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And Caleb was here.
Standing beside her. A rock who stood firm in the lashing rain.
Her fingers curled into fists.
She was done running. “I need to contact the DEA. Tell them what happened to Antonio.”
There.She steeled herself for the condemnation. The disappointment that she wasn’t the woman he thought she was.
Caleb’s head tilted to one side. “Keeping the murder quiet, was that your leverage?”
“Yes.”
“And he agreed to leave you alone?” The disbelief in his voice scraped against her already raw nerves.
She couldn’t look at him. “I told him I’d return to Miami. By the end of the week.”
“Over my dead body,” he snarled.
Her head snapped up.
Caleb had that cold, hard look. The same one she’d seen the first night they’d met at the bar, when she hadn’t known if he was on the side of the angels or darkness.
Her hand shot out, clutching his arm before she could stop herself, nails biting into his skin. “If you stay with me, that’s exactly what will happen. Vincente will come after you. But I never had any intention of going back.”
“What was the plan then? Run again?” Now his voice went dangerously soft.
Exactly as it had before he took out Vincente’s men in a blur of movement she’d had trouble tracking.
A shiver creptup her spine. “Run. Stay and risk everyone I care about.”
Including you.
“Or turn myself in, testify against Vincente, and end up in Witness Protection.” Her mouth trembled. “I guess I’ll end up in a new town with a new identity after all.”
If she lived. And even if she made it into Witness Protection, what kind of life would she have without friends, a career?
Without Caleb.
How, in such a short time, had he come to mean so much to her?
He’d freed her. Emotionally. Sexually. She felt strong around him.
Cared for.
She squared her shoulders. “Clearly, he didn’t believe me. I’m ready to go to the DEA,” she repeated, “and tell them everything I know if it will save Jennie.”
There would be questions. They’d tear apart her Abigail Winters identity. She might even lose her medical license. Watching a man die and staying silent—it had to violate the Hippocratic Oath, at least in spirit.
Caleb shook his head, rejection in every line of his taut body. “If you go to the authorities, Lopez will lawyer up and paint you as the liar—a woman who misled him about her true identity and then disappeared. Maybe he’ll claim you stole money, and that’s why you ran. He’ll gaslight you. We’ll never find Jennie.”
“Then offer him a trade. Jennie for me.”
His eyes flashed fire. “No way in hell.”
Stubborn man.
She stepped in close, pressing herself against his chest to force his full attention. His muscles were hard, his fists clenched—but she didn’t miss the sudden flare in his pupils at the contact.