13. Emma #6
“He said he owes me,” I offer.
“I can see why he might think he owes you,” Mel says.
“What do you mean?”
“His family wasn’t my case, but I was part of the joint task force that dealt with some of the fallout. The Accord killed several members of his family too. He was offered protection and refused it.”
I sit a little straighter. “And his sister?”
“I don’t know. A lot of that material was sealed, and there were grand jury proceedings I never had access to.
Back then it was above my pay grade.” She goes quiet for a second, then keeps going, more to herself than to me.
“I have more clearance now. I may be able to pull some of it, see what was buried and why?—”
“Mel?”
“I’m here.”
“You sound like you wish you weren’t.”
“That would be an accurate assessment of my current state, yes.”
I glance back into the bedroom. Alex has rolled onto his side in his sleep, one hand stretched into the empty space where I’d been lying, fingers curled slightly like they’re still searching.
My chest tightens around an ache that has nothing to do with Dante Valenti, the Accord, or any of the danger closing in around the edges of this conversation.
“Does Dante have something to do with the Accord suddenly waking up?” I ask.
“I don’t know yet.”
“But you think he might.”
“I think I have several calls to make tonight that I was not expecting to be making.”
“Mel.”
“I’m not withholding an answer I already have. I genuinely don’t know where Valenti fits in this yet.”
“He’s never been anything but kind to me.”
“I believe you.”
That stops me cold. “You do?”
“Yes. Dangerous men are perfectly capable of kindness, Emma. Sometimes that’s exactly what makes them difficult to categorize, and exactly why I need you to be careful.”
I look down at my bare feet against the hallway floor. “That’s fair.”
“No contact unless it’s unavoidable. Don’t seek him out. If he contacts you first, you tell me immediately.”
“I’m not going to treat him like a criminal when he’s never given me a reason to.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“You basically are.”
“I’m asking you to exercise caution around a man several federal agencies have failed to build a case against despite years of dedicated interest.”
“That sounds worse when you put it that way.”
“It’s meant to.”
I lean my head back against the wall and close my eyes. “Please hurry with Alex.”
“I’m doing everything I can.”
“I mean it, Mel. I’m running out of ways to lie to him.”
“Then stop inventing new ones. Keep the old boundaries in place. Answer what you can honestly, and don’t volunteer what you can’t.”
“He looks at me differently now.” My voice drops, and my chest gives a little more with every word. “I can handle him being angry. I can’t handle him thinking I never loved him at all.”
Mel is quiet for a long moment.
“Then let’s give him the truth properly, the first time, so he never has a reason to think that again.”
I close my eyes. “A few more days?”
“I’m hoping for fewer.”
“That’s the closest thing to optimism you’ve ever handed me.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
Despite everything, I smile, small and involuntary. “If anything changes with the Accord, you tell me the second it happens.”
“I will.”
“And if you learn anything more about Dante?—”
“I tell you.”
“And if he contacts you?”
“I call.”
“Good.”
“Mel?”
“Yes?”
“Please hurry.”
Two full seconds of silence pass before she answers. “Got it.”
The call ends. I stand alone in the hallway with the phone still warm against my palm, running through everything she just handed me.
Organized crime. Dante. The Accord waking back up after years of inactivity.
Federal clearance that might or might not come through in time.
Every answer I get seems to open three more questions behind it.
I spent ten years believing that secrecy was the thing keeping the people I loved safe. Now I stand in Alex Hartley’s hallway and understand, with a clarity that makes my chest ache, that every secret I’m still keeping feels like another fuse burning steadily toward the same room.
I slip back into the bedroom. Alex has shifted again in his sleep, and the second I lie back down, his arm finds me without any hesitation at all, pulling me back against his chest before he’s even awake enough to register that I’d left.
I stare into the dark and let myself feel all of it at once.
A few more days. That’s all Mel needs. A few more days of Alex kissing me like he can’t survive the distance between us, even while distrust still lives behind his eyes every time he looks at me in daylight.
A few more days of him reaching for me in his sleep like his body has already decided something his mind refuses to admit. Just a few more days.
His mouth brushes against my hair. Still asleep, he murmurs my name again, soft and unguarded.
“Belle.”
I close my eyes.
For ten years, being discovered was the single thing I feared most in the world. Now I lie in Alex’s arms in the dark and pray that someone, anyone, finally gives me permission to be caught.