“You should go,” I tell him.
He’s quiet for a while, and then, “I’m not her boyfriend.”
I shovel all my gear into my bag.
“I’m an FBI agent.”
This time, he’s got my fucking attention, and he bloody knows it. Every muscle in my back has gone rigid, and betrayal slices through me all over again.
“It isn’t what you think,” he says.
“Then what the fuck is it?” I scowl. “Every bloody word out of her mouth is a lie.”
“You know why,” he says. “She does it to protect herself.”
“It’s not my concern anymore,” I tell him. “So get to whatever ye came here to say.”
“I fucked up.”
He’s staring at the floor now, and I don’t like the sound of that, even less than I liked him telling me he’s a bleeding fed.
“I was trying to help her. I was trying to do the right thing. But I was also being selfish.”
“Is she in trouble?” I ask, because it’s the only thing that matters at this point.
“She was supposed to testify against Royce Carrington,” he says. “And the others too. But the case fell through.”
“Who the fuck is Royce Carrington?”
He shakes his head.
“One of the five.”
I pull up a chair and sit down across from him.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Because she didn’t want to drag you into it. She knew she was going to be under scrutiny. I told her that if she cared about you, she would need to let you go.”
I look up at him, and there are no secrets between us. He knows what I do. Who I am. And I have a hard time believing that a federal agent- who isn’t on our payroll- would do something like that.
For most of these guys, it’s black and white. We’re the bad guys, and that’s it. For others, money talks. They know who the real criminals are, and often it’s their very own elected officials. Corruption is everywhere if you look close enough.
But this bloke doesn’t fall into any of those categories. He’s obviously been to war, and I suppose maybe he knows that some things aren’t so straightforward.
“There was never anything between us,” he admits. “It was all for show. She wanted you to believe.”
“Well she fucking fooled me, alright.”
Jesus Christ.
My evil little hellraiser. I’m going to punish the ever-loving fuck out of her when I get my hands on her again.
“You should know there’s a bounty on her head,” he says.
“Where is she?”
He reaches down and pulls a file out of the bag he carried in here with him, tossing it into my lap when he stands.
