Page 19 of Sticks and Stones (FBI Romance/Thriller #65)

“I see. Well, I don’t think I’m inclined to hand it over. When I get the results of the rape kit, I’ll hand Corbin’s case over to one of our detectives who handles things like this. It’s staying in our precinct.”

And then, the whole building would know Corbin was raped.

Yeah, no.

Gene had to protect him.

Right now, he needed someone to stand between him and everyone finding out that he’d been raped. Detectives were a gossipy bunch, and that would make coming back to work difficult.

Gene went to say something, but he was cut off by his stand-in partner.

“Well, that’s problematic for you. Might I suggest that you call your commissioner?” Greyson asked, stopping this here and now. “Like immediately.”

Oliver stared at him.

“Should I now?” he asked.

Yeah, Greyson wasn’t playing games with this guy. That shit wasn’t happening.

“Oh, I insist,” Greyson stated. “As the person who runs the Philly field office for Gabriel Rothschild, you can either call your boss or mine. I can promise if you call mine, the ass chewing is going to be truly painful for you, and spectacular for us to watch since he sent us here.”

That made the man go red.

Well, sue him.

Greyson was tagging himself in. He’d called that interpersonal bullshit the second he saw the man staring at Gene, and he wasn’t letting the man use it against one of ‘his’ Feds.

Without another word, Oliver picked up the phone and dialed his boss. When he answered, he began talking and was promptly cut off.

“But, Sir,” he said, and wasn’t able to say anything else.

The way he was glaring at Greyson, it was crystal clear that his boss was laying down the law, and that the Feds hadn’t been lying.

And he didn’t like it.

Not.

At.

All.

Well, you couldn’t always win the battle, but this time, the victory went to the Feds.

“I see, Sir,” he said. “I’ll be more than happy to do just that. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be in contact with the FBI the entire time to make sure they are handling it for our detective, and that it’s to my standard.”

He listened more.

“Yes, Sir, I’ll keep it off the record and not say anything to anyone. I understand that the FBI has requested to keep this quiet for the sake of the detective involved, and I won’t inform anyone of Corbin’s assault.”

They watched, and knew the man was pissed. They’d usurped control away, again.

“Yes, Sir, I’ll put him down as being on vacation until he’s back on his feet.”

Oh, Gabe had to lean damn hard on the commissioner if he was now leaning this hard on Oliver.

The whole time, Gene was holding his breath. They were so close to getting this, and Commissioner Drake Herman was actually making this easy for them.

That was new.

“Yes, Sir, I’ll get them the file from Detective Price that he filed on this,” he said. “Thank you, Commissioner,” he added as he hung up.

When he placed the phone back in the cradle, he stared at Gene.

“So, that’s how your tenure in Philly is going to be?” he asked. “Going behind my back and taking whatever case you want?”

Gene shrugged.

“I was bored and figured that I might as well work a case plaguing the city. I’m crazy like that,” he said, sarcastically. “If you can’t see that we’re doing this to protect a detective, then you’re not seeing the big picture. We’re protecting Detective Price. That’s the bottom line.”

The man stared at him and didn’t say a word. The whole time, Gene and Greyson stared back, not backing down.

It was annoying that Oliver didn’t give two shits about the man they’d rescued from the hospital.

Finally, the one man spoke.

“Can we have the file on the case, and anything Corbin submitted?” he asked. “Like your commissioner told you to do?”

Without another word, the man turned in his chair, went into his computer, and hit print.

When he finally turned around again, he didn’t mince words.

Not.

At.

All.

“I expect to be kept in the loop,” he said. “The commissioner wants to know what’s going on. He said your boss promised regular updates. He’s very concerned with the situation regarding the trafficking, and what has happened to Corbin.”

He got the picture.

“He’ll get updates. As soon as we have something, he’ll have something.”

“No, I’d prefer you keep me in the loop.”

Well, leapfrog was about to have a new champion because Gene planned on reaching over this man and to his boss.

If he thought he couldn’t play hardball, he was wrong. This could have been easy, but the man wanted to play the game, and while they’d had a one-night stand, Gene wasn’t submissive at his job.

He was an apex predator when it came to people he cared about. If he stood up to Javier Hughes without flinching, this man would be nothing.

Since the tone was set, Gene was curious.

“I do have a question.”

The man focused on him.

“Yes?”

Gene went there.

“Why did you pick Corbin to work this case?” he asked. “He has zero undercover skill, and it got him hurt. How did you come to the conclusion that a green detective was ready to be shoved into the deep end of the swamp?”

The man shrugged.

“He’s entitled to try to move up in his job,” he stated.

“He told me he wanted to work undercover cases, and one popped up. When Detectives Rivet and Eastcott came to me needing someone who worked homicides to go under, Corbin was clear of his cases thanks to the FBI. On top of that, the Commissioner’s office believed him to be capable. The FBI made it seem like he was.”

That hung there.

Did he just try to blame them?

Oh, Gene didn’t like that—not one freaking bit. That made it sound like they were the cause, and if anything, the issue was an overly enthusiastic cop, and pencil pushers with no goddamn common sense.

“Is that so?” Gene asked.

The man nodded.

“Absolutely. He was called in, and the detectives were good with him assisting. He worked the homicides, and it led to the bar,” he stated, picking up the printouts and putting them in two folders. “That’s what he put in his report.”

Then, he handed them to him.

“One is Corbin’s report that he filed a couple of days ago regarding the case he was working, and one is from Vice regarding the trafficking.

That’s all we have so far, and anything else would be in Corbin’s personal notes.

If you can get in to see him again, since clearly he called you, you should ask him. ”

Gene took them, and tried to keep his cool. It wasn’t easy since he was freaking angry about all of this. He wasn’t going to give him any more information that he’d speculated on himself.

“For the record, Captain Guy, he wasn’t ready for undercover. He got fed to the sharks, and that’s how he got hurt. That’s not on the FBI. That’s on you, the Vice detectives, and your boss.”

Oliver sat.

“He wanted in, Gene. I babysit, but it’s not my place to stop detectives from having ambition. He’s got a good close history, and again, you and your partner made sure of that. How were we to know that he couldn’t do the job?”

Gene stood up.

Oh, he was lucky that he was on the clock, or someone would be getting torn a new one for that shitty comment.

Corbin was a good cop, but he wasn’t ‘work undercover alone’ good.

That was dangerous even for a seasoned investigator.

“Captain, again, you’re not putting this on the FBI. Our job is to help keep this city from being a crime-ridden shitshow. We didn’t inflate Detective Price’s closures. He worked on those cases with us, and he was allowed the credit. You know that. At any point, you could have said absolutely not.”

Oliver was to the point.

“I also knew that he would ask you two for help if he got in over his head. It looks as if I was right because here you are, and once more, we’re going to the ‘FBI rodeo’ . It seems I nailed that one. Maybe he should just work with you guys, instead of us.”

That made Gene go red that this asshole would let a cop be hurt as he took a calculated risk.

As he was about to tell him to fuck all the way off, Greyson stood and put his hand on Gene’s back.

This conversation was done.

Greyson was stepping in before it escalated.

Gene was going red, and he didn’t blame him. They really did throw Corbin to the wolves, and whether they did it intentionally, or accidentally, it didn’t matter.

The bottom line was Corbin hadn’t been ready, and this was the fallout from it.

“Well, when we give our media update, we’ll remember that,” Greyson said, much to the man’s horror.

“Wait. What?”

He smiled.

“I think you heard me,” he stated. “I’m sure the media will LOVE to hear that you let an inexperienced cop go undercover ALONE . Trust me, Captain, when this hits the media, we won’t be the bad guys. I hope this office is Alice-proof. She gets testy and will likely talk to the media too.”

His eyes were huge.

And Gene would have laughed had his blood pressure not been so high that he was ready to stroke out. They weren’t telling the media shit, but this man had no clue.

“We’ll take the files and handle this,” Greyson said, continuing before Oliver could say anything else.

“As for Corbin’s assault, if you have any decency, you’ll not blab that around the place.

Because that’s going to trigger an immediate media junket.

I can promise that they’ll get the news scoop of the decade, and I’ll make it so salacious that your picture, and the commissioner’s will be on the front page. Test me. Gene is nice. I’m not.”

Oliver got it.

“I won’t say anything. My boss has already warned me, and hopefully, your boss will warn you about dragging the media into this.”

Oh, well, Gabe LOVED the media. Well, using it to decimate asshole cops who thought they could be dicks.

The cop was to the point.

“Again, we want to be in the loop. The trafficking case is important to the commissioner. He personally picked Detectives Rivet and Eastcott for the case, and he wants it handled.”

Oh, it would be, but for now, they were done there.