AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You can trust us,” Greg jumped in, his voice only slightly warmer than his partner’s. I wasn’t sure whether he liked me or not, but I was a means to an end for him. I had the feeling that I was one of the only people willing to speak against Cristian.
Which was not a good feeling.
“We’re the only people in law enforcement you can trust,” he added. “Everyone else is either on his payroll or controlled by people who are on his payroll.” There was bitterness to his voice, considerable bitterness.
“So there’s no point in even doing this?” I asked, suddenly ready to bolt.
He set down his mug, placing his hand on top of mine.
I jerked at the contact, my skin prickling. His hand was dry, callused. Something about his touch put me off. I told myself it didn’t matter… I was turned on by the criminal forcing me to marry him, so I certainly couldn’t trust my body’s reactions.
“No, that’s exactly why you have to do this, Sienna,” he implored. “If you don’t, no one else will. You are in a position to get hard evidence. Hard evidence that my superiors cannot ignore. We can get the FBI involved and unravel this entire organization.” He spoke with passion, with a ferocity. A hunger. He’d been waiting for someone like me for years, and he wasn’t going to let me go, that much was clear. Detective Harris was not doing this because it was the right thing to do, because he was the good guy bringing down the bad guy. No, this was personal, tainted and ugly. Detective Harris was not the good guy, not anymore. I just had to hope he was the lesser of two evils.
I swallowed. “How do we do this? I can’t wear a wire. He’d know.” I didn’t say the reason he’d know was because he could and would get me naked at a moment’s notice and I was not in a position to deny him.
“No, we won’t do that,” Greg replied. “We’ll get you to gather intel.”
“What? Like try to guess his computer passwords?” I asked with disbelief.
“No, that won’t work,” Greg thankfully replied. “You’re in his home. Where he conducts the majority of his business. He doesn’t leave a paper trail. We need evidence of crimes, wrongdoing.”
“So we’re supposed to hope that he commits a federal crime in the next month?” I asked, starting to get pissed. “When I also happen to have a full-time job? Yeah, I’m sure he’s some criminal mastermind, but I doubt he’s going to commit murders in front of me in the next four weeks.”
“We have intel to suggest that the Bianchi crime family will be traveling to his estate for a ... a summit, for lack of a better word.” Greg explained, dumping four sugars in his coffee before bringing it to his lips. “There will be deals made there. Munitions, drugs, both. We’re planning to use the RICO Act.”
Though I hadn’t technically passed the bar, I knew what the RICO Act was. Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act in 1970 in an attempt to fight organized crime which was running rampant during that period of time. To establish RICO, law enforcement had to prove illegal income was used to operate an enterprise, or that an enterprise was being used to collect a debt. They had to show a pattern of racketeering over the past ten years with at least two illegal acts including murder or trafficking.
Although I didn’t know the specifics of Cristian’s business, I could guarantee that he had committed murder and had trafficked obscene material in the past ten years. You didn’t become the head of a fucking crime family without killing people.
“We have some evidence provided by other law enforcement officers not afraid of the Catalano family,” he continued. “Not enough, though. But if you can provide us with something more, we can make arrests. You will be free of him.”
The last part was meant to comfort me. To give me a tangible reason to risk two innocent lives, not to mention my own. Having Cristian out of my life. Punished.
That was the goal.
I took a breath. “Okay, then you have a deal.”
Harris smiled again. “Don’t worry, Sienna, we’ll take care of you.”
I didn’t smile back. Because I tasted the lie in his words.
Harris was going to bring down Cristian. Whether or not I died in the process was just a detail.
Chapter Nine
I hated staying overnight at people’s houses as a rule.
A therapist would likely say it was because of my childhood, never having a stable home, having to live in so many unfamiliar places, in other people’s spaces when my mom lost a job, forgot to pay the rent, decided to move in with a man she’d known two weeks.
