Chapter Thirty-Three

“You’re kidding me!” Chance couldn’t believe what Sullivan just said. “Vera Tennyson is dead?”

“She and her personal assistant fell overboard during the night. Her body’s the only one they’ve recovered so far.”

“Mitchell Franks is missing?” Didn’t that curious tidbit of intel stink to high heaven? “Are we certain he’s who he claimed to be?”

“Already digging into him. Keep your ears on. I’ll be in touch.”

Chance palmed his phone and tucked it into his front jeans pocket. What was the chance of Suede’s mother drowning while Franks merely vanished? In the ocean? Not freaking likely.

He needed to know more about this guy. Seated in his control center, he hit the keyboard and brought up a page of recent German immigrants. Bingo. Franks came to America sixteen years ago. Interesting. Another few keystrokes sent Chance to a town near Berlin called Stahnsdorf, Wilhelm Gonzales’ grandfather’s point of origin. Another coincidence?

“I don’t think so.” Chance began digging into Suede’s mother’s right-hand man in earnest.

Suede had insisted on making breakfast this morning, what was fast becoming a daily occurrence that Chance liked. Somehow food cooked by a woman always tasted better than anything he threw together. With her, every meal was an art form. With him, it was more grab and gulp. Normally he’d be there at her side chopping onions and peppers for an omelet or squeezing fresh orange juice, but today’s urgent call from Sullivan had demanded the privacy of the Montana command center.

There might come a day when he allowed Suede full reign of his place, but Chance was in no hurry to push her into this part of his world. She’d been through enough. He’d rather have her living a normal life for as long as she could, and if she liked to spend it in the kitchen, who was he to complain?

He’d just opened Franks’ employee file, the one Pagan had found tucked inside Governor Tennyson’s server, when his phone buzzed an incoming. Speak of the devil.

“What do you know, Brother?” Chance asked, his sharp eyes scrolling over Franks’ stellar resume and credentials. On paper, the man walked on water, but Chance didn’t get that drift from Suede. Every time the guy’s name came up, she dodged eye contact and changed the subject. They needed to talk.

“I know Garcia’s meeting Tennyson at Terminal Eight this morning. That’s where I am at the moment. On the wharf. Want to know who leases this terminal?”

A waterfront terminal was a warehouse, plain and simple. This one had to be a cover for one of the two cartels vying for Portland’s location. That Garcia was in town spelled trouble, possibly Tennyson’s death. “Sure. Spill.”

“The name Domingo Zapata ring a bell?”

Chance hissed. This mess just kept getting bigger and badder. Zapata was a lone wolf out of Brazil, a mercenary in every sense of the word and an outright psycho. He liked the blood of a fresh kill, was known to paint his face with his victim’s blood, and then leave a selfie behind with the deceased displayed in the backdrop. The man was an animal, loyal to no one but himself.

“Who’s he working for, Patrone or Gonzales?”

“My gut’s telling me he’s not aligned with either.”

That made sense. Gonzales had Garcia and Juarez. Patrone had the Rio Brothers. Why would either of them call in an outsider like Zapata when they had plenty of their own muscle? “You think he’s solo?”

Pagan grunted. “I think he’s working for someone else. T-8 is either his lair or a misdirect. I’m hanging back in case it’s rigged to blow. The Feds already sent Bomb-Boy in.” Bomb-Boy, the latest in high-tech bomb-sniffing robots.

“Why’s the governor there?” Chance asked.

“Good question,” Pagan answered. “Guess he wants a ringside seat.”

“Yesterday, York said someone more powerful than Patrone’s behind the scenes.”

“Oh, yeah? Who?”

“Don’t have a name, but Sullivan’s on it. Where’s Kruze?”

“Tailing Miss Vicki” —Pagan cleared his throat— “if you get my drift.”

Wasn’t that a surprise, Kruze chasing tail in the middle of an operation? It wasn’t the first time. “He’s a dumbass if he catches her. What’s her stake in this? Do you know for certain she’s after a piece of the waterfront?”

A low growl came over the line. “I don’t really know anything. She’s just eye candy to me. There’s no way she can compete with degenerates the likes of Gonzales and Patrone. That little girl needs to pack up her pink pistols and go home before she gets hurt.”

And there you have it, the reason Pagan didn’t have a woman in his life and probably wouldn’t for years to come. He tended to stick them into cubbyholes marked wife, cheerleader, teacher, or mother instead of granting them full marks for possibly having better brains and more complex thinking than most men. Yes, the two pink-handled Sig Sauers Miss Vicki carried—somehow—in her matching pink underarm holsters were a girly trademark, but they were her trademark, and she knew how to use them. How she reached for them as full-busted as she was and as quickly as she did, defied logic, but apparently, the Sicilian mob’s number one go-to-gal managed her boobs as easily as her pistols.

“Don’t be so sure of yourself, Pagan. She’s got one helluva track record for getting her man. Kruze needs to stay sharp or she’ll wing him.” Another eccentric trait, Miss Vicki winged law enforcement officers who got in her way, a thoughtful, albeit sadistic reminder of who she was and how good of an aim she was.

Most hit men and women were content making body shots when it came to a gunfight with the law. If a police officer got in their way, so be it. It was no skin off their teeth; they got paid either way. Not Miss Vicky. She went for smaller targets when she encountered the police. Ankles. Wrists. Fingers and toes. Never heads or throats. Never came close to carotid or femoral arteries. Mostly she nicked, winged, or grazed the boys in blue, and wasn’t that interesting? An assassin with a soft spot for cops, federal agents, and first responders? Professional courtesy, maybe?

“Not worried about her,” Pagan huffed. “I’m hard pressed to think the mob wants a piece of this war, though. They’ve got their hands full in Sicily. You think she’s gone rogue?”

The Sicilian Mafia had recently gone through massive restructuring due to the poor economy and the Italian crackdown on organized crime in their country. They were currently settling in Germany, where prospects were brighter.

“I think she’s working an angle we haven’t figured out yet. Like I said, keep your eyes open and tell Kruze to lay off the lady. He’s supposed to track and watch from a distance, not engage in physical contact.” Something about Miss Vicki and her hard-assed rep nagged at the back of Chance’s mind. He just couldn’t put his finger on what.

“Shit,” Pagan hissed. “Bodies. The FBI’s pulling bodies out of the terminal. One. Two.”

Chance stiffened in his chair. “How close are you?”

“Don’t worry ’bout it.” Pagan’s standard answer when he was in too deep. “I’m up high on a boom across the way. All these terminals have glass windows front side. I could pick one of these guy’s ears off if I wanted to, and they’d never know where the hit came from. Damn. Tennyson’s puking his guts up.”

Chance could imagine his brother lying belly down, feet anchored over the edge of that boom, his eye to his scope and as cool as a cucumber. “The man should’ve stayed home and minded his business. His wife fell overboard last night.”

“She’s dead?” Pagan asked without a hint of surprise at that bombshell.

“The ship’s captain believes her assistant fell overboard with her sometime during the night. They’re still looking for him.”

“Hmm,” Pagan murmured. “Then why the hell is the governor here, when he’s got a state funeral to plan? Does Suede know?”

“Not yet, I just found out. I’ll bet Tennyson thought he’d catch York in that terminal. That’s why he’s there. Want to bet this turn of events screwed his plans?”

“No shit.” Pagan grunted. “Tough break, her being born to those two. Never had much use for either Tennysons’ politics, but I like her. Be good to that girl.”

“Copy that,” Chance said. “Stay safe, Baby Brother.”

“Nine, Chance,” Pagan hissed. “Zapata had nine bodies in that terminal.”

“Nine?” Chance closed his eyes at that magic number. “Want to bet those are the Port Authority Commissioners? Most of them were York’s buddies. Someone’s cleaning house, Pagan, and whoever’s aligned himself with York is next.” Which meant Julio Juarez and Benito Garcia, maybe Suede, if that someone came looking for York. Chance’s stomach dropped.

“Why do I get the feeling all roads lead back to Mick Tennyson?” Pagan asked. “You remembered to set the beacons, didn’t you?”

“Yes, smartass,” Chance hissed. Man, make one mistake, and his brothers never let him live it down. “I set four topside, some cameras, too.”

“You climbed back up Old Man Mountain? At night?”

“It was nearly morning by then, but yeah. I’m not taking chances.”

Pagan chuckled. “How’s our girl doing?”

“Good. She was there when York fell.”

“Christ, you took her on a job with you?”

“There was no choice. I couldn’t leave her here alone. She’s neck deep in this mess, and she deserved to look her murderer in the eye.”

“You should’ve let her take him out.”

“She had her chance, but she chose not to.”

“So you did it? In front of her?”

“Not precisely. He slipped.” Kind of.

“You tossed him over the edge? Like he did to Suede? Gnarly!”

Who said gnarly anymore? “Get a life. I said he slipped. Suede and I both grabbed for him, but we couldn’t get to him fast enough.”

“You all choked up?”

Chance grunted. “Crying my eyes out. Gotta go. Keep your ears on.” He had a breakfast date with a beautiful woman, and he couldn’t miss it, not with the bad news he now had to share.