaction he got.
Callie disconnected, and he and Daphne shook the hands of the agents. He confirmed with Tologodor, whose first name was Sebastian, that he’d be back at three, then Hershorn escorted them out.
“I’ve known Stella for years,” she said conversationally as they stepped into the elevator.
“It’s a bit annoying when she drops cases on our laps, especially the ones we didn’t even know about, but she’s never been wrong.
My career thanks her, and 99 percent of the time, I’m glad she’s in my corner.
Glad she’s in the FBI’s corner.” The car slid silently toward the ground floor, then paused at the bottom before the doors opened.
Lovell waited until Daphne and Hershorn exited before following.
“That said,” Hershorn continued as they walked toward the security gates, “not everyone in the agency feels the same as I do.”
They passed through the gates and paused in the lobby. A not-so-subtle warning. He better not fuck things up and give those in the anti-HICC camp any cannon fodder.
“Understood,” he said.
Her pale blue eyes studied him, then she nodded. “We’ll see you at three.” With that, she turned and passed back through the security gates.
They donned their coats and hats, then giving the elephant in the room its spotlight, Lovell looked at Daphne with one eyebrow raised.
She wrinkled her nose, as if maybe she was sorry but not really. “I might have laid some groundwork yesterday.”
He had no interest in being mad that she hadn’t told, or even asked, him.
She’d given him exactly what he wanted without him having to fight for it.
The “what” in this case was far more important than the “how.” The rush of warmth, of tenderness, that tightened his chest, upset his heartbeat, and felt like a thousand butterflies moving through his blood wasn’t entirely comfortable, though.
His brothers had gone to the mat for him dozens of times—they protected one another, looked out for one another, and had even killed for one another while serving.
But never before had a woman done the same.
Not that she’d literally killed someone, but she’d slayed one of his fears, one of his obstacles, and made something possible.
Something important to him. And he didn’t doubt that she’d set aside her own worry when she’d done it.
With her friends-in-interesting-places, she had to have an idea of how these kinds of ops played out.
It wasn’t a picnic in the park; not even the smoothest of ops ran without a hitch. And she’d made this happen for him.
That train of thought led to another. He meant something to her.
He’d known that, of course. Daphne wasn’t one to waste her time on someone she didn’t care for.
But knowing and knowing were two different things.
She’d made this happen for him, not because she didn’t care about him, but because she did.
She wanted this for him. No muss, no fuss, no arguments about how dangerous it might be; she knew all that and yet still made it happen.
“Tell me about it on the way to the hotel,” he said, holding out his hand. She slipped hers into his, and he led her to the door. “I don’t want to sound stupid when we talk to your sister.”
They passed through the doors, and a gust of bitterly cold wind, carrying the scent of roasted chestnuts with it, assailed them. She leaned into him, and he managed to drop a kiss on her head before the rain-slick sidewalk demanded their attention.
“You wouldn’t sound stupid anyway,” she said, her defense making him smile.
“Maybe not, but if Philly gets wind of it, he’ll make up a whole thing, then we’ll never hear the end of how you and Callie saved my ass.”
She laughed. “No question about that. Here’s what little I know.”
“You are not to engage in any hostile activity unless there are no other options, Church, is that clear?” Hershorn said.
He nodded. The five of them were back in the small office going through the plan.
Three teams, led by Khafra, Charnette, and Tologodor, were responsible for breaching the house occupied by Sweet Dreams. A much larger team would deploy first and manage the grounds and outside security.
His job was to wait until told otherwise.