Page 70 of Vicious Temptation

Her gaze finally meets mine. “Of course.”

There’s something in the way she says it that makes me wish I could give her a different answer. Reaching across the console, I take her hand, half expecting her to pull away.

She doesn’t.

“I’ll be with you every step of the way,” I tell her.

“I’m fine. It’s not my first time dealing with cops.”

Her other hand remains clenched in her lap, fingers working something inside her palm. I’ve seen her do this before when she’s tense, rubbing whatever she keeps hidden there beneath her thumb over and over.

I still have no idea what it is.

A passing streetlight catches a flash of metal before she closes her fist, concealing it from view.

The truck idles in the condominium parking garage. She didn’t ask me to take her back to the other place like last time. She asked me to bring her home.

After hours of questioning, statements, and enough paperwork to make my head split open, they finally released us. Both our weapons were confiscated pending the investigation, but not before half the department stared at Remi like she was some kind of wild animal sitting calmly among them. A few looked at her a little too long for my liking.

Through all of it, she stayed close to me. Maybe not physically, but whenever someone approached or another question was thrown her way, I could feel her attention shift toward me. She never asked me to stay, but she never tried to push me away either.

Now we’re sitting beneath the building where she actually lives, and I’m beginning to understand what it means.

She’s letting me in.

“Are you hungry?” she asks suddenly.

“I can take you wherever you want to go.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “I mean, do you want to come up? Eat something?”

My grip tightens on the steering wheel before I realize I’m doing it. “I’d like that.”

The elevator to the penthouse requires biometric access, similar to the hidden garage at the warehouse. Remi stands beside me as the scanner reads her fingerprint, close enough that our arms nearly touch.

And I like having her there.

“Are you sure you’ll be safe here?” I ask. “Fingerprint scan or not, everything has a loophole, and we still don’t know who’s targeting you or why.”

“This place was purchased under an alias,” she says casually. “There’s no record of me owning any of my properties.”

“Properties?”

Her eyes find mine, and for the first time since the tattoo shop, a smirk tugs at her lips.

“Yeah. I’m a trust fund baby, Officer Braga. What can I say?”

The reminder of her family’s wealth brings everything I know about them rushing back. Money like theirs comes with a history steeped in blood.

It’s easy to forget that when I’m standing inches away from her.

Another biometric pad grants us access to a second door, this one thicker and built to withstand far more than an attempted break-in. I study the steel frame and reinforced locks, wondering how much protection is hidden behind the walls.

I can feel her watching me, probably waiting for the questions to start, but I keep them to myself. I’ve gotten this far with her, and the last thing I want is to make her feel that bringing me here was a mistake.

Besides, after what happened tonight, I’m relieved to know that getting to her here wouldn’t be easy. Then the irony of that thought sinks in. She has multiple layers of security designed to keep threats out, yet she just invited one upstairs without realizing it.

The difference now is that I hate being that.