Daring Time

"Uh-uh. Donahue's worse," Ryan stated flatly, his tone not inviting one of Ramiro's typical glib responses.

They'd been working on the case against Jim Donahue for a year now, ever since Ramiro and he had followed a tip in regard to a supposed brothel operating in an upscale high-rise on the Gold Coast. They'd instead uncovered a white slavery operation; eight young women being held against their will and forced into performing acts of sex with strangers in exchange for food and freedom from heinous brutalization, never seeing a cent of the money that changed hands. They'd been primarily from Mexico, but several had come from eastern European countries after being promised jobs as waitresses and bartenders, but instead being taken captive and filtered to the United States across the porous Mexican-American border.

Jim Donahue was perfectly poised to mastermind a human trafficking operation that extended way beyond those eight girls. As the owner of Donahue Landscaping, Donahue received approximately forty million dollars a year in contracts from the city of Chicago for street and park landscaping. Donahue cut costs by regularly importing illegal immigrants for cheap labor. He was a slick operator, though, and decided to put his network of illegal immigration contacts to more profitable use. It wasn't too far of a leap for him to expand from illegal transportation of aliens to the sex-slave trade.

The bureau ha

d become involved after their discovery on the Gold Coast, but Ryan and Ramiro had been assigned to an FBI-CPD combined task force created specifically to stamp out human trafficking in Chicago and the northern Illinois area.

"Daire, wait up!"

He and Ramiro paused on Roosevelt Road on the way to Ryan's car while Dale Crenshaw, the special agent in charge of the human trafficking task force, caught up to them.

"What do you think?" Crenshaw asked.

"Chirnovsky will play. He's scared shitless Daire'll turn his pretty-boy face to hamburger meat if he doesn't. It's amazing the cred you get for being the Amateur International boxing champion for three years running," Ramiro bragged as if he'd been talking about his own titles instead of Ryan's. He had a habit of compensating for Ryan's extended silences and terse explanations in a manner that didn't even remotely resemble anything Ryan would say.

"I didn't hear that," Crenshaw said resolutely, his thin lips twitching with amusement. In the past year of working with him, Ryan had found the older man to be fair-minded and relatively easy to work for, especially considering the problems Ryan'd encountered on multidisciplinary task forces in the past.

"Got your tuxes all brushed off and ready to go?" Crenshaw asked, referring to the undercover sting operation to nail Donahue over the weekend. Donahue was expecting to meet with Chirnovsky at a black-tie charity event sponsored by the City League at the Field Museum to discuss future importation plans for women to Milwaukee, St. Louis and Kansas City.

"Yeah, but I'll still be staying background. Donahue and I have met. Took an instant disliking to each other," Ryan said as they walked down the sidewalk.

Crenshaw paused, an anxious look on his thin face. "What? You never mentioned that."

Ryan just shrugged and kept walking, but Ramiro spoke for him yet again.

"He met him years ago through his father. Daire's dad was a hotshot lawyer, did legal work for the city and county. You can imagine how disappointed he was when his precious only son joined the ranks of the common soldier."

Ryan shot Ramiro an annoyed look. Ramiro's eyebrows went up and Ryan knew that he'd gotten the message to shut up. For the most part, Ryan was as used to his partner's garrulousness as Ramiro was accustomed to Ryan's extended silences, but occasionally Ramiro went too far. Ramiro knew perfectly well that Ryan's father had eventually become proud of his son's work on the CPD despite his early misgivings about Ryan's choice to drop out of law school and become a cop.

For the past year or so Ryan had been having some doubts about the career decision he'd made ten years ago, though, and maybe that's what made him extra testy about Ramiro's off-the-cuff comment. Ryan wanted to make a tangible difference. That's why he volunteered his time to coach boxing to inner-city youth and chose to fight crime and human greed as a cop instead of a lawyer.

Sometimes he wondered if it was enough, though.

"Don't worry. I only met Donahue once years ago. I doubt he even remembers it, but I'll stay background, anyway. I wouldn't let anything get in the way of nailing Donahue's hide," Ryan told Crenshaw.

"Good. Make sure of it," Crenshaw said with a pointed glance before he said good night and headed toward his own car.

"You got a date with the society princess tonight?" Ramiro asked later when Ryan pulled up in front of Ramiro's Wicker Park condominium building.

Ryan shook his head, not bothering to elaborate. He'd only been out with Carrie Prince twice. They hadn't slept together yet and Ryan was suddenly convinced they never would. His heart just wasn't in it, which was damned strange for him.

The realization that he'd never get to know Carrie any better than he already had didn't warrant much interest on his part, let alone a pang of regret. He doubted the delicate, blonde-haired Carrie was the type to be overly thrilled to discover that Ryan's sexual preferences included not just fucking a woman in his bed but tying her down to said bed in the process—among other things.

"You driving tomorrow?" Ramiro nodded. "Do me a favor, will you?"

"Shit. Don't make me pick you up one of those nasty milkshakes from that health-food store on Damen before I get you. Drinking those things is like chewing a mouthful of vitamins and that nut-ball lady who owns it gives me these suspicious looks, like she can smell the bacon on my breath."

"She probably can. Pick me up on Prairie Avenue."

Ramiro gaped at him. "You're fucking with me."

"I'm serious."

"Then you're just fucked. You're not actually thinking about living in that place, are you?"

Ryan shrugged. "Maybe. Just until I sell it." He saw Ramiro open his mouth. "Can it, Ramiro. Just pick me up there in the morning, willya?"