Pearce Hudson: #1 My Italian Devil

36. Breakthrough

"Pearce!" I broke my gaze with Dante and looked at Ross towards us.

"What does he want?" Dante growled. "Didn't you tell your ex-boyfriend you're married?"

"Dante he's a colleague," I assured him. "It's work again. I'll see you later."

Before I could get up he cupped my face and kissed aggressively as if to show Ross who was Alpha. I rolled my eyes, men and their dominance.

Ross and I walked way further down the river before we spoke.

"I called a buddy of mine who was on the original team."

"What did he say?"

"There was an undercover job in New York. Capaldi was in New York for a week, the team flew in to try to get someone in Capaldi's inner circle. Viv went in undercover at a club where Dante frequented when he was New York."

"You think that's the connection."

Ross and I had been looking for a connection, a time or place Viv and Dante met or spoke to tie into her being the mole. So far we had nada.

"Well it has to be. Other than that she's never made contact with him that we would know of. My friend also added, the cops raided the club on a tip from an anonymous source that there was drugs in club. Everyone inside was arrested including Capaldi but of course he was squeaky clean so they let him go."

Of course. He was too careful.

"Should we inform the team now? Before anymore damage."

"Yeah before I do anything else. I want Viv arrested. Let's get back to my place and grab whatever we have on her."

Ross parked in the basement parking lot. As I got out of the car Esposito called me. I picked up as we stepped onto the stairs. "Hey Espo you're on speaker."

"They're ruling Gomez's death as an accidental drowning," Esposito informed.

"That's just bullshit!"

"Preach to the choir. I just heard from some uniforms. The lead detective, Brian Tyler, he's a dirty cop. So was his partner, something Smith."

"Kevin."

"Yeah how do you know? Dude died like month ago."

"When he used to be a detective Smith took bribes from Dante. Dante had him killed when he found out Smith took over his strip club."

"Our justice system is so corrupt," Ross said.

"Alright I gotta hustle."

"Bye." I tapped the phone screen to disconnect.

I let Ross unlock my door. I knelt down to the welcome carpet in front of my door and lifted the rough material up. I wouldn't be needing the spare key anymore. Along with my spare key, I also found the spare of Jake's apartment that I had. That doesn't belong here.

"This should be here."

"What?"

"I keep this key on the little crystal bowl by the door."

"So?"

"So unless it grew legs and walked under the welcome mat I think Jack went to Jake's place last night."

Using the key I unlocked Jake's door. He was still at the office. The living room was dark because all the curtains were closed. Jake's usual scatter of technological gadgets littered this sofa and carpet area. Among it was the device I had used to duplicate Dante's phone. I plucked it up.