26. Maverick
26
Maverick
“ T hey should have been close enough to prevent this. It’s literally their fucking job to protect her.” My accusatory tone was sharp enough to cut glass.
Duane sighed. “I know. The minute Sophie told us what happened, I texted demanding an answer. They told me she slipped their protection and by the time they found her again, she was headed toward the club.”
I contemplated throttling him even though it wasn’t directly his fault, then turned to Sophie, who was still on the couch. “How did you slip your detail?”
She shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I left brunch and decided to stop for coffee on my way back. I was walking and the streets were busy. I couldn’t have been in the coffee shop for more than ten minutes.”
I hummed and folded my arms across my chest to hide the fact that my hands were shaking. “I need you to handle this,” I said to Paulie. “Find a way to nip it in the bud. Use some scare tactics. Whatever you have to do.”
Paulie sighed and finally looked over at Sophie. “What did he look like?”
“He had light brown, curly hair. Blue eyes, average build. Wore a puffy green jacket, black jeans, and an orange beanie.”
Goddamn it.
The orange beanie could only mean—
“Fucking Christ. It’s Thames,” Paulie swore.
I sat beside Sophie again, pulling her into my lap once more. I tried to piece together the puzzle in my mind.
“He’s been doing runs through Jersey,” Duane confirmed, barely glancing up from his phone to side-eye Sophie. “Maybe he saw you two?”
Sophie vehemently shook her head. “Not possible. As far as I know, Maverick hasn’t been to Newark.”
I nodded.
“You need to bring him in so we can find out,” I told the guys, rubbing slow circles across Sophie’s hip and trying not to think about stripping her of her clothes to relieve us of the stress we both felt. But when I tried to catch her eyes, she was looking, almost longingly at the bag of bagels sitting on Paulie’s desk. I glanced at my watch.
Only an hour and a half since she finished brunch.
“What about Rocco?” Duane wondered aloud.
“Don’t let him go just yet. Let him sweat it out. And figure out how to come to terms with letting Sophie speak with him. I think she could work some magic and get to the bottom of this.” I urged her to her feet, keeping her pressed against me to hide the fact that I was now sporting an obvious erection.
Not like it should be weird—I’ve fucked women in the same room as these two before—but admitting that aloud now, in front of Sophie, made me feel, of all things, embarrassed.
Paulie must have seen Sophie’s eyes wander to the bagels again.
“Want a bagel, Puff?” He threw the nickname and a wicked smile in her direction, a knowing gleam in his eyes as Sophie stiffened against me. I frowned, trying to decipher her reaction.
“I’m fine. I just ate,” she ground out, balling her small hands into fists before swiping her coffee off the table.
“What’d you have at brunch?” I asked, hoping to lighten her mood.
Her dark eyes flicked to mine for a fraction of a second. “Fruit.”
“That’s it?”
“Sure you don’t want one? It’s just a bagel, Puff,” Paulie goaded, and his tone grated on my nerves. I didn’t like it one bit.
The nickname hit its mark, though. Sophie’s shoulders bunched up, her body shrinking in on itself like she was trying to take up less space. Her arms folded tight over her stomach, fingers tightening around her cup of coffee as she rubbed small, repetitive circles over it as if she was grounding herself. She wasn’t looking at me anymore, but the same flicker of doubt I’d seen at her mother’s house crossed her face—there and gone so fast, someone else might’ve missed it. But not me.
“Back off, Paulie,” I growled, urging Sophie to the door so I could get her out of here, maybe get her something to eat. We hadn’t eaten much for dinner the night before either.
“You heard her. Puff is fine. ”
I turned to Paulie. “Last fucking strike. You say it again and I’ll make you regret it.” He narrowed his golden eyes at me, clearly affronted, but I just turned and escorted Sophie out of the office.
She practically ran down the stairs to the main level.
“Sophie, stop,” I pleaded, wrapping an arm around her waist as I caught up to her in the middle of the empty dance floor. Her eyes were distant, unfocused, like she was seeing something that wasn’t there—something long gone but still clawing at her. A shadow of something unspoken flittered across her face, tightening the corners of her mouth, making her throat work like she was swallowing down words she’d never say. Whatever she was thinking, whatever haunted her, it wasn’t just pain. It was a wound that never fully healed.
“What the hell was that all about?”
“It’s nothing, Mav.”
“Don’t do that. It’s not nothing. What happened between you two?”
She shook her head. “I really don’t want to talk about this right now, okay? Please don’t make me.”
Tempted to force it out of her anyway, I opened my mouth, but seeing her look so dejected and hurt made me pause. This wasn’t about me. I had to respect that she wasn’t ready to discuss that part of her past yet. “Okay,” I agreed reluctantly. I kissed her forehead before grabbing her hand. “I understand. But I’m still taking you to get something to eat.”
“No, I really don’t—”
“You’re not fighting me on this. We both barely ate last night, and I’m not accepting that you just had some fruit at brunch with your friend. Now come, and you can tell me about your morning.”
***
“I’m sorry you got caught up in all of this,” I said to Sophie as we sat down at a cafe around the corner from Midnights .
“Don’t be.” She flashed me a dazzling smile, the most genuine one I’d seen since I left her at my penthouse this morning. “I’m sorry it’s happening. You know the last thing I want is to interfere with that side of your life, anyway.”
I gestured to the bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich before her. “Eat. Please.”
She rolled her eyes before picking the sandwich up and taking a hearty bite, chewing and swallowing before answering. “There.”
She looked thinner than she had a month ago. Not by much, but it was marginally noticeable in her shoulders and waist. Not like she had much weight to lose to begin with, but I hadn’t paid close attention to it until now.
It hit me then—her fire, her sharp tongue, the way she threw out challenges like she wasn’t afraid of anything. It wasn’t just confidence. It was armor. A distraction. Self-preservation. Because when she wasn’t fighting, when she thought no one was looking, her hands fidgeted, her body curled in on itself, like she was waiting for the next blow. Like she was used to holding herself together with sheer force of will.
And Paulie—Paulie had known exactly which buttons to push. Because he’d clearly pushed them before. Bullied her—her words. Made her feel small. And if she was this self-conscious now, after everything she’d accomplished, how bad had it been back then? What else had happened that she hadn’t said? What else had been done to her that made her so goddamn unsure of herself beneath that tough exterior?
I leaned forward. “Sophie, look at me.” She did, licking her lips and drawing my attention to them momentarily. “I know we have a lot to learn about each other, and it’s clear there are things you’re not ready to open up about yet. But you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and it has nothing to do with your weight. I’ll do whatever it takes to help make you feel beautiful in your own skin, but please eat.” I took her hand in mine, brushing my lips over knuckles.
Her doubtful eyes searched mine, hesitantly at first, before she sighed. She withdrew her hand, picking up the sandwich and taking a large bite, then another. She ate like she was ravenous—like the night she crashed my date with Priscilla—and I slowed my own bites, my grip tightening around my fork as I watched her.
When Sophie finished, she sighed contentedly, sucking each fingertip with slow, lazy movements as though she was savoring every bite. A grin tugged at her lips, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I do feel a lot better now. Thank you.”
I dipped my chin in response. “Do you want anything else before we go?”
She shook her head, her waves bouncing with the movement. “I’m good.” She paused to take a sip of water. “You deserve to know, if this is going to get more serious between us.”
Thank God.
“When I was in my early teens, I was… not so thin. It’s that awkward phase as a preteen, where you haven’t shed all the childhood weight yet but your body is still developing, you know?” She groaned, then chuckled darkly as she toyed with the edge of her napkin. “Consequently, whenever my parents’ marital problems bled into our home life, I’d comfort eat. It didn’t help with the weight.”
Oh, shit. I sensed the direction her story was going.
“As you know, Paulie and I were neighbors, went to school together, attended the same family functions. You get the point. And everything was fine until the summer before high school. That’s when kids got really mean.” A heavy sigh fell from her lips as her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “It made me binge more. They’d laugh in my face, whisper as I walked by, and at one point, even Paulie joined in. He was trying to fit in with everyone, and our friendship really took a hit at that point. We were just friendly with one another when we had to be, but I couldn’t get over the things he’d called me. What they all called me. Care to guess what stuck?”
I felt sick to my stomach that this woman—drop-dead gorgeous inside and out—was the butt of a joke to a bunch of fucking entitled teenagers. And that Paulie was part of it. My throat worked up and down as sadness rooted in my gut. “Puff?”
A single nod from her as her eyes welled up with tears. “It started as calling me puffy, until they just called me Puff. It really sucked.” Sniffling, she dabbed her fingers under her eyes. “Then when my dad died, I no longer had an appetite. I lost all the weight, and then some. Everyone acted like they had never said those things to me. Never apologized for any of it, either, but then they wanted to be my friend for all the wrong reasons. No one cared about me, and I hated everyone and everything. I was grieving, and angry, and hurt, and humiliated.”
Silence fell between us, and I wasn’t sure if she would continue. She looked lost in thought, as if realization had just fallen over her.
“Fuck, Sophie, that’s horrific. How did you not go into a murderous rampage?”
She laughed, the tears clearing from her eyes, and some of the tightness in my chest eased, too. “I should’ve gone full Carrie on their asses,” she joked, a shy grin pulling up the corners of her perfect mouth.
I chuckled. “So what happened today? Obviously it was bothering you, otherwise you would’ve had more than just fruit for breakfast.”
Sophie nodded and sucked in a sharp breath. “Sometimes, when it feels like my life is changing faster than I can keep up,” her eyes met mine, “I… have an episode. They’re similar to benders. I start seeing all the things wrong with my body. Stretch marks and cellulite and areas where I could lose weight. I start to obsess over it. I felt it coming on this morning after you left, and didn’t realize until now that it had been going on for a few weeks.”
“ Weeks? ”
Shame flitted across her features, as if I’d scolded her. “Yeah. I kinda went into a tailspin after I left your place. I was convinced that I was the only one feeling this… pull between us.”
My heart hurt for her. Society failed her. They made her feel inferior to them, made her question her appearance, broke her down so all she saw when she looked in the mirror were flaws that weren’t flaws at all.
“Have you ever seen a professional for this?”
She raised a shoulder. “Why would I? So they can tell me there’s nothing wrong with me and that I should eat more? No thanks.”
Sighing, I took her hands in mine. “Because it’s dangerous. There are diagnoses for this, and it might help—”
“I don’t want to be shoved into just another box, Mav,” she snapped, and it made me flinch.
Me.
It made me flinch.
I never flinched.
I was always the one who held the power in a room, who told other people what to do and put them in their places.
This was a new feeling she was bringing out in me. A sinking, helpless feeling.
I wanted to fix everything—because that’s what I did. I handled problems. Eliminated threats. Took care of what was mine. But she… she wanted me to butt out. And fuck if that didn’t make me crazy.
“I get put into enough of them,” she continued, softer this time as she squeezed my hands. “I’m a Hispanic female, I have to be a feminist because I’m a woman, but I’m also part of the problem because I’m in a male-dominated industry, which means I kowtow to men. And because I’m a cop, I don’t actually care about minorities or want to help struggling communities. No matter what, I’m one thing or another, and it’s never good enough. The last thing I want to feel is that I’m just another woman not living up to society’s standards by going to a doctor for a problem that I’ve managed for the last thirteen years.”
The passion in her voice told me all I needed to know: her anger and vengeance for her father ran so much deeper than justice. She was also proving herself to the people who had belittled her for years.
That, at least, was something I could relate to.
Because every plan I ever made? Every choice, every risk, every calculated move? It all came down to one thing—burning everything my family built to the fucking ground. And one day, I’d make damn sure they watched it crumble.