Chapter 16
RAFE
“It’s not him. He’s been vetted.”
“Not by me,” Remington said.
“X vetted him, okay?”
Remington’s eyes widened, and Lorenzo made a strangled noise as Dante looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
“You went over my head?” Remington asked.
“You told me to handle this my way, so I talked to X about people I was suspicious of. He cleared this guy.”
Lorenzo and Dante looked at each other.
Shit, they were reading too much into this. I could tell.
“You seem very interested in assuring us of the man’s innocence,” Lorenzo said.
I rolled my eyes. “He’s a good fuck. I don’t want you to kill him.”
Remington made a disgusted sound. “This is serious. You could’ve been killed.”
“I wasn’t. And I’m working on things. I’m doing exactly what you asked me to do.”
“Running around getting things blown up and going all the way up the chain to check out hookups is not what I asked you to do.”
I couldn’t really argue with that. “I have plenty of leads, and I’m working on the problem.”
“So far tonight, you’ve almost had your throat slit, and now your car exploded. How many of my men do I need to have watching you to keep you alive?”
“None. I can take care of myself. I’m ninety percent sure the knife thing was a personal vendetta.”
“You’re likely right. We haven’t found any connection between Andretti and Ivanov, but we’ll keep digging. What about your car? Any suspects there?”
“No. That one might not be personal.”
“I need you focused. I need you to stop having personal vendettas that cause people to chase you with knives. Fucking hell, Rafe. I thought you were ready to act like an adult.”
“I am. I am taking care of this. I’m watching several people at the casino, and I’m going to do everything you asked.”
“I hope to you hell you are. Let me know when you learn something, not X. And try not to get killed.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
When Remington left, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
I did not want to face my brothers, especially not with Zach upstairs.
They were right. I was protecting him. I would do whatever was necessary to keep them from tracking him down, even knowing he was a goddamn fed. I’d lost my fucking mind.
He saved your life.
He had, and he hadn’t made me feel like a fool, even though I’d acted like one. He’d helped me through the shock. He’d taken care of my hand. What did all of that mean?
“Start talking,” Lorenzo said. “We want to know everything about this man.”
There was no point in trying to argue that he wasn’t anyone important.
Dante already knew I was interested in a man, and Lorenzo had seen right through me.
But what was I supposed to say? I couldn’t admit anything, not that I wanted to.
It didn’t matter that Lorenzo and Dante had both fallen in love with amazing men.
It didn’t matter that their connections had happened instantly.
I still didn’t want to talk to them, and I sure as hell wouldn’t reveal anything about how I felt with Zach listening in. “There’s really nothing to tell.”
“Bullshit. And what’s this about you secretly working for Remington?” Dante asked.
I latched onto that. “Remington asked for my help and told me to keep it quiet.” Even though they knew something was up, I still intended to keep things vague. If Lorenzo discovered exactly what I was up to, he’d freak out and insist on doing the job for me.
That wasn’t going to happen. For whatever reason, Remington trusted me, and even though he was mad at me, he hadn’t taken me off the assignment. If I succeeded in finding the infiltrator and helping to track down Ivanov, I’d secure a real place for myself in the family.
“What kind of job?” Lorenzo asked.
“That’s between me and Remington.”
He snarled, looking his most dangerous. “Since when do we have fucking secrets from each other?”
I huffed, determined not to let him intimidate me. “Since forever.”
“Not about something like this.”
“If you want to hear a secret, I can let you know what I did with my hookup last night.”
Dante grimaced.
“Like I haven’t had to see enough of you and Alex.”
“Alex and I are very discreet.”
I snorted. “You think that.”
“Well. Don’t follow us around.”
“I need to get to the casino. My hand hurts. My car’s blown up, and so is my bike. I’ve got a lot to take care of.”
Lorenzo shook his head. “Remington said he’d send a crew over to take care of the cleanup, and you know the family has plenty of cars.”
“Go home and leave me alone. Let me sort through this on my own.”
“That’s not how we do things,” Lorenzo said.
“It’s how I’m doing things now. You want me to grow up. You want me to stop needing you to look after me. I’m trying.”
He studied me for a second. “There’s something you’re not telling us, and you’re acting weird about this guy.”
I shrugged. “He’s hot. We had fun, and he didn’t try to kill me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Seriously. Isn’t that enough?”
Lorenzo shook his head. “You’re my baby brother.”
“I’m twenty-five.”
“You’re still the baby.”
Dante patted him on the shoulder. “Come on. Let’s leave him alone. At least he’s alive.”
“For now,” Lorenzo said.
Dante held my gaze. I was thankful he hadn’t said anything about our conversation, but the way he was looking at me let me know he wasn’t going to promise much more restraint.
“I don’t like it either, and I will intervene if I need to, but Rafe’s right.
We keep telling him he needs to be responsible. We’ve got to let him prove it.”
“Exactly,” I said.
Lorenzo huffed. “You just want to get home to Alex. You probably got out of bed for this.”
“What I’d like to do is get enough sleep to be on time for my class.”
Lorenzo and I both rolled our eyes, but he let Dante hustle him out the door. I closed and locked it behind them, then rested my forehead against the cool wood.
My hand was throbbing, and my head was swirling. How much longer was I going to be able to keep all my secrets?
A few seconds later, I heard footsteps on the stairs.
I pushed away from the door and turned to face Zach. If I had any sense at all, I would send him away, then call my brothers back and tell them everything. If I did that, I’d end up accepting their help. Not this time. I was going to do this on my own. I didn’t need interfering family.
“Are you all right?” Zach asked.
I wanted to say yes. I tried to, but the word wouldn’t come. He closed the distance between us, and I fell into his arms like I’d been waiting for him to hold me. So much for being independent.
He kissed the side of my head like he’d done as I held my hand under the water. How was it possible I felt so safe with him? “Rafael, we’re going to take care of this. We’re going to find the fucker who planted that bomb and figure out if you have a spy in the casino.”
“You can’t be as confident as you sound.”
“I’m determined.”
I nodded, face still buried in his chest. “Me too.”
“You’re not a kid, no matter what any of them say.”
“I hope you don’t think so, considering what we did before all that.” I waved my hand toward the front yard.
Zach chuckled. “I found you very grown-up and very capable.”
I pulled back and smiled up at him until he spoke again.
“Who’s X?”
“You know I’m not going to tell you that.”
“Is that who called you the other night?”
“Yes, I’m sure you were listening to every word, and I’m sure you could deduce that easily enough.”
“True. Despite the fact that Ivanov is still on the loose, I’m actually really good at my job.”
“Do your superiors think so?”
He grimaced. “They think I’m a liability, but they can’t deny I get results.”
“My family thinks I’m always short on results.”
“Have you ever really tried to do what they asked before now?”
I thought for a moment. Had I? “No.”
“Then you have no idea how good you are.”
“Why are you being so fucking nice to me? Shouldn’t you hate me? Shouldn’t you want to put me in jail?”
“Yeah, I should.”
His tone had changed. He no longer sounded confident. Was he as unsure as I was? I looked up, and our eyes met. A jolt raced through me, all the way down to my toes. I didn’t like how easily he affected me, so I pushed away from him. I shouldn’t let myself want him as badly as I did.
I didn’t do complicated, and this was fucking complicated in every way.
Remington was finally trusting me with an assignment.
I shouldn’t be fucking a government agent who could betray me at any time.
I had to stay wary. Taking pleasure from him was one thing, but softness? I shouldn’t let myself go there.
I walked into the kitchen and reached for the bottle of whiskey I’d left on the counter. Suddenly, Zach was there, pulling it out of my hand.
“What the fuck?”
“That’s not what you need.”
“If I want a drink, I’ll fucking have one whenever I want.”
“I’ve got something better.” He pressed me against the counter, and his hips connected with mine. When he thrust against me, I dropped my head back and tried to remember how to breathe.
“Zach.”
“I like that. Say it again.”
“I thought you didn’t want me to know your name.”
“I changed my mind when you almost fucking died.”
“I wasn’t really going to die. I just…”
“I’m sorry about the necklace.” He spoke the words against my skin as he ran his lips along my neck.
“I… what are we doing?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think we should talk about it.”
I slid my fingers through the belt loops of his jeans and pulled him tight against me, even though it made my hand sting.
I wanted him to feel what his attention was doing to me.
If we stopped thinking and let our bodies have what they wanted, I wasn’t going to feel my hand for much longer. “I don’t want to talk.”
He growled and cupped my face in his hands, holding me still so he could kiss me. He was gentle at first, but before long, the kiss turned rough like he was claiming me. I opened my mouth and let him have what he wanted.
His tongue slid along mine, and I worked my hips against his, feeling his hard cock press into mine. In no time, I was out of control, desperately gripping the back of his shirt with my good hand, trying to lift it up and over his head.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” he murmured.
He remembered I was injured. Most of the men I hooked up with would never have thought about my hand or cared if I got hurt. They were only interested in getting off. I didn’t want that callousness from Zach. I wanted his concern, tenderness, and this out-of-control need.
What was happening to me? Why did I want to close these feelings off while also wanting to feel even more? I wasn’t sure I’d be able to breathe if Zach walked away right then.
He let go of me long enough to pull his shirt off and toss it on the floor.
“Pants too,” I demanded.
He grinned as he unfastened his pants, then shoved them and his briefs down. I stared at his cock as it sprang free. He was so eager to fuck me he was already leaking.
When I met his gaze again, I sucked in my breath at the intensity in his eyes. It was too much. He saw way too far inside me.
I turned around, bent over the counter, and shook my ass at him.
“Go ahead. Take what you want.”
“Do you want me to fuck you? To ride you hard? Make you scream?”
“God, yes.”
I hummed as he ran his hands up and down the back of my thighs, cupped my ass, then slid his palms up my back. It felt good, but I needed to feel his skin on mine and his cock buried inside me. “You want this too. Don’t play with me.”
“I want it,” Zach said. “But you need it.”
I turned around to scowl at him.
He laughed. “You know you do.”