Vendetta Read Free Page A

but people aren’t blind. If someone spots you…”
    “I’ll lay low. I was Special Forces, remember? Covert ops?”
    “And a fireman, and a doctor,” she said. A protector. A healer.
And the man I love.
    “And a candlestick maker.” He kissed her once more. Despite her captain’s urgent summons, she savored that kiss. They never knew when it would be their last.
    “Will you be here when I get back?” she asked, but that was a question he couldn’t answer, and they both knew it. In fact, since she was a cop, there’d be no guarantee that
she
would come back, either.
    “I want to be.”
    “That’s the best answer I can hope for.”
    He had dimples when he smiled. Beautiful dimples. She lost herself for a couple more seconds.
    Then she was out the door.

CHAPTER TWO
    I t was 2 a.m. and the 125th precinct was buzzing like a beehive: phones ringing off the hook, overtaxed emergency generators causing the overhead fluorescent lights to flicker. As she entered the bullpen, Cat’s body responded to the call to arms, blood pumping, the last vestiges of sleepiness evaporating.
    Tess was leaning over her desk on the landline with a steaming travel mug glued to her hand. She took a swig and grimaced, then hailed Cat over with the mug. Her brown eyes flashed with the thrill of the chase and Cat knew she was taking down the details of a crime report.
    Tess, said, “We’ll get right on it.”
    She hung up just as Cat reached her desk, then took another gulp from her mug and shuddered from head to toe, a total body roll of disgust. She shook her head like a wet poodle drying off and smiled her best, most mischievous smile.
    “Whoa. You are not going to believe this,” she said in a hushed, excited voice. She looked furtively around. “This is our case. Ours, okay? We deserve it.”
    Cat raised her brows. “It’s clearly juicy. Let me guess. We’re going undercover in Florida? At a spa resort?” She took off her gloves and hat and gave her hair a shakeout. A scattering of snowflakes had kissed her loose waves and the tip of her nose. It was January, and it was cold.
    Tess smirked. “
Almost
as good. Angelo DeMarco has been kidnapped.”
    Cat blinked. “DeMarco? As in
those
DeMarcos? Tony DeMarco, mob boss?”
    “The DeMarco DeMarcos, yes,” Tess said. “Angelo is Tony’s son.” She got as close to squealing as a badass like Tess could get. “Captain Ward’s
got
to agree that we get to keep this one. We just put Justus Zilpho away.”
    “Kidnapping cases are FBI jurisdiction,” Cat pointed out.
    Tess’s eyes sparkled. “And that
was
the FBI. They’re asking for an assist.”
    That made sense. The DeMarcos were one of New York City’s most prominent families. The FBI was a federal agency, but the DeMarco Building was in 125th’s jurisdiction, and the DeMarcos prided themselves on having been in New York for seven generations. Originally from Sicily, they were incredibly wealthy and powerful, and although occasionally a DeMarco would be brought in on racketeering charges, no one had ever made a case against them stick. For cops—good, honest cops—the thought of taking the DeMarcos down was the equivalent of winning the lottery.
    Get to know them, help them with a legitimate issue, and you’re closer to that goal
, Cat thought with relish.
    A family kidnapping would be a high-profile case, and even though Zilpho had paved the way back into Captain Ward’s good graces, Tess and Cat still had a lot of unproductive months to make up for—the partners had spent most of their time solving beast-related crises that they couldn’t tell NYPD about. Rescuing Angelo DeMarco would raise the 125th’s street cred even higher.
    “Beats Florida, eh?” Tess said.
    “Well, we are never happy when one of the citizens we are sworn to protect goes missing,” Cat said somberly. “We’re both highly motivated to find this… boy?”
    “Only son and heir. He’s twenty,” Tess said. “They’ve already received