Worth Dying For Read Free

suspicious deaths as part of the equation. So far, I have four accidentals spanning two decades. Each one had been an informant with the bureau at one time or another. Two died as a result of a car accident, one from electrocution, and the other from a home invasion gone bad.”
    “Okay, Ron. I don’t care how small it appears. You keep me posted on anything relevant you find.”
    “You got it,” Ron said as he stood to leave.
    Edwards glanced at his watch. “I’ll see you in twenty.”
    As soon as Ron left, Edwards jerked off his tie and tossed it on top of the paper-strewn desk. Normally, he didn’t drink while on duty, but decided to make an exception. He grabbed a beer from the small fridge and twisted off the cap. He walked over to the window and took a long swig. He looked out onto Pennsylvania Avenue and his thoughts turned to the meeting he would be having in twenty minutes.
    He was determined not to lose a member of his team on this operation. The Director had given him full control, allowing him to handpick each member of his team. He should be excited to get the chance to nail Castrucci, to put a huge dent in the armor of the Mafia operating in the California region. Bringing down Massino’s family would no doubt cause a ripple effect on the New York bunch. However, for some reason he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling in his gut. He had learned to trust his gut early on in the first days of his illustrious career with the FBI, and so far, it had served him well.
    He had applied for a job with the bureau and to his delight was accepted at the tender age of twenty-two, and he was one of the first African-American men to graduate from the academy. Now, at the age of fifty-five, he had been with the bureau for thirty-two years.
    He was promoted to Executive Assistant Deputy Director three years ago and was now in charge of the Organized Crime Division. Normally, someone in his position wouldn’t be directly involved in an undercover assignment, but this case was different. He knew all the players, and the possibility of an internal leak made his decision that much easier. He was confident it wasn’t any of the members he picked for this operation, and that’s why he chose them.
    He glanced at the personnel folders on his desk and sat down in the leather chair, propped his feet up on the desk, took another swig of beer, and opened the top folder. On the inside flap, a paperclip held a photo of Rheyna.
    She stood five-foot-nine with black, shoulder-length hair, piercing grey eyes, and mocha-colored skin. He laughed out loud as he thought of the words often used to describe her by men in the department—probably a couple of women, too. ‘She’s built like a brick shit house’ pretty much summed it up. He never understood where the expression came from and reasoned that a brick shit house was superior to a wooden one.
    He admitted to himself that Rheyna’s looks had played a small part in him choosing her for this assignment, but it wasn’t the only factor. She was Italian and spoke the language fluently, which was an added benefit, but more importantly, her record within the bureau spoke for itself. Over the past fifteen years, she had received several commendations for her work in the field, including one for bravery when she took a bullet in the leg while shielding a child with her body during a pornography sting.
    With all that factored in, the recommendation by Special Agent Laura Forrest had more than cemented his decision and an easy one it had been. He knew that both women were lesbians and didn’t care. As a black man in a white man’s world, he had dealt with discrimination in one form or another all his life, and he would be damned if he would tolerate it by anyone under his command.
    He grabbed another beer from the fridge and tossed the cap in the wastebasket. Ah, Forrest, what a firecracker—what she lacked in size, she more than made up for with heart and attitude. After graduating from