Chapter 26
Alex
We metDamon in a downtown diner, a spacious place that sold breakfast burritos and spicy homemade taquitos that would make your throat burn for hours. The three of us sat in a booth, cups of coffee and half-finished sandwiches in front of us.
The bright sunshine coming through the windows didn’t do Damon any favors. For the first time, it occurred to me that my brother wasn’t just thin and pale, he was actually ill. His DEA record had only said that he had taken retirement after several months of medical leave. There were no other details.
What did that mean? Did he have cancer? Something else?
I looked at his tousled hair, his lean body, and tried not to think about my brother dying. Just like I’d tried not to think about it for the past thirteen years.
“Thank you for agreeing to see me,” Damon was saying. He was leaned back in the leather seat of the booth, his pose casual on the surface, but his body tense. He was wearing a gray hoodie that was too big for him, but he still seemed lethal. I had the idea that Damon very rarely relaxed. “You need to remember that this visit is unofficial. And if I’m ever asked about it, I’ll say it never happened.”
“Tell me the truth, Damon,” Kat said. She was wearing a red sleeveless top with thin straps, her toned arms on full display. Her dark hair was twisted into a single loose braid over her shoulder, and she wore only a little eye makeup. She was so gorgeous it was impossible to stop looking at her. “What is it that you think I need to know?”
Damon stared at her almost as much as I did. I couldn’t help it—I watched his expression closely, trying to read it every time he looked at my ex-wife. He’d spent a lot of time and energy, a long time ago, trying to get her into bed. When he hadn’t succeeded, he’d lied about it. Had his feelings changed?
But it was impossible to tell what Damon was thinking. In the years since I’d seen him last, he’d somehow learned to school his expression so he didn’t give anything away. I didn’t see a flicker of love, or even lust, when he looked at Kat. His eyes softened just a little, and his gaze stayed on her longer than it stayed on anyone else, including me. Other than that, he was stone.
Instead of answering Kat’s question, Damon glanced at me. “I assume you looked me up after I left your office.”
“I did.” I kept my hands on my coffee cup, my eyes unwavering as I looked at him. Damon needed to know that I wasn’t going to back down. “You weren’t lying about being a DEA agent.”
His mouth quirked at that. “I told you.”
I shrugged. “It’s an easy claim to make, but you were telling the truth. There are no other details that my investigator could find, except that you had medical leave and then early retirement. Everything else about you seems to be a mystery. My investigator couldn’t even find a current address.”
“My current address is the Motel 6 by the airport,” Damon said. “It’s only fifty bucks a night, and there’s a pool. The towels are so thin you can see through them, but it’s home.” He gave us a smile that had little humor in it. “I was on medical leave because I got shot—twice—during a raid. Took me a while to recover, and when I did, I still wasn’t physically capable of doing the undercover field work I’d been doing. They wanted to pass me off to the Bureau to do a job in the offices at Quantico, entering data.” He shook his head. “Entering data. Can you picture me doing that?”
Kat shook her head, her dark eyes full of sympathy. “Damon, I’m sorry.”
He shrugged and looked down at his coffee cup. That was why he looked the way he did, then. It wasn’t cancer, it was the aftermath of two bullets.
“You were doing undercover work?” I asked.
Damon sighed, then ran a hand tiredly over his face. “Yes. Drug trafficking. I’m not going to get into detail, partly because I’m not allowed to, and partly because I never want to think about most of it again. But I was on one of the federal task forces that works to stop drugs getting into the country, then getting distributed. That’s where Kat’s case comes in.”
I watched Kat’s spine stiffen. “My case? You’re saying what I saw was something to do with a drug cartel?”
Damon dropped his hand. “They believe the men you saw behind the bar that night were two of the key players in a chain that goes across the southeast. The product comes in through Florida, then makes its way up. Nashville is one of the stopping points. It’s big money. The men you saw—they’ve been building a case against them for a while, but they haven’t had enough to make an arrest. Getting an ID from you could change that.”
Kat laughed harshly. “Damon, I saw a man holding a duffel bag and another man just standing there. Nothing I saw was illegal. You’re telling me they’ll convict him for holding a duffel bag?”
“We knew there was a deal going down that night,” Damon said. His voice was calm, as if he talked about this kind of thing every day. Which, until recently, he had. “We had some intel, but not enough. You can place him at that time with that car. You remembered the license plate, Kat. We found that car later with four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of cocaine in it. Trust me, what you saw was important.”
Kat sat frozen, staring at him. I felt ice move up my spine. We’d known it was bad—but we hadn’t known it was this bad.
“So what do they want from me?” Kat said. “The police, the FBI, whoever—what do they expect you to do?”
“They’re picking both of them up today,” Damon said. “You’re going to get the call, asking you to come back to Nashville and identify them in a lineup. They’ll also interview you again and get a sworn affidavit about the car. They’re also fast-tracking the DNA analysis from the blood your attacker left on you when you bit him.” Damon shook his head. “That was a stupid move, by the way. It could have gotten you killed.”
“I was going to get killed anyway,” Kat snapped back, her anger rising. “They were forcing me into a car, and it wasn’t for a joyride. I got you DNA, didn’t I?”
“Okay, okay.” Damon held up his hands. “What’s done is done. My point is, they need you back in Nashville to help nail these guys. If they go down, they’ll probably cut a deal and bring a lot of other people down with them. It’s a win.”
More than anything, I wanted Kat to look at me. I wanted her to see in my face that I was here for her. That I would go to Nashville with her to support her. That she had me in her corner.
But she didn’t look at me. She kept her gaze on Damon, who had locked gazes with her. They seemed to be having an unspoken conversation.
Look at me, Kat.
Still looking at Damon, she said, “I’ll identify them in a lineup, as long as they can’t see me.”
“They won’t be able to see you,” Damon said. “That’s not how it’s done.”
“Fine, then. But I won’t testify in court.”
Damon’s voice was cold. “You have to testify, Kat. It’s the only way.”
“I don’t have to, and I won’t. You think I’m going to sacrifice my safety, my life for this? They’re drug dealers. You all are police. You catch them. It’s your job. Not mine.”
“Jesus, Kat?—”
“I’m not going into a witness protection program or any other line of bullshit you’re going to try and feed me. I’ll identify the men I saw behind the bar. That will be easy—I remember their faces as clearly as yours right now. I got you DNA, even though you think I was stupid to do it, and a fucking license plate. You’re welcome. Once I make the ID, I’m done. You don’t get anything else from me.”
“That isn’t how law enforcement works.”
“I’m not in law enforcement, am I? So that isn’t my problem.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is that why you came here, trying so hard to talk to me? To warn me that I was going to have to see a lineup?”
Damon sighed, his shoulders sagging. “I hoped I could persuade you to cooperate.”
“Persuade me?” she snapped. “Really, Damon? Like you tried to persuade me to cheat on Alex?”
“That was a long time ago.”
I stayed silent, even though I felt a slice of pain in my chest. Even though they were talking about me like I wasn’t there. Kat had to get this out, I realized. She had to exorcise this, just like I did.
Damon turned to me. “Alex, tell her how important this is.”
My brother had changed a lot over the years. He was older now, wiser, tougher, a man who had seen—and maybe done—some bad things. But one thing about him hadn’t changed. He still talked down to me. And what do you know? It still pissed me off.
“Go fuck yourself,” I said. “DEA or not. Kat makes her own decisions.”
That surprised him, and I realized why. I wouldn’t have said that thirteen years ago. The Alex back then would have been full of opinions about what Kat had to do. He also would have gone crazy, just sitting here watching Kat and Damon stare each other down. It would have made me angry and suspicious, just watching them.
Now, I felt nothing but annoyance, tinged with pity for my brother. He still pissed me off, but he’d lost the power to truly infuriate me. Maybe he’d changed, but then again, I had, too.
I turned to see Kat looking at me, finally. She was calm, but I didn’t like what I saw in her beautiful eyes. It made my stomach go thick with dread. She looked fucking sad. Like whatever came next, it wasn’t going to be good for us.
I pulled some bills out of my wallet and put them on the table, suddenly needing to get away from this. “You’ve said your piece, Damon. We’re done. At least, I am.” I slid out of the booth and stood, heading for the door.
I should say something else. Make peace with my brother, somehow fix the rift that had lasted so long. But I didn’t have it in me in that moment. The pain slicing through my chest was getting harsher, and it felt a lot like heartbreak.
I knew what that look in Kat’s eyes meant. Hadn’t I always known?
I nodded at Byron and got into the car. I had no intention of leaving without Kat, and Byron knew it, so we waited. After a few more minutes, Kat came out of the restaurant and got into the back seat next to me.
I looked out the window in silence as Byron started the car and pulled into traffic.
Finally, Kat spoke, the edges of her voice ragged. “Alex.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” I said. “You won’t let me come to Nashville with you.”
“No,” she said. “I won’t.”
“And let me guess,” I continued. “Damon offered to accompany you.”
“Yes. He offered to drive me.”
I kept my gaze out the window. I hadn’t known it could hurt this much, not after all this time. It wasn’t Damon who caused me pain. It was Kat. Always Kat.
Incredible happiness, incredible pleasure. Incredible pain.
I felt her hand on mine. Hers was cold, her long fingers curling over my palm. “Alex, I said no.”
I shook my head, still unwilling to look at her. “So you’re going alone?”
“I have to. I have to finish this.”
“It’s dangerous.” I turned and looked at her, finally. Just the sight of her, of how beautiful she was, hurt. “Kat, you almost got killed.”
She looked calm. And sad. And—typical Kat—very fucking determined. “I have to do this by myself. I can’t lean on you, and I sure as hell don’t plan to lean on Damon. I’m going alone.”
We were quiet. What was I going to do? Forbid her? Force her do to what I wanted? That kind of shit had cost me our marriage. It had cost me Kat. It was the worst mistake of my life.
So I said, “Thank you. For staying with me.”
Tears brimmed in Kat’s eyes. She never cried—it wasn’t how she was made. She was too tough. But now a tear trickled down her cheek, and she didn’t even wipe it away.
I was going to say something—anything. I love you, maybe. And she was going to say something, too.
Then her cell phone rang, the sound loud in the car. It was her new number, the one she’d given only to me, and to the police back in Nashville.
They were calling her. It was time to end this once and for all.