Chapter 6
Can’t believe she didn’t kick you out , Micah texted.
I’m just that charming, Cormac texted back. It was a lie of course, but whatever. Dani hadn’t kicked him out, but only because she’d had a rough day and needed protection.
If someone was stupid enough to come after her tonight, they wouldn’t be leaving alive.
So now he was lying in her guest room after a few hours of sleep.
Which told him she was rattled by yesterday. No wonder. He hated everything she’d been through, hated that she was trapped by her family, that she couldn’t just start a life somewhere else. And he still wanted her more than he’d ever imagined possible.
After he’d left, he’d tried to convince himself that he’d built her up in his head. He hadn’t believed his own lies, but seeing her in person, being confronted by her again… He wanted to keep her safe from everything. To give her the life she deserved.
Right. An eye roll emoji from Micah followed.
He didn’t want to talk about Dani with anyone else, even his brother.
Any news on Temple? Cormac had been monitoring the local news but it hadn’t been that long since Temple had been killed and he wasn’t certain it would be a big story. The guy had worked at the courthouse in Wrightsville though.
None. No one’s reported him missing yet either.
Cormac sighed, set his phone on his chest. Last night Micah and Apollo had broken into the man’s townhome and found a whole lot of nothing.
Temple’s laptop had been taken. Or that was their working theory.
He could have left it at work, but the laptop case and cord had been on his desk.
Maybe Lebedev had taken it? Would make sense.
If there was anything linking Temple to Dani, it hadn’t been at his home. But without Temple’s phone or laptop, it didn’t give them much to work with.
And before you ask, I haven’t seen any chatter about Lebedev anywhere.
Cormac had put out a few feelers as well, very subtly, to old contacts, and no one had heard anything about the Popov family and the Hills having conflict.
They had different territories and ran different “products.” The Popovs mostly sold drugs, but also had a hand in the sex trade.
The Hills were more into extortion and protection rackets.
In the last decade or so, the Hill family had shifted to cybercrimes, but he had no doubt they still ran weapons and dealt in high-end luxury knockoffs.
There was too much money in it for them not to.
And he also had no doubt they were still using Dani’s gallery to wash their money. Among other businesses.
She hated that they used her gallery but there was nothing she could do about it. When he’d met her it had been clear she tried to keep her distance from them, but there was only so much she could do without her father pushing back. Hard.
Though from all accounts he’d been taking a back seat in the last couple years.
Regardless, it didn’t make sense that Lebedev had targeted her specifically. At least it didn’t from his angle, but clearly he was missing something.
Keep me updated. He paused, then sent another text. You sure my cover is solid? If he was going to get Dani away from her family, his cover had to be bulletproof.
He got a rude emoji in response. Which, fair, he deserved.
His brother was a genius. But this wasn’t just his life on the line. It was his family’s too. If he got outed, they would be in danger. Even thinking about it had him breaking out in a sweat.
Aaand he was never getting back to sleep at this point. Normally he ran in the mornings, but couldn’t risk that today from Dani’s house. He wasn’t leaving her alone.
So he headed downstairs, started a pot of coffee and rummaged around in her fridge and pantry for stuff to make breakfast. He loved cooking for her, loved taking care of her, period.
It still killed him that he’d had to leave her—he hadn’t been able to date or touch another woman since her. It had somehow felt wrong.
If cooking for her was the only thing he could do now to make her life easier, he was doing it. Eventually he wanted to give her a whole new life, one where she was free of the anchor her family hung around her neck. Where she could just live her life.
Knowing that he wouldn’t be part of her new life carved deep into his chest, but he shelved that thought. This wasn’t about him.
He could at least make sure she was fed and safe for the day. One day at a time, he reminded himself.
By the time the pot had finished brewing, he’d cooked a stack of sausages and was working on blueberry pancakes.
Dani stumbled in as he poured the second pancake onto the hot pan—he’d heard her coming. She was not quiet in the mornings.
A little bleary-eyed, her long dark braid coming out in multiple places, she looked a little feral. And so gorgeous it hurt to look at her for too long.
After she poured and doctored her coffee the way she liked it, she sat at the island top with a sigh. “You’re the only man who’s ever cooked for me.”
Her words surprised him and he wasn’t sure how to even respond. She was a goddess and should be taken care of. “Pancakes?”
“Yes please. And sausage too. So,” she said. “We’re talking this morning. Why aren’t you in the DEA anymore? I need details. A lot of them. Before I even contemplate letting you help me—letting you back in my life for however temporarily—you’re going to talk. And I will have more questions.”
It was clear she’d been sitting on that all night. Maybe she hadn’t slept at all. He didn’t blame her.
“Fair enough.” He plated some food for her and kept making pancakes, mostly to keep his hands busy while he talked.
He couldn’t tell her everything, but he could give her the basics.
“When I first got hired with them I worked for a small, elite team that only a very limited number of people even knew about. They’d had leaks before that.
” A lot of them. And as far as he knew, they still had that issue.
Drug money was like the never-ending wellspring, so it didn’t always take much to push the right buttons to get agents to look the other way.
Usually it started out as small favors. But it always accelerated because that was just how things worked.
Once someone was on the hook for taking bribes, that was it.
The cartel or organized crime family or whoever had their hooks in.
And they would never let you go. They used blackmail and threatened families and friends.
If someone had a weakness, they exploited it to the fullest.
“They were trying to infiltrate the Sala family at the time.”
“Oh wow. They’re not around anymore,” she murmured.
“Nope.” Her family had essentially wiped them out, but that had nothing to do with him. Or her, except that she was linked to it because of who she was related to. That had been all her father’s doing.
He cleared his throat, trying to figure out how to say the thing he needed to say. “Someone I worked with found out that I’d been talking to you.” Talking was a stupid way of saying they’d been sleeping together. Though it had been so much more for him, even in the beginning.
“So you didn’t target me because I’m technically a Hill?” Her tone was disbelieving, but at least she was speaking to him.
“No. Not intentionally. But for the record, when I was doing recon of the Sala family, I spotted you.” And that was all it had taken. One glimpse of the intoxicating woman.
“At my gallery?”
“Yeah.” He’d been knocked on his ass by the mere sight of her, had wanted to approach her immediately.
She nodded slowly. “Sometimes I forget that they used to own most of that block.”
“I didn’t realize you were part of the Hill family.” All his team’s intel had been on the Salas at the time. They’d been so focused on infiltrating them that they hadn’t realized the Hills were taking over Sala territory.
It had been so subtle at first, so slow. Until it hadn’t been. Dani’s father and his people had made people disappear or threatened them with enough violence that they sold their businesses. Threatening someone’s kid was usually enough in those types of situations.
In two months the entire landscape of their current territory had changed. The Hills had the manpower and the Salas hadn’t. Simple as that. They’d wanted more real estate so they’d taken it.
“But once you realized that I was?” she asked.
“My bosses wanted to use that to their advantage.”
“Your bosses? As if you couldn’t make the decision for yourself? As if you weren’t a willing participant in your own life?”
He turned off the stovetop and looked at her. It was time he came clean and owned this. “You’re right. I made the decision. We were already seeing each other and I used my connection with you to try to get closer to your family.” Not that he’d gotten very far.
“You used me.” She tossed her fork down, her dark eyes filled with rage.
“I did. And I’m more sorry than you can know.” It still carved him up when he thought about it. “I know words aren’t enough, that they sound shallow.” But it was all he had at the moment.
“You’re right. They aren’t enough. And apology not accepted.”
Even though he’d never expected her forgiveness, her words sliced right to his bone. Nothing about this was going to be easy and he needed to accept it.
“So why did you disappear?” She sat back in her seat, her expression stony. “You never infiltrated my family. You could have used me to get my financial records—the real ones. You could have wormed your way into my family and eventually destroyed them.”
He knew that. But he’d also known that she could get killed in the crossfire.
And he’d been done with the DEA at that point, done with the whole organization.
“An op went bad.” And he used it to extricate himself from the DEA completely.
“One that had nothing to do with your family,” he added.
“One of my bosses died in an explosion.”