5. Draven
Chapter 5
Draven
Incessant banging on my door forces me from the shower. I sling a towel around my waist and march across my apartment, dripping water all over the floor. Wrenching open the door, I find myself glowering at Louise.
“You’re early,” I bark, standing back to allow her to pass.
She pinches the bridge of her nose. Dark shadows sit beneath her eyes, and there’s a line of tension around her mouth. “Draven, please. Can we just stop bitching at each other for five seconds? I haven’t slept properly in ages, and I’m exhausted. Save your shit for another day.”
She isn’t the only one exhausted. By the time I’d gotten to Camden, explained to Mom why I was dragging them from their home in the middle of the night, and settled them in a three bedroomed apartment over in Brooklyn owned by a billionaire client of mine, it was five in the morning before I fell into bed. Not that I have any intention of sharing any of that with Louise. The less she knows about how worried I am, the better. Let her think I’m a jerk. She has as long as I’ve known her.
I cross over to my bedroom, open my dresser, and remove a pair of boxers. When I drop the towel, a hiss of air whistles through Louise’s teeth. With my back to her, I risk a grin. If we’re going to work together on this case, I may as well have some fun at her expense. Even though there’s contempt on both sides, there’s also attraction.
Once I’ve stepped into my underwear, I turn around before I’ve fully covered my cock. She glances away, but not quickly enough, and a cherry-red flush spreads over her neck.
I lean against the doorjamb, my inked arms folded over my chest. “You’ve used up thirty seconds eating me with your eyes. Better move things along, sweetcheeks.”
I expect a snarky response. Instead, her eyes glisten, and she bows her head, but not before I spot a fat tear clinging to her lower lashes. She dashes a hand across her face and turns her head to the side.
The urge to apologize digs into me, but I can’t bring myself to say the words. She wouldn’t believe me anyway but, once again, my decision not to tell her why I refused to talk to her last night and move my family out of potential harm’s way is validated. She’s not coping well with her sister’s disappearance, and why would she? If it were my sister, I’d burn down the world until I found her.
Even so, her tears surprise me. The woman I knew had balls almost as big as mine. She might have been a rookie back in the day, but she’d also been tough as nails. During our six months working together, we’d seen a lot of hideous stuff. Not once had she let her emotions get the better of her. Even with her sister missing, I expected ‘Ironclad Rhodes’, as I’d nicknamed her, to turn up to my apartment this morning.
I sigh heavily, uncross my arms, then point to the sofa. “Okay, Rhodes. Spill what you know.”
She sits down, presses her palms to her cheeks, then briefly closes her eyes. “Just over a week ago, a twenty-year-old woman named Annie Thompson was snatched off the street on her way home from work. Despite extensive police work, the trail went completely cold. The next day, another woman was taken, again disappearing into thin air. Between then and now, four more women, including my sister, have been taken, believed to have been trafficked. Despite having twelve full-time detectives on the case, every rock they flipped over turned out to be a dead end. On Friday, I got called into the boss’s office as a courtesy to be told the FBI were taking over the case. Usual platitudes. Captain will be kept fully informed. Blah, blah, blah.”
“How long ago was your sister taken?”
“Four…” She shakes her head. “No, five days now. She was snatched from a shopping mall.”
I remember Louise talking about Kiera. She’d talked a lot back then, and I’d been happy to let her. It saved me from engaging in pointless conversation. From my recollection, the two girls had been real close.
I twist my lips to one side. “If this is a trafficking case, then it’s normal procedure for the FBI to take over. Why not let the feds do their job?”
She glowers at me. “Thank you for the lesson in law enforcement protocol. I’m not saying the feds shouldn’t work the case. Hell, we’ve gotten nowhere, so I’ll take all the help I can get. But if you think I’m going to just sit by and wait for news about my sister…” She shakes her head. “No. Not happening. Six women have gone missing from the Camden area, Draven. Six. All of them middle class, with good careers. No drugs, no debt, no enemies that we’ve unearthed.”
“How old are the women?”
“Between twenty and twenty-five.”
I scratch my cheek. “It’s an unusual approach. Normally, trafficking gangs target women who won’t be missed. They don’t want the cops on their tail. Women like you’ve described usually have families, careers, a place in society. People who will search for them and never give up.”
She nods. “You’re right, but this gang seems to be going after a different class of women.” Her hand shoots to her throat. “You don’t think they could be setting up an auction?”
“Possibly,” I muse. “Although six isn’t enough for an auction. I’d expect upward of twenty.”
“Six is only from my precinct. There could be more taken from nearby counties.”
“True. The feds will have the full picture.” I pause. “If she has been taken, you might never see her again. You know that, right?”
She pales at my blunt, if truthful, statement, but hiding behind false hope won’t help anyone.
“I can’t allow myself to think like that, Draven. I don’t care how long it takes, I won’t rest until Kiera is found, even if it’s her body I bring home.” She winces, turning away from me so she can wipe away another tear that crawls down her cheek.
“What do you want from me?” I ask, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear her say it because I’m that much of a bastard.
“I need you to help me work this case in the background. I don’t want to ruffle any delicate Fed sensibilities, but I can’t sit on my hands and wait for them to feed me snippets of information that I have to beg for, either.”
I tug on my beard. “Problem is, you and I don’t mix. Our work methods are completely different.” It’s a direct dig, and one that hits its target given how she flinches.
“I guess I deserved that,” she says wryly. “You’re right. I’ve always played by the book. I’m a rule follower. I believe rules are there for a reason, to protect us and the public. It’s how my parents raised me—to respect authority, to follow the law. And once I became the law, that seemed even more important.” She lowers her eyes to the floor. “But as much as it pains me to admit it, there are occasions where playing by the rules puts the good guys firmly at a disadvantage.”
“Fuck.” I press a hand to my chest. “You have grown up, little Lola.”
She appears startled that I remember the nickname given to her by her parents—another thing she told me during our time working together, her tongue constantly running loose and free. I hadn’t acknowledged it at the time, but the fact I used it now clearly means it’s stuck in my brain somewhere.
Like she is.
There. I admitted it. Despite the anger at her betrayal continuing to simmer just beneath the surface, a significant part of my rage had been caused because I’d liked her. I’d liked her a whole fucking lot.
Until she’d screwed me over.
“That doesn’t mean I agree with your methods, either then or now, but I can’t turn my back on Kiera. Please, Draven, help me find her. Bring her home where she belongs.”
I pause, making her wait. I just can’t help myself, even though the decision is made. There’s no way I’m walking away from this case, especially as it’s happening in my own backyard, the place I grew up, and where my family live. I give it twenty-four hours before Mom’s on my back about when she can go home. Wednesday is bridge night, and she’s only missed two of those in more than ten years. One when she caught the flu, and another when Ruby bumped her head, and she and Erika spent the evening in the emergency room waiting for X-rays.
“I have one condition.”
She answers without hesitation. “Name it.”
My smile comes slow and steady. “You follow every fucking order I give you without question. If you can do that, we have a deal.”
Louise draws in her lips, her fingers plucking at a loose thread on her sweater. “How about this? We stay within the law unless we have absolutely no choice, and then it’s a discussion, Draven. You don’t go storming in there and fucking up my career. It’s tough enough being a woman in this job. Don’t make my life harder than it needs to be.”
“You have a very low opinion of me, Rhodes. Sure, I push boundaries at times, but I get fucking results. You want to find your sister and bring those who took her to justice? Then, let me do my job, my way.”
“Within the law,” she says, her dogged determination grating on me, even if I admire her for sticking to her principles.
“You came to me, sweetcheeks.”
She sighs, throwing her hands in the air. “For help, not to fuck me over.”
I run a hand over my beard, my eyes boring into hers, daring her to look away. I’ve already made up my mind to help her, sure, but a part of me needs her to work for it, to beg, to want to tell me to shove it even knowing she can’t because she’s that desperate.
“We discuss everything. We’re a team. It’s not you and me. It’s us,” she says.
Us. Has a nice ring to it.
“You want to play at being in charge, then fine. If I find myself crossing the line, and there’s time, we’ll talk.”
“You are such an ass.”
I lean in, close enough to smell her perfume—a dab behind each ear and either side of her throat. Subtle. Classy. I run my tongue over my top teeth. “That’s the deal, sweetcheeks. Choice is yours.” I’m lying. I’m already invested, but Louise is a girl who if you give an inch, she’ll take a mile. If I’m not careful, she’ll have my balls in a vise, and me on my knees, begging.
Fascinated, I watch her battle with her morals, waging a war against getting into bed with the Devil, or walking away, knowing her refusal to yield might sentence her sister to a life of unbelievable horror—what’s left of it. Louise Rhodes is a good cop, but if she thinks for one second she can do this alone, she wouldn’t be here in my apartment, pleading with me to help her. I hold all the cards, and I’m going to play each and every one to my advantage.
The fact the negotiation has given me another raging hard-on is an upside I’ll happily take.
With a deep sigh of surrender, she sticks out her hand. “Deal.”
I suppress a grin that threatens to give away my pleasure at her submission. “You got anything you can leave with me?”
She nods, reaching into her purse and producing a blue folder. “Here’s what I have. It’s not everything, but as I’ve been kept out of the case, that’s as much as I’ve been able to lay my hands on.”
I take it from her, give it a cursory flick. “Go home. I’ll read through this, get myself up to speed, and then we’ll meet in the morning. I’ll find a motel near your precinct and text you the location.” I could stay at Mom’s, but I don’t want Louise asking where she is, and she will. Bank on it. Her curiosity is what made her such a good cop, and I doubt anything’s changed in the last eight years on that score.
“Okay.” She nibbles her lip. “Um, we haven’t discussed your fee.”
My mouth slowly curves upward in a glimmer of a smile, teasing, taunting. “No, we haven’t.”
Her forehead wrinkles. “I don’t have much spare cash. What’s your daily rate?”
When I tell her, she gasps.
“I can’t afford that.”
I tap my forefinger to my bottom lip, and our eyes lock when I say, “I know.”
She kicks up her chin, defiant to the last. “So, what do we do?”
My gaze travels down the column of her throat before inching slowly back up. “I guess you’ll just have to owe me.”