Page 99 of Carnal Urges

When I wake in the morning, I’m sore and starving. Declan is gone, but my period has arrived, staining the sheets beneath me red.

Oddly, the bloody stain is in the shape of a heart.

I hope that isn’t a bad omen.

TWENTY-SEVEN

DECLAN

“Are you insane?”

“No.”

“Yes, you are. You’ve lost your goddamn mind. She’s a fucking civilian!”

“I know what she is. Lower your voice. You’re being conspicuous.”

The soccer mom loading her kids into the minivan parked next to us gives me another sidelong glance. She glances at Grayson in the front seat, his hands gripped tightly around the steering wheel, forearm tats showing under his rolled-up sleeves, and tells her pigtailed daughter to hurry up and get inside their car.

She probably thinks we’re pedophiles.

The reality is worse than that.

For the past ten years on the same day at the same time every week, Grayson and I have been meeting somewhere in town in his car. Today, our meeting is in a lot on the third floor of the parking garage near the movie complex.

He always drives an older-model beige Chevy Impala. I always sit in the back, and he sits up front. He never turns to look at me when I enter the car. I never say goodbye when I leave.

Sometimes I have the depressing thought we’ll still be doing the same thing when we’re old men, thirty years from now.

But I doubt I’ll live another two. This life I lead isn’t made for longevity.

Though that’s what I thought over twenty years ago when I first started out, back when the Grayson in my life was a grizzled old handler named Howard who used to tell rambling nonsensical anecdotes about the 1984 Olympics. He died of cirrhosis.

Helluva way to go. I’d take a bullet over that misery any day.

In a lower, more controlled tone, Grayson says, “I never would’ve approved of the idea of picking her up in the first place, but you didn’t tell me.”

“It was Diego’s idea. He didn’t tell you because he knew you wouldn’t have approved. I agreed with that decision.”

“Great. So you’ve gone rogue now, too?”

“Don’t be so bloody dramatic. Your permission isn’t required.”

“But my knowledge is. You have to keep me in the loop, Dec.”

“I don’t have to do anything, Gray. Which you know.”

He stares at me in the rearview mirror, his dark eyes made even darker with fury.

Our tempers are one of the few things we have in common. He’s even more prone to angry outbursts than I am.

The only son of a third-generation beat cop, he always knew he’d go into law enforcement. It’s the family business. But I suspect he wishes he’d followed in his father’s footsteps and joined Boston PD instead of the FBI, so he wouldn’t have to deal with me.

I’m making him old before his time.

“So what’s the plan? You’ll question her, then send her back to Kazimir? And what do you think will happen to her when he findsout she’s been questioned about him? Because I can guarantee you, it won’t be good.”

“I’m not sending her back to anywhere. She’s going to stay with me.”