Consumed by the Mafia (De Salvo Family #5)

24. Blast From the Past

twenty-four

Blast From the Past

In an attempt to arrest as many of the names on the list as possible before any of their targets realized what was happening, Newark’s field office had put out a call for reinforcements. Paperwork was rushed, people were pulled from less-critical tasks, and for most of the rest of the day, Abigail found herself trapped at the office. Almost always in the company of at least two other agents, even when she slipped into the bathroom, so it wasn’t until she was on her way to the airport as part of the small convoy to pick up another batch of arrivals that she finally found herself alone. Alone enough to check her phone for messages.

The sun had mostly disappeared, plunging Newark into a darker early evening than usual thanks to the lingering smoke from the bombed-out high-rise. The haze in the sky obscured any stars and the portion of moon that should have shone through, and somehow, the entire ambiance of the night felt right.

Abigail set her phone into the suctioned mount once she was out of sight of the office, and as soon as she could she swiped over to her messages. It wasn’t the smartest idea, but anxiety had gripped her for hours. She’d had no way to know if anyone had reached out to her. No way to know what was going on. She barely cared about the mission she had been deemed instrumental in. She only cared to know if Ryōma was all right. This was the longest they’d been separated in days, and as stupid as it was, the distance felt like a chasm in her heart.

She saw quickly she had three waiting messages. Two were from Brandi De Salvo, of all people, and one was from Ryōma. Consumed by impatience, she read them out of order.

Ryōma: Keep up the good work, baby girl. See you when it’s done.

When it’s done? His message felt like it was lacking far too much information. She wanted to call him and demand so many things. What had happened after they’d talked last, had he been far enough away to avoid getting hurt in the blast or resulting chaos? What the hell did he mean ‘when it’s done’? Why did that feel so … final?

Abigail sucked in a breath, forcing herself to focus on the road long enough make the next necessary merge. She couldn’t get her answers now, like it or not. At least he’d texted. And his message hadn’t said anything dismissive—he still wanted her to come back to him. She was the one feeling overemotional and probably latching on to the wrong things.

Focus, Abigail. There was so much to be done. She tapped the next thread.

Brandi: Mercer is clean.

Brandi: Call me when you can talk.

The messages were nearly an hour apart, which in itself sent a fresh spike of anxiety stabbing through her. It didn’t make sense. How could Mercer be clean? Could she really just be that cold? Abigail had to suppose it was possible. But then… There was only one way to know why she’d been instructed to call, and not a lot of time left to make that call.

Abigail waited until she could scope out the nearest road sign, guessing her remaining time based on the flow of traffic. If the conversation took too long, she’d be screwed. If the information was important, she couldn’t afford not to know it. She would just have to make her time crunch clear. She tapped the green button under Brandi’s contact and then tapped the speaker icon, and ringing filled the cab.

Seconds passed and nausea built like a rising tide in Abigail’s gut.

“Been busy?” an unfamiliar female voice asked barely a heartbeat after the soft click of the line connecting.

Abigail squeezed the steering wheel. “Still am,” she said. Then she paused. “This … is Brandi, right? ”

A short huff of a laugh preceded the response. “Yeah, sorry. I guess this is the first time we’ve actually talked. But if you don’t have time…”

“I have maybe five minutes,” Abigail said. “After that, I don’t know when I’ll be clear to call again. I was sent to help pick up some extra hands for tonight’s big sweeping arrest.”

“Sounds fun,” Brandi said. “I’ll try to be quick. We didn’t find anything sketchy on Mercer, not worse than a few personnel complaints. Sounds like she’s just a bitch.”

Abigail couldn’t decide if that was disappointing or a relief.

Brandi kept talking. “Since you were so sure about an inside problem, I did some more digging, and I found signs of an external hack.”

Abigail scowled. “That can’t be possible.” Even as the words fell from her lips, she felt like an idiot.

“Sorry, Abby,” Brandi said, sounding as though she were grinning. “The feds don’t have all the skill on their side. That said, you have us , and I was able to follow those breadcrumbs back to the source. Came back to an IP address registered to a Dale Morrow, and whoever he is, you were his sole obsession because your information is all he took.”

Brandi fell quiet for several seconds, but Abigail couldn’t speak. Her breath was stuck in her lungs and her palms had started to sweat. It can’t be… She had to have misheard.

“Abigail?” Brandi called, concerning coloring her voice.

The sign for her turn-off filled Abigail’s vision and Abigail swallowed hard. “Did you say … Dale Morrow? Did I hear that right?”

“Yes. I asked if you knew the name, too.”

She hadn’t even heard the question. Abigail drew a deep, semi-steadying breath and flicked on her blinker in order to slide into the necessary lane. “Dale was a friend,” she said, maybe too softly. “He was something like a mentor to me when I started at the Arkansas office. We rarely worked cases together, but we’d meet for lunch or drinks or something and talk shop. He’d help me think through problems and see new angles.” Dale had been like a work brother to her in her mind, and was the person she’d missed the most when she had first moved away.

Dale was also the one who’d told her not to call and lean on him from New Jersey. That doing so would become a bad habit, that it was time she planted her own feet anyway. He’d said it with the patient smile he always wore and finished with a teasing jab to the shoulder like he so often did. So she’d called him exactly once, one week after her arrival, just to hear his lecture and laugh. They hadn’t talked since.

“Well,” Brandi said, “either someone else was using his computer or he’s not the friend you think he is. The real kicker is, I can’t find any record of him coming up to the area, so he can’t be the one who actually raided your apartment. I’m still working on putting that together.”

Abigail felt as though she were leaning bodily into the curve of the road as they angled off the main roadway and toward the airport. Nausea had developed in her stomach and she felt dizzy. “It doesn’t make sense…”

“It was either him behind the leak, or he’s stalking you,” Brandi said, her voice jarringly firm. “Don’t take either lightly. I’m going to keep digging on him, but I thought you should know that much.”

Abigail licked her suddenly dry lips, a swarm of terrible things churning and clenching in her belly. She heard Brandi’s logic, she understood it, but she hated it. Almost as much as she hated knowing she needed to listen to it. “Okay. I appreciate that. I’m almost at the airport, but please text me any updates. I keep my phone locked so it should be safe.”

“Sure.” Brandi paused. “Do you know who you’re picking up?”

“Not specifically.” Abigail’s gaze dropped to the time on the dash, double-checking that they were ahead of schedule, as traffic slowed. “Albert called in favors and bodies from multiple states. I don’t know which ones, let alone who responded. Some flew in private; some flew in commercial. I’m helping pick up the last batch, I think there’s five we’re expecting.” It was such a hodgepodge. She wouldn’t have believed it if she weren’t seeing it unfold.

Brandi made a sound like a muffled laugh. “How bad do you feel?”

The question caught Abigail off-guard and she blinked down at the phone for a second before jerking her attention back to the road. “Not as bad as I expected, actually.” She gave a pointless shrug. “We’re still grabbing up bad guys, so, it’s still work worth doing. And all this … it’s just reminding me how many badge-toting criminals there really are.” She hated it. She wanted to forget it, wanted to bury her head in the sand and insist that her branch was above such disgrace, but she couldn’t .

She would never be able to again.

“I think, at the end, we’re all just people,” Brandi said, the clack of a keyboard carrying over the phone. “No one’s perfect. You have to find the ones who mesh best with you, and do the best you can to live according to yourself. It’s actually not that hard to get along when you do that.”

Abigail felt herself breathing a little easier. “I’ll keep that in mind, thanks.” The lead vehicle of their three-car convoy veered to the side, obviously angling for the long curb, and she knew her time was about up. “I have to get going, but—please, is Ryōma—”

“I’ll tell him you asked,” Brandi said. “Stay sharp, Abby.” The line disconnected.

Abigail didn’t know whether to take the implication of a conversation as a positive or to be endlessly frustrated that the woman hadn’t answered her nagging concern. All she could do was quickly tap the necessary buttons to delete the call log and texts from her phone’s visible history, as an extra precaution. She did use a lock for her phone, but it paid to be safe.

Then she was stopped at the curb, engine off, phone locked, and waiting. She and her two fellow drivers climbed from their vehicles and walked around to stand by the hoods, the picture of official duty and subtle impatience. Or at least, that was the vibe she sensed.

They stood that way, glaring at gawking travelers, for five minutes before four men and one woman in nearly identical, nondescript suits strode through the airport doors. The forwardmost man was clearly in his fifties and not fit for a foot race, his suit straining at the buttons. But it was the man bringing up the rear, seeming to be tucking a phone away, that immediately snagged Abigail’s attention.

Her heart felt as though it caved in on itself, that nauseating sense of betrayal and disbelief slamming back into her without warning. One of the five agents they had been sent to pick up was none other than Dale Morrow.

Dale spotted her before she’d caught her breath and peeled away from the rest, who had gravitated toward the elder-most of their own trio. “Abigail, long time no see, stranger.” He reached out with his free hand, obviously angling for what would be a familiar handshake and more than likely a clap on the back.

Abigail hesitated, her shock making her slow. “Dale … what? I … wasn’t expecting you.” She made herself take his hand, all the while struggling.

Was it possible Brandi had been wrong? Was it possible someone had set him up and that he had nothing to do with it at all? But why is he here? That was the issue tripping her up the most. It seemed like a massive red flag.

Dale pulled her forward and smacked his palm over her spine in a rough greeting. “You look a little tired,” he said as he released her. “They running you too hard?”

She tugged down the ends of the blazer she’d picked up from the office. “It’s been a long couple of days.” Around them, their colleagues wasted no time climbing into the other SUVs. The larger, older male of course assigned himself to the lead car. All Abigail noted for sure beyond that was that she had been inadvertently, or perhaps intentionally, saddled with a man she’d once trusted with her life. “We should get going,” she said, gesturing to her own SUV. “The day’s not done.”

He offered a familiar, tired smirk. “No, it’s not.” Then he moved to the passenger side and pulled open the back door to toss in his bag.

Abigail quickly moved back to the driver’s side and hopped in, immediately reaching for her phone.

“Not the best time for a personal call, Abs,” Dale said with a chuckle as he yanked his door shut.

She made a show of rolling her eyes at him, like she always had before when he’d called her that hated nickname. Before it had annoyed her the way a teasing uncle’s childhood prodding might rile a grown relative. Now it made her skin crawl and the unease spread. “We were ordered to text confirmation of pick-up,” she lied as she typed.

Ahead of them, the other SUVs lit up as their engines rolled over.

“Don’t you think the lead car will do that?” Dale asked.

Abigail held her breath as she finished her message. Dale Morrow is here. It was all she knew for sure to say, or was yet brave enough to say, so she hit send. “The order was to all of us, so I’m complying.” She cleared her screen, locked the phone, and redocked it in the interest of playing things cool. At least she didn’t have it set for messages to pop up on the lock screen.

Dale clicked his seatbelt into place. “Always such a good girl,” he teased.

Abigail buckled herself in and started the SUV, a few seconds delayed in following the other two out. It wasn’t a big deal. The much bigger issue was that of her passenger .

“So, how goes undercover work?” Dale asked as they slowly made their way through the airport terminal.

Abigail held tight to the steering wheel and kept her eyes forward. “You know I’m not authorized to tell you that.” She regretted ever having told him, or their boss back in Arkansas, that she had been approached for reassignment at all. Let alone that it involved undercover work. “How’s Arkansas?”

Dale chuckled. “Pretty much the same. And of course you can tell me. Isn’t your big case why a whole bunch of us have been called in? This is gonna be plastered all over the internet come sunrise.”

That really isn’t the part I want to think about, thank you. “I’m not cleared to debrief you,” she said. “You know what you know regarding why we need reinforcements, and Agent Albert will do the debriefing himself once everyone’s on site. But yes, I can confirm this is connected to my ‘big case.’”

“So,” Dale said, “Newark FBI thinks they’ve got the goods. The real question is, who are they jumping tonight?” He shifted in his seat, propping an elbow on the ledge of his side window and facing her blatantly.

Abigail frowned. “I’ve told you—”

“Were you a good girl , Abs? Did you keep your nose clean and hand over all the dirt you could find on Dante De Salvo and his family?”

She made a point of furrowing her brow and angled a sideways glare his way, but he kept going.

“Or did they flip you, and get you to turn all this excitement onto Mr. Coughlan? ”

Mister … Coughlan? Her blood ran cold and Abigail’s foot inadvertently came off the gas, her eyes widening. “What did you just say?” It was the wrong question, but it was the only one her brain could formulate.

Cold, polished metal pressed into her cheek as she started to turn her head and her body seized. Dale’s voice was almost foreign when he spoke again. “Keep driving, Abs. We’re going to take a detour, but we aren’t pulling away just yet. Let’s wait until traffic gets a little thicker.”

She obediently returned her foot to the gas pedal, her heart thundering in her ears. “What the hell is this, Dale?” she asked, her voice practically a whisper. “We’re on the same side!” They weren’t, obviously, but she was still trying to make it seem like she was all-in. She needed tonight’s arrests to stick. Which meant they needed to happen .

Dale chuckled and dragged the barrel of his gun down, behind the curve of her shoulder blade and forward again, until it was pressed into her side. Between her ribs. “We really aren’t, unfortunately. I liked you, Abs, I really did. I wish you’d never been stuck with this shit assignment. I knew Mr. Coughlan would slit your throat before he’d let the fuckin’ feds take those De Salvo dogs off the streets—he wants their blood himself, you understand. But I hoped, since you always had an issue with pulling the trigger, that you’d drag your feet a little too much and the case would get bungled. Long enough, at least, that I wouldn’t have to do something drastic.”

Abigail scoffed as everything clicked together. “You leaked the information about my identity and got my apartment ransacked? ”

“Mr. Coughlan was gonna offer you a deal,” Dale said. “You’re Irish, he’d fold you in, same as he did me. But you bit the hand he held out.”

She really wanted to punch him. Square in his asshole face. If she weren’t driving on a busier-than-usual road, in the dark, she would have risked it, gun be damned. Who the hell cared if he shot her. “You son of a bitch. Who cares if grandparents I never even met came from Ireland? That doesn’t mean I want in on some criminal organization!”

“See,” Dale said as if they were having a casual chat, “that’s because you don’t understand. It’s a legacy, and we should be proud of it.”

“Oh my fucking god.” Abigail spotted a sign for an upcoming off-ramp that would take them to an area of town less likely to be busy this time of night. He was liable to shoot her if she took it, and if he shot her at his current angle, she wasn’t likely to survive.

On the other hand, Dale was still sitting off-center in his seat.

“You know what, Dale?” Abigail held her hands perfectly still, only even flicking her eyes in Dale’s direction lest she tip him off to her terrible decision. There was no choice that didn’t hurt in some form. A little personal injury on the job was to be expected, right? Come to think of it, he’s the one who always said that. She drew a breath. “Screw you.” Then she spun the wheel, letting the SUV twist in the direction of the unpopular off-ramp before moving her foot to pump the brake and spinning the wheel again.

Dale started shouting, immediately throwing himself wholly back onto his seat as the SUV’s balance tipped. “What the fuck? What the fuck are you doing, Abigail?” He swung the gun around toward her again. “Fucking stop this nonsense right now!”

She felt the overcorrected vehicle drop a tire into the shoulder of the road. Felt the vehicle pitch. So she shot out one arm and kept the wheel moving with the other, hoping to throw off Dale’s trajectory as he squeezed the trigger.

The cabin of the SUV exploded with the single gunshot, deafening her so thoroughly she couldn’t even see. But she felt when the SUV finally rolled.

Everything hurt after that. Her ears started ringing, her body burned and ached in too many places to identify any single one. She felt like she’d lost time. She was dazed, disoriented, her body heavy and mind foggy. Was Ryōma okay?

Abigail felt her chest pinch. No. That wasn’t right. He’s not here. He hadn’t been with her this time. That was the other accident, the previous one. Then, why…?

“You … bitch…” a different, familiar voice groaned over the crunch of broken glass. Something shook around her, more glass crunched, fabric shuffled and ripped, and that voice cursed low. “Knew you didn’t have … what it takes.”

Dale. The voice was Dale, once one of her most trusted colleagues. A man who worked willingly for the Irish mob and had not only sold her out, but was now trying to kill her. She remembered now—and with remembering came a fresh resurgence of pain. Abigail gritted her teeth and pried her eyes open, realizing she had blood rolling down her face. Of course, the windshield had shattered in the crash. She had spots of blood in multiple places .

Bright light washed over the upside-down SUV and squealing tires indicated that more than likely one, or both, of her fellow convoy vehicles had flipped around to check on the scene she’d made. It hadn’t exactly been subtle. She wanted to be reassured by that, but she had no way of knowing if any of the other new additions were also Coughlan plants.

A shadow fell over her side as she forced her arm to move despite the pain. Her seatbelt was sliced and she fell unceremoniously, dropping onto her shoulders and sliding awkwardly up. Broken glass stabbed into her skin and dragged with the movement, causing her to yelp. It almost overshadowed the sharper discomfort in her ankle. The crash had damaged something there.

Rough hands hauled her out the broken side window even as shouting reached her ears and she realized, with not as much surprise as she wanted, that it was Dale who’d cut her from the seatbelt. Dale who was manhandling her. “Let go,” she attempted to say, adrenaline helping her regain the strength to fight as her body cleared the window frame. She reached over her own shoulders, ignoring the pain, and tried shoving him off. “Let go!”

Dale shoved her around, twisting her in place on her knees, and pressed a piece of bloodied, jagged glass up to her throat. “I’ll have to kill you myself now, Abs. I didn’t want to do that.” He didn’t sound too broken up about it.

“What’s going on here?” someone shouted.

“Drop the weapon!” another voice called.

Abigail sucked in a breath, glaring up at her former friend through the blood dripping over her eye. “Doesn’t matter now, you filthy traitor,” she said. “They can all see.” That wouldn’t pacify her, but it wasn’t her she was worried about.

She wanted to see Ryōma again. More than anything else.

Dale’s nostrils flared, his chest heaving. His face and arms were cut up, too, but it gave her little solace. He opened his mouth, and Abigail saw her chance.

“He’s working with Coughlan!”

Dale’s eyes blew wide.

“He’s the one who leaked my location,” Abigail continued, speaking fast and loud. “He said Coughlan wanted to recruit me and they had to retaliate when I obviously wasn’t going to cooperate.”

Dale let out a wild roar. “Damn you!” He shoved the glass again up to her skin, against her throat, and she felt it bite into her flesh.

Two quick, successive gunshots followed, like thunderous cracks of lightning, and Dale dropped.

Abigail sucked in rapid breaths, her heart racing. Holy fuck. She’d honestly thought he was going to kill her. Tears rushed her eyes. She jumped when one of the local agents crouched down at her side.

“Come on, Fitzgerald. Let’s get you back to headquarters and cleaned up.”