Storm's Cage by Mary Stone (uplifting novels .TXT) 📕

his gray t-shirt. With another of her bright smiles, a look he’d fallen so hard for and still made him forget all of life’s problems, if only for a moment, she gave his hand a slight squeeze.

“Okay, honey. Try not to let your baseball watching party get too out of control.” With a wink, she produced a set of car keys from her purse. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Ian slapped her bottom as he followed her down a short hall to the garage door. “That doesn’t rule out much. You know that, right?”

Her grin widened mischievously. “It only rules out Jägermeister, really.” Twisting the doorknob, she stepped into the garage, wiggling her fingers behind her in a half-wave. “I’ll see you on Wednesday night. I love you.”

“Love you too, honey.” He waved as she made her way to the driver’s side.

Ian watched his wife slide behind the wheel, and he didn’t pull his gaze away from the black sedan until it had backed out of the driveway and disappeared from his field of vision.

He and Dana had always been honest with one another, even before marriages and divorces had brought them back together. They told one another everything, with one exception…Ian’s work.

Five years in the military had given Ian a healthy work ethic, and he’d maintained that same hardworking attitude over the last sixteen years. Like most of his colleagues, he’d started as a beat cop with the Chicago Police Department, but since childhood, Ian had only ever wanted to be a detective. He’d busted his ass to make that happen before he turned thirty.

The job had always seemed black and white to him—look for clues, find the bad guys, and put their asses in jail.

What he hadn’t known, and could never have anticipated, was the baggage that came with police work in a city that produced some of the highest rates of violent crime in the country.

With one more wistful glance at where his wife’s car had disappeared, he considered dropping his weekend plans and going with her after all.

“Don’t be an idiot,” he muttered and flicked off the garage’s overhead light and locked the deadbolt of the door. He turned on the TV, hoping the sound would keep his mind occupied until his friends arrived.

Time alone meant time with his thoughts, which was the biggest reason he sought to fill the house when it was empty.

His thoughts, especially lately, were traitorous.

Children…cameras…blood…

Pressure swelled in his head as his mind began to race. Double fisting his hands into his hair, Ian gripped as many strands as he could and tugged, wishing he could pull the memories out before they drove him crazy. Even now, just shy of turning forty, his raven hair showed no sign of graying.

Not yet, at least. With the way his job had been going, he was liable to be completely bald or gray by the end of the month.

Stop it. Just stop thinking about it.

He knew that was a pipe dream.

The warm scent of chili pepper mixed with onions and garlic wafted up to him as he stepped into the sunlit kitchen, but the pleasant aroma did little to stop the darkness from clouding his mood.

Propping both hands on the gold-flecked granite counter, he let his blank stare fall on the slow cooker as condensation formed inside the glass lid.

Once upon a time, he’d looked forward to the days when he invited his detective friends over to watch a Cubs game.

In those days, he’d been sure that he was one of the good guys. His buddies too. He’d never questioned the career he’d chosen. It was his dream job. Even if he occasionally did little favors for the Leóne crime family, he and his buddies on the force made choices for the greater good.

After all, he hadn’t ever committed a violent crime on the Leóne family’s behalf, had he? All he’d done was look the other way. He’d never turned on his fellow detectives, nor had he knowingly facilitated the death or injury of an innocent civilian.

Maybe he was naïve, or maybe willful ignorance was his way of keeping sane.

Not anymore.

He could deny it all he wanted, but the truth was there. Ian had been feeding a monster.

Not even a year into working with the Leónes, their agreements had graduated from minor drug deals to drug trafficking, and eventually homicide. As each new case came across his desk, he’d continued to rationalize his alliance with the notorious crime family.

They hadn’t killed innocents.

They’d killed rival drug dealers, traffickers, other monsters.

Any time Ian looked the other way or let a key piece of evidence slip through the cracks, he’d tell himself he was part of the greater good.

If he hadn’t assured himself that the murders he’d helped cover up were nothing more than the casualties in a war between the Leónes and another evil, he would have been unable to live with himself.

The oversight of a few offenses here and there was a small price to pay for all the good he did as a homicide detective. He brought justice to countless families who’d lost loved ones. He was damn good at his job, but without the extra income from the Leóne family, finances would have been next to impossible.

Life in Chicago was expensive, and he and Dana were both public servants. Even when combined, the salaries of a city cop and a social worker were hardly enough to make ends meet, much less live comfortably.

More than half of the Chicago Police Department owed allegiance to one criminal organization or another—the Leónes, the D’Amatos, the Russians, the San Luis Cartel—so all Ian had done was follow along. Word around the precinct was that the crime bosses had Feds on their payroll too.

Which had been fine.

A few weeks earlier, however, the narrative changed.

When the FBI had issued a press release about the Leónes’ kiddie porn ring they’d busted, reality smacked Ian across the face.

For all these years, he’d kept his head buried in the sand. And for what?