20. Nightmare #3
Their first kiss?The guesthouse?
The bathtub?The gardens?His apartment?You came back.Was that real?
Camila pressed both hands against her head.“NO.”She looked at the badge again.
Christopher Walker.FBI. Federal Agent. his badge.
How much younger he looked. At least a decade and a half younger.Her eyes dropped toward Mateo’s file.And suddenly heartbreak gave way to fear.Chris wasn’t investigating some stranger.He was investigating Mateo.Her brother.The FBI was building a case against her family.
And she’d brought one of their agents closer than anyone.Into the mansion.Into Mateo’s confidence.Into restricted places.
Mateo had made him her personal security because Chris had saved her life.
Mateo trusted him.He shouldn’t.Chris had said that.Camila remembered.
Why shouldn’t Mateo trust you?
Because I’m sleeping with his sister.
Another lie.Camila covered her mouth as a sob escaped.“No.”She couldn’t believe him anymore.Not one word.
Across the city, Special Agent Chris Walker was having an equally terrible morning.“Friday.”Mercer tapped the warehouse photograph displayed across the main screen.“That’s our window.”
Chris sat at the conference table.Sloan stood near the evidence board.Logan and six members of the task force surrounded them.Chris stared at the warehouse photograph.“What are you proposing?”
“We know the shipment is moving Friday.”
“Yes.”
“We know Vargas is likely to be present.”
“Likely isn’t good enough.”
“We’ll confirm.”
“And if he changes locations?”
“We adapt.”Chris leaned back.Mercer continued.“We’ve waited fourteen months for this. We need Vargas inside the warehouse while the narcotics are physically present and the distribution operation is active.”Chris’s jaw tightened.
A raid.He’d known it was coming.
Hell, he’d been working toward it.
That was the entire purpose of the operation.Get inside.Identify the network.
Connect Mateo to the drugs.Build probable cause.Take the organization down.
This was success.So why did it suddenly feel like someone had put a weight on Chris’s chest?Logan pointed toward the warehouse layout.“Tactical enters here and here.”Chris focused.Work.Do the job.“Bad idea.”Logan looked over.“Why?”
“Loading entrance has two cameras and a guard position behind the interior door.”
Chris stood and walked toward the map.
“Use the western service entrance.”
“Locked?”
“Electronic.”
“We can breach it.”Chris shook his head.
“Too loud.”
“We’re executing a federal raid, Walker. Quiet eventually stops being relevant.”
“Not until your people are in position.”
He pointed.“There’s an interior corridor here. Leads directly behind the packaging area.”Mercer nodded.“Good.”Chris continued.Professional.Precise.Agent Walker.But then his eyes moved toward another photograph on the evidence wall.
Camila.He stopped.Sloan noticed.Of course she did.Mercer kept talking.“If Vargas is physically overseeing distribution, we move.”Chris barely heard him.He imagined Mateo’s mansion.Agents arriving.Doors breached.Guards detained.
Mateo arrested.Diego arrested.Vehicles seized.Accounts frozen.The news.The cameras.Camila standing in the middle of it.Then her looking at Chris.Not Roman.
Walker.He’d imagined that moment before.Never this clearly.Sloan’s voice cut through his thoughts.“Chris?”He looked at her.“What?”
“You with us?”
“Yeah.”She didn’t believe him.Mercer continued.“Once tactical begins, your cover is over.”Chris stared.He knew that.Of course he fucking knew that.But hearing it aloud was different.Roman would cease to exist.There would be no more returning to Mateo’s mansion.No more Range Rover.
No more pretending.No more Camila slipping into the guesthouse after midnight.No more gardens.No more stolen sunglasses.No more waking with her against his chest.Chris Walker would walk out of that warehouse.Chris Roman wouldn’t.And Camila—Fuck.“Walker?”
Chris looked up.Mercer was watching him.“You understand?”
“Yes.”
“Once we move, you’re out.”
“I understand.”
“Immediately.”
“I said I understand.”The room went quiet.Sloan’s eyes narrowed.Mercer studied him.“This is what we’ve been working toward.”Chris laughed bitterly.“I know what the fucking operation is.”
“Then act like it.”Chris’s jaw tightened.“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I need Special Agent Walker in this room, not the man worrying about what Mateo Vargas’s sister is going to think when we put handcuffs on her brother.”Chris stood.“Camila is innocent.”
“No one said otherwise.”
“She cannot be at that warehouse.”
“She won’t be.”
“You don’t know that.”
“We’ll control for it.”Chris shook his head.“No. I control for it.”Mercer’s expression hardened.“You will follow the operational plan.”
“And I will make damn sure Camila isn’t anywhere near it.”Sloan stepped between them verbally before the argument escalated.“He’s right.”Mercer looked at her.
“If she’s uninvolved, keeping her clear reduces civilian risk.”Chris looked at Sloan.
She wasn’t doing him a favor.She was doing her job.That almost made it worse.
Mercer finally nodded.“Fine.”Chris sat back down.The briefing continued.Entry teams.Vehicles.Arrest teams.Evidence recovery.Medical support.Contingencies.
Chris listened.Answered.Corrected details.Helped build the operation that would destroy Mateo Vargas.And with every decision, Camila became harder to ignore.Then Sloan’s words from days ago came back.You’re building something with her that cannot survive the truth.
Chris had dismissed it.Gotten angry.
Walked out.Now he finally understood.
This was what she’d meant.Not simply Camila discovering he was FBI.This.The moment the job succeeded.The moment everything Chris had been working toward happened.Because success meant Mateo’s arrest.Success meant the Vargas organization collapsed.Success meant Camila learned why Chris had actually entered her life.Success meant losing her.
Chris stared at the raid plan.Jesus Christ.
He’d spent months trying to reach this exact moment.Now that it was here—he wanted more time.One more drive.One more night.One more morning waking beside her.One more walk through the gardens.One more chance to hear her call him Chris without knowing she’d never actually known his last name.Sloan sat beside him after the briefing ended.
Everyone else slowly left.Chris remained staring at the warehouse photograph.
He didn’t speak for several seconds.“This is what I was trying to tell you.”Chris laughed quietly.“Yeah.”
“You understand now?”
“Unfortunately.”Sloan looked at him.“What are you going to do?”
“My job.”
“And Camila?”Chris swallowed.“I don’t know.”
“You can’t tell her.”
“I know.”
“If she warns Mateo—”
“I know.”
“If you disappear before the raid, Vargas could—”
“Sloan.”She stopped.Chris rubbed both hands over his face.“I know.”His voice broke slightly on the last word.Sloan softened.“Chris.”He looked at her.
“What happens after?” he asked.Sloan knew exactly what he meant.Not after the raid.After Camila.She didn’t have an answer.Chris laughed bitterly.“Yeah.”
He stood.Picked up his jacket.Sloan watched him.“You love her.”Chris looked toward Camila’s photograph.No hesitation this time.“Yeah.”It was the first time he’d actually said it aloud.Sloan’s face fell.
Chris looked away.“Fuck.”He headed toward the door.“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“To your apartment?”Chris nodded.
“She’s there?”
“Probably.”Sloan sighed.“Chris…”He stopped.“I know, I know.”Then he left.
At Chris’s apartment, Camila was still sitting on the bedroom floor.The badge lay beside her.Mateo’s file was open across her lap.Her own photograph stared up at her from another page.She had stopped crying.
That was almost worse.Now she was simply numb.She picked up the badge again.CHRISTOPHER WALKER.She whispered the name.“Chris Walker.”
It felt wrong.And somehow—it didn’t.
Walker.She thought about the man she’d held after the nightmare.The man who’d run back for her.The man who slept with a gun.The man who could drive like nobody she’d ever seen.The man with bullet scars across his body.Suddenly, so much of him made sense.And absolutely nothing made sense anymore.Camila looked at Mateo’s photograph.Then Chris’s badge.Brother.
Man she loved.Cartel.FBI.She was sitting directly between them.And neither man knew she knew.Then she heard something outside.A car door.Camila froze.Footsteps in the hallway.Her eyes widened.The apartment lock turned.Chris was home.