“You’ve been alone for a while,” his handler continued.“And we men have needs.”
Rolling his eyes, Fink groaned.This wasn’t going anywhere pleasant.
“Whatever your plan is, whether it be popping in on her for a good roll in the hay or dragging her around the country with you, I’m warning you.You’re in for a goddamn mess.”
Probably.
“Guys like you, people who are employed in the way you are, they don’t…” AJ paused, seeming to rethink or reword what he wanted to say.
Whatever his handler shared wouldn’t be anything Fink hadn’t already thought himself.
“It’s more complicated than that.You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
Fink always despised that adage.It never made sense to him.“What’s the point of cake if you aren’t going to eat it?”
“I don’t know, man.”AJ groaned with slight irritation in his tone.“It’s a proverb.You understand what it means.”
“I do, but I don’t agree with it,” Fink admitted.“This is more than just fucking.”
“Is it?”AJ sounded intrigued.
“She’s got potential.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She assisted with Burke,” Fink admitted.
“Oh.”There was a lot of weight in that one syllable.Clearly, AJ wasn’t prepared for that piece of information.
Time to come clean.“She would like to learn.”
“What?”
“She wants in on the business.”
“Are you vouching for her?”AJ scoffed.“You met her a week ago.That must be some fucking stellar snatch.”
Fink’s eye twitched.Annoyance burned in his chest.He didn’t like AJ talking like that about Sydney.Banging her was as close to nirvana as Fink would ever get, but that wasn’t the point.There was more to their situationship than that.
She was a bubbly enigma that intrigued him.There was a delicate balance of brightness, damage, and darkness within her.Her zest for life and killing inspired him.He couldn’t get enough of being around her.He couldn’t give that up or explain it.So, he wouldn’t even try.AJ wouldn’t understand.
“I have to think about it.”AJ sighed.
Fink nodded, grateful that his longtime friend wasn’t pushing back on this.“Keep an eye on the Grant case.”
“Why?”AJ’s tone reflected his concern.
“I want to make sure she doesn’t get hung up on it.”Though that wasn’t entirely the story.“If things get too hot, she gets subpoenaed or anything, we have to make sure she gets a good lawyer.”
“I don’t do messy,” AJ warned.
“Me neither,” Fink said as he glanced down at the biggest mess of his existence slumbering peacefully in his lap.Maybe messy wasn’t so bad after all.
“This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.”
It most certainly was.
“It won’t be,” Fink declared.
