House of Paine - A Full Length Bad Boy Novel Read Online Free

work. He has a son named Caine. The last time I talked to Greg, he had a meeting with him. I told him to call me before he went…he didn’t. I think he knew it was a set-up and he didn’t want to risk my life. I’ll ask myself the rest of my days what might have happened if I’d gone with him. I may have been able to save him…”
    “So this Caine killed him?”
    Tommy looked around again like a paranoid schizophrenic. He looked like he was on drugs himself, he was so jumpy. “All I know for sure is that Greg never came out of that meeting alive. I firmly believe that he was murdered…by Caine Kramer or one of them in the family.”
    “Shit! I got a text from him a couple of days before I found out he died. It said he had something hidden in his apartment. You’re right. He knew…Damn him for going in there knowing that!”
    Paige felt the tears sting her eyes again. Greg was too brave and noble for his own good. She knew he didn’t overdose but the word ‘murdered’ cut her like a knife. The anger suddenly turned from a slow burn into a raging inferno in her chest. “Thank you, Tommy…for everything,” she said.
    “I wish I could have saved him.”
    Paige hugged him and said, “Me too, but you know my brother, if he’d made up his mind to do something, no one could have changed it.” Tommy nodded.
    Paige squeezed his hand and started to head back over to where Jackson was. But he was gone. She looked around but didn’t see them anywhere, so she went back over to where Tommy stood. He was talking to another officer so she waited until they were done. Tommy’s paranoia had rubbed off on her a bit. She took his arm and led him away from everyone else, to a little path that ran through the cemetery. As they walked she asked him, “Tommy, did you tell the chief yet what you just told me about Greg being murdered?”
    “No.”
    “Why not? They’re thinking my brother was a junkie. Even though they gave him a hero’s funeral, I’d rather they knew the truth. Besides, I want the people who did this to pay for it.”
    “You don’t understand, Paige. These guys are responsible for countless murders in the city every year…sometimes on a weekly basis. They don’t leave evidence, they don’t leave trails. These guys are not thugs…they’re not gang-bangers…they have more money than God and that money can buy anything.”
    “So you’re telling me they’ll never be charged with my brother’s murder? They just get away with it?”
    “That and a lot more; Paige, the Kramer’s and the Paine’s use their money as well as intimidation to control everything in the city. There are more cops on their payroll than there are criminals. I have a pretty good suspicion that the chief is one of them. Every time a cop gets close to having enough to put one of these guys away…they end up like Greg.”
    “What about you then, you were his partner.”
    “I’ve already put in for a leave of absence. I told them I needed it because of the trauma of losing my partner and best friend. That’s part of it of course…but the main reason is that I need to get out of here before I’m next. Greg and I uncovered a lot of evidence that could go a long way towards bringing down both of these empires. But I don’t know who to take it to and if I take it to the wrong guy…someone on the payroll, I end up dead.”
    Paige was in shock. She couldn’t believe what Tommy was telling her. The NYPD was on her stepfather’s payroll? She wasn’t surprised about anything she heard about her stepfather, but the fucking NYPD? She knew Jackson was a drug lord, ever since she was a teenager and Greg found out what he really did for a living. At first, because he was so good to her and Paige really liked him, she’d tried to romanticize the whole thing in her head. He was bringing the drugs in, but he didn’t make people buy them and use them. Greg filled her in then on other things he’d found out. At fourteen years old,