Chapter 491 I Have Orders
Ah, fuck.
Today was not a good day. Then he heard the click. Voss shut his eyes.
Well.
If this was the end, it was a very undignified one.
Another click followed not from the gun at his head. Then Luca’s voice came through.
“Drop the gun or I drop you.”
Voss’s brows furrowed. He turned his head slightly. Behind him stood a man in dark clothes, gun aimed at the back of Voss’s head. He was not one of Luca’s men.
Several feet beyond him, Luca stood with his own gun aimed directly at the man. Honestly, Voss thought, it might have been better if Luca allowed the man to shoot him. The shit paperwork that would come out of this hadn’t even been off the trees yet.
A dead detective was tragic. A living detective explaining why Luciano Genovese had saved his life during an illegal assault on a compromised safe house?
There was no way Voss would explain this without getting IAB involved.
“I have orders, Luca,” the man said, still holding the gun steady.
“Will you die for those orders?” Luca asked.
Voss got to his feet slowly, one hand still wet from pressing down on the agent’s wound, the other reaching for his gun again. “What the fuck is happening?”
Both men ignored him. Voss looked between Luca and the stranger, mind racing through the disaster forming around him. Tony was dead on the concrete. An agent was bleeding but alive. A witness had been silenced in front of him. And now, somehow, Luca Genovese and some other mafia-looking bastard were discussing murder logistics.
The stranger lowered his gun from Voss’s head, but not by much. “Your father asked me to clean up your messes since Marco is unavailable.”
Luca’s expression hardened instantly. The insult of being managed. “I can clean up my own messes, thank you.”
His father’s capo glanced at Voss, unimpressed. “He’s a mess.”
“He’s an asset.”
Voss blinked. “I’m a what?”
The word irritated Voss. He had spent years trying to prove Luca was a criminal, a murderer, a parasite. And now the bastard was calling him an asset.
The capo’s mouth tightened. “If he talks, you go down. My instructions were to make sure you didn’t leave any footprints.”
“Get back to Italy. If I find you behind me again, I’m going to send your dead body to Don, are we clear?”
The capo held his gaze recognising a son drawing a line against a father’s empire. He stepped back first.
“I’m an asset?” Voss made a face. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you have put me in?”
Luca glanced toward Tony’s body, then the wounded agent. “Wouldn’t have been much of trouble if you had just done what I said.”
“You mean break the law?”
“I mean cooperate efficiently.”
Voss’s jaw worked.
Luca looked at Tony on the ground. “Are you going to clean this shit up or should I?”
The horrible truth settled in on Voss. Luca could walk away. Voss could not. The system would ask questions of him.
“Was this your plan all along?” Voss asked quietly. “To find a way to incriminate me? I cannot accuse you with no evidence and yet a witness dies in my custody, an agent is injured. How am I supposed to play this?”
“I don’t care how you play it,” Luca said. He had given Voss one chance to be reasonable. “I gave you the clean way out,” he continued, eyes on Voss. “You refused to take it.”
Voss stared at him, breathing hard. “They’re gonna have my badge for this, you know that right?”
Luca should have felt some sympathy, maybe. But all he could think was that Tony was dead before he gave up a name. The shooter had vanished. His wife had played her part perfectly and still the bastard behind all of this had stayed one step ahead.
That irritated him more than Voss’s whining.
“Since you insist on talking,” Luca said, “it’s your mess to clean then.”
“Where is the shooter?” Voss asked.
“Escaped.”
“Do you know who he is?”
“If I knew that,” Luca said, “I wouldn’t bother wasting my time coming to save you.”
Voss’s face twisted. “Save me? You have ruined my career!”
“I prevented your funeral.”
“You caused the situation that nearly required one.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I swear to God—”
Luca adjusted his cuff, glancing once toward the stairwell where his men had disappeared after the shooter. “If you ever need a better paying job,” Luca said, turning back to him, “I think I can find something for you working for me.”
“Over my dead body.”
Luca ignored Voss and turned to Don’s capo. His gun was lowered but not holstered. He was older than Luca’s usual men, harder around the eyes. “Get out of here,” Luca said.
Behind him, Voss moved, and Luca heard the shift before the detective spoke.
“I still am going to arrest you.”
Luca turned his head slightly then smiled. “You and what army?” Luca gave him one last look then walked away toward his car.
Voss stood there feeling useless. Luca was right. There was no proof Luca had done this. The agent was out cold and would not be able to identify who had pulled what trigger, who had given what order, who had stood where. No one else would bear witness that Luca had been here. The men were gone.
Voss himself had led Luca here. He had been baited, dragged by his own obsession, his own need to finally catch the bastard, straight into a trap wrapped by Veronica. He had been outplayed. He exhaled slowly, the sound carrying every curse he did not have the strength to say.
Then he knelt back down beside the unconscious agent and pressed his hand over the wound again.
“This is going to be the fucked up highlight of my career,” he muttered.
*****
Massimo was only just leaning in to kiss Carol when the alarm in the mansion blared.
(Brought to you by jennifer Willard 1/3)