Betrayed

By Mia Ford

I'd gone undercover before, but never with the intention of getting a suspect into my bed.  That's how hot Sean O'Connor was.  He might have been the head of a criminal organization, but he was the hottest crook I'd ever seen. I wanted to cuff him to my bed and make him sing like a bird, and that's what I'd do soon as I got the chance…

I swore to uphold the law, but it's hard to slap the cuffs on a guy when his tongue is in your ear and his arms are wrapped around you so tight you can barely breathe.

Sean O'Connor is a criminal, but he's also dedicated and loyal and so sexy he makes my mouth water and my panties melt.

I know if I'm not careful, he might steal my heart and run.  I can't let that happen. I'm a cop and he's a crook.  When it comes down to the wire, Sean O'Connor is going down, no matter the cost.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mia Ford
• Release date: Dec 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393118312

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE: Claire McAfee

Isat in my usual spot in the morning briefing of the Organized Crime Task Force and watched the other plainclothes and uniformed cops drift in.  It was almost comical to call it a task force because it was just the four of us detectives who were permanently assigned and the seven or eight cops who rotated in and out on any given day. 

It was more of a task group, but that didn’t sound nearly as cool or intimidating as task force.  What bad guy in their right mind would worry about being investigated by a task group? 

Probably, very few. 

A task group was one step above a task club. 

But I digress...

There were several rows of tables in the room, lined up one behind the other, each with six chairs facing the front wall where my ex-husband and task force commander, Captain Ed Henry, would stand and bring us up to date on anything that happened since the last time we’d met. 

Yes, it was odd working so closely with my ex.  Odder still was the fact that we got along much better now than we ever did during our six years of doomed marriage. 

Maybe it was because we had nothing to prove to one another now. 

Or maybe it was because now Ed could screw whomever he wanted without having to worry about getting caught and having me rip his nuts off with my sharp nails. 

Ed was a great guy, but he was one of the biggest pussy hounds in the history of the department.  I knew it when I married him, but I married him anyway, thinking that I could change him. 

Stupid me.

What’s the old saying, you can’t change a leopard’s spots? 

Well, I found out the hard way you can’t change a pussy hound’s ways either.  Once a pussy hound, always a pussy hound. No amount of threatening or marital counseling could make him change his ways.  All I could do was just divorce him and let him become someone else’s problem.

Despite his inability to keep his rather lengthy, uncircumcised cock in his pants, Ed Henry was a good cop and an excellent investigator who had made a name for himself putting away bad guys in expensive suits while I was grinding it out as an undercover investigator in Vice.  The day he asked me to join the task force was one of the happiest days of my life.  I was chasing hookers and johns for a living.  Now I chase greasy gangsters with names like Charlie Baggo Donuts, Ricky Sticky Fingers, and Patsy O’Connor.

The nicknames these guys give each other are a little like the nicknames guys give their dicks.  You’re never gonna meet a woman who has given her pussy a name.  But every guy has a nickname for his dick, regardless of whether he will admit it or not.

Ed called his cock and balls Willie and his two nutty friends.

I know, silly, but come on, it’s kinda cute.

I always sat at the second table, middle seat, sipping bad coffee from the lipstick-stained cup I’d used since joining the task force three years ago and taking notes on an iPad.  Some mornings the notes ran several pages.  Other mornings, nothing at all.

There were five detectives permanently assigned to the task force.  I was one of two women; and the only straight woman.  The other woman was Joanie Alvarez, a chunky Spanish fireball who could make even the hardest of criminals back down with what she called her angry lesbian stare.  And if that didn’t do it, she would break their kneecap with the heel of her sensible shoes or take out an eye with the point of her car keys.  Joanie was barely five feet tall, but she was a force to be reckoned with.

The other members of the team were Lou Santiago, a tall Italian with dark hair and squinty eyes; Brad Danzig, the youngest member who spent way more time in the gym than any human should be allowed; and Lester Shanahan, a tall Irishman who always used slaps of Old Spice cologne to cover the nips of whiskey we all knew he drank during the day.

Then there was Ed, our fearless leader, who, at forty-five, was still tall and handsome and ready with the quick smile and warm hands that could still make my juices flow.  We still had our little sex romps every now and then, even though he was usually involved with someone else and I swore that every time would be the last.  When it came to Ed, my willpower was shit.  And he knew it. 

Each team member, including myself, was a top-notch investigator with lots of successful operations under their belt.  Maybe that was why we were all so fucking frustrated now.  Ed stood at the front of the room and said it best.

We’ve been spinning our wheels in O’Connor shit for six months, people.  If we don’t get a break soon, we’re gonna have to close the book on these mother fuckers and let them walk.  That is something I do not want to do.  Am I clear?

The O’Connor shit Ed was referring to was a criminal organization led by a notorious Irish gangster named Patrick Patsy O’Connor.  The task force (task club) had been trying to collect enough evidence to bring O’Connor and his gang up on a multitude of charges for months, yet so far, we didn’t have enough evidence to charge him with jaywalking. 

We all knew that our time was running out.  If we couldn’t find the crack in Pats O’Connor’s armor soon the task force would either move on to the next gang on the list or, most likely since memos about budget cuts kept coming down from on high, be disbanded and everyone reassigned. 

I shuddered to think that I might end up back chasing hookers and johns in Vice.  At this point, I was willing to do anything to make sure our investigation into Connor’s organization somehow bore fruit and kept the team together.  Anything.

I sipped the coffee and listened to Ed basically tell us that the weekend surveillance of O’Connor’s operation at the docks had resulted in nothing more than the usual comings and goings of O’Connor and his crew.

I let my eyes go around the white board behind Ed that was covered with the mugshot and surveillance photos of members of the O’Connor gang, with Patsy’s photo at the top, then horizontal and vertical lines displaying the hierarchy of his organization. 

The higher a photo was on the board, the higher that person was in the organization.  The photo directly below Patsy’s was that of his son, Sean, an attorney whom we believed was being groomed to take over the organization from his father.

Claire?  Claire?

I blinked when I heard my name.  I had been busted daydreaming about Sean O’Connor again.  I couldn’t tell you exactly why, but the photograph of Patsy O’Connor’s only son never failed to catch my eye.

Tall, muscular, blonde, blue eyed, big Irish smile... he was, without a doubt, the best-looking gangster I’d ever seen. 

I’d yet to see him in person, only in photographs and grainy surveillance videos, but there was something about him that made a little tingle run up and down my spine.  I sometimes imagined him handcuffed to my bed, naked, with a ball-gag in his mouth... 

Jesus, Claire, you really need to get laid.

Claire?

I looked up to find Ed staring at me.  Claire?  You with us?

I quickly swallowed the lump in my throat and pried my eyes away from Sean O’Connor’s photo, ignoring the heat between my legs.  I looked at Ed and gave him a firm nod.  Yes, sorry, just thinking.

First time’s always hard, sweet cheeks, Joanie said, grinning over her shoulder at me.  I flipped her the bird and gave Ed my full attention.

I asked if you had found anything else in Sean O’Connor’s background that we might be able to use to get in the door.  Anything we can use against him. Ed leaned an elbow on the podium next to him and shoved his other hand in his pocket and rattled the change he had on him.  It was an old habit of his, shoving a hand in his pocket to rattle change when his patience was running thin.  I’d been on the receiving end of it many times.

Oh, well, not much I’m afraid, I said, stumbling over my words.  I cleared my throat and put on a serious face as I laced my fingers together on the table and nodded at the photo of Sean O’Connor.

I dug deeper into his background before he went to work for his father, but I didn’t find anything useful, I said formally.  The guy is so fucking clean he squeaks.

"What about friends