“What have you got for me?” he asked Dougie, giving him a quick scan. But Dougie’s ill-fitting clothes didn’t leave a lot of good places to hide a weapon. Kane doubted he had backup of his own. Although the man had made contacts with a ton of Tennessee’s criminal elements, he rarely liked to work with anyone long-term. As far as Kane could tell, their relationship was the longest one Dougie had ever had.
Dougie’s head swiveled slowly left and right, looking more like a slow-motion dance move than a scan of his surroundings. Then he gave Kane a quick nod. “Word is that if you want guns on the down low, you can get some Petrov Armor pistols around here. I asked as much as I could without making people suspicious, but no one seemed to know exactly who the contact was. Least not anyone I know.”
Kane frowned. Dougie knew everyone. Then again, if someone had been illegally selling Petrov Armor guns to criminals for more than a decade, they were good at hiding both the activity itself and their identity.
“What about recent sales?” Officially, the gun side of the business was shut down, but that didn’t mean Petrov Armor didn’t have excess weapons or that someone wasn’t still secretly making them and selling them at a huge markup to criminals.
“I don’t know how recent these sales are, but...” Dougie glanced around once more, then leaned closer and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Supposedly BECA has been buying up a lot of guns lately. Word is they’ve got a whole room full of Petrov Armor pistols.”
Dougie’s words sent an electric current along Kane’s skin, the rush of a new lead that his gut said was real. The Brotherhood of an Ethnically Clean America—BECA for short—was a nasty zealot group that specialized in equal-opportunity hate. The FBI had been watching them ever since they’d popped onto the radar four years earlier, but so far, none of the attacks by members had been connected strongly enough back to the group to make a large-scale arrest.
“How do you feel about making an introduction?” Kane asked.
Dougie shook his head. “No way, man. Those guys are all crazy. I don’t want to work with them.”
“You don’t have to. Just tell them I want to.”
Dougie’s lips twisted upward, making him look even more unattractive. “I don’t have connections there, but I know a guy who does. He’s the one who told me about the guns. I can get you in with him, but I’m gonna need some cash.”
Usually Kane played up the fact that Dougie wasn’t in jail to keep the man from asking for too much cash for information. It helped keep Dougie honest, prevented him from making things up for money. But today, he just nodded. “How fast can you do it?”
“Maybe tomorrow?” Dougie glanced around once more, then started walking away. “I’ll call you.”
Kane waited another few minutes before he left in the opposite direction. Protocol said he was supposed to let his partner—for this case, Melinda—know about the information. But Melinda would fight him on his plan to get close to BECA. She’d argue that it was too dangerous. She’d want to do more legwork first. Or worse yet, she’d want to go with him.
Kane shuddered at the very idea of Melinda Larsen in the field. The idea of working beside her undercover sent deeper fear through him.
But something had to be done. They couldn’t wait for Davis to find the perpetrator. Not when he was getting more attached to Leila Petrov with every minute he spent undercover. The fact that his connection to her was more than just physical had been apparent last night at the office when he’d talked about her with admiration and empathy and an unwillingness to put her on the suspect list.
Davis was a nice guy. He was formidable in close-quarters battle or a firefight, and Kane would choose to have the guy next to him in most dangerous situations. But undercover? It wasn’t his forte. He was too straitlaced military, too honest and straightforward. He didn’t know how to inhabit a persona like a second skin.
And that was a mistake that could be fatal.
Chapter Seven
For what felt like the hundredth time today, Leila glanced at the closed door to her office. She’d barely spoken to Davis since he’d come in to work this morning. He’d offered to pick her up, but she’d risen early and taken a cab so she’d have an excuse to avoid him.
She couldn’t believe she’d tried to kiss him yesterday. He hadn’t said a word about it, but considering how fast he’d backed away, there was no need. Apparently, even though he’d been using flirtation and attraction to get information for his investigation, she’d crossed the line with him by acting on those feelings.
She should be glad he hadn’t let it get that far. She’d been overemotional, looking for comfort in the wrong way. If he had let her kiss him, she probably would have been even more embarrassed today. Yet, a part of her wished she’d still been able to press herself against that broad chest and lose herself in his kisses. For even half an hour, to take a break from the reality that her dad was gone and her company—the biggest part of her dad she had left—was in serious trouble.
Closing her eyes against the rush of tears threatening, Leila focused on taking deep breaths in and out until she got control of her grief. When she opened them again, Davis was standing in the doorway, quietly closing the door behind him.
Just her luck that he’d seen her break down. She forced a smile, hoping to mask
