SYNOPSIS
Delve into this gripping, lightening-paced thriller that you won’t be able to put down.
AUDIO EXCERPT
BRUTE FORCE
CHAPTER ONE
Doing bad things to bad people came easy to Hap Lonnegan.
He parked the government-issue, black Ford Taurus in the fire lane behind the Krajic clan’s thriving, illegal casino. He tossed a POLICE placard onto the dash and stepped out of the car. Hard-muscled and steel-chinned, he stood just shy of six feet, with hair the brownish-black of lignite coal.
Scanning the block, Hap clipped his DCIS Special Agent badge next to the Glock 22 on his belt and slipped on his black suit coat. Most ‘gray men’ that worked in the DC bubble wore slate-colored suits, but he preferred black or navy.
When shit went bad, dark colors hid the bloodstains better.
Tonight, as per, he was jocked-up with two additional mags, a folded Deejo knife, lead-lined leather sap gloves, and a fentanyl patch. Inside his breast pocket was a thick yellow envelope with fifty-thousand dollars in unmarked hundreds.
He buttoned his jacket and approached to the rear fire exit.
He rapped twice and stepped back. Aleks Krajic, a hulking blond buck of twenty in a cheap suit opened the door. “Hallo, Mister Lonnegan.”
“How do?” Hap nodded.
“Very good. This way.” He led Hap down a dark cement stairway to a set of steel doors. “We have saying in Albania. ‘No one learns to swim as fast as the spider in the filling bath.’ But Cadville?” Aleks rolled his eyes and opened the doors. “Cadville is no spider.”
“Besides the 50K, what else did you boys shake out of him?”
“Nothing.” Aleks led Hap down a hallway. “Father says that Mister Cadville is Procurement Director for the Department of Defense. A kept man who likes young whores and plays too deep.”
“And?”
“He knows this man will interest your Miss Savage.”
Your Miss Savage. Hap’s mouth quirked up at the corner. There wasn’t a single thing he wouldn’t do for her.
He’d been given a wide berth throughout his career—the grudging, fear-based deference reserved for men with his exacting skill set. They needed him. They just didn’t want him around.
Until Tommie. She respected Hap’s skill set. Respected him. Green-lighting him to “Achieve mission directives unhampered by the restrictive parameters of bureaucracy.”
Aleks unlocked a door labeled FILE ROOM. “I give Mr. Cadville time. To reflect.” He held out a smartphone in a bright orange case.
Hap pocketed the phone. The familiar dark edge of anticipation leaching into his blood.
