Chapter 14 Elizabeth
ELIZABETH
The first thing I register is warmth. The second is the faint, steady sound of snoring beside me. I blink, disoriented, staring at a plain ceiling I don’t recognize. My pulse skips until I turn my head, and see Brady lying next to me.
He’s on his back, one arm folded under his head, his tattooed bicep bulging. His dark T-shirt is rising and falling with his slow, deep breaths, and his hair is a sleep-tousled mess.
And it’s sexy as hell.
My body reacts before my brain can catch up, tension leaving my muscles as if his presence flips some sort of safety switch I didn’t even know I had.
For a moment, I just… watch him. There’s really no other, less creepy way to say it.
His full lips are half-hidden in scruff that’s a lot thicker than it was yesterday, shadowing the sharp planes of his cheeks and jaw.
My gaze drifts over the strong lines of his face, so arrestingly male, and I’m reminded that I’ve always been attracted to the polished type.
Men in suits and silk ties, as groomed and career-obsessed as I am.
Who do I think I’m kidding?
With his raw masculine beauty and confident attitude, Brady is everyone’s type. It’s an odd juxtaposition. This alpha male, who didn’t hesitate to sacrifice his body to protect me, is also the man who held my hand in the hospital and worries about my pain.
His presence calms me, and I’m done pretending it doesn’t.
I must have known intuitively the first time we met that he was different. Safe. It’s the only explanation for how uninhibited I was with him.
Not that he doesn’t piss me off. He flips from an irritatingly cocky good mood to a protective German Shepherd in a nanosecond. And the brooding I saw downstairs…
Nerves spin in my stomach. I haven’t trusted anyone—truly trusted anyone—in longer than I can remember.
After my colossal failure of judgment with Keith, I’m not sure I even trust my own instincts.
Over the last four years, it’s been easier, not to mention safer, to do everything on my own.
If I don’t rely on anyone, then they can’t let me down.
They can’t hurt me.
But I’m so fucking tired—an exhaustion that has burrowed itself into my bones.
I can’t do this by myself anymore. I can’t keep myself safe, and I don’t even know where to begin in order to fix it. Brady hasn’t let me down yet.
Am I really considering letting him in?
A memory of his words four years ago flashes through me.
“Tonight, we could be whoever we wanted. Even if it was our true selves.”
Something that night let me be honest with him in a way that is foreign to me. And even when he could have thrown the fact I almost got both of us killed in my face, he didn’t.
The realization loosens something in my chest.
Still… I haven’t forgotten the detective’s words at the hospital. The damn drugs just made me too fuzzy to press him. I’m clearheaded now.
I reach out and touch his shoulder lightly. “Brady,” I whisper.
He’s awake instantly, eyes snapping to mine, sharp and assessing. “Hey. How are you feeling?”
I do a quick body scan. The throbbing in my side has dulled to a faint ache. “Better,” I admit. “Maybe I really did need the sleep.”
He sits up, rubbing a hand over his face, and reaches for his phone on the nightstand. “We’ve been out for eight hours. It’s almost dinner.” His voice is gravelly from sleep. “And you missed a dose.” He frowns at the screen.
“It’s fine—”
“No.” His tone brooks no argument. “We need to get the antibiotic cream on before we do anything else.” He’s already on his feet, broad shoulders tense as he strides toward the door. “And you seriously need to lose that word from your vocabulary.”
“Brady, stop.”
He halts mid-step, pivoting to face me.
I sit up slowly, bracing my hands on the bed to take most of the effort. “With everything going on… and being so tired before… I didn’t ask. I want to know what Detective Simpson meant.”
His posture stiffens, and then after a beat, with what looks to be a conscious choice, he relaxes a shoulder against the doorframe.
“You promised you’d tell me,” I persist. “He said, ‘These aren’t people to mess around with.’ He made it sound like you knew who they were.”
Brady sucks in a long breath and then blows it out in an audible sigh. “When I first met you… four years ago… I was undercover for an international task-force. That’s why I didn’t want to give you my name.”
My chest tightens. “Because it wouldn’t have been your real one?”
“No,” he hedges, eyes darkening. “I was under with my real identity. My assignment was to infiltrate as a corrupt cop. I didn’t want you to get pulled into it.”
The pieces click together in a way that makes my stomach flip. “Carrow was involved? That’s why you were in his office that night?”
“Yes.” Brady’s lips quirk. “A vision in a gold mask interrupted me before I found anything.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Are you saying it’s my fault—”
“Of course not. It wasn’t my only attempt. I never found any evidence of criminality—nothing I could prove anyway. Only that he’s a scumbag who covers his tracks well. Six months after we met, I was pulled out.”
“Why?”
He paces a few steps across the small room, and then back again, clearly agitated. “Because what I found was making certain people… uncomfortable.”
I frown. “Uncomfortable, how?”
“I identified several local police officers who were either actively involved in crimes or taking money to look the other way for high-profile citizens. Citizens who, it turned out, were also criminals.”
My mouth falls open. “That detective? Simpson—”
“I never got the proof he was dirty,” Brady grimaces. “However, I found plenty on his captain. Simpson’s little comment earlier pretty much proves he was involved in some way.”
He’d been undercover. Did he have to testify against other officers? Is that why he isn’t in law enforcement anymore?
“It also implies he knows why they are after you,” Brady continues. A dark look crosses his face, and I shiver. “That’s good. I can convince him to tell me.”
I’m not sure I want to ask how.
I feel my pulse thudding in my neck. “Then you do know who’s behind this?”
Brady shifts his weight, and one of his hands balls into a fist. “I don’t know for sure. Sera’s looking for a connection. She’s running your ex’s name against known members of this organization.”
A chill slithers down my spine. I can see the tension in the air as easily as if he’d written the words.
Whoever they are, they are scary.
“Is it like… the mafia or something?”
His expression hardens. “It’s better if you don’t know the details.”
Something snaps in me, and I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, ignoring the tug in my stitches as I get to my feet. Adrenaline and frustration drive me on.
“This is my life!” My voice rises, pitchier than I’d like. “I’m the one who walked into my house and found my ex-husband’s body. I’m the one who was questioned, chased, and sliced open. You’re telling me to what? Sit here quietly and let you handle it?”
“I know that.” Brady stalks toward me, the air crackling between us.
I don’t move. Not because I’m not affected—because I am. My pulse flutters under my skin. Everything about him affects me in a terrifying way that I don’t understand. My head tells me it’s dangerous to get close, but my traitorous heart is telling me to jump in with both feet.
I ignore the renewed stinging in my side, knowing if I show any sign that I’m hurting, Brady will use it as an excuse to shut this conversation down.
“I’m trying really hard here, Brady. I want to trust you.”
His eye twitches, and his jaw clenches tight.
“I do trust you,” I amend. “But you can’t keep me in the dark. I’ll go insane.”
His internal debate plays out across his face. He’s torn. The protector in him wants to stay silent, but he knows I’m right. This is my life, and I’m not going to sit on the sidelines.
“They don’t have a name. It’s not the Mafia or any other known organized crime network. The international task-force I reported to called them The Cabal. From what we were able to learn, they don’t operate as a cohesive group.”
I shake my head, forehead furrowing. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither did we. Hence the undercover agents.”
“And?”
“Basically, they aren’t a criminal organization in any form we recognize, but they do work together.”
My face scrunches. “You’ve seriously lost me now.”
“It’s not clear-cut. They are less an organization and more a group of people who have banded together for their mutual benefit.
From what we found, they don’t share any sort of ideology or loyalty except to money.
They don’t live in the same place, share a language, a religion, political persuasion or even have a fucking secret handshake from what we can tell.
“The best result the task-force was able to get was the identity of several people who we believed to be members of the cabal and to uncover their individual crimes. All wealthy and influential in their own way—but other than the crime they shared with their co-conspirators, we couldn’t find any other connection that solidly led to other people. ”
“Couldn’t that mean you arrested them all?”
“I wish. No, there are definitely more. We had at least twenty other international targets we thought could be involved, but we just couldn’t find the evidence. We also learned from one of them, before she was killed in police custody, that they call themselves the Lapidarists. It means—”
“People who shape diamonds.” My mind is racing. “Is there any significance there?”
“The woman we arrested—chief of staff to a state senator—implied they believe they are shaping the world to their own benefit. But like I said, she died before she was fully questioned.
“Poisoned.” He answers what he knows will be my next question. “Keeled over the table in the middle of her interrogation. We have no idea how it was administered.”
My blood turns to ice. These are the people after me?