Cold & Deadly (Cold Justice: Crossfire #1)(71)

“Shit, isn’t that what he’s been studying? Use English—we all need to understand the conversation.” Dominic turned the mic back on.

“Milo.” Ava switched to English. “Everything that has happened so far is not your fault. We saw that you weren’t part of this plan, that you involved yourself so you could save the hostages.”

“To protect the warden,” Dominic whispered against her ear staring intently at the monitor. “There’s a connection there.”

“To protect the warden,” Ava repeated. Sweat ran down Ava’s temple although she felt icy cold. “The warden isn’t going to want you to murder Gino in cold blood. She’ll want him punished in accordance to the law.”

The woman stood up behind the counter. Naked, arms crossed over her chest but shoulders back, voice strong. HRT was almost there.

“She’s right, Milo. I could never have survived this ordeal if it wasn’t for you helping me. Thank you for that. Let Gino rot in prison. Put the knife down before they come in here with guns blazing and shoot you for being armed.”

On screen Milo and the warden both glanced toward the cafeteria where sounds of the assault team could be heard.

“Put the weapon down,” Dominic urged directly into the mic. “We don’t want to hurt you after you’ve helped resolve this crisis.”

Milo looked sadly at Gino. Then he tossed the knife on the counter and raised his hands high into the air. He took a step back and executed a brutal kick that hit Gino in the face. Ava sucked in a startled breath at the ferocity of the attack. Then Milo stepped away with a smile that sent shivers through Ava just as the HRT guys blew the doors and rushed inside.

Ava met Dominic’s stare and flinched at the turbulent emotion in his gaze.

“We need to talk,” he said.

Ava grimaced. It was her turn to have her ass kicked.





Chapter Twenty-One





“Did you know about this?” Charlotte demanded angrily as she pushed to his side.

Dominic turned off the microphone and recording instruments. Anger coiled inside him like razor wire. If he said no, Ava wouldn’t be suspended, she’d be gone. Kicked out of the Bureau permanently. And she was a damn good agent—one he’d just had sex with.

Complications were multiplying like rabbits and the fact he felt compromised by what they’d done, both by the need to protect her and the need to protect his own reputation and his job, made him so fucking furious that his skin felt like it might char at the edges if he released even an iota of his rage.

“Of course, I knew.” He looked Charlotte in the eyes and lied.

Ava was a Black Swan. An unknown unknown that changed everything completely.

It was so Ava he should have known. Milo’s protective loyalty to the warden was another. Who knew serial killers felt loyalty?

Charlotte threw up her hands when he refused to say anything more and turned away to organize her stuff. He and Ava stared at one another.

She understood exactly how angry he was. Her expression turned from contrition to resilience to resentment with each breath she took, her mood conveyed by the increasingly belligerent angle of her chin.

Typical Ava.

A loose cannon. A loner. Unpredictable.

The Incident Commander came into the room and shook his hand, but Dominic had not solved this crisis. He’d just stalled for time which hadn’t been good enough in this particular instance. Then the IC turned to Ava and shook her hand.

“I don’t know if any of that was true, but that was a goddamned beautiful thing to watch.”

“What is Frank Jacobs’ condition? And the warden?” Dominic interrupted. This operation had been a team effort and the fact the Incident Commander didn’t recognize that pissed him off.

“Jacobs has been rushed to the nearest trauma center—he’s alive. The warden is physically unharmed.”

“I didn’t do much, sir.” Ava spoke clearly, interrupting what Dominic had been about to say. Ballsy considering his fuse was so short the slightest thing might set him off and she knew it. “The negotiation team worked tirelessly to prevent the hostage-takers harming the hostages. I was a little shock value at the end.”

Dominic shook his head.

Shock value. That summed her up perfectly. And she totally cut the legs from under him with the power of her convictions and ingrained sense of honor. It’s what Van had seen in her.

The Incident Commander nodded. Goddamn, the man looked infatuated. Hell, they probably all did, except Charlotte who didn’t seem to like Ava, at all. “I’m going to recommend you get a commendation.”

Ava shook her head. Hazel eyes wide and unnerved. “No. No, sir. I’d rather my part in this be forgotten. Scrubbed from the record if at all possible.” She swallowed repeatedly. “I really do have a mother, brother and sister who might be in danger if my name gets out.”

“So, it was true?” the Incident Commander questioned.

Ava grimaced but didn’t answer. Dominic went still for a long moment realizing exactly what that meant. At a young age Ava, or Emmeleia, had watched her father murdered. She’d been hit so hard on the face that she still wore the scar today. Instead of crawling off and hiding the way he had when his mother had died, Ava had fought back. Changed her identity and gone up against one of the most powerful mob families in NY history.