Wallace’s mustache twitched up at the corner as the video finished. “Good girl,” he said with a soft smile.
I gnashed my teeth at the phrase. It grated on my nerves and put me in my place every time he said it. But I was done. No more putting myself in danger’s way when it so easily crossed paths with death.
“Okay, job’s done. I want out,” I said and folded my arms over my chest. My heart rate had finally recovered, but I could tell by the look on Wallace’s face, it was about to speed up again.
“Out of what?” he asked.
“This!” I cried and flung out my arms. “Being undercover. Being sent into the woods where idiotic kids blow themselves up by trying to make bombs, or shipyards where drug deals go down at gunpoint, or back alleys were people get stabbed and left to bleed out because they can’t pay a gambling debt. I don’t want to do this anymore!”
Wallace finally stood from his chair. He rounded to my side of the table and leaned back against it with his arms folded. “The work you are doing is important.”
“Says the guy who gets to sit behind a desk and boss me around,” I angrily spat. “You’re not the one out here trying not to get shot and running away from barn fires.”
His face softened with the slightest bit of sympathy. I wouldn’t have caught it if I hadn’t been looking at his hardened features for the past half decade. “You’re right, but you know the agreement.”
“Fuck the agreement. I almost died tonight.”
He flinched at my outburst but quickly recovered. “And what do you think is going to happen to you if we stop protecting you? You know this isn’t just about staying out of prison. As long as Olena Nova doesn’t know where that diamond is, you are not safe, remember? She’s going to keep searching for you until it turns up, or until you turn up dead, so she doesn’t have to kill you herself for sending her to prison.”
That Goddamned diamond.I wanted it and hated it in equal measure.Itwas holding me prisoner more than any person. Finding it before anyone else did would solve everything. I’d steal it, sell it, and disappear. Away from the DSA, away from Olena. Poof. Gone.
“Well, where the hell is it?Somethinghad to happen to it that night,” I said. The familiar frustration of mystery boiled up inside me. It had been in my hand that night, and then it was just gone. My best guess was it fell on the floor and someone—not Olena or her henchman—had scooped it up and squirreled it away. A crooked FBI agent, the crime scene forensics team, maybe the hotel staff who cleaned the room after it was all said and done. “Doyouknow where it is?” I asked Wallace. “I mean, you’d tell me if you did, right? So I could get out of this whole situation?”
His dark eyes narrowed for the briefest moment, as if I’d insulted him, before his whole face flattened into his customary scowl. “Of course I don’t know where it is.”
I deflated, although I hadn’t expected him to say yes. A big sigh pushed its way out of my lungs, knowing he was right: I was safer under the DSA’s protection, even if it meant hopping from job to job with a rotating cast of identities.
Wallace sensed my dismay. He clapped me on the back. “How about a little break, hmm? Maybe we put you up in Hawaii for a few days before the next job.”
I grumbled, even though I had to admit it sounded nice. “Make it two weeks and we have a deal.”
CHAPTER20
Present Day
“Sit here and don’t touch anything,” Bray instructed when he led me back to his desk. His actual desk, not the borrowed office he’d first taken me to. His space was tidy and kempt, and the control freak thoughts I’d had when I first met him, and after seeing his apartment, solidified. A potted succulent sat beside a holder full of pens. His keyboard was free of crumbs, and his monitor was shiny and currently asleep. I noted no picture frames or any personal effects, but what was he going to do, pin up a selfie of him and his mom to remind everyone of his status?
“Where are you going?” I asked when he started walking away.
“I have to see to a few things. I’ll be right back.”
He left me alone, swiveling in his surprisingly comfy chair (special treatment?), and staring at his keyboard.
He’d told me not to touch anything, but chances were not zero I could guess his password. Knowing him, it was probablyDSA123or a series of smiley face emoticons. With Bray’s computer sitting right in front of me and the need to know moreabout my own case burning a hole in my sternum, the temptation was too great.
I snapped out a quick hand and hit his enter key.
The screen fizzled to life. Of course a password prompt waited for me. I glanced over my shoulder and made sure no one was looking. Behind me, the aisle leading to offices was empty. Beneath the sound of clacking keyboards and a distant ringing phone, I discreetly typed outDSA123and held my breath.
The password box shook in refusal.
“Damn it,” I muttered, secretly glad Bray wasn’t that foolish, though it would have been to my benefit.
I slid my hands to the keyboard once more and hit a colon and parenthesis to make a smiley face, ready to roll my eyes if I was right, when someone nearby cleared their throat.
“I believe he told you not to touch anything.” A male voice floated over from the other side of Bray’s screen.
I jerked in surprise and leaned sideways to see who had spoken. A young man in a plaid shirt with square glasses, brown skin, and jet-black, wavy hair sat in the opposite cubicle, staring at his computer screen. His eyes flicked over when he saw me.
