CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Connor
W hen the rest of the week goes by and I don’t see Storm again, I decide to take my obsession to the next level. Only, I’m not the investigation specialist in the family. That means I’m asking my brother Shane for a favor.
But he’s no cyber lackey on the payroll who I can dodge questions around with my gun or my fist. He has a direct line to our boss, Griffin.
In his office, a luxury trailer he keeps on the UN construction site, I toss Storm’s hair comb onto Shane’s desk. I wrapped it in a plastic bag when I saw a few strands of her blonde hair were caught in the teeth.
Shane barely glances at it before picking it up. “What’s this?” he asks.
“It belongs to a woman I want you to find.” I cross my arms with a challenge.
“We have trackers to find people,” Shane says, his gaze drifting to Rhys.
My cousin stands near the window, his eyes roaming over me suspiciously.
“Not people. A woman. A woman I fucked, and I want to see her again. She left this behind. Find her.”
“Who is she?” Shane leans back in his chair. “Does she know who you are?”
“That’s a lot of questions.” I consider which one to answer first. “She knows my name.”
Something dark passes through Shane’s eyes. “Does she work for the DEA?”
My heart pounds against my chest, and I drop into the leather chair across from his desk. “You spying on me now?”
“When a DEA agent is sniffing around your bedroom?” Shane answers and swivels his head to Rhys.
I freeze as my cousin pushes off the wall and stands behind Shane. “I recognized her the night of the stockroom raid. She’s the same woman I saw leaving your apartment months before that.”
“Her name is Raina Riatt,” Shane adds, rapping his fingers on the comb.
My world stops as abruptly and jarring as a record scratch. “How did you get her name, brother?”
“Rhys found her.”
“Really?” I face my cousin, controlling my anger since I’ve seen him nearly every damn day since that stockroom raid, and he hasn’t mentioned it to me.
“I was a private investigator in Dublin for the ministry, or did you forget?” Rhys states proudly.
“Why would you even remember some random woman who left my place, Rhys?” I challenge.
He pins me with a thoughtful stare. “You hadn’t been with anyone in months. You never brought a woman to your apartment. I figured she was important. I had Blade follow her. Got a name. Just in case.”
“I told you I didn’t like you taking over that apartment on the other side of the tunnel,” Shane says through gritted teeth.
“I keep everything locked.” I straighten my back. “I have cameras and an alarm that you installed. Besides, why didn’t anyone bother to mention my little plaything was DEA?”
I don’t want them to know she means anything to me. Will my new tattoo give me away?
“Agents’ names are behind a damn fortress of firewalls,” Shane says, his voice calm but firm. “Nothing civil service came up when I ran a background check. ”
“Shouldn’t that have been a hint?”
Shane leans back in his desk chair. “No. She could have just been a woman working somewhere off the books with no credit history.”
Because that’s the woman they expect me to be with. A nobody.
I bolt out of the chair. “Were you both just waiting for me to implode over her?”
Shane narrows his eyes on me. “With all due respect, brother, I’ve had other issues on my mind. My wife is pregnant. And her father is still missing. Did you forget that Richard Donnelly can show up at any time to kill me? You? Us?”
“Of course not.” I shake my head, trying to clear it. “You said her name is Raina Riatt?”
Raina.
The rain is a rebirth. Shedding skin like a snake.
“Aye. And for the record, she’s no longer with the DEA,” Shane says. “They fired her after that botched raid you and Rhys tried to intercept.”
“Oh.” My brain spins as the walls close around me.
Shane watches me closely. “Was it just sex?”
“Yeah,” I say with a scoff. “And I want more.”
“You should leave that one alone,” Shane warns. “Being let go from the DEA doesn’t make her less dangerous. It makes her more . She might be looking to turn people in to get her job back with them or another agency.”
“Message received, Shane. Can I have the comb back?” I ask quietly.
Growing up close, working together in the PI business, and doing hits for the O’Rourkes, my brothers and I can read each other like open books. Shane is on to me, and I have to decide if I give a fuck.
Shane removes the comb from the plastic bag and hands it to me. “Be careful, Connor.”
“I always am.”
“We good, cousin?” Rhys steps toward me, eyebrows furrowed.
I consider calling out Rhys, who has a damn stalker that he’s sure breaks into his apartment when he’s not there.
“Aye,” I say instead. I know they’re looking out for me.
If I have another close call like this, I’ll start putting them at risk. At least I have a name. And Blade has an address.
But how far do I want to take this obsession?
I PACE IN MY APARTMENT later that day, the comb clutched in my fist. It gave me the answer to every fucked-up question spinning in my head.
Raina Riatt. The mystery girl with chaotic green eyes, a long golden braid, and a smart mouth that I want to fuck.
Her name repeats in my skull, my tat throbbing for her. Raina is clean. Sharp. Like her. And now that I know it, now that I’ve said it in my head, I can’t unhear it. It’s a damn whisper that won’t shut up.
She’s real now.
And suddenly I’m the one unraveling.
I run my calloused fingertips over the teeth edges of the comb, wishing they’d slice me open. It might help cut through the fog tightening in my chest.
Knowing her name doesn’t make it better. It makes it worse. Now I can’t pretend it was just sex. I can’t pretend I haven’t memorized the sound of her laugh. Or the way her hair smelled. Or how she stole hours from me and made me forget everything else.
How she looked at me that night, like I was more than a monster. She let me fuck her like she was a whore. And I let her walk away like she didn’t matter.
But she does. She fucking does .
Shane and Rhys will be watching me. And now they see what I’ve been trying not to feel.
I drop the comb into my nightstand drawer and drag a hand down my face. Everyone knows what I did. With a DEA agent.
And Shane warned me to stay the hell away from her.
Is she worth putting everything we’ve built in the last two years at risk?