This time, she waited out his silence.
“I am,” he replied.
His answer didn’t scare her. Now, she knew who she was dealing with. “How many?”
“Seven.”
“Do you work alone?”
“No.”
“How do you find them?”
“Someone at ALPHA feeds me the info.”
Whoa.I wasn’t expecting that.
“The difference between an ALPHA operative and my team is that we don’t bring them in alive. When they meet me, they’re out of options.”
“Do you like killing?”
“No. But I like stopping them from preying on the innocent. I like taking out the guy who’s spent decades stalking women, torturing and raping them before he kills them. When I found the man who’d been slaughtering homosexuals, I liked ending his killing spree.”
She didn’t condone what he was doing, but she admired him that much more because of his conviction. “You’re not afraid of getting caught?”
His confident smile sent heat blasting through her. “No.”
“Thank you for answering my questions.”
“Have your feelings changed now that you know the truth?”
She slipped her hand in his and started walking toward his office. “I’m not sure there’s anything you could tell me that would change the way I feel about you. And that terrifies me most of all.”
He pulled her close and held her in his arms like he owned her… body, mind, and soul. Because he did. His kiss was filled with tenderness. “I’m crazy about you, Providence Reynolds.”
Her heart fluttered wildly. “I like you, so damn much,” she murmured, hardly believing she’d been bold enough to utter those words. “All right, cowboy, time to work.”
After entering his office, she pulled her laptop from her bag, sat at her desk and ran through her checklist, while Dakota pulled out his laptop from the safe. “Let’s start with the convention center’s surveillance cameras the night Matt was killed.” And then, she sighed. “I have a confession.”
“Are you wearing a wire?”
“God, no.” Then, she offered him a playful smile. “Wanna frisk me?”
“Hell, yeah.” He started to get up.
“Sit. We have to work. Do you want my confession or not?”
“Go ahead.”
“As a special agent, I had worked with Warren Hott when he was D.C.’s chief prosecutor. I asked him not to mention that the night he came to the club.”
Dakota paused. “No more secrets.”
“Thank you for being succinct, and I agree. No more secrets.” She logged in to ALPHAnet. “I reviewed some more of your cases while you were an operative. You had to have pissed someone off while you were there.”
“I pissed everyone off.”
She rolled her chair beside his. “Someone’s angry enough to extort you and we’re going to find him.”
