The Suppressor by Erik Carter (best free novels .txt) 📗

C.C.’s hands remained on her mouth. Her face had gone pallid, and her eyes were saucers.

“I’m sorry,” she said through her fingers.

Jake exhaled and gave her an understanding nod.

She lowered one of her hands, brought the other to her lips, chewed a fingernail. “I’m telling you, it’s something more. It started with one of my premonitions, yes, but I took action.” She paused. “I followed him.”

“Oh, god, C.C….”

“I was safe! I trailed him out to his beach house. There were men waiting for him. A pair of brand-new Maseratis. Out-of-state plates. New Jersey.”

Interesting.

The Farone family certainly had strong ties to the New York-New Jersey area, as the patriarch, Joseph Farone, had originally come from Manhattan, having a brief stay in New Orleans before ultimately ending up in Pensacola. But while Burton was a higher-up even before he formed the schism within the family, the Farones had never directly involved him in high-level matters.

So what were exotic vehicles from New Jersey doing at his place?

Jake didn’t have time to ponder it. He needed to figure it out.

A quick glance through the window, and he saw Burton, Glover, and McBride still in mid conversation, laughing, paying them no attention. Still, Jake turned his back to the window for what he was about to do.

He reached into his pocket at took out his small notebook, a NedNotes brand PenPal. All cops need a good notebook, but Jake hadn’t warmed to the traditional, top-bound variety so many police officers used. At five by three and half inches, the small PenPal suited his needs perfectly. But just as importantly as the size was the fact that the spiral binding was on the side, and since PenPals were one hundred pages thick, the binding was large enough to hold a mechanical pencil. The front covers were durable plastic and came in a variety of colors. This one was canary yellow.

C.C. had encouraged him to use his notebooks in other capacities. She saw them as a tool he could use to help organize his often confused brain space. Her primary recommendation was mind mapping, a diagramming system used to organize concepts visually and hierarchically.

Jake flipped the PenPal to the first clean page. While undercover, he wrote notes as infrequently as possible, and when he did, he used shorthand abbreviations that only he would understand. Just in case.

He took the mechanical pencil from the spiral binding and wrote: NJ vhcs Bn

The standard NJ for New Jersey and two of his abbreviations for vehicles and Burton.

“I need to swing by Burton’s,” he said as he snapped the notebook shut and stuck the pencil back in the binding. When C.C. started to object, as he had moments earlier to her own Burton investigation, he added, “Hey, if you’re gonna spy on him, I get to as well. I am the police officer here.”

He flashed her a smile.

She wasn’t amused.

She crossed her arms, pulling them in tight, as though to warm herself. “I’m telling you, there’s something not right about what’s happening tonight with the Rojas. I can feel it.”

Her chest raised as she took in a breath. She released it and moved closer. Her hands went to his chest, eyes looking up at him. At six-foot-three and five-foot-three, there was a perfect foot of height difference between them.

“You asked me to sell out my entire family, to never see them again. Sylvester is a monster, a psychopath, and I’m glad to do my part to bring him down. But I’m doing it for you. So indulge my quirkiness and don’t go to the hit tonight. Find an excuse. Say you ran out of gas; say your aunt died. Something. Just tell me you won’t go.”

She had a point.

C.C. was giving up everything she’d ever known. And since Tanner was undoubtedly going to pull Jake from his cover tonight, there was really no point in Jake putting himself in danger.

“I won’t go,” he said. “I am going to Burton’s, but, okay, I won’t go to the Roja hit.”

She exhaled, face losing its tension.

“Thank you.” Another deep breath. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Promise?”

“Do I promise that I love you?”

“No. Promise me you won’t go to the hit tonight.”

He nodded. “I promise.”

Chapter Eight

A normal man would have been crumbling under the pressure right about now.

Lukas Burton, however, was not a normal man.

His plan was huge, its scope staggering. But before he could fully coordinate with his new business partners, he had to completely break free from the traditional vestiges of the Farone crime family. So far, he had seven loyal men.

He’d given the other people in the organization plenty of time to join him, to join the winning side.

And now their time was up.

Yet despite the pressure that was building, Burton was calm as a windless sea. More than calm. He was excited. While the Farone-loyal contingent had dispersed as soon as Sylvester had given the instructions, Burton and his men had remained in the great hall, finishing their drinks, laughing, telling loud jokes and slapping each other’s shoulders for several more minutes before heading out.

McBride was the last of his troops—as Burton liked to called them—aside from Glover who was still there. He was a big Irish shit with a dirty red beard, lumpish body, and a tattoo on his right cheek, an inch away from his eye. After another rumbling laugh McBride clamped a hand on Burton’s shoulder—more tattoos on his knuckles—and lumbered away, enormous feet clomping on the hardwood.

This left only Glover and Burton.

Burton watched McBride walk off, and then his eyes traced across the living room on the far wall that looked out onto the darkened courtyard. Through the leaves and branches and bushes, he could see another window, a warm glow in the darkness.

The library with its walls of books and leather furniture. And two figures—Pete “Loudmouth” Hudson and Cecilia Farone. Speaking to each other.

For the longest time, their relationship had been a poorly kept secret. They’d given up on that and now communicated