Page 49 of Mending Fate

Hob and Mai had already been in bed by the time I got home, so I didn’t see them until I joined them in the kitchen. The scene looked like any other Saturday morning where Hob was making breakfast for all three of us, but the atmosphere was far from normal.

I had to say something.

“You guys can still bow out. I have Alec and two of his brothers. The four of us can handle things.”

Mai glared at me. “Hell no.”

“She’s right.” Hob pointed a spatula at me. “You aren’t going in there alone. It’s not safe.”

“You need me in there with you,” Mai continued. “What if he tries something?”

I was tempted to remind her that she wasn’t the most physically intimidating person, but I couldn’t quite muster the light-hearted tone the comment needed to come across right. As much as I’d been trying to portray optimism and a steadfast belief in our plan, my nerves were stretched to the breaking point. We would succeed because I refuse to let myself consider anything else…no matter how often my brain had wanted to turn that way the past few days.

Any time my thoughts started down a dark path, I remembered what Soleil looked like when I’d found her in the hall and then again when I’d seen her after her suicide attempt. That was always enough to bolster my determination. It also kept me focused on how serious this was, and now that it was time to put things in motion, I was feeling the pressure.

“This is going to work.” Mai put her hand on mine. “We can do this.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. One way or another, things were going to change today.

* * *

I hadto admit that I’d been a little surprised that Lihua had agreed to let us use Real Life Bodywork to trap a rapist cop. Not because I thought she didn’t care about that sort of thing, but because she had always been extremely avid about making sure no one even so much as thought of the business in the same sentence as sex. But when Mai and I had explained what had happened to Soleil, Lihua had simply said that she would help in any way she could.

While it’d been tempting to play up the ‘schoolgirl’ angle, we had to think about how it would play to a jury. Plain shorts and t-shirts gave us an innocent look that made us both appear younger without us having to worry about provoking jurors. We did our hair in pigtails – mine braided – and did the sort of makeup that young teenage girls did when they wanted to look older.

Neither she nor I could’ve passed for fourteen, but the costumes and lighting did help us look younger. Our mannerisms would do the rest. Besides, if Clyde thought he was coming in for a ‘freespecialmassage’ being offered to select members of law enforcement, his mind would fill in things to fit those expectations.

At least it would long enough for us to get what we needed from him.

I hoped.

“Please tell me that you feel as nauseous as I do,” Mai said as we double-checked the camera placement in the room we were using. “I mean, I’m all for a little roleplaying in the bedroom, but this…” She wrinkled her nose, looking pale.

“Is sick, I know,” I said quietly. “I don’t know how undercover cops do it.”

“Sight and sound are good on our end.” Eoin’s voice came through loud and clear on the coms in Mai and my ears. “If either of you want out, now’s the time to say it. We can still cancel.”

“Not a chance.” My voice was firm. “I want this bastard behind bars.”

“What she said,” Mai added.

“Do you both remember your signal word if you’re in trouble?” Alec was trying to sound as at ease as his brother, but I could hear the tense undercurrent.

“Scream ‘we’re in trouble?’” Mai joked.

“Mai.” Hob’s voice was gentle. He knew, like I did, that this was how Mai dealt with stress.

“Sorry.” She took a deep breath. “It’sheat.”

“As in ‘should I turn up the heat in here?’” I added. “We both remember.”

“Good,” Eoin said. “Brody, we haven’t heard from you yet. Check your coms.”

“Loud and clear.” Brody’s voice came through my earpiece. “Before we really get started, little brother, I’d love to know when you learned how to do all this surveillance shit. I thought you were a grunt, not a spy.”

“When I was stationed stateside after my first tour, a couple intelligence guys came in for a couple days. I kept in touch with one of them, and I reached out when Lumen told me what she wanted to do. Cain knows his shit.”

“And I’m glad he does,” I said, feeling the knot in my stomach loosening a bit with this new knowledge.