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I leave the house without breakfast, telling my driver to stop at a coffee shop on the way. I get a muffin and a black coffee, eating it on the way to the precinct, but I barely taste it. I can feel a cold anger forming a knot in my stomach, and it only grows as I stride in through the front door.
The same receptionist who’s always there sees me, her flirtatious smile dimming a little—presumably from the look on my face. “Chief Dawson is in a meeting?—”
“Tell him I’m here. I want to speak to him now.”
“His meeting?—”
I grit my teeth, taking a step closer. I know better than to cause a scene in the middle of a police station—it would take some doing to sweep that under the rug, even with our donations—but I can feel myself on the knife’s edge of rage. “Tell him that it’s urgent. Or I’ll go back there and tell him myself.”
I’m not entirely sure that last is an empty threat. The receptionist seems to think the same, because she quickly slips out from behind the desk, scurrying towards the back office.
When she reappears, she looks more nervous than before. “Mr. Campano?—”
It’s not an empty threat. I brush past her, my patience snapping as I stride back toward Dawson’s office. The sight of Mila’s nervous face last night swims in front of my eyes, and my jaw tightens as I push open Dawson’s office door and step inside.
Officer Adams is sitting on the other side of it, his face pleasantly blank. Dawson opens his mouth as I step in, sees that it’s me, and stops mid-sentence. “Mr. Campano.”
Adams’ face darkens when he sees me. I suspect it’s a mirror of my own—it takes everything in me not to step forward and drag him up out of the chair, throwing him across the room so that I can corner him and beat him to a bloody pulp. My pulse throbs through my veins, flushing my face, and I’m not sure I’ve ever been so angry.
Of the Campano brothers, I’m the level-headed one. The one who is cool in a crisis, largely emotionless, able to look past his own feelings. Often accused of not having any at all. But right now, I feel like I’m overflowing with them.
“Mr. Campano, sit down, please.” Dawson’s voice is even. “Adams, we’ll speak later.”
The look on Adams’ face darkens slightly. He pushes past me, brushing my shoulder ever so slightly, a quiet threat. I can see the gleam in his eyes, his desire to do something about me.
And he’s targeted Mila to achieve that.
“Barging into someone’s office is rude.” Dawson steeples his fingers as I sit down. “But then again, money doesn’t automatically give a man manners. Neither does power, for that matter.”
“My manners are fine. It’s your officer’s that you need to worry about.” I nod in the direction of where Adams has just walked out, in case Dawson might have missed my meaning. “I told you I wanted the heat off of my people. We contribute too much for me to keep having to come down here and have this conversation.”
Dawson looks at me narrowly. “Is there a problem with one of my officers, Mr. Campano?”
“Yes,” I say bluntly, past the point of elegantly beating around the proverbial bush with him. “Officer Adams is stalking and harassing a friend of mine. My suspicion is that it’s entirely because she’s associated with me. He’s gotten an idea in his brave young head that he’s going to be the one to do something about Los Angeles’ mafia problem. You were supposed to disabuse him of that notion.”
“I have.” Dawson frowns. “When did he last bother this friend of yours?”
“Last night.”
“And what did he do, exactly?”
“He followed her from her bus stop to her apartment, in his cruiser.”
Dawson raises a thick grey eyebrow. “He didn’t speak to her? Get out of the car? Turn on the lights and demand she stop?”
I feel my fingers curl into my palms again. I can tell where this is going already. “No. He drove slowly down the street behind her until he finally passed her.”
“And did he come back? Knock on her door?”
I grit my teeth. “No.”
“It sounds like your friend was just spooked by a cop car in her vicinity.” Dawson leans back in his chair. “And like maybe she was guilty of something, if she was that upset by it.” He half-shrugs, lifting one shoulder. “Maybe Adams is right to keep an eye on her.”
“She’s under my protection. He already harassed her once before, at her place of work, and then followed her again. We discussed this. You won’t convince me that last night was a coincidence.”
“Be that as it may, your donations do a great deal for this precinct. They don’t make you entirely above the law. Or rather—they do, but not everyone associated with you. Sometimes, someone has to take the fall.”
I let out a slow breath, reminding myself that assaulting a police officer—especially the police chief—will do nothing to remedy the current situation.
