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Chapter Twenty-Three

“ You’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Smitty said, undoing his seat belt.

Jack fisted his fingers around the plastic cast, expecting to feel pain but didn’t. “ Too long.”

He and Smitty met the other agents— Turner and Pandya —on the sidewalk. Dozens of cabs and private livery cars discharged passengers and their luggage. The sliding doors to the terminal opened and closed nonstop.

Jack had already texted Smitty and the other agents Danny Viggiani’s old arrest photo, taken when he’d been hauled in several years ago by the NYPD for selling cocaine—the charge Viggiani wanted to work off by cooperating.

“ The plan is simple. He’s waiting for us at Jo - Jo’s Café just outside the checkpoint.

We go there, get him out to my vehicle ASAP , then take him straight to the US Attorney’s Office to make a statement.

Any questions?” Smitty and the others shook their heads. “ Let’s go.”

He led the way inside the terminal, heading to the checkpoint.

Adrenaline surged through his system but not with the excitement or gratification he expected, because the moment was bittersweet.

He’d lost Gina . There’d be time for whining later.

Focusing on getting his witness to the federal prosecutor’s office—alive—was the priority.

With Smitty and the other agents directly behind him, he wove through the milling passengers, heading for the café dead ahead.

Even as he tried pushing his last conversation with Gina from his head, he couldn’t.

The more he thought about what he’d lost, the heavier the unsettled feeling surrounding his heart became.

Although in truth, he’d never really had Gina .

Their relationship was a supernova that had shined brightly for one fleeting, glorious moment, only to go completely dark the next and disappear without a trace.

As if it had never been there in the first place.

He still couldn’t believe how their lives had been intertwined all these years, and neither of them had a clue. Until today.

As they neared Jo - Jo’s Café , he spotted Viggiani at the bar. The similarities between what he was about to set in motion with Viggiani and what he’d done to Gina’s father bit deep into his conscience.

Like Tony Perotti , Viggiani was a criminal cooperating with the FBI to work off some serious charges.

Perotti was snuffed out for wearing a wire.

Viggiani was about to give a statement that would send Tino Falzone to jail for the next thirty years.

So far, Viggiani refused to go into WITSEC .

Either way, the guy would have a target on his back for the rest of his life.

Somehow , he’d convince the man WITSEC was the only way to survive this.

The closer they got to the café, the more guilt ate at him, but this was business. He needed to shove his personal reservations into a deep, dark hole and keep them there. If there was any other way to nail Tino without someone else getting hurt, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

Twenty feet from the cafe, his cell phone vibrated, and he tugged it from his belt.

Margo Kim’s number showed on the screen.

He kept walking and was about to send the call to voicemail when something stopped him.

Throughout his dealings with Gina and her friends, Margo had always been the practical, no-nonsense one.

If she was calling him, there had to be a good reason.

Ten feet from the café, he held up his hand to Smitty and the other men to wait while he took the call. “ Margo , what is it?”

“ Jack , Maria Falzone called Gina this morning. She wants to leave her husband. Today . Gina is on her way there now. Alone . She refused to tell me where she’s going.”

His chest tightened. How could she be so foolish and reckless? After what went down between them, he understood why she hadn’t called him. Why hadn’t she at least taken her own friends as backup?

The answer hit him like a sledgehammer. After what happened to Kinsey , she’d never put her friends in danger again. She was riddled with enough guilt to fill a boxcar.

“ Jack , are you there?” The worry in Margo’s voice cut through the loud sounds of the terminal. “ I’m worried. Really worried.”

“ Yeah , I’m here.” A knot began twisting in his gut.

This was too easy, too quick, and coming directly on the heels of Gina nearly getting caught inside Tino’s house.

Gina had assured him Tino didn’t see her face and that she’d never given Maria her name, but she did give the woman her number.

He assumed Gina’s cell number was private, but with all the invasive online search engines out there, it wouldn’t take a forensic expert to easily discover the subscriber name.

“ When is she meeting Maria ?” He looked inside the café to where Viggiani sat sipping a drink.

“ Nine o’clock.”

He glanced at his watch. That was in ten minutes. There was still the possibility Maria really did want to leave Tino . Jack didn’t believe that. Not so soon, anyway.

“ Hold on,” he said to Margo , then to Turner and Pandya , “ Go keep an eye on him. Brown coat, jeans, second guy from the left at the bar.” He jerked his head to the café, and the men took off, leaving Smitty staring at him in bewilderment.

“ Tell me something, Margo . From everything Gina said, she couldn’t have had more than a five-minute conversation with Maria Falzone . Is it typical for a domestic abuse victim to make such a snap decision?”

“ It usually takes more time than this,” she said. “ Despite the beatings, the belief that a victim can not only leave their abusive partner but make a happy life for themselves takes time to sink in. It does happen once in a while, but no. It’s not normal.”

Deadly foreboding crept over him. Again , he glanced at the café. The timing couldn’t possibly have been worse. Gina might have kicked him out of her life, but he still loved her with every beat of his heart and every breath he took.

“ I’ll find her, Margo . I’m leaving now.” He clipped the phone back on his belt.

“ You’re leaving ?” Smitty narrowed his eyes. “ This is everything you’ve wanted. Everything you’ve been working for.”

Not everything . Falling in love had altered his priorities.

“ I have to go.” He hadn’t kept Tony Perotti safe, but he intended to protect the man’s daughter.

“ I’ve got a fifteen-year-old debt to repay.

” He clapped his hand on Smitty’s shoulder.

“ You’ve got this. Get this guy to the US Attorney’s Office , take his statement, and get started on the charging document.

Keep Viggiani there, and I’ll call you later.

” The last things he saw before bolting to the sliding doors were Smitty’s eyes bulging and his brows hitting his hairline.

He raced from the terminal and hit the sidewalk at a dead run. He had absolute faith his partner and the other team would get the job done. Like Gina , he’d keep his friends out of the mess he’d created because he had no idea how all this would end. First , he had to find Gina .

Once inside his SUV , he called her cell, knowing it was unlikely she’d pick up.

Sure enough, his call went directly to voicemail.

“ Gina , it’s Jack . Don’t do this. Do not meet Maria Falzone alone.

It could be a setup. I know you hate my guts, but you need backup.

Tell me where you’re going, and I’ll meet you there. Call me back, dammit !”

The Expedition’s digital clock read 8:52. He was running out of time, and with each passing second, he was more convinced something was off about Maria calling Gina out of the blue.

He pulled up a photo on his phone that he’d taken of Gina’s Porsche Cayenne in the garage. After jotting down the tag number on a piece of paper, he punched in the number for the NYPD’s Real Time Crime Center .

“ Detective Salazar ,” a gruff voice answered.

“ This is FBI Special Agent Jack Gates . I have an emergency. I need LPRs on a tag starting today at 0730 through now.” He gave the detective Gina’s tag.

The NYPD had license plate readers and CCTV cameras located all over the city and in every borough.

She might not even be in the city anymore, but if he could track her last known location, it might tell him where she was headed.

“ Stand by,” Salazar said. “ What’s your email?”

Jack recited his government email address, then began tapping his fingers on the wheel, barely able to keep still. “ Give it to me verbally. Start with the last known location.”

“ Stand by,” Salazar repeated. “ Pulling it up now.”

C’mon , c’mon . Jack glanced repeatedly at the clock.

“ At 0836 hours the vehicle was on the Gowanus Expressway heading over the Verrazzano into Staten Island .”

Jack waited for another LPR location but was met with silence.

“ That’s it?” That meant she could be anywhere in the island’s sixty square miles.

JFK was at least forty-five minutes from Staten Island with no traffic.

Running hot, he might make it in twenty.

He flipped on the strobes and siren to clear a path from the terminal.

“ Anything else?” He hit the ramp for the JFK Expressway and floored it.

The last LPR data was nearly twenty minutes ago on the bridge.

“ Negative ,” Salazar said. “ Wait . This just popped up. At 0855 the vehicle went through the intersection of Todt Hill Road and Ocean Terrace , heading east on Ocean Terrace .”

Jack’s insides vibrated with more fear than he’d known in his entire life. He knew the Todt Hill section of Staten Island like he knew his last name. That intersection was less than a mile from Oceanview Lane . There was only one residence on that road.

The Falzone compound.

Gina could be rash, and she was running on instinct. Still , he couldn’t believe she’d meet Maria at Franco’s compound. That would be suicide. The meeting had to be somewhere nearby.