UP IN FLAMES

From what Zack had told Alaric, as the club had expanded, he’d chosen four men to act as his lieutenants under him. Without telling Zack, one of these men had begun selling guns. When Zack learned of this, he’d been okay with it, but he’d drawn the line at getting involved in drugs.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

Now, BOS was one of the largest drug dealers in the country. Some of the weapons had been sold to known terrorist groups, which is why Alaric had been sent undercover. The investigation so far would be hard-pressed to directly tie Zack to anything. He had four lieutenants under him who carried out the day-to-day operations. Alaric had tons of stuff on these men, more than enough to arrest and indict them. But the police wanted the big guns, the people who provided the weapons and drugs to BOS. Since they were a huge and violent cartel, Alaric doubted they would be able to do much about them. Twice he’d refused an offer to extend his undercover work into the cartel. He had no intention of going there or dealing with those people. That was on an entirely different level. He might be prejudiced, but on the whole he’d found the guys in the BOS to be good people, despite the fact that they wore their one-percenter patches proudly. For the first time in his years with the force, he found himself on the verge of losing himself in the role he was playing. Luckily, he’d managed to pull himself up in time.

“You need to find the info on where Christopher stashed the money,” Bobby said. “We’re not too far from moving in and shutting this thing down.”

Though this exact thing was what Alaric had spent years working toward, he felt sick. He wasn’t ready to close this chapter of his life… At least not yet.

“Earth to Alaric,” Bobby said. “Are you still there?”

With difficulty, Alaric forced his thoughts back on track. “Sorry, I’m here,” he said.

“Be careful,” Bobby said. “If you lose your concentration, you could make mistakes. We’re too close to have anyone do anything that might jeopardize the investigation.”

Too close. While he knew he wasn’t the only undercover operative, he wondered what else the police had.

He’d been able to provide proof that Christopher Wesley laundered money for the club. Lots of money. Which would explain the explosive growth of Christopher’s real estate investments as they were a useful way to clean dirty money. Lawyering could only take him so far. And Alaric suspected a lot of the funds pushing Christopher’s gubernatorial campaign came from dirty money. He needed proof. That had been one of the tasks he’d been quietly working on before someone took Christopher out.

“Does anyone have any idea why Christopher was killed?” he asked. “From what I could tell, the guy didn’t have a whole lot of enemies.”

Bobby Brown scoffed at that. “Those guys always have enemies. Lots of backstabbing in politics, not to mention when you’re also dealing with criminals.”

“True,” Alaric allowed, even though the code of honor he’d witnessed among the BOS had been steadfast and strong. They truly had each other’s backs.

“Anyway, I want you to keep an eye on the wife,” Bobby ordered. “Watch her closely. Use whatever you can and whatever you have to your advantage. We need to know the scope of her involvement.”

Though Alaric could have told his boss that would be a waste of time, he knew better. “Will do,” he promised. “That won’t be difficult at all.”

Difficult didn’t even begin to describe it.

———

“Busy?”

Alaric shifted at the sound of Paul’s voice. The man was leaning against the doorframe, arms folded. Paul was Alaric’s age but had the attitude of a crotchety old man half the time. Paul walked into the office and plopped down in the chair across from Alaric’s desk. “So when did you get a Lexus? Thought you were a live-and-die Ford redneck?”

Alaric took a sip of his coffee. “It’s not mine and you know it.” he replied,

“Then who has someone so pissed off at them that thousands of dollars of damage was done to their car?” He ran a hand over his close-shaven skull, the fingers brushing tattoos running up and down his neck and throat. Paul could be one scary motherfucker if you met him in a dark alley. “I thought only you pissed off people that badly.”

Grinning, Alaric sat his cup down. “Nope. Apparently there are people out there who have a more charming personality than I do.”

Paul snorted. Seeing no way of getting Paul out of his office without giving him the lowdown, Alaric told him about the case, quick and to the point.

“Shit.” Paul sat back, scrubbing at the stubble on his face. “You’re talking about Mrs Spencer. Christopher Wesley’s wife?”

“Ex wife…” Alaric nodded as he corrected him.

A slow grin appeared as Paul dropped his hand onto the arm of the chair. “Is that the list of suspects?”

“Yep.”

“Awesome.” Paul laughed. “You think the douche behind this is serious?”

“Don’t know.” He flicked his gaze to the screen. “I’ve only been able to get a hold of one person and rule her out. Vanessa is a ball breaker-no doubt about it-but is this person serious? Hard to believe at first, but I’m starting to.”

“Vanessa? You guys are on a first-name basis already?”

“Shut up,” he said, kicking his booted feet up on the desk. “And you know, even though she might be annoying. I don’t see any reason why anyone would want to hurt her,”

“So you’ve concluded that she’s innocent then?” Paul asked, his dark eyes sparking with the interest of a new case and all its wonderful, fucked-up possibilities.

Alaric decided not to answer that. “It could be an ex. I know she said she doesn’t have any, but you know just as well as I do, sometimes it takes the question to be asked a time or two to get a straight answer.” But he didn’t think Vanessa had lied about that. The woman had been rattled when she’d seen the note. He doubted she’d hide important info, like a psychotic ex-boyfriend, from him.

“So you’ve been tailing her?”

He nodded. “She’s at work right now.”