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7

WEST

Finally, a little after dawn the next morning, my phone rang. I snatched it up, already dressed and sweaty from pounding out my frustration on the treadmill. A hollow pit formed inside me when I saw the number was private rather than Joanna’s.

“Hello?” I answered, raising it to my ear.

“Conti, what the hell is so urgent that you were blowing up my phone all night? I was overseeing an op, damn it.”

I grimaced. “Adam.”

My handler was good at his job but shit with people. I supposed that was why he usually had a supervisory role rather than being hands-on, trying to build relationships in the field.

“Joanna knows the truth.”

He fell silent. “How much of it?”

His tone had taken on a dangerous edge.

“Enough to be furious. She knows my real name. She knows about our undercover operation—at least in part. I don’t know whether she has specific details, but I doubt it.”

He groaned. “For God’s sake, Conti. I ordered you not to tell her anything. I know you think she’s beyond reproach, but it’s too high of a risk to read her in.”

“I… didn’t.”

I winced as Adam released a string of curses.

“Then how does she know?” he demanded. “The last time I saw her, she was completely smitten with you. She’d have believed anything you said.”

I felt a pang of guilt at his words. I hated that he viewed her the way everyone else on the team did: as a tool to use rather than the woman I loved. Joanna may have been smitten with me when Adam last saw her, but I was equally smitten. It was a shame she’d never believe me now that she’d discovered my true identity.

“She saw me with Portia at the coffee shop near Sasha Sloane’s apartment building. I didn’t realize they’d be the ones called to the scene. Neal almost always takes the cases in that area, but he called in sick.”

Adam muttered under his breath. “So, what? She saw you with Portia and immediately went, ‘This man is clearly an undercover agent using me to infiltrate the Chicago PD and rid it of any cops who accept mob payouts’?”

I strode to the window and mopped my hair off my sweaty forehead. “No, but it made her suspicious. I was supposed to be at work. My best guess is that she used one of her contacts at King’s Security to dig into my background. They employ several former hackers who could have found my real employment records.”

“Fuck. It gets worse.” Adam was beginning to sound pissed. “We have no idea how many people know about the op now. We can assume at least two. Joanna and whomever she spoke to at King’s Security. It’s possible there were more, if her contact pawned the job off onto someone else or needed help getting past our firewalls.”

I didn’t add the fact that I had no doubt Joanna had confessed everything to Hallie. Joanna would have asked her to keep her mouth shut, and she’d do it. That is if Hallie wasn’t the one who’d gotten the intel in the first place.

“Okay.” Adam exhaled roughly. “Damage control. First, we need to find out exactly who she talked to about your real identity. Then, we need to track them down and make sure they don’t talk to anyone else. We can’t have wagging tongues or else months of work will go up in flames.”

“I’ll make a few calls.” First, I’d try Joanna, and then Hallie, but there was every chance that both women would ignore me as they had last night. If that failed, I’d have to cast a wider net and hope I didn’t add more complications rather than resolving existing ones.

“Do that as soon as you get off this call. I want answers by noon. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.” Prick. He was acting like I’d done this intentionally.

Adam was quiet for so long, I began to wonder if he’d hung up, but then he asked, “Just how angry do you think she is? You know what they say about a woman scorned. Do I need to pull you off this operation?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “No. There’s no need for that. I doubt she’ll blow my cover. Her sense of justice outweighs everything else. She’ll see that it’s for the greater good to go along with us.”

But fuck, I hated relying on that. She shouldn’t have to face me when she was obviously hurting. She should be allowed to do what it took to protect herself, and the thought that being forced to deal with me might cause her pain made me want to stab something.

Still, a selfish part of me was grateful for it too. Because of her over-inflated sense of right and wrong, she’d be stuck with me for long enough that, perhaps, I’d be able to persuade her to give me a second chance.

“It’s a good thing we’re certain she’s clean,” Adam mused. “Do you think she still cares for you now that she knows you’ve been using her?”

I flinched. I wanted to protest his phrasing, but I couldn’t. I had been using her, even if it was for a worthwhile cause.

Is anything worth bruising her sensitive heart?

“I hope so.” I didn’t deserve it, but I wanted her forgiveness so badly.

“Conti…”

“What?” I snapped.

“You haven’t gone and caught real feelings for this woman, have you?” He asked the question with more tact than I’d have expected.

“I couldn’t help it,” I admitted.

“Fuck me.” He muttered something again. “Keeping an emotional distance is the first rule of undercover work.”

I rolled my eyes, annoyed by his self-righteousness. “Yeah, well, you try resisting a beautiful woman with a heart of fucking gold and a moral compass that always points due north.”

Adam sighed. “You know, that really isn’t my type. I prefer the crazy ones who aren’t afraid to break a few rules. That said, do you think it would help win her over if you tell her about your father? Maybe you’ll get sympathy points?”

“Maybe.”

I didn’t want sympathy points. Nor did I want to manipulate Joanna any more than I already had. I recognized that I might have to though. I’d never hesitated to do my job before, whatever it took, but I’d never met anyone like Joanna Lee either.

“If you need to, you have my permission. Do you know where she is now?” Adam asked.

“Her friend’s place. Don’t worry. The friend won’t be an issue.”

“She’d better not. But if the worst comes to the worst and your pretend wife blows your cover, we’d better decide what we’re going to do.”

“I really don’t think she will.” Joanna might not want to see me or speak to me again—and I wanted to scream even considering that possibility—but she wouldn’t do something so pointless and petty.

“If she does, you need to get out of there,” Adam said. “Take the identifying documents for one of your older aliases and pass over the border into Canada. We have a safe house in Toronto you can use to lie low until we’re sure you’re safe to return. The dirty cops will be after blood if they find out about you.”

I nodded. I already had the GPS coordinates for the safe house programmed into my phone—the untraceable one. “What about if she kicks me out but doesn’t blow the case?”

Adam was quiet for a moment. “We can probably salvage that, but we’ll have to take another angle. We can play the spurned ex card. Haven’t you told me there are plenty of cops who aren’t fond of her? Perhaps you could use the supposed separation as fuel to bond with them.”

My stomach soured. The cops who didn’t like Joanna were, for the most part, bigoted and misogynistic assholes who were threatened by a biracial female detective who refused to tolerate being called “sweetheart” and asked to fetch coffee.

“I will if it comes to it.” The last thing I wanted to do was compound my betrayal of her by befriending those that were stains on the police force, but Adam was right that I had to make the best of the situation.

“Good. I’m going to make some calls. Let me know as soon as you hear from her. ”

“I will.”

Adam hung up.

I tossed the phone aside and headed for the shower. When I was finished, I sat on the sofa with my laptop on my lap and opened the tab showing Joanna’s call history. I’d had a tap on her phone since we’d first met, and it would be useful now to narrow down who had blabbed to her about my true identity.

I scrolled through the call log, pausing when I got to a number she didn’t call often. The number would display as private during a call, but thanks to my tracking technology, I could see exactly who it belonged to.

Goddamn Ezekiel Watts.

According to the call log, Zeke and Joanna had spoken for several minutes, and it hadn’t been long afterward that she’d arrived home and confronted me.So, yeah. I think it was safe to say that Zeke was the reason I’d woken without my wife in my arms.

But what had made him decide to investigate me? Had it been a whim, or had Joanna reached out to him after she’d seen me with Portia because she thought I was cheating on her?

I scrolled farther back in the call log, grimacing when I saw that Joanna had called him first. She must have asked for help. At least the fact she’d gone to him directly meant I might only have to warn one person off, and Zeke understood the importance of secrets. I just had to cross my fingers he’d done the investigative work himself.

I grabbed my cover phone and dialed Zeke’s number. It rang out. The second time I called, he answered just as I was about to give up.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

Great. He sounded about as thrilled to speak to me as I was to speak to him.

“Can we meet?” I asked. “There’s something we need to discuss.”

“Be at the lakefront in an hour.” He didn’t waste time asking questions. “I’ll find you there.”

I ended the call.

An hour later, I was standing on the Lakefront Trail when Zeke sauntered toward me, clad in a leather jacket and black jeans, heavy rings adorning his fingers. I nodded to him in greeting. He didn’t respond. When he was only a few feet away from me, he drew his fist back and struck out at me so quickly, I didn’t have a chance to shield myself.

His knuckles smashed into my cheekbone, and I reeled backward, the metallic tang of blood in my mouth. I must have bitten my tongue. I raised my hand to my cheek, feeling a split where one of his rings had cut the skin, and I stared at him, hardly able to believe what he’d done.

“What the fuck?” I breathed, my cheek throbbing. My eyelid was already becoming puffy. I brushed my fingers over it. I had no doubt it would be swollen shut before long—nor that I’d be rocking a killer black eye.

So much for staying under the radar.

Zeke wiped his knuckles on his shirt and glanced around, probably to check whether we’d garnered any attention. We hadn’t. It was cold enough that few people were out, and those that were, weren’t lingering for long enough to notice our altercation.

“That’s for breaking Jo’s heart,” he growled, adjusting his stance so he’d be ready to take me on if I fought back. “Usually, my revenge would be more subtle. I’d tamper with your credit score or fake a BOLO. But considering that you’re deep undercover and I don’t want to mess with that, I have to settle for a punch.”

His words hurt more than the punch ever could have.

“I broke her heart?” I knew she’d been upset. No doubt she felt foolish and betrayed, but the thought of breaking her that way… I could hardly stomach it.

Zeke’s lip curled and he looked at me as if I was stupid. “You pretended to be someone you weren’t in order to make her fall in love with you. What the hell did you expect to happen?”

I didn’t have an answer for that.

Zeke lifted his hand to ward off anything I might say. “If you’re here in a mistaken attempt to intimidate me into keeping silent, there’s no need. I’ve been undercover before. I know the drill.”

Relief filtered through me. “Thank you. Does anyone else know?”

“From me?” He shook his head. “Only Jo.”

The relief deepened.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” he added, obviously on a roll. “Taking advantage of someone as idealistic as her. Low move.”

I hung my head. “Trust me, I know. It was our best path to getting in with someone relatively senior on the force though.”

“And now?” His tone was taut. “Do you regret it?”

I considered my words carefully. “I deeply regret that she was hurt. But if I could go back in time, I’d do it all over again. Because Joanna wasn’t the only one to fall in love.”

Zeke snorted. “Good luck convincing her of that.”