Unless the casino or the FBI needs me to help bust more cheaters, I’m jobless. So that’s fun for me.
Future career ambitions? I have none.
Fired from a casino for stealing isn’t a shiny footnote on a resume. And what if my eventual plea deal involves prison time?
Everyone loves hiring felons. Cosmo says an ankle monitor is the perfect accessory for job interviews.
Eye roll.
If only my woes ended there.
In a roundabout way, I’m homeless or soon will be. Aside from being unable to go home because someone might kill me, I can’t face Kenzie. Hence, I’m potentially friendless.
Jobless, homeless, and friendless. The loser trifecta.
You know what? It isn’t that I can’t face Kenzie. It’s that I don’t want to yet.
I’d much rather stay here with Reed so we can commiserate about her betrayal. I need time to figure out if this was a friendship-destroying act or if I’m capable of the forgiveness needed to salvage it.
My heart tells me I’ll never be able to trust her. And what type of friendship would that be? If she was able to do something so cruel and then lie about it for years, what else is she capable of?
While I’m concerned my codependency has leaped from her to Reed, I can’t find it in me to care much right now. I need to prioritize. Once this mess is behind me, I’m dragging him to therapy. Our love is too important to let our emotional baggage destroy it.
If I didn’t already know how strong and deep my feelings were for Reed, I’d be weirded out by how quickly we’ve fallen into this relationship. SayingI love yourolls off my tongue like the most natural thing in the world. Seems to be the same for him.
Movement beside me distracts me from my existential crisis.
Kri crosses her arms and twists at the waist to face me. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“When I got the call about this assignment, I wasn’t awake enough to question the impetus. I was told the FBI has a witness in need of urgent protection. Pretty straightforward. More details followed to prep me, but I’m still left pondering something.”
I crick my head to the side, encouraging her to continue with my questioning eyes.
“You don’tneedto answer. I’m merely curious why the FBI didn’t send someone to guard you. We’ve done gigs like this in the past, but it’s rare.”
I tell her what I was able to string together. “Reed didn’t trust a random agent to protect me. Apparently, one of the criminals was able to ditch the agent watching him the other night and ended up killing someone.”
She cringes, flashing her teeth. “Sheesh.”
“Reed’s partner plays poker with the owner of your firm. He said he’d trust you all with his family’s lives. Here we are.”
“Ah. That would be Big Al. He’d be proud to see Redleg is so highly regarded.” She narrows her cunning eyes at me. “Are youreallya witness, or is this personal? Don’t get me wrong. It’s fine either way.”
Redleg? Why does that sound familiar?
Ignoring the flag waving in the back of my mind, I answer her honestly. “I’m both. Iama witness in his case. I recently became an official informant. And Reed believes my life is in danger. The people involved are violent criminals.” I shrug, a half smile lifting one cheek. “And it’s personal because we’re a...” I pause, struggling for the label.
“A couple?” She finishes for me, tipping her chin at my left hand. “From what I can tell, the only thing missing from your relationship is a ring.”
A girlie giggle sneaks out of my closed mouth, throwing my chance of becoming Kri’s new bestie into the abyss. She’snotthe giggling type.
“Reed and I haven’t labeled our relationship. We’ve known each other since we were kids. We have acomplicatedromantic past. This case sort of pushed us back together. It’s been a whirlwind.”
She returns her attention to the early morning Tampa sky. “Seems the FBI isn’t all that different from Redleg. Cases have a way of pushing people together in our line of work as well. In fact...” Her grin turns sly for a split second before her stoicism returns.
“Don’t leave me hanging like that,” I prod.
