Cold & Deadly (Cold Justice: Crossfire #1)(35)

Hopefully it fucking hurt.

No sign of the woman he’d been with last night. Maybe she hadn’t been in the car. Or perhaps she hadn’t made it.

Hopefully he cared for her and the pain of her death would eat him alive until it drove him insane with grief.

Was his daddy involved, yet? Must be nice to have a politician for a father, but not nice enough to stop what was coming. Nothing would stop what was coming.

Oh, yes. It was good he wasn’t dead yet.

This was far too much fun for it to be over so quickly.

*

“What the hell do you mean ‘she’s been put on administrative leave’?” Dominic closed his eyes against the throbbing pain in his head and the news he’d just received about Kanas.

His boss had wisely waited until they were alone in the car before updating him on the latest developments.

“She was investigating Van’s death explicitly against her boss’s orders. She went into a dangerous situation without backup, not once but twice, and the second time she ended up killing a man.”

“She was following up on what happened earlier at the bar. Trying to figure out if someone drugged me.” And someone had. The results had come back positive for GH-fucking-B.

“She should have told her boss. She should have followed procedure and not gone in alone—”

“At two AM? On a hunch? Agents often work alone in small Resident Agencies, you know it. If it had been me following up on a crash involving Agent Kanas would you think I’d been foolish to go alone to get what she thought were witness statements? Isn’t that what we’re trained to do?”

“We’re trained to follow procedure.” Savage shot him a glare. He was driving Dominic home, with orders from the doctors to make him rest. Sure. Dominic didn’t have any serious injuries except for the shoulder they’d reset. The sling he’d been told to wear was already a royal pain in his ass. Thankfully he was left-handed and it was his right shoulder which had been injured. The biggest problem was he wasn’t allowed to drive for at least a week and his house was rural with just a couple of close neighbors.

Dominic couldn’t see himself getting much rest, especially knowing Ava was in trouble. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t involved her in the case again.

No wonder she had a giant chip on her shoulder if this was how she was treated. “You said she facilitated a massive drug bust.”

“Which would have been great had the DEA not already had the place under surveillance.”

Shit.

He sat up straight. “Do they have any video tapes? From last night or last week?”

Savage grunted.

“Do the DEA at least have evidence of these assholes spiking my water?”

Savage overtook a tractor trailer hauling hay. Dominic held his breath and tried not to envision a horrific death. He’d come damn close last night. Only the fact his car was packed with safety features had enabled him to walk away from the accident without major injury.

“Not that they’ve given us yet. They’re still pissed we crashed their party. It makes sense though. You’re in the bar asking questions, and they have a half ton of coke in the back room. Maybe they thought you were onto them.”

“Seems like a weird way to throw Feds off the scent—drugging us. Why not split with the coke?”

“No one said these guys were geniuses.”

Dominic drummed his fingers on his thigh. “You know, without Ava Kanas we might never have figured out what happened to me. I’d be in the hospital, and you’d all be checking my blood panels for narcotics and alcohol and giving me censorious looks until they came back negative. The docs might have missed the GHB altogether.”

Savage’s fingers tightened on the wheel. “She’s also the one who came up with the theory Van was murdered and dragged you into something that almost got you killed.”

Dominic’s lip curled. “Because I’m so easily led.”

“Doesn’t mean her actions weren’t indirectly responsible for you ending up in the hospital.” Savage shot him another look and swerved around a dead skunk on the road.

“I’m the one who called her.” Dominic’s fingers dug into the dashboard. “And slow the hell down. I’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

Savage took his foot off the accelerator. “Sorry.”

“You have to admit something weird is going on. Van commits suicide after going to that bar. A shooter kills an FBI agent at his funeral. I get roofied and almost die in a car wreck…”

“They might be completely unrelated.”

Dominic’s laugh was unamused and even more so when pain sliced through his ribs. He grabbed his side with his good arm. He hated to think what he’d feel like without a seatbelt or airbags. Dead, no doubt. “What happens now?”

“You go home, rest, and keep away from Agent Kanas.”

“To the investigation.” Dominic ignored the jab about Ava.

“You know you can’t be involved in any way—”

“Some fucker tried to kill me. I am already involved.” Dominic rarely raised his voice. It wasn’t a great negotiation tactic, but they all had their off days.

Savage made a visible effort to control his own temper. Too many strong-willed males in an enclosed space, but Dominic was not in any mood to back down.