His frustration at himself spilled out and his voice rose. “He was Big Nose Tommy, there was a high probability of it.”
“But you highly doubted from the beginning that that was the case,” Finian said.
“Yeah.” In the beginning, it hadn’t seemed like that big of a deal, but after getting to know Gina, having to admit it was like being hit with a haymaker of his own stupidity right in the nose.
Fallon shook her head. “And then after all of that was put to bed and you two got serious, you never told her?”
And there it was, the knockout punch. “No.”
Everyone gathered in the entryway wore identical expressions that roughly translated to there never was a dumber man than Ford Hartigan. He couldn’t argue the point.
The whole time, he’d figured it would be something Gina’s rule-breaking family would do that would mess everything up. Instead, he’d done it all by himself.
“Well, what are you going to do now?” Faith asked.
Ford wished like hell there was a procedure manual for this. “I have no clue.”
Chapter Eighteen
Ford had barely sat his ass in his chair Friday morning before his name rang out over the squad room.
“Hartigan,” the captain yelled. “My office.”
When he walked into the office and saw that the new task force lead, Rodriguez, was already there, he knew this wasn’t just another meeting. The captain got introductions out of the way with his usual pondering efficiency, and then he and Rodriguez sat down.
Since there wasn’t another chair, Ford remained standing. Judging by the look on their faces, having enough chairs hadn’t been simply an overlooked detail.
“I understand you have a special in with the Luca family,” Rodriguez said, her tone neutral, but there was no missing the calculating look in her eye.
“I did.” Until he’d fucked it up like an asshole.
Not a muscle moved in Rodriguez’s face, but she tightened her grip on the pen in her hand. “Love has turned to dust already,” she said with a sarcastic sigh. “What a shock.”
“As I’d suspected it would,” the captain said as he clicked open a digital report. “Even if her last name wasn’t Luca, she just didn’t look like your kind of woman, Hartigan.”
The death glare Rodriguez shot the captain could have been used in place of the electric chair. The captain, distracted by the report on his computer screen, missed it. Ford did not. It was so unexpected and vicious that a surprised snicker escaped before he could stop it and he had to cover the noise with a fake coughing fit.
The captain looked up, confusion making a V in his otherwise unlined forehead. “Do you need to recuse yourself to go get some water?”
Ford coughed once more for good measure and pounded on his chest. “No, sir. I’m fine.”
He turned his attention back to Rodriguez, whose expression had warmed by half a degree. Considering that none of the women in his life were currently talking to him—and neither were his brothers—after what happened at family lunch, that minuscule amount of warmth felt like the first day of summer.
“We have information that the Luca brothers have been busy lately,” Rodriguez said. “They’ve been boxing up a lot of stuff and taking it to a storage building on Elmherst. We can’t confirm that it has to do with the shipment tonight, but we need to find out either way.”
The Luca brothers and mystery cardboard boxes. That sounded a little too familiar. “Any idea what’s inside the boxes?”
“Nope, but we think there was at least one delivered to the sister’s house.” She paused as if to gauge his reaction. When he didn’t have one, she went on: “You don’t happen to know anything about that, do you?”
“No.” One word. One bald-faced lie to the woman who held his spot on the organized crime task force in her hand and the captain who held the rest of Ford’s career in his.
It wasn’t a great plan. It wasn’t a plan at all. It was pure gut reaction. Implicating Gina in anything that had to do with her brothers was not something he was going to do when he knew she wasn’t guilty of a thing. Damn the regulations and proper protocol.
Rodriguez continued, “Our informant has not been inside the Luca brothers’ apartment, and we can’t risk his position on the inside for answers about a couple of low-level loan sharks in case it doesn’t pan out. Still, we don’t want to miss anything, so we need to know what’s in the boxes at the storage facility or the ones possibly at Gina Luca’s residence.”
“And you want me to find out?” Well, that wasn’t going to happen because if he showed up on her door, she’d probably let him fall through the porch again and leave him there.
“That was the idea, but if you’ve lost access then we can send in someone else to poke around.” Rodriguez looked down at her notes. “She’s renovating her house, right? So maybe an inspector for a spot check, see if there’s anything suspicious. If there is, we can get a warrant for the storage unit.”
All he could picture was the box on Gina’s kitchen counter, the one her brothers had left and made her promise not to look in. This was the point in the conversation where it was standard operating procedure to offer up that pertinent information.
He said nothing.
And he couldn’t let another cop look in that box first. If there was something illegal inside and Gina was holding it, she could be facing charges even if she had no idea about the contents. After seeing how the Luca brothers were with their sister at the bowling alley, he couldn’t imagine her brothers would set her up to take a fall. Still, he had to do whatever it took to protect her in case he was wrong. If he was the one who found out whatever was inside the box, he could vouch for her, keep her safe from any fallout. There wasn’t another option.
“I can still get in.”
Rodriguez didn’t look impressed by his declaration. “Are you sure?”
It would mean burning whatever goodwill Gina might have left for him—which, face it, was pretty minimal at this point—but he could stop her from getting tangled up in her brothers’ mess. That was worth it, even if she ended up hating him for it.
…
Gina looked through the narrow leaded stained glass window next to the door again. Nope. She wasn’t dreaming—or having a nightmare. Ford was on her porch. He was holding a white box with the red Vacilli’s logo on it. He was looking a little rough around the edges. Good. He should.
“I can see you standing there,” he said.
Of course he could. She was standing in front of a window. “So?”
“Please let me in.” He held up the box in his hand. “I come bearing pastry and an apology.”
“Really?” The man was such an asshole. Did he really think she was that much of an idiot? “You brought cannoli? That move doesn’t get you in my pants anymore.”
“It’s not cannoli. It’s rum cake.”
Oh. Toasted almonds. Shut up, Regina. Dickhead alert. Stay focused. “That doesn’t get you laid either.”
He sighed and lowered the box back down. “I’m not trying to screw you, Gina.”
“Yeah, you only like to screw me over.” Which, while a clever retort, was both true and depressing—like a nature documentary where the little baby hippo ends up getting eaten by a pack of lions.
“Please just let me in. We need to talk.”
Her natural curiosity wondering just what he was up to joined forces with that lizard brain part of herself that still responded to him with happy sighs and excited squeals. That’s how she ended up opening the door before she could stop herself. Stupid pheromones and brain.
“At least this saves me from having to decide between burning your stuff in my driveway or taking it to your house, so you might as well come in.”
Okay, so she’d binged a few days’ worth of chick-gets-revenge movies this week that had given her ideas. It wasn’t like she’d followed through on any of them.
“Thanks,” Ford said as he walked past her.
She did not take a big whiff as he got near. She did not check out his ass when she turned to close the door. She did check out his hands as they cradled the white box from Vacilli’s. He was just in her line of sight. That’s all.
“You can wait in the kitchen, I’ll bring the box down.”
“I can get it.” He started toward the stairs leading to her room.
“No.” There wasn’t any way in hell that she could let him into her bedroom again. “Uninvited guests stay downstairs.”
She got up to the third step before his voice stopped her.
“Gina, I’m sorry.” There was a raw edge to his tone that took it an octave lower, as if he was trying to keep something inside him from breaking out. “Kyle is a dickhead but he was right, I lied to get into your house. I was assigned to be here. It wasn’t by choice. I couldn’t let Gallo come watch over you, not after that night in the hotel.”
Her grip tightened on the banister, but she didn’t turn around. She couldn’t.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and when the captain gave me the assignment, I took it. Even then I was afraid if I did that I’d break my biggest rule and get involved with someone that I couldn’t. You were an assignment and a Luca—and I didn’t trust myself to follow the rules when I was around you.”