Page 46 of Love Me Darkly
Rest in heaven, angel.
Melody’s heart wrenched and she brought her hand over her mouth and darkened the screen. Things that hadn’t previously made sense about Mateo fell into sharp focus. The guarded way he had interacted with her in the beginning. His comment on Saints and Sinners night that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d asked a woman to dance. The way he seemed to wrestle with his attraction to her, as if he were doing something wrong. On one hand, she could argue that his job was the reason for his skittishness. But she had looked into his eyes and watched him wrestle with himself every time he’d been about to touch her. He had touched, kissed, and fucked her as if he were doing it against his own will. As if some force inside of him was drawn to her like a piece of metal to a magnet.
Flopping back against her pillows, she released a pained groan. This was the last thing she needed. With Roman Korenic coming back to town in a few days, Melody would need to be on her guard. The owner of Solstice was usually in attendance at the club most nights, and he was more demanding than most. Everyone at the club would need to be at their best, and she couldn’t keep her boss happy if she was constantly looking over her shoulder for Mateo. Her throat clenched at the thought. If Mateo kept hanging around Solstice—around her—someone was bound to notice. Roman Korenic was bound to notice. That was all it would take to send her carefully constructed house of cards falling down around her.
Taking a few deep breaths, she turned the problem over in her mind. She had little chance of convincing Mateo to stop breathing down her neck. Last night had made that clear enough. The moment she stepped out of her apartment, she ran the risk of landing on his radar. Hell, she wasn’t even safe here. Mateo had proven how easily he could invade the only place where she felt moderately safe. Here with her records, her paint, and her plants, Melody could retain the smallest sliver of her identity. She could keep herself afloat long enough to get out of her predicament. After all she had been through, she was nothing if not a survivor. She could get through this.
If Mateo couldn’t be convinced to leave her alone, maybe she ought to take him up on his offer to help her. The idea was seductive for all of thirty seconds. In that short amount of time, she let herself fantasize about running to him and spilling the truth. He would understand. A man in his profession had likely heard it all; her situation wouldn’t be unique to him. She had read enough about him to realize that he was in a position to protect her—just as he had claimed.
The steely blue eyes of Roman Korenic flashed in her mind, along with the countless stories she’d heard of the people he had terrorized, tortured, dismembered, and killed. With his own hands. It didn’t matter that she’d never seen any of it for herself. Her sources were reliable—people who had been in Korenic’s service for years, who had watched him carry out his ruthless vendetta against anyone who stood in his path. The man had proven himself untouchable, above the law. That was evidenced by the way he’d been orchestrating a drug and human trafficking ring up and down the southeast coast for almost a decade without facing any consequences. There were fall guys for that, and Korenic always came out on top. Mateo might succeed in bringing him down, but Melody would end up where all the minions of such organizations wound up.
Dead or behind bars.
She couldn’t surrender to such a fate. Life had been kicking the shit out of her since birth, but there was still some spark of fire left in Melody. It wouldn’t let her lie down and accept defeat or death. She would do what it took to survive, and that meant sticking to her current plan.
Melody had assumed that her false identity would keep her safe enough, though ingenuity and fast thinking would be needed on her part. There was the chance that Mateo would uncover pieces of her past. That didn’t concern her as much as Mateo digging further into the truth of Melody Johnson. If that should happen, she’d be screwed, pressed in by Korenic on one side and Mateo on the other. The one thing she had left to figure out was which of them would run over her to get to the other. Which of them proved the greater danger? On the surface, the answer to that question seemed pretty straightforward. But then, she remembered Mateo’s warning—the only warning she was going to get, he’d said. He had promised to be her downfall if he uncovered anything that even vaguely pointed in her direction.
Closing her eyes, she curled herself into the fetal position. The second her lids settled, her mind flooded with memories of the night before. Of Mateo standing over her, a feral light burning in his eyes as he battered his way through her body, her defenses, her lies. Mateo kissing her, biting her, touching her. Mateo whispering things to her that she’d only ever dreamed a man saying to her. Mateo with his head thrown back, the chords in his neck drawn taut as he shuddered and came inside of her.
No doubt about it. Supervisory Special Agent Mateo Garcia would likely turn out to be her downfall … in more ways than one.
“Okay, here’s where things stand as of today.”
The conference room was silent, eyes trained on Mateo as he paced to the wall holding every scrap of evidence they had gathered. Williams and Smith had organized it all, and used lengths of red twine to make connections. There were some gaps, but the wall now looked more like a meticulously drawn map than a scattering of disjointed puzzle pieces.
“Interviews with the victims from the NOLA house confirm that these women were brought in from out of state. Six of them came from cities where the UNSUB has killed. The drives Darcy copied revealed connections between Valemont Holdings and several shipping companies and warehouses in those states. There are shipping schedules, manifests, locations and dates. It’s enough for a nationwide sting. Carlisle is currently working with the DOJ to clear the red tape. The effort will be coordinated, all the stings going down at the same time. At best, we’re looking at seventy-two hours, at worst, a week.”
“So that settles it, then,” Williams offered between sips of coffee. “Roman Korenic is the UNSUB. He fits the profile and has the money and power needed to move the way the UNSUB does.”
Mateo hesitated before giving voice to his doubts. He had to acknowledge that Williams had a keen instinct for these things. The evidence wasn’t entirely conclusive, but it was enough to show that Korenic was the man they were looking for. At the same time, Mateo couldn’t ignore the voice in the back of his mind whispering that it couldn’t be this simple.
“Possibly,” he hedged. “For the moment, we can only tie him to Valemont and Gulf Atlantic Freight. That, plus the testimony of Tariq Hayes, is enough for us to put Korenic under surveillance. I’ll take that on myself once the court order goes through. We’ve also got the tactical surveillance team installing more wiretaps in the back rooms at Solstice. I have some intel indicating that meetings happen there. Once Korenic comes back to town, I’m sure he’ll head straight to the club to meet with his underlings. He will want to know how the NOLA house and Berenger Warehouse were compromised. He’ll be scrambling to cover his ass. As far as the rest of the profile goes, we need to dig deeper into Roman’s background to see if anything aligns with what we already know about the UNSUB. It isn’t enough for him to be rich and well-connected. Aveline Marchand told us that The Veil is made up primarily of elites. That means we’re looking for a rich guy in a haystack of other rich guys. We can’t just assume the first one we identify is our guy.”
“What about tattoo guy?” Jones spoke up. “The one from the club.”
Mateo glanced at Smith. “Smitty?”
Smith stood and cleared his throat, approaching the wall and indicating the area where his photo surveillance of ‘tattoo guy’ had been pinned. “I managed to follow Tattoo Guy around for a few days. Didn’t see anything immediately suspicious. The guy’s a loser—spends his days drinking and getting high, his nights at Solstice. Except for Saturday night.”
“What happened on Saturday?” Donovan asked.
Smith pointed to a grainy image of an old, abandoned mansion. The aerial view showed the entire structure and its grounds, darkened and isolated.
“He went here and met up with a bunch of other shady characters,” Smith said. “I couldn’t get close enough to see inside without giving myself away, but I managed to snap a few shots.”
The others left their seats, coming closer to the evidence map. They stood shoulder to shoulder, studying the images Smith had managed to capture—people coming and going from the mansion shrouded in black, mostly men.
“Security is tight,” Smith went on. “Seems like only certain people are allowed in. They stayed all night.”
“Darcy, what have you found?” Mateo asked.
“Satellite imaging indicates that Saturday night events are a norm at the mansion,” Darcy replied. “Every week, there’s a spike in electricity use, and a stream of cars coming and going. Deliveries are made on Mondays before dawn. The rest of the time, the place is a shell.”
“Could be a meeting place for The Veil,” Williams offered. “If Tattoo Guy is going there, what else could it be?”
“Yes,” Mateo agreed. “That’s a strong possibility, but we need more information. Darcy, what did you find out about the owner of the building? Is it Valemont?”
Darcy shook her head and wrinkled her brow. “That’s the crazy part. The owner is listed as another shell company called Vestra. The owner is listed as a G. Vale.”
