Randy shrugged. “Even drug-addicts and pimps like gossip. For a month or so, the only word on the street was about Beyoncé. Hell, you needed to update your connection on Jay Z just to score.”
“No, I’m familiar with the distribution.” Luke waved him off, “I mean you. You got word pretty fast.”
Randy looked at him with a quelling stare. “I’m deeply invested,” he murmured finally. “Have been for years.”
“So then why the hell do you need a guest list?”
Randy sighed, and rubbed his forehead. “Because, by tomorrow, ‘word on the street’ will have it that she married and then Benny killed her, or that she was forced to marry and then he killed the groom, or both, or that he forced her to marry a corpse. You can’t exactly do a fact check on this, you know?” He shook his head. “I’m hearing about every name in the book being brought out here. Hell, half the names I’ve gotten aren’t even alive anymore. So, unless zombies start parading down the streets of Atlanta, all wearing fedoras and cheap suits, I gotta know who’s really gonna be there! It might be the one chance we have to snag everyone.”
“For attending a wedding?”
“Either you think I’m stupid or you really are!” Randy sat up fast and smacked his hand on the desk. “Some of the rumors have people who have been hiding off-grid, or been underground so long we’ve quit looking for them. Some even who fled the country are coming back, so I have to know who so the DA’s office can get their shit together and get the paperwork done. I need extradition,” he began ticking off on his fingers, “writs, warrants, searches, manpower!”
Luke had stopped listening. He got it; Randy didn’t need to drive it into his head. The shit was about to hit the fan even harder. Fine, he could deal with that.
But a bigger problem remained.
It seemed every decision he made anymore was between Dani and his career. He’d fled because he needed to report in, because he’d been left there by his support, and now she would die because he ran away? Damn the girl for not running with him. Damn her stubborn blind loyalty to a brother who was one step away from being in one of those movies where the deranged backwoods simpleton chases teenage girls with a chainsaw. She’d stayed so nothing would happen to David. Luke still doubted that anything would; Benny was keeping him as a pet. Once Edwin Rineheart, David’s father and the cause of this entire disaster left, David had collapsed.
Which had been interesting in and of itself. From all he’d known about David the man was used to working a plan, and always had something going. His father leaving like that had caught him with his pants down. David had been arrogant, dangerous, and self-absorbed, but he’d had the attitude of someone who was cock-sure and aggressive. Benny comes along, and suddenly David was playing Igor to his Dr. Frankenstein? The man wasn’t sane, and had fallen apart completely in a matter of days. And Benny not only coddled him, but seemed to be ignoring completely that the kid was just this side of a psychotic wreck.
And to top it off, Dani still threw herself in front of whatever bullets had headed his way. And there were plenty of those.
But this wasn’t about David. It wasn’t about Dani. This was about Luke. He’d been abandoned by the FBI, and everything was suddenly about poor him. Luke the victim. Luke the... well, some things were better off not said.
I just wish that underground gossip would work both ways. Maybe if I had a better picture of what was happening...
He shook his head. No, that didn’t fit. The thing that had thrown him into a knot was simple. It was that recording. The fact that his privacy had been violated. That was supposed to have been a night of passion and lust and, yes, yes, love... he loved her. He loved her, and that love had been taken from the careful box that separated Dani from duty, the divider that let him believe he didn’t have to make the choice, not yet.
Benny had taken that comfortable separation away and laid it out, dirty and sweaty on the breakfast table, and he’d laughed at Luke, ridiculed the tender part of him that he’d always kept hidden at work.
That was why he’d run.
“I have to go back,” he said suddenly, interrupting Randy mid-tirade with no idea what the other man had been saying. “I have to get out of here.” He was on his feet and halfway to the door before he even realized he was in motion.
“What?” Randy grabbed his arm and spun him back around to face. “It’s over! You’re compromised. In case you don’t recall, we’ve had this conversation before. And you still went back. And were captured for your troubles. Compromised means out, Luke. When are you going to get that through your head?”
“You said it yourself: They’re going to kill Dani. I’m not sitting out while they take away the only—” Luke swallowed hard. That wasn’t for Randy’s ears.
“So what are you gonna do? Waltz right back in there and pick up where you left off?”
“If I must, YES!”
Randy dug around in his pocket and came up with a cigarette, which he fumbled with and wound up shoving back into the pack when he realized he was in a government building and couldn’t smoke. “You’re going to be the death of me, you know that?” He paced around the room, keeping a wary eye on Luke like he expected him to bolt at any second. “Look, even if you did go back, he’s not going to give you enough freedom to run again. You won’t be able to get the list out anyway. You’re done! And if you think you’re somehow going to be able to save your damsel in distress, then you’ve got another think coming. You don’t think you’ll be under twice the guard if you go back there? You’re both going to wind up dead.” He threw himself into the chair which creaked in protest. “I understand your position, Luke. But speaking as your friend—not your boss, but your friend—there’s nothing you can do. Best we can do is put plan B into motion.”
“And that is?”
There was a long silence. “We’re working on it.”
“Working on it.” Luke shoved a hand through his hair, about ready to pull it out in frustration. “Yeah. I’m reassured. For shit’s sake, Randy, listen to yourself...”
“Maybe you need to listen to you. You think you can bust into a mob strong house and save some mafia princess before her old man comes in there to blow the whole thing up?”
Luke was silent a long moment, while he counted to ten. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that, Randy. You know as well as I do that that girl is no mafia princess. She’s had more training than that comedy sideshow that brought me in here today. Second, yeah, I do. I’m going to bust right in there, get the girl, and together we’re going to bust out of there before her old man comes in there to blow the whole thing up.” He paused. “I only need a hundred dollars.”
“What the f—? Seriously?”
“Randy, you’ve been my boss for how long now? Four...five years? We’ve gotten to be friends, right?”
“And you think I’m going to give you a hundred dollars.”