Over the Line Read Online Free PDF Page A

those guy were like Al: the ones with big guns and no conscience. Nowadays those guys are the ones with big
brains
and no conscience.
    Crime is a business, pure and simple. I believe in striking at the true heart of a person—his livelihood. If we need to make someone bleed for revenge, or to get a point across, make him bleed money. Gloating over a ruined a man is far more satisfying than gloating over a dead body. Watching his empire burn to the ground—knowing who’s responsible but being helpless to stop it—is a lesson he’ll never forget. If he doesn’t end up wallowing himself into eating the muzzle of his .45, the next time around, he’ll fall in line.
    My father doesn’t see it that way.
    I went to Delgado’s that night in March with one goal in mind: finding his sister Lee. Of course, I couldn’t tell him that, so I gave him some song and dance about a truce. But the cocksucker’s paranoid. He didn’t buy it. He clocked me over the head with the butt of his Glock and left me in his apartment, unconscious and bleeding. Lucky for me, he seems only slightly less gun shy than I am.
    I don’t think I was out long, and when I came to, I took the opportunity to go through his things. Thought something might clue me in to where he and Lee where. In a roundabout way, I was right.
    In the wastebasket next to the desk in his office was a section from an old
Tribune
. It was open to an article about a charity gala at the governor’s mansion the previous fall. The picture was of Delgado and Hollywood’s current golden girl, Sophie King, along with the governor and his wife.
    When Delgado broke Sophie’s heart last fall, I was there to pick up the pieces. There are times when business and pleasure are one and the same. Sophie was one of those times. I looked at that picture and decided it might be time for a reprise. I managed to “bump into her” on her filming location in London a few weeks later.
    Hell of a coincidence, us both being in London on business.
    I didn’t really believe she’d be able to tell me anything I didn’t already know, but I let it slip that Victor’s crew was closing in on the Delgados. Said it was a damn shame, because I needed Rob home and alive for a business venture. It took another few nights of wining and dining, but Sophie finally spilled that she’d seen him before she left for London. She told me he’d been working as a bodyguard, but she wouldn’t give me any details.
    But that was enough.
    Via Google, it wasn’t hard to discover Sophie’s last stop before filming started in London had been an overnight in Tampa. A quick call to her assistant on the pretense of needing a security recommendation in Florida got me the name of Spencer Security.
    The problem is, even if this is where Sophie saw Delgado, I don’t know for certain this is who he was working for. And the fact that she saw him nearly three months ago means, even if this is the place, he might not be working here now.
    Spencer Security doesn’t list the names of their security staff on their website. I thought about calling and asking for him, but I can’t risk tipping Delgado off. Chances are he’s not using his real name anyway.
    So I have no choice but to wait.
    I want Lee to know, no matter where she goes, I
will
find her.
    At the thought of her betrayal, rage rises up and wraps like an iron cloak around my heart, threatening to crush any bit of humanity left there. I close my eyes and hold my breath until it passes.
    And I see her as she was before everything that came after—that first day of business law class at Kellogg, nearly two years ago.
    She was starting her first year. I was in my second. I was already seated near Angela Bagglio, who I had a passing interest in due to her loose family ties to the Delgado organization. Her brother was a wiseguy wannabe, little more than a glorified gofer within the Delgado machine. But I’d discovered sometimes it was the smallest details that led to the