Page 45

Chapter 45

Fleur

M y face is wet. Tears stream down my face as I search the area for Liam, panicking when I don’t see him.

I’ve practically been assigned my own agent babysitter, and he won’t let me go anywhere.

“Do you know if my parents are okay?” I ask for the fourth time. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I need them safe.

The agent doesn’t answer me.

Blood catches my eye, and a man who looks vaguely familiar is escorted by. His eyes are swollen, black and blue, and he’s half keeled over, but when his eyes meet mine, I swear he recognizes me too.

The wind picks up, whipping my braid into my face and when I bat it away, the man has been lost to the sea of black tactical gear. More police, both FBI and DEA, move boxes and bins into the warehouse, then emerge with full containers and march them onto a cargo truck they managed to back in here.

“… damn pigs! Get your hands off me!”

I recognize Blitz’s voice and I follow the sound I’d never think to want to hear, seeing him wrestled into a SWAT box truck. He’s handcuffed and they chain his feet to steel loops welded to the truck bed.

“Blitz!” I yell, trying to get his attention, but the wind carries my voice off, unheard. I move, my babysitter snatches my arm, and I tug and yank, methodically searching the crowds. Then I see him.

Trip.

His eyes are red and dried tears are plastered to his pocked face. An agent leads him to the same box truck as Blitz and I push forward.

“Trip!”

His eyes dart up searching out the voice calling to him. When his eyes meet mine, he snarls, then seeing my frantic search around him, he chuckles.

“Where’s Liam?” I yell. But he doesn’t answer. Instead, he throws his head back and laughs—laughs until the agent behind him grips his tawny hair and throws him in the back of the truck.

A black SUV rolls next to the SWAT truck and two agents push a man to the back seat. When he looks up, my eyes meet Darrin’s. Those dual-colored eyes bright against his dark skin look sad, defeated. He holds my stare for several beats. No malice. No recognition.

They’re blank as if he’s already checked out.

I don’t know the sentencing for an operation this big, but I know prison isn’t kind. The thought makes me sick, and I shake off his stare to continue my search, but I don’t have to look any further.

Dirty-blond hair, pulled half into a bun dawns my vision, and I skip past the cut on his forehead to his wide eyes as he takes me in.

I gasp, throwing a hand over my mouth.

“Liam,” I whisper.

Tears well in my eyes and I can’t resist the urge to plow through the group of agents. I bolt, dodging another agent who reaches out to secure me.

“Stop!” he yells, but I don’t listen.

I run to Liam, desperate to touch him, to feel he’s okay.

He quickens his pace too, and in a matter of seconds, I collide with his solid chest, gripping it for dear life.

“Liam,” I sob, at the same time he says my name.

His hand comes to cradle my head, crushing me to his heart. The rapid pounding beats against my ear, and I relish the sound. I count each one, afraid I’ll never hear it again.

After a minute, I rip myself away from him, touching his body, looking for any signs of injury. There’s a cut on his forehead and a graze on his leg, but he’s alive. I glance up at him.

Terror and relief swirl in his eyes.

“I thought—” I try, but the words die as more tears fall.

“Are you hurt?” His voice quivers and I can’t handle it.

“No,” I whisper and I pull his face to mine. When my lips meet his, my body melts into the safety of his arms. His mouth is dry, and I taste the salty sweat beaded on his upper lip. More tears slide down, the taste mingling with him?—

An arm jerks me back, the agent finally getting ahold of me.

Liam growls and my eyes widen as his nostrils flare.

I needed this moment with Liam and now that I have it, I don’t want him taken away. I can’t have him taken away.

“Liam, it’s okay, don’t?—”

“Take your hands off her,” Liam demands, and I flinch, waiting for the agents around us to secure him or cuff him.

But the opposite happens. The hand clenching my arms releases me and I blink.

“Sorry, Agent Parker.”

I blink again. What did he just?—

“Fleur, listen to me.” Liam’s words are clear, but I don’t understand.

“What’s going on?” I ask. I glance around, agents milling about, placing more of Darrin’s men into police cars and transport trucks. No one is pursuing Liam. “I-I don’t understand.”

Liam’s thumb caresses my cheek, and I close my eyes, allowing myself to memorize the rough pads of his fingers lingering there. Then I push him away.

“Liam.”

“I’m an agent, undercover. My mission was Darrin and his operation.”

My mouth falls open as my mind repeats those words.

I’m an agent. Undercover.

The bloody man from earlier approaches and my attention flips to him. Memories of our trips to “deliver” products flash in the back of my mind and I shake my head.

“You were meeting him.” I gesture my head over to the man and Liam follows it, nodding when he catches sight of him.

My heart pounds. I’m so confused. “So, all that talk about being here for Adam, your commitment to your brother, saving him—was all that part of your cover this whole time?”

Liam’s eyes widen. “What? No, Fleur, listen. I was here for a year because of Adam before I got involved with the agency. With my police academy training and my established connection in Darrin’s crew already solidified, it was the perfect mission for me.”

“Police academy?” When did he mention this? He didn’t. I didn’t even know that about him. A pit of nausea tumbles around in my stomach, and I take a step back. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

He reaches for me, but I pull my hand from his. “Yes, Fleur. God, yes. All I wanted to do was to tell you. When you thought the worst of me. When I claimed you. I wanted to tell you that you were safe with me—with law enforcement.”

“You didn’t trust me.”

“No, Fleur, that’s—” He diverts his gaze, looking at the agent he called Wilson coming to stand near us. “Give us a minute, please.”

“You’re needed for debriefing and you need that graze looked at,” he says to Liam. The man, Wilson, looks back at me. “Ma’am, I can have one of our agents take you where you need to go.”

I flinch. Go? Go where? I glance toward the cabin I called home with Liam, my now husband. Crime scene tape dwarfs it, and I close my eyes, taking a deep breathe through my nose.

As if he’s read my anxious thoughts, Liam responds, “My grandparents. She can stay there. Please let me have a minute, man.”

Agent Wilson nods and steps away a few feet. I snort at the mere illusion of privacy.

“So Agent Wilson is what … your handler?”

“Yes.”

I press my lips together, pulling them inward and fighting back tears. “You kept telling me to trust you, over and over. But yet you couldn’t be bothered to tell me about your mission, your job. I could’ve helped you. It’s not like I was a willing participant here, Liam.”

“I didn’t want to put you in a compromising situation.” He sighs.

“So, you let me think the worst about you?” I bite my tongue at my own words because despite who he was working for, I lost any disgusted thoughts of Liam early on. His temperament and respect for me—he saved my life at his own expense. So why does finding out he’s on the right side of the law hurt?

Was this just part of his mission? I’m married to this man. Legally bound.

Liam reaches for me again, but instinctively, I back away. His fingers graze my braid before falling back to his side.

“Agent Parker, the administrator is on the line for a report. We need to debrief,” Agent Wilson says again.

Panic laces Liam’s eyes. “Listen, Fleur. They’re going to take your statement and they’ll drop you off at the bed-and-breakfast with my grandparents. Stay there and wait for me. We will talk. This”—he motions around to the compound chaos—“is going to take several days to clean up, and I’ll need to be deposed and report in.”

I shake my head and Liam grabs both of my shoulders gently.

“Fleur, please.”

Two agents step up to me. “Ready, Ms. Jacobs?”

Liam hangs his head, stepping back while agents swarm him with work. I’m escorted to a black SUV, and the door opens for me to climb in.

I do.

Once the door shuts, the clamoring sounds of people and vehicles die. Tucking both hands under my thighs, I lower my chin to my chest and cry.