Chapter 2
Rhys
Fuck!
I’ve been following these guys for months. What they just did was the perfect opportunity for me to grab them and haul them into headquarters.
If not for the beautiful blond pressed against me right now.
She just ruined my break in this case, not to mention my shirt that cost way more than twenty bucks. But I have a feeling she knew that when she tossed the slight at me inside the bar. At the time, I thought she was cute, but she just turned into a fucking pain in my ass.
As I look down at her, I hear the retreating footsteps of the men that I should be cuffing and putting in my car right now, looking for her. She blinks a couple of times and I see the exact moment her wits come back and her eyebrows pull together.
She tries to push me away again, but I hold firm. “Get off me!” She hisses like a kitten about to smack me with her tiny claws.
Claws that I’m still holding over her head.
“No.” I say, tightening my hold around her waist.
She freezes and stares up at me, her lips pressed angrily in a tight line. “Why not?” Lips that were just soft and warm and pliant against mine.
“Because if they see you, they will kill you.” I ground out between clenched teeth. I’m so pissed right now I could chew fucking nails.
She stops pushing against me and tries to see out onto the sidewalk around my shoulders. “I need to call the police.” That’s when she looks down around her body and her eyes fly back up to mine. “My clutch! It’s on the sidewalk with my phone in it.”
Immense frustration at the turn of events this night has brought has my eyes slowly closing. I know that clutch will not be on the sidewalk. They saw her drop it and grabbed it when they ran after her, anyone with half a brain knows that.
Fuck!
This whole night has turned into a shit-show.
Those douche bags are just a small part of a much larger case, I could have had them threatened and wired to go back into the hive by morning.
Catching them red-handed would have given me the leverage I needed to threaten them with a lifetime of prison if they didn’t cooperate.
That opportunity just flew out the goddamn window, with the promotion I was hoping to secure sometime this year.
Goddamn it!
Now I have to worry about them finding her, because if they find her, they will fucking kill her. If they have her clutch, they will be looking for her as soon as tomorrow.
Taking a deep breath, my teeth clench together hard enough to grind my molars into dust. I don’t fucking have time to deal with security details and safe houses right now.
How could such a small, beautiful woman throw such a huge wrench into everything and become the biggest pain in my ass in such a short amount of time?
Her small huff of a breath has me opening my eyes, and she tries to pull her hands out of my grasp. “Can you let go of me so I can go look for my clutch before someone picks it up?”
“Baby, someone already picked up your clutch when they ran around the corner looking for you.” I’m trying to use my calm voice, but even I can hear the irritation laced into my tone.
Her face twists into a mask of anger. “Don’t call me baby. I’m not your baby. And how do you know? They may have run past it.”
Staring into her angry eyes, I start to feel a little sorry for her. “I don’t think you realize what you’ve just stepped into. Those men are not petty criminals, that was not a random crime, and you are now at the top of their shit list.”
Her eyes slide away from me to gaze off to the side and her hands in mine go limp. The anger in every line of her face drains away and I watch as she realizes the enormity of the situation she just landed herself in.
Her eyes snap back to mine. “My family. I need to go home.”
The weirdest thing to happen to me all night is the fucking little pinch in my chest when she says the word family. She’s probably married and has a couple of kids at home with her husband.
I don’t know where the fuck that came from.
“If I let you go, will you stay put for a minute?” I ask.
She hesitantly nods. I don’t like the hesitation, but I let go of her, anyway. When I take a step back, I lose the heat of her and I suck in a deep, irritated breath of disbelief that I’m even thinking about that.
Pulling out my phone, I ask, “What’s your address?”
Her eyebrows pull together, and she stubbornly shakes her head. “I’m not giving you my address.” She starts to step around me. “I’m calling the cops.”
Slapping my hand against the building, blocking her from leaving, I look down at her and try to temper my anger. “Baby, I am the cops. Now, if you want your family to stay safe, give me your damn address and I’ll get a unit to your house.”
She looks up at me with her shoulders squared and her jaw set.
“I don’t know you. You haven’t identified yourself.
All I know is that you crossed a line when you touched me without my permission, and now you’re holding me here against my will.
” Her eyes narrow and she lifts her chin even higher.
“If you are a cop, you know just how serious those accusations are.”
She’s right, she could have me tied up in all kinds of nasty shit for months. Not to mention have me at a desk the whole time. Regardless, the fierceness on her heart-shaped face and the big fucking balls on the little thing in front of me has me smiling despite myself.
Leaning down so my nose is just inches from hers, my arm still blocking her way, I can smell the jasmine of her perfume.
“I had to touch you to save your life. I had to kiss you to shut you up, and if I remember right, you kissed me back.” Her tough girl front falters.
“I’m not holding you against your will, I’m trying to help you. ”
She cocks a brow and tips her head. The line of frustration between her eyebrows is cute as fuck. “And you are?”
Lifting my head back up, not breaking eye contact with her, I take a deep breath. “I’m Special Agent in Charge Rhys Abbot, I’m with the FBI.”
She steps back and crosses her arms over her chest. “So, not a cop?”
Fuck me. She’s just like a cute fucking kitten, hissing and snarling while being held by the tail.
“Just a few pay grades higher. “
“Okay. Fine. Who were those men and why aren’t you doing anything about the guy they stabbed, he might still be alive out there?”
“My men are taking care of it as we speak, but for now, I’m stuck with you.”
“No, you’re not stuck with me. I’m going to go back to the club and find my friend and call my brother to come get me. My brother is Delta Force and my brother-in-law is DEVGRU. I’m pretty sure they are a few pay grades higher than you. They can protect me better than anyone you call.”
Well, fuck.
“No can do. I need to ask you some questions for all the fucking reports I have to fill out because of you.”
I’m not sure why I’m pushing this. Except that I want a fresh report with all the details, once someone goes home and goes to sleep, they forget things. And I’m just a little worried about letting her out of my sight.
“No can do.” She mocks me. “I’m going home. You don’t have any reason to hold me, so I’m going home. You can ask me your questions tomorrow or whenever.” She tosses her hand in the air like she doesn’t have a care in the world and professional killers aren’t looking for her.
“I do have a reason to hold you, I won’t get buried in even more paperwork if they kill you before I can get someone to watch you. If I have to make something up, I will.” I think I’m enjoying this more than I should.
Anger twists her pretty little face again. “What could you possibly charge me with? Taking a walk on the sidewalk? Getting forcefully felt up by a stranger? Seeing a man get stabbed?”
Her rant wavers, and her eyes fall to my chest. I was about to call her on the ‘felt up’ part because my hands stayed a very safe distance from any place they shouldn’t have been. Fucking barely. But I watch the anger turn to sadness before her eyes flick back up to mine.
“Is he dead?” Her voice is small and so low I almost didn’t hear what she said.
Seeing her sad does something to me and I fight the urge to touch her in any way, especially after her accusations, even though I want to reassure her somehow.
Taking a deep breath, I nod my head. “He’s dead.”
“So I watched a life end. It was so fast and final. He probably got out of bed this morning with a lifetime of things he still had planned.” Her eyes move to the wall next to me. It’s too dark to see any emotion, but I wish I could see everything. “Definitely something I’ll never forget.”
Sometimes I forget how desensitized to death and violence I am. Those feelings people normally get when they are faced with mortality left me long ago, but now I’m watching it play out in front of me. Damn it! Now I want to make it as easy as I can for her.
“Look, I’ll give you a ride home, but on the way, will you answer some questions for me? I promise I won’t touch you. No deception. Just a ride and some questions.”
Her eyes flick back up to mine and she stares at me for several moments, long enough that I think she might tell me to go to hell.
“I don’t live in Tulsa. I live in Claremore, so it’s kind of a long drive and my car is here.” She pauses and anger presses her lips together in a tight line again. “Damn it! My keys!”
“I’ll make sure your car gets home, just tell me which one.” It’s like her mind is constantly jumping from one thing to the next. She looks at me and her eyes narrow a bit. “I don’t mind the long drive.”
“Fine, but fair warning, I always carry a knife on my person, and my brothers taught me to use it.” She pushes my arm down as she sidesteps me. “I won’t have a problem using it on you if you do something untoward.”
I press my lips together to suppress the smile that is threatening and roll my eyes as I follow her down the steps. She stops and waits for me to tell her where to go and I sweep my arm in the direction across the street where my car is, away from the body around the corner.
“Abbot!” I hear one of my men behind me running to catch up with me. She turns with me as we watch Sanders and Swan jogging toward me. “Coroner is on the way. We didn’t find them.”
I nod and look over their shoulder at the covered body slumped onto the sidewalk. “I’m taking Ms…” I turn my head and look at the woman next to me.
“Harlow. Kinley Harlow.”
“I’m taking Ms. Harlow home. They have her clutch, so we’ll need to make arrangements.”
Sanders, the giant ego that he is, quickly checks her out from head to toe before turning back to me. “Sure thing, boss. Will we be putting her in a safe house?”
“Yes.” I say at the same time she says, “No.”
I look at her, every bit in earnest, and say again, “Yes.”
She tilts her head, meeting my stare with her own. “No. I won’t be in a safe house, my house is the safest place for me. I trust my brothers more than I trust you and your men.”
Sanders and Swan are watching the exchange, and Swan lifts an eyebrow.
“We’ll talk about it on the way.” I say, clenching my teeth again.
“If that’s all you have to talk about, it’s going to be a quiet drive. You can’t make me talk special agent.”
Taking a deep frustrated breath, I think I’ve done that ten times just in the short time since I’ve met her, I look at Sanders. “Her keys were in the clutch, so we’ll need to tow her car to her home.”
“Got it.” Sanders says, humor dancing in his eyes.
I point at my SUV a few cars away and say, that’s me, and then turn to Sanders. “She lives in Claremore, so I’ll be a minute.”
“Sure thing, boss.” Swan says.
Just as Ms. Harlow is turning to walk away, she says, “And just so you know, I only kissed you back to buy some time to make sure you didn’t hurt me. It wasn’t that good of a kiss, anyway, too much tongue.”
I glance at Sanders and Swan, who are doing a piss-poor job of hiding their laughter and rub my hand down my face as I turn to follow her.
How the fuck did I step in this?