Chapter 26
We flew back to the Bay and headed straight for the station.
With our only lead a dead end, and no way of knowing if the ghosts were still following us, Bray both wanted to be someplace safe and to talk to Ramesh in person.
We’d shopped for a change of clothes before our return charter so we didn’t have to wear what we’d fled the henchmen in.
I was back in jeans, a tee, and a hoodie, and he was in a pair of slacks and a button-down.
We hadn’t said much about our night together once we left the hotel, perhaps because we both knew we were operating under What happens in Houston rules.
But I caught him glancing at me, and I’d glance back.
And when our eyes would meet, suddenly, we were in a sweaty, naked tangle again, and I didn’t know how we were going to put it behind us.
“Stay close,” he instructed me as we entered the station lobby.
“Gladly,” I muttered and shot him a coy grin.
He tried and failed to fight grinning back.
When the elevator dumped us out on his floor, Ramesh popped up from his desk at the sight of us like a prairie dog. He began walking toward us like he was trying to be discreet while flicking his eyes side to side. He gestured at us to hurry closer.
“What? What is it?” Bray asked and glanced around the room like there was a threat.
“You are in deep shit, my friend,” Ramesh muttered as we fell into step and walked down the aisle between cubicles.
“What? With whom?” Bray asked.
“Your mother. She found out about … everything, and she’s pissed. She already handed me my ass for helping, and she’s just waiting for you to—”
“Agent Bray?” a stern voice called from the end of the aisle.
A woman leaned out from the hallway where I’d sat while Bray had begged for my protection.
She didn’t have the harsh bob I’d imagined, but rather her brunette hair, the same color as her son’s, was pulled up into a tight bun.
She stood tall and slender in a smart skirt suit and heels, which made her look like the headmistress of a very fancy and strict boarding school.
“Oh God,” Bray whispered. I swore I saw him shrivel. “Um … okay. Shit.” He turned to me, his face flushed with panic. “Stay here with Ramesh, and I’ll—”
“Bring Ms. Daniels with you,” the director called. She turned back toward her office without waiting for him to acknowledge.
I shot Bray a look, which was anything but flirtatious. My veins had turned to ice again. This time, not from henchmen chasing me but from having to stand trial in front of my hookup’s mother.
“Don’t say anything unless she speaks to you,” Bray instructed as we approached her office like we were heading for the gallows.
“No problem,” I muttered. “Guess they noticed we were gone?”
His jaw tightened in guilt. “They are the DSA after all.”
“So much for taking matters into our own hands …” I muttered in defeat.
“You wanted to see us, Director?” he asked when we reached the door, forcing his voice to sound steady.
I couldn’t help but feel like we were teens who’d been caught making out with the bedroom door closed.
I’d been reprimanded before; hauled in front of directors and supervisors, but never had I been in bed with one of their offspring some six hours prior.
“Come in and shut the door,” the director said in a tone two degrees above frigid.
I shivered.
Bray led the way, and we stood side by side in front of her heavy wooden desk.
She remained seated in an unnecessary display of power.
Simply being in the same room as her was intimidating enough.
I knew in an instant Bray inherited the hard facets of his demeanor from her. His father made up his softer side.
“Agent Bray, it has come to my attention that over the past three days, you have made unauthorized use of DSA resources to conduct unsanctioned activity.” She held the painful silence after, waiting for him to confess.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said in a quiet voice.
“Not only did you coordinate an off-site visit with a federal prisoner with no justification, you also exposed an asset’s identity to said prisoner—”
He tried to interject with a defense. “With all due respect, ma’am, there was—”
“I wasn’t finished.” She cut him off with an arched brow sharp enough to cut glass.
“In addition, you chartered a flight on DSA resources for an unsanctioned trip to and from Houston, where I am told you caused a traffic accident and then engaged in a public foot chase, which resulted in you discharging your weapon.”
“No one got hurt,” he muttered.
“Oh, I think the three people in the traffic accident Agent Singh orchestrated for your benefit would beg to differ.”
Bray shrunk at each accusation. I felt myself doing the same.
The director’s jaw tightened the same way Bray’s did when he was upset or embarrassed. A hint of color curled into her cheeks. “And then there is the hotel room, where I can only imagine what kind of breach of protocol took place.”
My body caught fire. How could she know? But of course she knew. She knew every detail of our trip, and it was only fair to assume what went down in that room.
“Ma’am, I assure you, nothing inappropriate occurred,” Bray tried to defend.
“Don’t lie to me, Calvin,” she snapped. “It’s unbecoming of you.
” The director mask dropped from her face, and she was a full-on pissed-off mom.
“Don’t tell me nothing inappropriate happened when I have footage of you and Ms. Daniels in my house engaging in highly inappropriate behavior from mere nights ago. ”
She whipped her computer monitor around to show us a still image of Bray pinning me against the kitchen wall and kissing the air straight out of me.
The air left my lungs all over again. I had never been so embarrassed in my life.
Not only was this a professional reprimand, the woman berating us was his mother.
His mother. In that moment, I felt supremely stupid.
Of course there would be security cameras in that fortress of a condo.
She probably had footage of us all but cuddling on the back patio too.
I glanced at Bray. He seemed to be at a loss for words. His face burned scarlet, and he looked like he wanted to die right alongside me.
“Now, I don’t know what part of me telling you to stay on the Del Rio case you interpreted as going rogue in pursuing a classified case and free rein to harbor a DSA asset at my personal address, but this is a gross abuse of power,” the director went on.
“Engaging in intimate conduct with an asset is a violation of so many policies, I could have you terminated right now.” Her face was red to match his.
Her words stung for more reasons than one. Abuse of power made me sound helpless. Like I’d been taken advantage of. Like it wasn’t me begging for him to put his hands and mouth on me the whole time.
I softly cleared my throat. “Ma’am, I can promise you, it was all consensual.”
She shot me a sharp glare, which nearly made me take a step back.
“Ms. Daniels,” she said coldly. “Consensual or not, an agent is prohibited from having any relationship with an asset outside of a professional one. Agent Bray’s behavior is in direct violation of policy, and he should be ashamed of himself.
” Each word felt like a lash of a whip. I thought I was done flinching until she came back with more.
“And also, I would expect more from you, having been a valued DSA asset for over a decade. This behavior is reckless and a sign that I was correct in my decision to keep you on the Del Rio case—which you will stay on this time.”
“You can’t!” Bray snapped, suddenly coming back to life.
The director jumped at his outburst and turned her stern gaze to him. “Agent Bray, what I can and can’t do is not up to you. You’ve clearly displayed in recent days that you are incapable of making sound decisions, so as of this moment, I am removing you as Ms. Daniels’s handler.”
“No, you can’t do that,” he tried to protest.
“Yes, I can, and I just did. She will be formally passed to an alternate handler while she remains on the Del Rio case.”
Bray all but leapt forward and placed his hands on her desk.
“Mom, they are going to kill her. The only reason I did what I did was because you wouldn’t listen to me about her being in danger.
She needs to be protected, and I was going to solve the case on my own to prove to you that I can handle it. ”
The director didn’t even flinch. “Clearly, you can’t, Calvin. And as far as Ms. Daniels’s safety, the expendability of assets is inherent to their use. That’s a risk that comes with the job.”
I was at a total loss, watching my life get tossed back and forth like a beach ball as they argued.
“Let me fix this,” Bray protested.
“No,” she said back.
“Mom, please.” The plea in his voice made my own heart ache.
Finally, she stood from her chair. “Calvin, this is not up to you. Now, I don’t know what personal feelings might have sprung up between you two, but they cannot be permitted to persist. People already think I give you special treatment, and if word gets out you’ve been running around taking private flights and staying in fancy hotels with your girlfriend on the DSA’s dime, it will be me who has to answer for it.
I can’t have you jeopardizing my position as well as your own.
You are no longer her handler, you are off the Del Rio case, don’t even think about touching the classified case, and if I catch you within so much as ten feet of her, I will put you back on a desk.
Do I make myself clear?” The finality in her voice rang around the room like a cold gong.
Bray looked like he might stage one final attempt to fight back, but he sighed in defeat. My guess was it was the threat of being put back on a desk that did it. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good,” she said with a nod and then turned to me. “Ms. Daniels, you will be escorted back to your residence in Del Rio and assigned a new handler. Please stand by for more information on your assignment.”
Had I been thinking straight, I might have told her my cover with Melanie Browning was already blown, and there was no way I could continue to penetrate her operation.
But I was too stricken by what had just happened.
In mere hours, I’d gone from being in bed with Bray to being forbidden to see him.
And now I had to go back to the place where the ghost knew to find me. Like a damn sitting duck.
“Yes, ma’am,” I muttered.
“You are both excused,” the director said and sat back in her chair.
We left the room in a numb silence. I left my body for a moment and floated around in a world where I wasn’t an object to be passed around. What a dream to just walk away.
The feel of Bray’s hand closing around my elbow brought me back to earth. He glanced over his shoulder and led me back into the stairwell where we’d stood a few days ago when we lived in a different reality.
The concrete shaft felt extra icy today.
“Erin, I’m so sorry. I’ll fix this.” He looked at me with a pained plea. Ramesh had told me Bray didn’t take advantage of his position as the director’s son, but clearly, everything he’d done to protect me had involved special treatment. Too bad it led to nothing.
I stood with my arms crossed for warmth and to keep myself from falling apart. “You can’t, Bray. You heard her. I’m just an asset. I have no rights here.”
“That’s not true. You are more than that.”
“Am I?” My voice was as cold as the stone walls.
“Yes! To me you are.” He stepped forward and placed his hand on my arm.
I looked down at it, thinking of his touch and how it had felt to be wrapped in his arms, to sleep so deeply beside him.
I silently wondered if there was a world where we ran away together.
Where we just said to hell with this and disappeared.
But I knew as soon as I thought it there wasn’t.
No. There was only the world where he was a government agent and I was a criminal indefinitely paying my dues, forever in captivity.
I placed my hand on his to remove it. “Maybe that was all a mistake. There’s no way this was ever going to work.”
Bray’s face folded into a defiant frown, like he was going to protest, but then softened in defeat, knowing I was right. There was no world where we made sense.
“Goodbye, Agent Bray,” I said and turned to go.
I made it one step before he gripped my shoulders and spun me around.
Before I could take another breath, he had me pinned to the wall.
His mouth found mine, and in his kiss, I felt a plea.
A deep, longing ache to make me stay. To make this work.
To live in a world where he could kiss me like this without worry.
Where he could make my heart pound and my blood scream for more, and then give it to me.
For one indulgent moment, I kissed him back, wrapping my arms around his neck and shivering.
I was caught in the dichotomy of his hot, hard body and the cold, hard wall.
I wanted to exist in the slip of space forever.
Caged in his arms, inhaling him as he sucked and nipped and stroked my tongue with his.
God damn it he could kiss. If I stayed any longer, I would never leave.
I broke away and pressed my hand to my lips, sealing in the memory and knowing it would be the last time I ever felt something so real. I fought to catch my breath, to calm my pounding heart, and looked in his tortured stone eyes.
“Goodbye, Agent Bray.”