“No one has friends in the Point, at least that’s what I thought. I’m trying to make it right.” Now her voice cracked a little and I noticed that her bottom lip started to quiver slightly. She was far more frightened than she was letting on. Whatever else Bax had been ready to lay into her about was cut off when Titus suddenly appeared and smacked Bax across the back of the head, startling him enough to move away from the young woman as he reached up to rub the sting.
“Leave her alone, asshole. She’s trying to help.” Titus sounded annoyed and frustrated in equal measure.
The woman looked between the two men then at me, and was smart enough to bolt while she had an opening. She left without saying anything to either brother.
“Who on earth was that?”
Bax retaliated by ramming his elbow hard into Titus’s very flat belly, which had the older brother sucking in a breath and glaring as his sibling. Bax turned his dark eyes on me and bit out, “Reeve Black. She’s the person who told Novak Dovie was on her own the night he had his guys grab her off the street. She got into bed with him over a blood debt and he called it in and used it to hurt Race and Dovie. She should be in jail for capital murder, but she cut a major deal with the feds and went into witness protection. She’s supposed to be as far away from here as they could put her. I told this idiot”—he pointed at his glowering brother—“if I ever saw her again I wasn’t going to be responsible for my actions.”
“And I told you to stop saying shit like that to me. Remember, I’m a cop.”
“Why are we here, Detective?”
Titus scowled at Bax and flicked a narrow-eyed look at me as well. He crooked his finger and motioned for us to move closer to him.
“I got a call from one of the federal marshals handling all the witnesses in the Novak case.” I saw his Adam’s apple bounce up and down as he met Bax’s hard stare. “Race and Dovie’s old man was murdered last night in the secure location WITSEC found for him. Hartman was willing to give the names of major arms dealers, drug suppliers south of the border, and all kinds of other information the RICO unit was chomping at the bit to get their hands on in this case. He had a full security detail, was located out in the middle of goddamn nowhere, and someone still managed to get to him.”
I bit down on my lip and shared a worried look with Bax. “How are they handling the news?”
“Dovie is a sweetheart, so I think she’s mostly worried about Race since he hasn’t said a single word. The asshole tried to have Novak kill her, so I think she’s just relieved that that’s one threat she’ll never have to worry about again. Race just kind of zoned out; I’ve never seen him like that before. That’s not all, though.” He rocked back on his heels and put a hand on the butt end of the pistol attached to his belt. “With Hartman being so insulated, we know the hit had to come from the inside. It had to be someone handling his move and relocation.”
Bax swore. “A fed?”
Titus nodded. “Probably.”
Bax dropped about every dirty word I had ever heard and clenched his hands into fists. “Not enough we have to worry about the bad guys, now we gotta worry about the good guys too?”
“That’s about the shape of it.”
“Why was Reeve here, Titus?” It was a sharp change in subject and obviously Bax wasn’t happy that the stunning woman was anywhere near his city.
“Because she has information I’m going to need if I have any chance of flushing out our dirty fed.”
That had Bax swearing again. “What kind of info?”
Titus shook his head and scrubbed his hands over his short hair. “That’s the line where brother and cop cross, Shane. Leave her alone, I need her to do my job and I will be seriously pissed if you get in my way.”
I was tired of the masculine posturing when I needed to take care of my man. This was a lot to process and I just wanted to get to Race. “Where is Race?”
“In my office with Dovie.” Titus stopped Bax with a hand on the center of his chest as he went to maneuver around him. “Look, I need this girl to stop what is happening in the Point. She is absolutely necessary. I told Dovie all of this and she gets it, so you need to use your head and not go off half-cocked because I will shut you down so fast it’ll make your head spin. You got me, Bax?”
Bax didn’t say anything, just pushed forcibly around Titus and stomped his way across the precinct toward a glass door that had DETECTIVE KING stenciled on it in black letters. I went to follow him, my head spinning and stuffed with the excess of information it had just been handed out, when Titus reached out to stop me.