Loving Leo (The Romanovsky Brothers Book 3) by Trevion Burns

computer.  “Is garbage.  I put you on the Romanovskys because they can get us somewhere.  If you nail this family, we can use them to nail King.  I turn my head to your process, because I trust your process.  I truly do.  Having said that, I’m begging you to stop wasting my time with this Harriet the Spy bullshit.”
    “So… I guess you’re not going to give me permission to arrest Governor King tonight?”
    Harper didn’t dignify that with a response.  “Did I make a mistake going to bat for you to get this thing reopened?”
    “It’s been less than two days, and I already have an in with the Romanovsky family and Novsky,” she said.  “I’m on my way to a party with them right now.  By the end of the week, I will close this case.  So fuck you for saying that.”  She nodded at him.  “You know, there’s a reason we nicknamed you Harp.”
    Harper smirked, letting that blow by.  “Case closed by the end of the week, huh? Seems ambitious.”
    “I’ll get you your confession.”
    “Get me my arrest warrant,” Harper said.  “Your career might just depend on it.”
     
    ***
     
    Jessica had no idea when she’d started to care about Angie Colt.
    It was early in the party, and Leo hadn’t arrived, but the rest of Roman’s friends and family had, drinking and dancing as hip hop music blasted from the sound system in the darkened lounge.  A lamp cast a dull red light on Angie Colt from where she was bent over the lounge’s only pool table, her cat-eye glasses falling to the tip of her nose.  Even with that blond behemoth Roman bent over the pool table behind her, Jessica still found herself glaring at anyone who came too close to Angie.
    Unable to take another second of that strange maternal feeling, Jessica paid for her drink and hurried outside.  The cold air encircled her, but spring was coming, so the nip wasn’t unbearable.  Still, she tugged her cropped leather jacket around her breasts, eyes searching the Soho street packed with intoxicated kids talking gibberish that made her feel old.  Cars honked nonstop and police sirens roared in from what sounded like every angle.
    Catching sight of a black sedan parked at the corner, Jessica jetted down the sidewalk, banging her fist on the tinted window, scoffing in disgust when it rolled down.
    “Rodney,” she spat, leaning down to get a look inside the car.  “You’re supposed to be watching Angie Colt.  Why aren’t one of you in the lounge fucking watching her?”
    “We’re watching the door, Borgia.  We know King’s go-to men.  We know what they look like.”
    “Funny thing about the mob,” Jessica said.  “There’s a shitload of them.  How the fuck can you say you know what they all look like?  She is in danger.  I need eyes on her, and I don’t have the luxury of looking over my shoulder every five minutes to make sure you’re doing your fucking job.”
    Rodney lifted his hands, cradling a coffee and a burger.  “Fine.” He frowned, grumbling, “Poisonous bitch,” once she turned away.
    Jessica ignored that, stomping back inside the lounge.  Once inside, her eyes shot straight to the pool table.
    Angie was alone now, banging the end of her pool stick against the floor, frowning at the balls on the table, contemplating her next shot. She had no idea that there was a man in the shadows behind her, glaring at the back of her head, closing in with determined eyes.
    Jessica’s heart blasted with fury, and she was across the lounge in seconds, taking the man’s arm just as he was reaching for Angie, kicking his leg out from under him and slamming him to the floor.  He hit the ground, face down, screaming as Jessica craned his arm behind his back and buried her high heel in his neck.
    “Who do you work for?” Jessica spat down at him, bending his elbow harder and eliciting another scream.   “Who sent you, you son of a bitch?”
    “I don’t know what you’re talk—”
    She bent his elbow more.
    “Ow!