Chapter 32
Koen
Lasko wanted to meet somewhere public, and I don’t blame him. He has to know I’ve been tailing him. Not close enough to let him know who is on his tail, just enough to have him making moves a bit more carefully.
I’ve gone as deep into things on my end as I can, and with the last bit of information Chase dug up last night while I was deep inside Greer, ignoring the world and its fucking problems, I think I’ve got enough to move on Helms.
It could go left.
Anything in life could.
So, before I make the wrong move, I need Lasko’s take on things.
His eyes swivel around the room, watching everything and everyone. Even in his street clothes, he looks the part of an off-duty officer.
I slide into the booth he chose in the back of the coffee shop, steepling my hands on the peeling tabletop that looks like it’s from the 70s.
“Evening,” I say with a smirk.
One of his hands leaves the coffee mug on the table and slides onto his lap.
“Is that a weapon, or are you just happy to see me?” I tease.
“I know who you are,” he says.
“Do you? Because last time we met, you didn’t seem to have a grasp on the gravity of me.”
“You’re a killer.”
“Mm. Too easy. Keep digging.”
“You’re a contract killer.”
I laugh, sitting back, at ease even though his hand’s on his service weapon.
He’d need a really good reason to fire it while off-duty, and he’d be investigated and lose his badge for a stint, he knows it.
“Not even close. I thought you said you knew?”
“I know you’ve been following me since you got released.”
“Correct. Look, you are smart. Maybe this little meeting of ours will change my opinion on the FBI. God knows our two agencies have been at war for far too long.” The breadcrumb drops onto the table, crawling into his gray matter like a pinworm of information.
“You’re government ops,” he realizes aloud, shifting in his seat.
As he should.
I say nothing in reply. Words aren’t necessary.
“But the way you display the murders… Oh, my God.”
The look in his eyes as he sits back against the Formica booth at his back is like the dawn of a fresh sunshine after a night fraught with storms.
“All the victims… they were hits. None of them were connected, or so we thought. But thinking about it now… they were all a means to an end. They all were some threat, or would be, to national security.”
“You know what they say about hindsight.”
“Fuck… Well, then, why have you been following me?”
I give him a look of disbelief.
“Because you were ordered to. But why…” He trails off, his face losing all color as it occurs to him. “Because I was looking into Director Helms.”
“Ding, ding, ding,” I chime as he hits the nail on the proverbial head.
“He knows,” he mutters, scrubbing his hand over his face and forgetting all about his weapon perched on his lap.
“Seems he does. Your name was given to me right after my arrest, which was staged, but a smart fella like you would know that by now.”
Shaking his head, he sits forward and chugs from his coffee mug as if it holds the answers to the universe, as if it holds whiskey.
“You could’ve killed me already. Why haven’t you?” He narrows his eyes at me.
I sigh, drumming my fingertips along the table meditatively. “Because he went off script. Typically, there’s a protocol for how things are relayed to me, how business is handled. He broke it, and I wanted to know why, so I started digging.”
“And you’re here telling me this now, because?”
“Because he’s threatened something I hold dear in my life. Something I value more than my own neck.”
“They say love in this game is a weakness,” he says, lifting his brows in disbelief. “But she is very pretty.”
His comment has anger coiling through my veins like a venomous viper.
“I know what I’ve dug up on Helms, how his political motivations have bled into his work, but what were you specifically looking into?”
“I was looking into the case of the FBI director’s daughter, who is currently missing, and I think your director has her.”
“Why would he take Douglas Raymond’s daughter?”
“Because Raymond and Helms haven’t seen eye to eye in years, because of the shit Helms pulls.
With the new presidential election, Raymond’s seat is threatened, but not quite.
The new administration aligns with the way Raymond does his job, so I think Helms wanted to ensure he gets Raymond to step down. ”
“Has he sent ransom notes or threats?”
“Threats. Notes that she’ll be released if Raymond gives up his seat and the controlling powers that come with it, but Raymond has held firm, saying he won’t be bullied. That whoever is doing this is a tyrant that he won’t hand power to.”
“So, he tasked you to look into it?”
“Off the books, yes. There’s a team working the case, but I’m free to operate in the black.”
A lot of what I do for the government keeps me operating in the black, so the notion doesn’t shock me.
“He suspected Helms all along?”
“Yes, but my case was weak. That was, until you were removed from custody, and then I started getting watched like a fucking hawk. Helms has been sloppy.”
I think about how he was just at Greer’s house, and inwardly agree with the assessment.
“So, Director Raymond wants to do this completely in the black, or does he want this done properly?”
“With your involvement now, I’d need to meet and discuss it with him. I doubt he’ll want to hand the job over to you, but I also doubt he’ll have a problem with a cover-up if necessary.”
I nod as my mind swirls in circles. “You meet with your man, and then contact me on this. My number is saved. Afterward, burn it.” I toss a burner onto the table.
Lasko eyes it momentarily. “And when Director Raymond wants to know your interest in this?”
“You tell him we both share a common weakness.”
“Love,” Lasko whispers, snatching up the burner before making his hasty exit.
I give him a few moments to get clear before I stand and head out.
I’m left with the final word Agent Lasko left me with rattling in my brain like a fucking echo.
Greer is pacing in the living room when I walk back into the cabin. The ride back, I took the curves at nearly ninety to try to get the notion of loving her out of my head, but the faster I went, the more I homed in on the idea.
Lasko saw a detail I’ve been ignoring.
Love gets you killed.
Love is weakness in this game.
Greer wraps around me. “Fuck, I was so worried, and Chase wouldn’t let me contact you.”
“There are rules,” Chase says from the hall as he rolls to the end of it. His tone is exasperated, but his eyes look grateful to see me.
“I’m sorry, but the meeting had to happen.”
“With Helms?” She pulls back, looking up at me with wide eyes, fear coating their surfaces.
“No. I met with Lasko.”
Chase’s surprised eyes find mine before he grins and drops his stare away.
Does he see it too, what Lasko pointed out?
Am I the only idiot who thought that one day, I’d be but a memory to Greer Allen, and not the man still beside her?
My hands are coated in so much blood, and my nature is anything but kind; a woman like her isn’t meant for my world.
Even so, my arms wrap around her.
She shudders against my body, a signal that my presence eases something in hers. Being here, being alive, and holding her is easing her posture and calming her heart rate and fears.
I don’t like that.
Is this the looming cloud of Lasko’s words and Chase’s look of acknowledgement? I don’t know.
Last night was a turning point. Greer was finally mine, and she submitted without hesitation.
Everything about the way that we were last night will forever be etched in my memories, like it’s become a part of my core being.
I’ll never walk another step without feeling how it felt to be in her arms, to be beneath her, to be the object of her affections.
Her kiss is burned on my soul, but she’s not meant for this.
She’s not meant for me.
“Koen?” she asks, a look of concern on her face as if it’s not the first time she’s spoken my name.
“I’ll give you two a moment. I’ll be in the back.” Chase turns his chair and is gone. I hear the door to my surveillance room click closed, and I sigh.
Greer’s still looking at me as if she’s staring at a ghost.
“What’s wrong?” she asks. “I thought last night…”
So, she felt it, too.
Walking her toward the living room, I sit and urge her into my lap.
“There’s a lot of shit about to hit the fan, and I don’t know that I’ll make it out alive. Something Lasko said to me has me rattled.”
“Tell me.” Her small voice tugs my heart to pound harder, but I’ve never been one to shy away from direct communication.
In fact, miscommunication makes me murderous.
“He said I was in love with you,” I blurt with all the grace of a bull in a China shop.
I watch her throat move delicately as she swallows. “Are you?”
“I don’t know that I know what love feels like enough to answer that for you.”
She nods, considering. “I could see that. I’ve never loved anyone, outside of Allison and my parents.”
Not wanting this to turn into some mushy tell-all conversation where we both dive into childhood trauma, I steer away from asking her anything or revealing anything on my end.
“This life isn’t for you, and I think I’m just now realizing that.”
“But it’s not safe for me to return home,” she says meekly.
“No. It’s not. Because I dragged you into this, and now I have to keep you safe throughout.”
“Have to,” she repeats, picking up on the obligatory tone my statement took.
“I’m going to teach you to shoot. I’m going to teach you to hide. I’m going to teach you everything that I can to keep you safe.”
“And after all this is over?” she asks. “After the dust settles?”
“I don’t know. I can’t promise you roses and boxes of chocolates, but I never could.”
Her eyes fill with hope. “So, we handle business first, and we table the rest until it’s time to deal with it.”
“Look, Greer, I don’t want you getting your hopes up about a future with me. That was not the intent of my kidnapping you…” She silences me with a finger over my lips, and the burn that works into my skin has me annoyed at how easily she affects me.
“We’ll figure it out later.”
I want to agree with her, but playing house until then is only going to skew things for both of us and make it worse when everything around us comes crashing down.
“I need you to prepare for the reality of everything coming.”
She turns on my lap, straddling me. “I will. But today, can I just be grateful you’re back?”
Her lips hover closely to mine, her shallow breaths inching me forward.
Knowing I affect her is something I’m becoming addicted to, and I need to stop.
Because if in the end, keeping her safe means letting her go, I have to be strong enough to do so.
But when our mouths collide in a thunderous storm, I wonder if I’m the weakest man alive because there’s no way not to fall into her.