Exposed: A Dark Romance

Chapter 2 - Cora

Chapter 2 - Cora

Present Day...

Cora Esposito felt the recoil travel up through her arms with each pull of the trigger as she leveled her Glock at the hanging paper target. The vibration deep in her bones was satisfying and made her feel as though her feet took root more firmly with each new shot.

Through the blocky plastic safety glasses, she saw small, neat holes blossom on the target like paper flowers for every bullet she fired.

Blam. One in the forehead.

Blam. Blam. One where each eye would be.

The human-shaped targets were featureless, but Cora had no trouble picturing a face on hers. One with olive skin, large brown eyes, an aquiline nose, high cheekbones, and slicked-back black hair with a sharp widow's peak. Gage Moretti, nicknamed “Handsome Gage” by his fellow gangsters. Mario Moretti's sole heir, his pride and joy.

Blam. One in the throat, just below his square jaw and smirking lips.

Officially, Cora's partner Fred Masters had simply vanished without a trace. One minute she was wearing a headset and staring at a computer screen in a cramped back room at the Chicago FBI field office, listening to Fred trade anecdotes with the members of the Moretti family at the wedding. The next minute, the audio was eclipsed by the hiss of static and the GPS tracker in Fred's microphone went dead. The blip on the screen that indicated Fred's location blinked out of existence forever.

Blam. Blam. One through the heart to put him down. One through the right lung to give him a sucking chest wound while he dies.

When the local cops had questioned the Morettis and their associates about the sudden disappearance of their accountant, they were mostly met with shrugs and blank stares. A couple of the capos mumbled half-assed theories about how he'd probably decided to take a last-minute vacation, while Mario himself refused to say a word without a formal criminal charge and an attorney present. For a while, Cora had to deal with the maddening possibility that she'd never be able to find out what really happened to her partner.

But gossip traveled quickly through the underworld. A Moretti enforcer told the story of what happened that night to a bag man, who told his bookie, who told his told his brother, who happened to be a snitch for the FBI. Within a few weeks, Cora had a report on her desk with an account of what had happened to Fred, including a photo of the man responsible.

Gagevanni Moretti.

Blam. One low in the belly, just a few inches to the right of the spinal column. He'd spend hours bleeding out, with his nerves intact enough to feel every moment of agony.

The worst part was, every lead Fred had passed along to them during his seven months with the Morettis somehow went up in smoke the minute they tried to investigate.

The clear-cut case of insurance fraud connected to the fire at The Raven Club owned by the Morettis was dismissed when a key piece of evidence disappeared.

A federal judge named Patrick Shebin who was known to accept bribes from the Morettis was found dead in his car, the victim of an apparent suicide.

And the members of the Moretti family who were suspected in the killings of Waylon Boggs, Ted Klepper, and Joseph “The Snake” MacKenzie suddenly found iron-clad alibis to cling to, which prevented their respective grand juries from sending their cases to trial.

The Morettis had known exactly what the Feds had on them and how to beat it.

Which meant Gage had tortured Fred for that information before killing him.

At Quantico, Cora—like every other agent in training—had been taught how to target the brachial nerve in a suspect's shoulder when discharging her weapon. This would disarm the suspect quickly and cleanly without the need for lethal force.

She aimed for the nerve location in the paper target's right shoulder, then shifted her sights down to the target's crotch instead.

Blam. Blam. Blam. Blam.

Because when my chance comes and you're in my sights, Gage, you'd better believe you won't be going into custody, Cora though bitterly. I'm not giving you a chance to make bail and spend the months leading up to your trial eating at fancy restaurants and getting fitted for thousand-dollar suits, all while your daddy and his mob lawyers come up with ways to make sure you beat the charges. I'm sick of watching oily pimps like you strut around, taking whatever they want and killing whoever gets in their way without ever having to answer for it. No more. I'm taking you out of the f*****g headlines permanently, even if it costs me my goddamn badge.

“Your aim looks to be a little low,” a voice behind her commented mildly.

Cora turned and saw the lanky form of Don Huss, the Assistant Special Agent in Charge for the Chicago office, standing in the doorway. As always, he had a toothpick tucked into the corner of his mouth to compensate for having given up cigarettes two years before, and the leathery edges of his blue eyes were crinkled in amusement.

“Not to me,” Cora answered, sliding the empty magazine out of her pistol and replacing it with a fresh one.

Don chuckled. “Well, just the same, I reckon I'll pretend I didn't hear that in case the Bureau shrink asks me how you're holdin' up again,” he answered in his laconic Texas drawl. “I think you'd better go ahead an' hand that target over to me so I can make sure it goes in the circular file instead of some psych eval.”

Cora sighed and nodded, hitting the button that made the target advance on its track with a steady mechanical whine. When it was close enough, she pulled it down and handed it over to Don, who looked over it with raised eyebrows.

“You sure are hell an' Jesus with a pistol, darlin',” he observed with an appreciative whistle. He folded the target up and tucked it into his pocket, shaking his head. “Glad you kept that dead eye nice an' sharp, since you're goin' back out into the field.”

“Yeah, well, I doubt I'll be out there any time soon,” Cora replied sourly. “It took almost a year for Fred to establish his bona fides so he could get close enough to the Morettis to be invited in. And now that they've figured out we're sending undercover agents into their family, they'll probably be even more paranoid about it.”

Don nodded mildly. “That's all true, as far as it goes,” he agreed, “but we figure we can get the ball rolling a little faster this time. See, last night, the Chicago PD broke up a ring of MDMA dealers in a gay club on North Halsted. One of the guys who was busted for possession was Louie Grammatica. That name ring a bell?”

Cora's eyes widened. “Mario's lawyer. You've got to be shitting me.”

“I s**t you not,” Don chuckled. “As you can imagine, Louie's mighty troubled by the idea of the Morettis learnin' about his proclivities. Takin' it up the tailpipe's still a hangin' offense to them Sicilian boys. But he's told us that Mario's lookin' for a separate lawyer for Gage, to keep his various operations insulated from each other and prevent conflicts of interest. If we promise Louie immunity an' witness protection, he'll agree to get one of our agents into the Morettis' inner circle posing as an attorney they can trust. I seem to recall you havin' a law degree.”

“Me and half the agents in this office,” Cora pointed out.

Don shook his head. “Half the agents in this office didn't spent seven months listening in on these gangsters' conversations. You know the players, what they're into, what buttons to push. If anyone's gonna build an airtight case to put these goombahs behind bars, we both know it's gonna be you.”

“How do you know I'll let Gage go to trial?” Cora asked, thinking about the paper target again. “Even I don't know if I can do that.”

Don tilted his head at Cora and put his hands on her shoulders. She would never have allowed any of the other men in the field office to put their hands on her with such familiarity—or the women in the office, either, for that matter.

But Don was different. He'd been one of her teachers at the academy, and she'd always thought of him as a father figure, especially since she'd never known her own father. They'd never discussed it, but she'd always been fairly certain that he'd requested her specifically when he'd been assigned to the Moretti case, and that level of trust meant a lot coming from him.

“I know it,” Don said, “because I know you. You lost your partner, and it hurts. I've been there, believe me. More'n once, even. You blame yourself for what happened to him, even though there wasn't a damn thing you could have done to stop it. An' you're havin' dark thoughts about payback, just like any of us would. But I ain't never had any reason to think you're a psycho, or that when the moment of truth came, you'd choose to flush your career an' your life down the crapper. Not over a worm like Gage. Not when you know there's a hundred worse than him you could go after next, as long as you've got that badge.”

Cora nodded. She wanted to believe in herself as much as Don believed in her. But all she could think of was making sure that when Handsome Gage breathed his last, his nickname would be as ironic as possible.

“Thank you,” she said. “I'll try not to let you down.”

Don lowered his hands, smiling. “Aw, shucks, hon... You could never let me down, no matter what. Now come on, freshen up an' meet me in IR-3 in ten minutes so we can squeeze Louie for more info.” IR-3 was office shorthand for interrogation room #3.

“I'll be there,” Cora assured him, taking off her safety glasses.

Don started to leave, then turned back with a sly grin. “Oh, an' Cora? Just in case it turns out I'm wrong 'bout that whole you-not-bein'-a-psycho' thing, at least try an' make the first shot look random? It'll be mighty hard to say it wasn't premeditated if the only bullets they find are in his eyes an' balls an' whatnot.”

“It'd probably still cost me my badge,” Cora pointed out.

“True. Could keep you outta prison, though.” Don closed the door behind him, and Cora heard him whistling as he strolled down the hall.

*