AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Agent DeMarco, it’s Emilie Durand. Where are you right now?”
He sighed. “In the FBI field office in New York.”
Instead of being annoyed like he’d expected, she let out a huge sigh of relief. “Good. I called because there’s been a break in the Vandergraff case. We need you. Conference Room M.”
“Give me a few minutes.” He turned to Diana.
She must have guessed what was going on because she smiled gently. “Duty calls, huh?”
“Yeah. Unfortunately. If this wasn’t really important, you know I wouldn’t leave, right?”
She waved him off. “I know. Go. I’ll fill you in later. I just need to get this out before I lose my nerve.”
The agent who stood behind them was still waiting. Rafe pointed at him and growled, “Take good care of her until I can get back.”
The young man nodded frantically. “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”
Diana squeezed his arm. “Easy, tiger.” Her whispered words washed over him, calming his agitated nerves. He wasn’t sure why, but all of a sudden the idea of leaving Diana on her own made him very nervous. She was clearly capable of doing this. But still, he watched until she went into one of the offices with the nervous young man and then turned to find his way to the conference room.
When he walked in, Emilie turned around. “You aren’t going to believe what’s happened.”
Rafe took a seat at the table, nodding to those he knew around the room, which were quite a few people. He’d spent enough time in this office lately to have more than a passing familiarity with half the table.
“It must be good if you’re this excited.”
Emilie didn’t respond to the dig, another clue that whatever had happened must be big. She leaned over and hit a button on her laptop.
“Good is maybe the wrong word. More like it will be good. We got a hit on facial at JFK. We got a hit. Well, two hits.”
At that, Rafe squared his shoulders, even as the knot of unease settled between his shoulder blades. She sounded happy. Too happy. Like starting an evil empire kind of happy.
“What’s got you so happy?”
“We found them.” Emilie’s smile telegraphed her glee at the find. It was obvious that she was enjoying this.
He held his breath and prepared for her to drop a bomb on him. Some shit like maybe he’d been connected to the diamond after all. But that wasn’t what she was saying. He frowned. “Who?”
“Oh c’mon, wake up.” She pressed a button. “Look familiar?”
She hit another key on her laptop, and the screen behind her lit up. Then two familiar images appeared. Another keystroke and their names were highlighted. Rafe squinted when he saw the names on the images.
Fuck. Me.
“That’s Hans Vandergraff.”
Emilie smirked. “And his brother, Jakob Vandergraff.”
Rafe could feel the stares of the others, but his mind was too busy racing with this new information to care.
Those were the bastards who had tried to kill Diana.
What was the likelihood that his old case would reappear in his life randomly? He massaged his temple, trying to calm the storm inside. They looked different than when he’d last seen photos of them. Back then they’d been barely more than teenagers. But now they were men. Big, beefy bastards who had learned the tricks of the trade in their father’s businesses.
All this shit was coming back to him because of the sins of his past. He’d taken out their father, and now they were coming for revenge?
No, that didn’t make sense. Why attack Diana? Despite how strongly he felt about her, she was a recent development in his life. So that made no sense.
Unless this all came down to the fucking diamond.
