"This isn't a game.” I’m desperately grasping at my resolve that’s quickly slipping away.
"I never said it was." His voice drops lower. "Games have rules. This doesn't."
This situation is ridiculous.
And it isn’t just Dom’s potent masculinity that has me questioning myself.
It’s his accusations about me and the FBI and the handling of Rocco Monti’s care.
“If this is some attempt to get me to focus on Rocco and off of you?—”
“You think I’m manipulating you here to get you off my back?”
“Aren’t you?” I realize that’s what’s stopping me from throwing myself in his arms—believing he’s using his charm to get something from me.
He laughs. “Walking into an FBI agent’s home isn't the best way to stop an investigation.”
“Then why are you here?”
He shakes his head, his face still filled with humor. “Fuck if I know.” He pauses. “Do I want to know what you’re up to? Of course. I have to protect what’s mine. And the more I’m around you, the more I sense that you’re an intelligent woman who is sincere about doing her job?—”
“I am.”
“So why give Rocco’s kidnapper a pass?”
Back to that. Although I’d rather talk shop than deal with the attraction threatening to lead me down a problematic path.
“You were called directly. By who? Because it wasn’t one of us.”
“It was anonymous.”
“Convenient. Then you found a traumatized six-year-old boy and did nothing. No investigation. No arrests. No justice for a child."
My jaw tightens. I’m angry at him for bringing it up again especially since he’s right.
The memory of finding Rocco, his tear-stained face, his tiny body trembling as I carried him from the house he’d been left alone in.
The way Blackwood intercepted me before I could file my report.
"These things are complicated," I say, embarrassed that I’m defending something that even I’ve had questions about.
"Are they? Or is someone making them complicated?" Dom moves closer, not touching me but close enough that I can feel his presence. "You're a good agent, Olivia. You care about justice. So why didn't you push harder?"
The question hangs between us, damning in its simplicity.
"I wrote a report," I admit. "I was told not to file it since it wasn’t an official investigation." I stare him in the eyes. “There could be questions about my duty and loyalties.”
He frowns. “What does that mean?”
“Like I’m in your pocket…isn’t that how you say it. You think that anonymous call was convenient suggesting someone outside your group called, but that call could have as easily been from someone within it. Someone looking to make me look dirty to compromise my investigation.”
Dom says nothing, but I can see in his eyes he understands what I’m saying.
“There’s no honor among thieves, Dom. Have you considered someone in La Corona took the boy.”
He nods. “Of course. But it wasn’t and I believe you know it. That's why you're still digging through case files after hours with your wine."
I look up sharply then over to my coffee table where all my notes sit. "How did you?—"
