Page 6 of Covert Temptation

What he was searching for, and had yet to find, was any person of suspicion entering the building where the bullet had come from.

Right now, FBI agents were combing the building from top to bottom. He’d be damn surprised if they found anything, though. This wasn’t the 1960s where spent rifle shells were left behind to be traced back to the shooter. Criminals were much savvier now.

Dante wasn’t going to find anything that the FBI couldn’t—he was doing this for personal reasons. Because he had to know.

Had to know if he could have prevented Alan Shaw’s death.

In an effort to eliminate the strain on his body, he shifted positions. The government-issued desk had a warp in the top that dug into his forearms when he worked. After long hours, his skin was grooved from the sharp edge, and his back ached fromthe unforgiving hunk of junk that had no business being called a chair.

Using furniture like this in the multimillion-dollar mansion the government seized and granted to Blackout Charlie for a base had to be the biggest joke of all. Behind his desk, a set of beautiful French doors led outside to a billionaire’s dream yard, including a hundred-thousand-dollar swimming pool with an infinity edge and submerged lighting. Not to mention the high-end outdoor kitchen that rocked a brick pizza oven.

The Charlie team baked pizzas after every op they returned from. They’d all discovered a love for tossing dough, trading insults and pretending for a few hours that life was normal for a group of dead men.

Dante leaned in closer, elbows digging into the edge of the desk. The footage from a street cam looped back to the courthouse steps. He slowed it to scan every face in the crowd.

The view switched to the side of the courthouse. Nobody lurked in the shrubbery. And finally, the screen flipped to the rear exit, the place where Shaw lost his life.

One second, everything was calm. The next, complete chaos. People screamed and ran in all directions, some away from danger and others toward it in an attempt to help.

But Shaw was dead before he hit the ground.

Dante paused the footage, studying lighting, angles and trajectory. Someone had taken a shot from the rooftop or the top floor. They knew exactly where Shaw would be and when.

But none of Shaw’s guards saw it coming.

Sitting back, Dante scrubbed a hand over his face. It wasn’t just the case eating at him.

There was a hole left in the team. He wished like hell he could consult Denver on this. Knowing that he couldn’t just go find his buddy and talk things through wore on him.

Everyone knew Denver had taken one too many hits to the head and stayed in the game far too long, but no one had seen his medical discharge coming. His presence hung in the air like a ghost that wouldn’t leave, nor be soon forgotten.

While everyone had clapped him on the back and wished him good luck in the real world, no one was really prepared for how much his absence screwed with the team’s balance.

Especially Dante.

Denver hadn’t just been his teammate—he’d been his mentor. He taught him everything he knew behind a desk, then dragged him out and taught him what it meant to support the team from the ground, in the middle of a firefight, under pressure.

Without Denver, Dante wouldn’t be half the asset he was.

He focused on the screen again, prepared to dig in for several more hours, when the thump of a boot sounded behind him.

Before he turned fully in his uncomfortable chair, he knew Con had come looking for him.

His commanding officer’s huge frame filled the doorway. When he stepped into the office, the fluorescent light shadowed the crease between his eyes.

Con raised his jaw toward the computer monitor. “Any new findings?”

Dante shook his head. “Nothing to report.”

In a few precise strides, Con crossed the room to the desk. “I need you to switch gears.”

“What do you got?”

“We have a new problem.”

A dozen possibilities zipped through Dante’s mind. “What’s the problem?”

“Kennedy.”

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