Chapter 15 #2
Fury rushed through her. Her suitcase was just outside the door in the hallway, and she marched out of the room without another word and grabbed it.
Jordan scrambled to follow. “Daisy.”
She hurried outside and across the grass, dragging the stupid case with her. Why had she packed so much stuff?
“Daisy.”
Words could barely squeeze past the anger closing her throat. “I’m leaving.”
He grabbed her arm. “You can’t—”
She turned the move into a flip that had him flat on his back. No one put hands on her. Not like that. She leaned down and drilled her finger into his chest, where he lay on the ground.
“Do not tell me what I can and can’t do. I am sick of you people thinking you can order me around. Am I under arrest?”
He cocked his head as he stared up at her, a matching anger spiking in his eyes. “You know you’re not.”
She turned away frustrated. Why had she expected better from him? Because despite all her tough self-talk, it turned out she had a weakness for men like this, and if anyone ever accused her of having daddy issues, she’d break both their fucking arms.
She grabbed her case and marched on. Decided she should be able to arrange a cab from the main office at the Academy building so headed in that direction. With her luck she’d bump into one of her interrogators from earlier and they’d arrest her for being…a woman or something.
“Daisy…” Jordan implored, following her.
She whirled. “It took you ten minutes to go straight back to being a controlling jackass.” Her heart thumped erratically, and a lot of that was hurt.
“You acted all reasonable in Mexico, and then as soon as you’re back here, it’s Daisy do this.
It’s for your own good, but you’re doing it regardless.
” She sucked in a breath. “I don’t need anyone telling me what to do, even if it’s for my own damned good! ”
The fact she was yelling at the top of her lungs gained attention from everyone within hearing distance. Several people turned toward them.
Great.
Now she was going to get arrested for being loud.
Jordan caught her fingers, but gently. Her limbs were shaking.
She lowered her voice. “You don’t get to put me in a box when I’m not convenient to you anymore, Jordan. You don’t get to decide for me what is safe and what is dangerous. I am not your responsibility.” She spat out the words between clenched teeth.
“I’m sorry. I’m genuinely sorry.” His eyes went shiny with what looked suspiciously like tears, and she froze.
“The thought of Bocharov doing to you what he did to my sister, my mother, my grandparents made me lose it for a moment.” He dragged his hand through his hair.
“If I fail to protect you the way I failed to protect them,” the words were honest and raw, “it would destroy me this time.”
Her heart pounded, and her throat ached.
“What did he do to them?” Her voice was a thin whisper.
His eyes raised to the sky, and she watched his throat constrict as he swallowed. “He burned them alive.”
Horror washed through her. That was so much worse than she’d imagined, and yet, she’d instinctively known they’d suffered terribly. She put her hand on his arm. “You don’t have to tell me anything else. That’s enough.”
He shook his head. “No, you have a right to know what we’re dealing with.
I’m asking you to trust me. I’m making promises to keep you safe that I may not be able to keep.
You deserve to know the truth about who I am and who he is.
” He inhaled deeply. “He will kill you to get to me. If nothing else, you need to believe that.”
His ghostly blue-green eyes held hers.
“The night before we were supposed to arrest him, Bocharov sent me on some bullshit mission across town. He was in a pissy mood at the club, but he was often in a pissy mood, so I didn’t suspect I was blown.
” He laughed, a small bitter sound that rattled along with the branches on the trees.
“If I was blown, I figured I’d get a bullet in the brain and an unmarked grave somewhere in Cook County.
But he liked me—my family was originally from Ukraine and so was his grandmother, so we both spoke a little of the language.
” His expression twisted with remembered antipathy.
“I went to deliver the arms as instructed. I never suspected…” He shook his head, the haunted expression firmly back in place.
“You don’t argue with the boss. Not in the bratva.
He sent me to do a job, and if I wanted to keep everything smooth until he was picked up by CPD, then I had to do what he told me. ”
“Bratva?”
“Russian Mafia.”
She squeezed his arm.
“I knew something wasn’t right, but there was no cell service at the meeting place.
I waited half an hour after the buyers were supposed to show, longer than I normally would, so that Konrad wouldn’t start a war and inadvertently jeopardize our arrest plans.
Called my FBI handler on the way back. She told me something had happened at the bakery, and I knew.
I just fucking knew. I drove like a lunatic, but I didn’t get there in time.
The firefighters held me back. They couldn’t get inside either.
The fire was too fierce. It had taken time for the fire engines to get close enough to get to work.
The roads had been blocked with cars and a dumpster. ”
Daisy made a sound of distress, but Jordan wasn’t seeing her right now.
“Bocharov or one of his goons started a fire on the ground floor beneath where my family lived, and then they barricaded the doors so when they tried to escape they couldn’t.
” He clenched his fists. “My sister broke an upstairs window to climb out but they shot her, drove her back inside. My baba couldn’t have climbed to safety anyway, nor my Pop.
My mother wouldn’t have left any of them. ”
She watched him force back the emotions that were surely ripping him apart.
The tears shone, but they didn’t fall. “When the firefighters found them the next day, they were all together, all holding one another even though they’d died in agony. They never let go. They died because of me.”
“No.”
“Yes.” He swiped his forearm over his eyes.
“They died because Bocharov wanted to punish me. He also slit the throat of a stripper I had sex with once and the man who vouched for me, even though that guy was completely loyal to Bocharov and hated my guts. He also killed four police officers who were on surveillance duty that night.” He opened his eyes, and his feelings were laid bare in their depths.
“I couldn’t bear if the same thing happened to you, Daisy.
That’s why I’m controlling. Not because I’m an asshole, or not just because, but because he would kill you as easily as most people order a coffee.
He’d kill you and enjoy doing it, and it would be my fault.
I can only kill him once, but he can kill me in a thousand different ways. ”
She trembled with a mix of anger and heartbreak. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
They stared at one another for a long moment, but she couldn’t move. All his truths were alive in his eyes, and some of those truths were the way he felt about her. Not because she was Kurt Montana’s daughter, but because she was her. And that scared her.
“I know I fucked up, Daze. It’s the easiest thing in the world for me to give orders and expect them to be obeyed.”
Her breath shuddered.
“But you’re not in the FBI. You’re not a criminal. You’re you. Smart. Independent. Unpredictable.” His smile wobbled. “Beautiful, especially when you’re angry.”
It sucked the air right out of her lungs to see a man like this so openly emotional, but she wasn’t backing down. “You don’t get to put me in a box. Not without my permission.”
“Definitely no boxes. I know how you feel about boxes.” He took a cautious step toward her. “I should have consulted you. Gotten your opinion. In the heat of the moment, I reverted to trying to impose what I thought was best on you. I should know better by now.”
She nodded. “You should. Despite what you think, I’m not stupid, and I’m not reckless. At least, no more than you are.”
He took another tentative step until he was almost touching her. “Let’s go back inside and see what ideas we can come up with as a group to draw Bocharov out while keeping you—us,” he corrected quickly, “safe.”
“There’s no such thing as a hundred-percent safe, Jordan.”
“I know. But we can make it as difficult as possible for the sonofabitch.” He pushed her hair back behind her ears even though the wind ruffled it again.
She swallowed and leaned against him, raised her face to his. They had an audience at the window. “You know you’re going to have to kiss me now, right?”
“Yeah. And not just any kiss. A make-up kiss.” He sounded resigned. He put his hands around her waist and lifted her up until she was looking down at him.
“Do your best not to enjoy it.” Her lips twitched into a grudging smile.
“No promises.” He moved in to take her lips in the sort of kiss that they wrote romance novels about.
It hit her like a lightning bolt that electrified her bones and sparked across every nerve with heated pleasure.
She tingled, everywhere. Moaned as she wrapped her arms tight around his neck and kissed him even deeper.
He slowly pulled back and let her slide down his body, allowing her to feel every solid inch of him.
She wanted to be with him tonight. For comfort.
Not because she had feelings for the guy except, of course, she did.
She liked him. Enjoyed him. Admired him.
When he wasn’t being a dick. It didn’t mean she was emotionally involved.
She knew this wouldn’t lead anywhere, didn’t want it to, but, damn, the man was hot when he let his guard down.
Thankfully, he ruined her witless mooning by opening his mouth.
“Trust me. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”
She cupped his cheek then tapped it, sharply. “You can’t make those kind of promises, Jordan. You can’t control everything.”
“I can damned well try.”
“Then control this. Get me a weapon. Dad has a safe full of them back at his place, and he trained me well. I have a license to carry concealed. If this guy comes for me and you aren’t around, I want to have at least a chance of defending myself.”
Jordan stared down at her for one long moment, and she thought he was going to argue, probably about him always being around, but that wasn’t going to happen, and they both knew it.
“Not possible on FBI grounds, but I’ll see what I can do for when you’re not.”
She rose up on tiptoes and kissed him again. Watched his nostrils flare and his eyes darken as she sank back down. “I’ll even promise not to shoot you when you say stupid things.”
One side of his mouth curved up in a grin, and he clicked his tongue against his cheek. “I think you’re going to regret making that promise.”
“Me too, babe. Me too.”