“I see.” His dad sat back in his chair and regarded them thoughtfully. “So you two go around stealing stuff for the federal government, is that it?”
“Joseph, stop fishing,” his mom said. “You’ve gotten everything you need to hear.”
“Oh, for crying out loud, Janice. I’m just asking a simple question.”
His mother stabbed him with a stern look.
“Fine,” his father grumbled. “Make sure my burger is well done. You know I hate when the inside is raw.”
“And?” his mom said softly.
His dad smiled at Dreya. “Welcome to the family, Dreya.”
“And?” his mom prompted again, pausing to look at her husband for a moment as she took the last burger off the grill.
He sighed. “And I’ll put another quarter in the jar.”
“Thank you, dear.” His mother picked up the tray of burgers and brought them over to the table with a smile. “Who’s ready to eat?”
* * *
Dreya lay beside Braden in his big bed Sunday night, her head on his shoulder, her human nails tracing the light scratches that her shifter claws had made during their most recent round of lovemaking. Almost as if her fingers had a mind of their own, they slowly moved onto the real scars, caressing the straight slice on the right side of his rib cage before moving to the almost star-shaped pattern on his right shoulder. She didn’t know much about these kinds of things, but something told her the scar had been made by a bullet. It pained her to think of someone shooting him, and she felt her claws start to extend as the urge to hurt someone reared up out of nowhere.
“How did this happen?” she asked softly, running her fingertips over the scar on his shoulder again.
“It happened in the same shoot-out where Tommy got killed. It was a long time ago,” he said just as softly. Beneath her ear, his heart thumped with a steady rhythm. “When I was younger—and dumber. You don’t have to worry about something like that happening again.”
She smiled, adoring the fact that his first instinct was to say something to make her not worry. It was such a guy thing to do.
“I know,” she told him. “But it happened to you, and therefore, it’s important to me. I want to learn everything I can about you so I can be a good partner.”
He chuckled, the sound a deep rumble in her ear. “You’re already a good partner.”
She waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. Instead, he simply glided his fingers up and down her bare arm. That was okay. If it was something he couldn’t share right now, she wouldn’t pry. They might be partners—in more ways than one—but they were still new at this whole thing.
Beneath her ear, his heart sped up a little. “I was a brand-new detective level II and naive as shit. I thought I was going to save the world—or DC at least. I didn’t know it for sure, though, until I got partnered up with the best detective in the burglary section. Hell, he was probably the best detective in the whole MPD.”
Braden paused as if collecting his thoughts, and Dreya didn’t push.
“Tommy was amazing, the most instinctive cop I’ve ever worked with. He just knew when people were lying to him. It was like he had this sixth sense about it. I swear he could smell people breaking the law.” Braden’s mouth edged up. “He took down so many bad guys—a lot of times on his own—that he was pretty much a legend in the department. He had so many commendations and had been wounded in the line of duty so many times, it was like he was the real-life police officer, and all the rest of us were kids playing a game of cops and robbers.”
Another pause, followed by another slight increase in heartbeat.
“But Tommy hated playing by the rules. He couldn’t stand what he called do-nothing cops—guys who used the rules to justify not getting their jobs done. And I have to admit, for a brand-new detective like me, it was one hell of a rush getting to work with a partner like that.”
Braden took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “There was a burglary ring working the city then, nasty guys who didn’t have a problem hitting the homes when the owners were still in them. They’d already made off with over a half million in cash, jewelry, and small art pieces—all stuff that was easy to move—but the bigger problem was the violence. They seemed to be developing a taste for it.”
Dreya grimaced. She’d met thieves like that. The ones who started in a dark place and only got worse, the more they let themselves go. She’d never worked with any of them, even though many had tried to strong-arm her into pulling jobs with them. But she didn’t get strong-armed easily.
“Tommy’s informant—the piece of crap I told you about—claimed to know who was on the crew and where they were hiding the crap they’d bagged. Tommy decided we were going to take them down on our own.”
She cringed. That didn’t sound like a very good idea to her, and she wasn’t even a cop. “How many of them were there?”
“There were supposed to be three, but it turned out there were five.” Braden folded his free arm beneath his head. “It went bad almost the moment Tommy and I walked in. The two guys we didn’t know were there walked out of a back room and just started shooting.”
His heartbeat spiked, his chest rising and falling faster. “It all happened in a blur. One second, we were taking down the bad guys, and the next, Tommy was lying in my arms, bleeding out from five hits to the chest. Doctors told me later the mean son of a bitch should have died instantly, but instead, he hung on long enough to finish the fight, then tell me not to be scared with his dying breath.”
Tears filled Dreya’s eyes. She’d never even met Tommy, and yet, she wanted to cry for the man simply because he’d been someone important to Braden.
