Page 6

Her small, pink tongue came out to swipe her bottom lip and his muscles twitched in response.

“You have to watch everything you say. Don’t trust anyone, no co-workers, neighbors… no one, got it?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t anyway.”

“One more thing,” he said and pulled his phone from his pocket. He brought up the email from his colleague Josh, pulled the images to life and turned the screen to face her.

Her breath hissed out and a tinge of green replaced her golden tan. “Oh my god…” she croaked.

“That’s Fabian Acosta. He was one of Carlos’s men, do you recognize him?”

She shook her head, her knuckles pressed to her teeth.

“He’s the last man to snitch on Carlos. His body was found the other day. Now do you comprehend the game you’re playing?”

Her throat moved as she swallowed, and her eyes, the color of the depths of the ocean, turned glassy. “I know he’s dangerous for god’s sake.”

“Did you know cutting out the tongues of snitches before murdering them is a signature move of his?”

She sucked in a deep breath as if summoning strength from a deep well of water and shook her head. “No, but thanks for the image.”

“It’s not too late to back out, Maddie.”

She snorted and dropped her forehead to her fingers. “Are you kidding? He’d hunt the country looking for me if I bailed. I might as well just tell him our plan.”

She lifted her chin and pulled her shoulders back. “I’m not quitting, Nate. I’ve come too close and am in too deep. This could be over in a couple weeks and he could finally be in prison. We have to continue.”

He rolled his shoulders back but it didn’t ease the tension. He’d been stupid to think Fabian’s fate would sway her. When Maddie dug her teeth into something, she was worse than a bloody pit bull.

“Why Carlos?”

Her gaze flicked over his face. “What do you mean? He’s a monster and needs to be in prison.”

“’Course he does. But so do a lot of other people. I want to know what’s making you so determined to go after him specifically.”

Her line of vision shifted away from his gaze just enough for him to catch that she was hiding something. “Dammit, tell me. Do you really think I won’t be able to find out? Save me the work.”

She sighed, shifted her weight to her other foot making her hip jut out.

“Last year my best friend Zoe’s sister came to Miami.

She was twenty-one years old and was here on spring break…

only she refused to come home. She got involved with Carlos and he got her hooked on cocaine and crystal meth.

” Her throat tightened on the next words she had to say. “She died in an alleyway.”

Nate rubbed his hand over his face. “Fuck, Maddie. You can’t—”

She snagged his elbow, shaking his arm. “It’s not just that. What he did to Leila makes me want to see him in prison, but that’s not my fuel. He’s a terrible man, a dangerous one. And since Ethan has put up road blocks preventing me from getting into the FBI—”

He lowered his hand and met her hard, determined stare.

“You want to take him down because he’s a big fish and use that as a leg up to get in?

” He didn’t need to ask the question. The fire in her eyes spoke volumes.

With her background, she was a shoo-in for an agent.

She had a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, had worked undercover, and now that he knew her reason for transferring to the Narcotics Unit, he had to question if Carlos had been her motive in the first place.

Hell, of course it was. Knowing Maddie, she’d strategically stacked the deck in her hand of cards.

Add to all that her martial arts training. Maddie was lethal, smart… and more qualified than some of the guys he’d worked with over the years. But he agreed with Ethan… this line of work was dangerous.

It was on the tip of his tongue to talk her out of it, though he’d tried already. He wanted to shake her, to knock some sense in her head, and yeah, maybe he could now understand where Ethan’s overbearing streak was coming from.

Part of Nate still wanted to step away from the case in the hope doing so would force her to drop it.

But even without him, she’d still complete this stupid suicide mission—only it’d be with another agent who didn’t give a rat’s ass about her well-being.

The mission was well into production, and there was no way his superiors would pass up the opportunity to take down Carlos Santiago.

Nope. His fate was sealed.

As if she sensed his temptation to pull back, her fingers tightened on his forearm. “It was the perfect opportunity. I’m safer doing undercover work here in Miami than I was in Seattle. You know how risky it is when you’re on a case and people in your community know you. I was limited there.”

Hell, she was right. With cases of this magnitude they would have hired someone who wasn’t local. But he hated that she had a personal interest in this. It made it that much more perilous.

“I need to do this, Nate.” She wet her lips and her eyes turned glassy.

“For myself. This is all I want to do with my life, it’s who I am.

” Her soft, broken words tore at his heart.

He’d disagreed with Ethan for years about his interference with Maddie’s career, now he was crossing a boundary of no return.

But he couldn’t say no. Aside from the fact that she’d already flung herself into the center of the storm, her determination impressed the hell out of him.

She’d make a damn good agent.

“If we’re going to do this, you need to listen to me, Maddie. That cocky streak of yours,” he said, pinching the tip of her button nose. “Could get you killed in the blink of an eye. The only reason I’m still on this case is because I know you’ll go ahead with or without me.”

She folded her hands together in front of her abdomen. “Thank you,” she said, the words slipping from her lips and winding their way into his heart.

He grunted in response. Her fingers drifted lower to smooth over a wrinkle in her shorts. His pulse thundered through his temples.

“Am I safe here?” Her throat moved over a swallow.

Christ. His shoulders loosened and he folded her into his arms, crushing her against his chest. That small, tiny show of trepidation cut through him.

He could count on one hand how many times he’d caught a streak of fear in her face.

She always held such a tight front, that when it cracked, it was as if a piece of her was leaking out.

He burrowed his face in her hair and her scent filled him. Her face snuggled against his chest and her hands curled around him. The top of her head sat just below his chin. Her body was so much slimmer than his, yet firm muscle lay beneath her slight frame.

Hunger ate through him. The need to kiss her, to take away her fear, to protect her, burned inside him. And he couldn’t do fuck-all about it, and never would. He was a damn coward. If he held her tight enough, he might be able to resist tearing her clothes off.

“Nate?” Her cautious, unsteady voice broke his thoughts.

He closed his eyes as the scent of pineapple and coconut from her shampoo tickled his taste buds. “Yeah?”

“Why did you leave that night?”

He pressed the tip of his tongue to the back of his teeth until it ached. He didn’t want to talk about that night. About how close he’d been to having her, to filling her… to betraying his best friend.

He shouldn’t be here. And he sure as hell shouldn’t be touching her. But no matter how much he willed himself to let go, he couldn’t break away.

“Please, tell me.” She pulled her head back to look up at him. Her lips fell into a soft pout and her hands pressed over top of each other against the front of his shirt. “I promise I won’t come on to you. I just want to know what happened.”

A sigh breathed through his nose. He brought his fingers up to tuck her hair behind her ear, his knuckles grazed over the silky skin of her cheek.

Dread ate through him. Talking about that night would only open up a can of worms… but he owed her some kind of explanation. Leaving her in need that night was not one of his proudest moments.

“I wanted you, believe me.” His voice was rough as he forced the words through his tight throat. He watched her face carefully as a dark pink stain crept over her cheeks. “But I could never betray Ethan like that.”

Her eyes shot to his and her body went rigid. She pushed out of his embrace. “Are you kidding? You left because of Ethan?” Her voice raised an octave and her breasts jiggled in her top as she moved on the balls of her feet.

He rubbed his hand over his face. “C’mon Maddie, it’s not that hard to understand.”

“Yeah, it is. I’m twenty-eight years old, goddammit. Do you think any other man has avoided sleeping with me because I have a brother?”

He clenched his jaw until his teeth threatened to chip.

The last thing he needed was an image of Maddie getting screwed by other men.

Had she just got done with Carlos? The need to ask burned up his esophagus like acid.

“It’s different and you know it. I’ve been friends with him for more than a decade—I can’t just fuck his little sister. ”

Her chest rose and fell and the soft lines of her cheeks hardened. “Thanks for the explanation. You can leave now.” She stepped around him.

He closed his hand over the soft skin above her elbow and pulled her back. “We’re not done.”

“I think we are.” She yanked her arm, but he held fast.

“What happened on the yacht?”

Her eyes met his and a loose, brittle laugh bubbled out of her. “That’s none of your business.”

He tightened his hold. She was right. It wasn’t his business.

His plan had been to come here and tell her he’d be assigning someone else to the case.

But god help him, he couldn’t fucking do it.

He couldn’t entrust anyone else with her life.

It might kill him, but he had to see this through.

“It is my business. You dragged me here and both our lives are on the line.”

Her gaze landed on his hand. “Let go,” she said softly.

“Tell me.”

The top corner of her mouth lifted. In a flurry of movement, she twisted his arm until pain shot through his shoulder. He let out a sharp grunt and then she shoved him against the wall. Satisfaction sparked the hues of her eyes as she folded her arms across her chest.

He massaged his arm and scowled at her, and damn if some of his dignity hadn’t left too. “Fine, don’t tell me.”

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, then fished out the tiny baggie of crushed rohypnol. “If you get in a tight spot and need to knock him out, slip him two of these. They’re roofies.”

Her eyes sharpened on the plastic bag he held in his palm and she lifted it with her fingertips as if the contents would leap out and into her throat.

“Thank you,” she said softly and tucked them into her purse. “He’s leaving on a business trip on Monday for a week. When he gets back, he’s taking me on a cruise to San Juan.”

He rubbed the burning pain in his wrist, but it did nothing to calm the fire of rage inside him. “A cruise? Are you insane?”

Her arms stretched out beside her and her eyebrows lifted. “What choice do I have? He invited me. Had I said no, he would have moved on to the next willing piece of meat and we’d have no means to get on the inside.”

Nate shook his head and paced the small hallway. She was right, but no way in hell he’d admit it. “So you’re telling me I have a fucking week to get my team set up on the ship?”

She lifted a delicate shoulder, fire blazed from her eyes. “I guess you’d better get started.”

He closed his eyes. It wasn’t supposed to go down like this.

They were supposed to ambush his next shipment of cocaine at the trade-off point—wherever the hell that was.

Not follow him on a wild goose chase into the Caribbean.

The cruise could be a decoy, but on the other hand, Carlos could have something bigger going on.

Regardless, there was no way in hell he could let Maddie go by herself. If he didn’t get the clearance to get his team on the ship, he’d have to go himself. He chewed the side of his tongue and straightened his shoulders.

“I’ll be in touch. Whatever you do, don’t slip up.” The words slid through his lips before he could stop them.

A hard glint came into her eyes, sharp and defiant.

Christ. He hadn’t intended it as a jab, or a reference to her previous operation that had blown up in her face.

But maybe right now she needed to be reminded of how quickly things could go south.

His fingers curled into his palm, and his index finger hovered in the air inches away from her nose.

“And keep that damn phone I gave you on your person at all times. If he finds out you have an encrypted phone, the gig is up.”

He reached for the doorknob and paused. “And when it’s safe to do so, call your brother. He’s worried sick.”

The door clicked behind him and he strode down the hall. He kept his chin tucked and weaved through the hall of hotel.

He needed a damn drink.