Secret Agent Surrender
Elizabeth Heiter
This undercover agent can't disguise his true desire! DEA agent Marcos Costa is undercover and ready to bring down a drug kingpin inside his own mansion – until he runs into Brenna Hartwell, his very first love. He doesn't know she's a detective on a case and their reunion will be short-lived if their cover is blown.
This undercover agent can’t disguise his true desire!
Undercover DEA agent Marcos Costa is shocked to see Brenna Hartwell—his very first crush—cozying up to the brutal drug lord he’s about to bust! He hasn’t seen her since childhood, but he never imagined she’d turn to a life of crime. What the hunky agent doesn’t know is that Brenna’s working her own bust as a rookie cop undercover.
Brenna didn’t think she’d ever see Marcos again, especially not on her first undercover mission! She knows she has to keep her distance…but while she and Marcos play out their daring ruse, their youthful passion reignites. One wrong move could blow their covers. Can two loners used to self-reliance trust their lives—and hearts—to each other?
The Lawmen: Bullets and Brawn
“So you think you’re safe? Or do we need to run now?”
She gaped at him. “We?” She shook her head. “Even if I’m compromised, you didn’t vouch for me. Whatever happens to me, I won’t betray your cover. This is about me.”
“No, it’s not. We’re a team now, you and me.”
The idea flooded her with warmth, made her feel more secure and more afraid at the same time.
If this was just about her, she wouldn’t hesitate. It was worth the risk.
But it was no longer just about her. “I don’t think he’s going to say anything, but I can’t be positive.”
Marcos nodded, stepping a little closer. “Nothing in life is a guarantee, especially in undercover work.”
Her pulse picked up again at his nearness, her body wanting to lean into him. “What do you think we should do?”
“If you don’t think you’re compromised, we stay.”
If she stayed here much longer, she was definitely going to be compromised, but in a completely different way.
Secret Agent Surrender
Elizabeth Heiter
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ELIZABETH HEITER likes her suspense to feature strong heroines, chilling villains, psychological twists and a little romance. Her research has taken her into the minds of serial killers, through murder investigations and onto the FBI Academy’s shooting range. Elizabeth graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in English literature. She’s a member of International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America. Visit Elizabeth at www.elizabethheiter.com (http://www.elizabethheiter.com).
For Andrew—I couldn’t have imagined a
better real-life hero.
I love you!
Contents
Cover (#u981c58ad-4097-56ca-a0a7-e0ac6822781a)
Back Cover Text (#ue30ef58b-c804-5d57-adc7-2745ed4409fd)
Introduction (#u85c6735b-a159-56d5-b764-6a023613c7e7)
Title Page (#u1cce99f2-55b0-569f-9bac-25aeb6a05f12)
About the Author (#u50bd1662-a823-54e8-ae36-fee87a3944ad)
Dedication (#u2f41799e-d968-5fc9-9e97-690de19bf16e)
Chapter One (#uaea6afc5-5065-5c40-b449-4349be3e90f8)
Chapter Two (#u4a0f6c17-353b-5cb8-af29-5ae4ab09ff11)
Chapter Three (#u1692d02b-0d6d-58c9-ba65-6405c16ab108)
Chapter Four (#u4203d231-38f2-511c-bbcc-41bdbae916f4)
Chapter Five (#u967a535e-399b-58b5-8b3e-3ce192c8626a)
Chapter Six (#ue2e864ee-e109-558c-bca9-3ee8d172e59a)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#uaaef5620-3af9-5b56-b4e3-b0fc4176c1de)
“This is a bad idea,” Marcos Costa muttered as he drove the flashy convertible the DEA had provided him into the middle of Nowhere, Maryland. Or rather, up into the middle of nowhere. He could actually feel the altitude change as he revved the convertible up this unpaved road into the Appalachian Mountains.
“It was your idea,” his partner’s voice returned over the open cell-phone line.
“Doesn’t make it a good one,” Marcos joked. The truth was, it was a brilliant idea. So long as he lived through it.
The DEA had been trying to get an in with Carlton Wayne White for years, but the man was paranoid and slippery. Until now, they hadn’t even had an address for him.
That was, assuming the address Marcos was heading to now actually did turn out to be Carlton’s mansion and not an old coal mine where a drug lord could bury the body of an undercover agent whose cover was blown. Namely, his.
“According to the GPS, I’m close,” Marcos told his partner. “I’m going to hide the phone now. I’m only going to contact you on this again if I run into trouble.”
“Be careful.”
“Will do.” Marcos cut the call, hoping he sounded confident. Usually, he loved the thrill of an undercover meet. But this wasn’t their usual buy-bust situation, where he’d show up, flash a roll of money, then plan the meet to get the drugs and instead of doing a trade, pull his badge and his weapon. Today, he’d been invited into the home of a major heroin dealer. And if everything went like it was supposed to, he’d spend the entire weekend there, being wined and dined by Carlton.
Because right now, he wasn’t Marcos Costa, a rising star in the DEA’s ranks. He was Marco Costrales, major player in the drug world. Or, at least, aspiring major player in the drug world, with the kind of money that could buy a front-row seat in the game.
Pulling over, Marcos slid the car into Park and popped open a hidden compartment underneath the passenger seat. Ironically, the car had originally belonged to a dealer down in Florida, and the compartment had been used to hide drugs. Today, Marcos turned off his cell phone to save the battery and slipped it in there, hoping he wouldn’t need it again until he was safely out of the Appalachians.
This was way outside normal DEA protocol, but Carlton Wayne White was a big catch, and Marcos’s partner was a fifteen-year veteran with a reputation as a maverick who had some major pull. Somehow, he’d convinced their superiors to let them run the kind of op the agency hadn’t approved in decades. And the truth was, this was the sort of case Marcos had dreamed about when he’d joined the DEA.
“Let’s do this,” Marcos muttered, then started the car again. The dense foliage cleared for a minute, giving him an unobstructed view over the edge of the mountain. His breath caught at its beauty. He could see for miles, over peaks and valleys, the setting sun casting a pink-and-orange glow over everything. Carlton Wayne White didn’t deserve this kind of view.
Then it was gone again, and Marcos was surrounded by trees. The GPS told him to turn and he almost missed it, spotting a narrow dirt trail at the last second. He swung the wheel right, giving the convertible a little gas as the trail got steeper. It seemed to go on forever, until all of a sudden it leveled out, and there in front of him was an enormous modern home surrounded by an ugly, electrified fence.
Most of the people who lived up here were in that transitional spot between extreme poverty and being able to eke out a living to support themselves. They had a reputation for abhorring outsiders, but rumor had it that Carlton had spread a little cash around to earn loyalty. And from the way the DEA had been stonewalled at every attempt to get information on him, it seemed to have worked.
Marcos pulled up to the gate, rolled down his window and pressed the button on the intercom stationed there. He’d passed a major test to even be given this address, which told him that his instincts about the source he’d been cultivating for months had been worth every minute. “Hey, it’s Marco. Here to see Carlton. He’s expecting me.”
He played it like the wealthy, aspiring drug dealer they expected him to be, entitled and a little arrogant. His cover story was that he came from major family money—old organized crime money—and he was looking to branch out on his own. It was the sort of connection they all hoped Carlton would jump on.
There was no response over the intercom, but almost instantly the gates slid open, and Marcos drove inside. He watched them close behind him and tried to shake off the foreboding that washed over him. The sudden feeling that he was never going to drive out again.
Given the size of his operation, the DEA knew far too little about how Carlton worked, but they did know one thing. The man was a killer. He’d been brought up on charges for it more than once, but each time, the witnesses mysteriously disappeared before he could go to trial.
“You’ve got this,” Marcos told himself as he pulled to a stop and climbed out of the convertible.
He was met by his unwitting source, Jesse White. The man was Carlton’s nephew. Jesse’s parents had died when he was seventeen and Carlton had taken him in, provided him with a home and pulled him right into the family business. Unlike Carlton, Jesse had a conscience. But he was desperate to prove himself to the uncle who’d given him a home when no one else would. Marcos had spotted it when he’d been poring over documents on all the known players. He’d purposely run into Jesse at a pool bar and slowly built that friendship until he could make his approach.
“Hey, man,” Jesse greeted him now. The twenty-four-year-old shifted his weight back and forth, his hands twitching. He was tall and thin, and usually composed. Today, he looked ready to jump at the slightest noise.
Please don’t get cold feet, Marcos willed him. Jesse didn’t know Marcos’s true identity, but that didn’t matter. If things went bad and his uncle found out Jesse had brought an undercover agent to his house, being a blood relative wouldn’t save the kid.
Marcos tried not to feel guilty about the fact that when this was all over, if things went his way, Jesse would be going to jail, too. Because Marcos also saw something in Jesse that reminded him of himself. He knew what it was like to have no one in the world to rely on, and he knew exactly how powerful the loyalty could be when someone filled that void. In Jesse’s case, the person who’d filled it happened to be a deadly criminal.
Marcos had gotten lucky. After spending his entire life in foster care, being shipped from one home to the next and never feeling like he belonged, he’d finally hit the jackpot. In one of those foster homes, he’d met two boys who’d become his chosen brothers. He wasn’t sure where he would have wound up without them, but he knew his path could have ended up like Jesse’s.
Shaking off the memory, Marcos replied, “How’s it going?” He gave Jesse their standard greeting—clasped hands, chest bump.
“Good, good,” Jesse said, his gaze darting everywhere. “Come on in and meet my uncle.”
For a second, Marcos’s instinct was to turn and run, but he ignored it and followed Jesse into the mansion. They walked through a long entryway filled with marble and crystal, where they were greeted by a pair of muscle-bound men wearing all-black cargo pants and T-shirts, with illegally modified AK-47s slung over their backs.
One of them frisked Marcos, holding up the pistol he’d tucked in his waistband with a raised eyebrow.
“Hey, man, I don’t go anywhere without it,” Marcos said. A real aspiring dealer with mob connections wouldn’t come to this meet without a weapon.
The man nodded, like he’d expected it, and shoved the weapon into his own waistband. “You’ll get it back when you leave.”
Marcos scowled, acting like he was going to argue, then shrugged as if he’d decided to let it go. The reality was that so far, things were going as expected. Still, he felt tense and uneasy.
Then Jesse led him down a maze of hallways probably meant to confuse anyone who didn’t know the place well. Finally, the hallway opened into a wide room with a soaring ceiling, filled with modern furniture, artwork and antiques, some of which Marcos could tell with a brief glance had been illegally obtained.
From the opposite hallway, a man Marcos recognized from his case files appeared. Carlton Wayne White was massive, at nearly six-and-a-half-feet tall, with the build of a wrestler. His style was flamboyant, and today he wore an all-white suit, his white-blond hair touching his shoulders. But Marcos knew not to let Carlton’s quirks distract him from the fact that the drug dealer was savvy and had a bad temper.
“Marco Costrales,” Carlton greeted him, appraising him for a drawn-out moment before he crossed the distance between them and shook Marcos’s hand.
Marcos wasn’t small—he was five-nine—and made regular use of his gym membership, because he needed to be able to throw armed criminals to the ground and hold them down while he cuffed them. But this guy’s gigantic paw made Marcos feel like a child.
“Welcome,” Carlton said, his voice a low baritone. “My nephew tells me you’re in the market for a business arrangement.”
“That’s right. I’m looking—”
“No business yet,” Carlton cut him off. “This weekend, we get to know one another. Make sure we’re on the same page. Things go well, and I’ll set you up. Things go poorly?” He shrugged, dropping into a chair and draping his beefy arms over the edges. “You’ll never do business again.”
He gave a toothy smile, then gestured for Marcos to sit.
That same foreboding rushed over Marcos, stronger this time, like a tidal wave he could never fight. He could only pray the current wouldn’t pull him under. He tried to keep his face impassive as he settled onto the couch.
Then Carlton snapped his fingers, and three things happened simultaneously. Jesse sat gingerly on the other side of the couch, a tuxedo-clad man appeared with a tray bearing flutes of champagne and a woman strode into the room from the same direction Marcos had come.
Marcos turned to look at the woman, and he stopped breathing. He actually had to remind himself to start again as he stared at her.
She was petite, probably five-four, with a stylish shoulder-length bob and a killer red dress. She had golden brown skin and dark brown eyes that seemed to stare right inside a man, to his deepest secrets. And this particular woman knew his deepest secret. Because even though it wasn’t possible—it couldn’t be—he knew her.
“Meet Brenna Hartwell,” Carlton said, his voice bemused. “I can see you’re already smitten, Marco, but don’t get too attached. Brenna is off-limits.”
It was her. Marcos flashed back eighteen years. He’d been twelve when Brenna Hartwell had come to the foster home where he’d lived for five years. The moment he’d seen her, he’d had a similar reaction: a sudden certainty that his life would never be the same. His very first crush. And it had been intense.
Too bad a few months later she’d set their house on fire, destroying it and separating him from the only brothers he’d ever known.
After all these years, he couldn’t believe he’d recognized her so instantly. He prayed that she wouldn’t recognize him, but as her eyes widened, he knew she had.
“Marcos?” she breathed.
And his worst nightmare came true. His cover was blown.
Chapter Two (#uaaef5620-3af9-5b56-b4e3-b0fc4176c1de)
Marcos Costa.
Brenna couldn’t stop herself from staring. Fact was, she might have been drooling a little.
What were the chances? She hadn’t seen him since she was eleven years old, a few short months after her whole world had been destroyed and she’d found herself dropped into a foster home. She’d still been reeling from her mother’s death, still been physically recovering herself from the car crash that had taken her only family away from her. She’d walked into that foster home, terrified and broken and alone. And the first person she’d seen had been Marcos.
Back then, he’d been twelve, kind of scrawny, with dimples that dominated his face. Even through her devastation, she’d been drawn to him. To this day, she couldn’t say quite what it was, except that she’d felt like her soul had recognized him. It sounded corny, even in her own head, but it was the best she’d ever been able to understand it.
Now, there was nothing scrawny about him. Next to Carlton, sure, anyone looked smaller, but this grown-up version of Marcos was probably average height. It was hard to tell with him sitting, but one thing she could see quite well was that he’d filled out. Arms that had once resembled twigs were now sculpted muscle, easily visible through his polo shirt.
And the dimples? They were still there, like the cherry on top of an ice-cream sundae. The man looked like a movie star, with his full, dark head of hair and blue-gray eyes that popped against his pale skin. And just like when she’d been eleven, she couldn’t stop staring into those eyes, feeling like she could happily keep doing it for hours.
“You two know each other?”
Brenna snapped out of her daze, realizing Carlton was glancing between them suspiciously as Marcos told her, “Marc-OH. My name is Marco.”
“Marco,” she repeated dumbly, still wondering what in the world he was doing here. Of all the ways she’d imagined running into him again, in the middle of the mountains at a drug lord’s lair certainly wasn’t one of them.
And if she didn’t get her act together fast, she was going to get both of them killed.
Brenna tried to clear the dazed expression from her face. “Sort of,” she answered Carlton, wishing her voice had come out as breezy as she’d intended, instead of breathless.
She glanced back at Marcos, praying whatever he was doing here, he’d leave before he could ruin things for her. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and she wasn’t going to let it slip away, not even for the first boy who’d made her heart race and her palms sweat.
She strode through the enormous room, her too-high heels clicking against the marble floor, and then settled onto the chair next to Carlton. “I picked him up at a bar. When was it? A couple of years ago?” She shook her head, letting out a laugh, hoping Marcos would go along with her story.
She could have told them she’d known Marcos from the foster home. Carlton knew her history—at least the version of it she’d chosen to let him hear—and he definitely knew about her time at that foster home. But Marcos was using a fake name, and she didn’t know what his game was, but she didn’t want to contradict whatever story he’d given Carlton. Because no matter how much her heart hurt at the idea of the adult Marcos being a criminal, she held out hope that he was here for some other reason. And she definitely didn’t want to cause his death.
“Sorry for telling you my name was Crystal,” she said to Marcos.
Carlton guffawed and relaxed again. “Lucky man,” he told Marcos.
Marcos’s gaze lingered on her a moment longer before he looked back at Carlton. “Yeah, until she slipped out at dawn. But you never forget a face like that.” His eyes darted back to her for a split second, and then he accepted the glass of champagne the butler held out.
Brenna relaxed a tiny bit. She shook her head at the butler when he stopped in front of her and simply watched as Carlton, Jesse and Marcos toasted to a potential friendship.
Disappointment slumped her shoulders. She knew what a “potential friendship” toast meant. Marcos Costa was a drug dealer.
She should have recognized it instantly. There weren’t very many reasons someone would come out to Carlton Wayne White’s secret mansion. To even earn an invite, Marcos had to have some serious connections.
But Brenna couldn’t help herself. She looked at him now and she still saw the boy who had opened the door for her, taken her pathetic suitcase in one hand, and her hand in the other. That foster home hadn’t been anything close to a real second home to her, but she’d realized after being sent away a few months later that she’d gotten very, very lucky at that first introduction to life in the system. She’d gotten very, very lucky meeting Marcos.
She’d spent most of the rest of her life dreaming of him whenever things got tough, creating a fiction where she’d see him again and he’d sweep her off her feet. She knew it was ridiculous, but that didn’t matter. The dream of Marcos Costa had gotten her through the worst times in her life.
It made her sad to see that he’d grown up into someone who’d have a “potential friendship” with the likes of Carlton Wayne White. Of course, what must he think of her? She wondered suddenly if he’d ever suspected she’d set the fire eighteen years ago that had separated them.
Why would he? Brenna shook it off and tried to focus. She couldn’t let Marcos Costa—whatever his agenda—distract her.
She’d worked hard to get this invite to Carlton’s house. She’d spent weeks planning ways to catch his attention, then even more weeks testing those theories, until finally he’d taken the bait. But Carlton hadn’t gotten to where he was by being careless, or being easily distracted by a woman who wanted to trade assets. She knew he didn’t trust her yet. And there was only so far she was willing to go to earn that trust.
But she needed to get close to him, so she could dig up his secrets as thoroughly as she knew he’d tried to look into hers. Because the events of that day eighteen years ago, when the study had gone up in flames around her, still haunted her. And she suspected that Carlton Wayne White, whether he knew it or not, was connected to that day. And that meant he was connected to her. He just didn’t know it yet.
If everything went as planned, he wouldn’t know it until it was far too late.
* * *
THREE HOURS LATER, after a ridiculously heavy five-course meal filled with meaningless small talk, Brenna walked gingerly toward the room Carlton had put her in. Her feet were killing her. The shoes he’d bought her boasted a label she’d never be able to afford, but as good as they looked, they were far from comfortable. Give her tennis shoes over these heels any day of the week. But she’d never tell him that.
Carlton had bought her the dress, too, as well as a necklace that probably cost more than her car. So far, he seemed to be respecting her boundaries: she’d made it clear that she wasn’t interested in being anyone’s mistress. But she’d also dropped hints that she liked the sort of life her job with the state could never give her.
Slowly, over the course of a series of dinner meet-ups where she’d pretended to be naive enough to think he was interested in simple friendship, he’d dropped his own hints about what he could offer her. About what she might offer him in return.
And now here she was, at his mansion, far from help if he discovered her real intentions, being “interviewed” as clearly as Carlton was doing to Marcos.
Marcos. It had been hard to keep her eyes off him during dinner, a fact she was sure Carlton hadn’t missed. Even if Marcos hadn’t been her first childhood crush, he was exactly her type. Or at least, he would have been if he weren’t a drug dealer.
Besides his good looks, the man was charming and funny and interesting. Maybe a little more cocky and entitled than she’d have expected, but then again, never in a million years would she have pegged that he’d grow up and fall into crime.
He’d seemed so well-adjusted those few months she’d known him, doing well in his classes, having a clear bond with two older boys in the house, a brotherhood that went beyond blood. What had happened to him after that fire?
She knew he and his brothers had been torn apart. All six foster kids had been sent to different places. But that was all she knew; she’d thought about looking him up more than once over the years, but she’d never done it. Now, she almost wished she didn’t know the path he’d chosen.
Was it her fault? If she hadn’t walked into the study when she had, if that fire hadn’t started, would he have traveled a different path?
“Brenna.”
The soft voice behind her startled her, and Brenna stepped sideways on her stiletto. She would have fallen except a strong hand grabbed her waist. For a moment, her back was pressed against a ripped, masculine frame she didn’t have to see to instinctively recognize.
She regained her balance, her pulse unsteady as she spun and found Marcos standing inches away from her. This close, she should have seen some imperfection, but the only thing marring those too-handsome features was the furrow between his eyebrows. It sure looked like disappointment.
Her spine stiffened, and she took a small step backward. “Marcos, uh, Marco.” She glanced around, seeing no one, but that didn’t mean much. Carlton was notoriously paranoid. For all she knew, he had cameras inside his house as well as around the perimeter.
Marcos must have had the same thought, because his words were careful as he told her, “I never expected to see you again after that night. And now you’re with Carlton, huh?”
All through dinner, she could see Marcos trying to figure out her relationship with Carlton. The drug kingpin had seen it, too, because he’d made offhand comments that implied she was his, without being so obvious she’d be forced to correct him. But apparently, Marcos had bought it.
She flushed at the idea that he thought she was sleeping with a drug lord for jewelry and cars. But she also heated at the idea of keeping up the ruse that she’d spent a night in Marcos’s bed.
What would that be like? Her thoughts wandered, to the two of them, sweaty, limbs tangled on the huge bed in her room. She shook it off, but it must not have been fast enough, because when she focused on Marcos again, the look he was giving her told her he’d imagined it, too.
“Uh, no. Carlton and I aren’t dating, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I’m not sure that’s what I’d call it,” Marcos replied softly.
She scowled at him. “We have a business arrangement, and it’s not what you think, so stop looking at me like that. The fact is, my arrangement with him is probably not all that different from yours.”
Except it was. The ruse she was running with Carlton was about access, not drugs. If she really planned to go through with what she’d promised him, though, it was probably worse than dealing drugs.
His eyes narrowed on her, studying her with a too-keen gaze, and she tried not to squirm. He had the look of a lot of criminals who made it long enough to build an empire—or so she’d come to believe in her limited experience. Oddly, it was a similar probing look that cops used.
“So, Brenna, what do you do when you’re not hanging out in Carlton’s mansion, wearing spectacular dresses?” Marcos asked, shifting his weight like he was getting comfortable for a long chat.
The urge to fidget grew stronger. Lying didn’t come naturally to her, as much as she’d tried to convince her superiors that she could do it—that she could do this, come into a drug lord’s home and lie to him over an entire weekend, get him to give her insight and access. She’d actually felt pretty confident—well, a careful balance of confidence and determination—until Marcos had shown up. Now, she just felt off balance.
“I work for the foster care system.” She kept up the story she’d given Carlton. “I grew up in the system,” she added, even though he knew that. But it was more a reminder to herself: always act as though Carlton or one of his thugs was watching. “And I wanted to be on the other side of it, make some changes.”
Marcos tipped his head, his eyes narrowing, like he suspected she was lying, but he wasn’t sure about what.
She longed to tell him the whole truth, but that was beyond foolish, and one more sign that her boss was right. She wasn’t ready for undercover work, wasn’t ready for an assignment like this.
If she told Marcos the truth, she’d be dead by morning.
Still, she couldn’t help wondering what he’d say. The words lodged in her throat, and she held them there.
I’m a cop.
Chapter Three (#uaaef5620-3af9-5b56-b4e3-b0fc4176c1de)
Brenna Hartwell was lying to him.
Marcos didn’t know exactly what she was lying about, but he’d been in law enforcement long enough to see when someone was doing it. And not just to him, but to Carlton, too. He prayed the drug boss didn’t realize it.
“What do you do for the foster care system?” he asked, wondering if even that much was true.
She fidgeted, drawing his attention to the red dress that fit her like a bandage, highlighting every curve. She was in great shape. Probably a runner. Or maybe a boxer, given the surprising muscle tone he’d felt when he’d grabbed her to keep her from stumbling in her shoes.
“Right now, placement,” she said, but something about the way she said it felt rehearsed. “But I’m trying to get them to start a program to help kids transition out of the system.”
It was a notoriously tricky time. Kids who spent their lives in foster care hit eighteen and that was it. They were on their own, and they had to learn to sink or swim without any help pretty fast.
Some—like Marcos’s oldest brother Cole—did whatever it took. Cole had taken on two jobs, built up his bank account until he could afford an apartment big enough for three. Then when Marcos and his other older brother Andre had been kicked out of the system, they’d actually had a home waiting for them.
But Marcos was lucky. And he knew it. Most foster kids didn’t have that. Most kids found themselves suddenly searching for shelter and a job. Tons ended up instantly homeless, and plenty took whatever work they could get, including something criminal.
Had that been what had really happened to Brenna? When she’d shown up on their foster home doorstep that day eighteen years ago, her chin up, blinking back tears, his heart had broken for her. A few months later, she’d been gone. He’d always wondered where she’d ended up, but he’d been too afraid to search for her.
Some kids got lucky, ended up in foster homes with fantastic parents who ultimately adopted them. Others, like him, bounced around from one foster home to the next, from birth until eighteen. He supposed he’d never searched for her because he’d always wanted to believe she’d been one of the lucky ones.
“What about you?” Brenna asked, and he was surprised to hear the wary disappointment in her tone.
She was in Carlton’s house because she could offer him something. If it wasn’t sex, like Carlton had been implying over dinner, then it was some kind of criminal connection. So, who was she to judge his motives?
Still, he felt a little embarrassed as he gave his cover story, the way a real dealer would. “Carlton and I share similar business interests. We’re talking about a transaction, but I need to pass his test first.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “How do you think I’m doing so far?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I think you and I are in similar positions.”
Interesting. So her association with Carlton was relatively new. He wondered if he could get her out of here when he left, convince her to move her life onto a different track. Maybe all she needed was a little help.
It was a thought Marcos knew could get him killed. Doing anything to disrupt Carlton’s life before he committed to the deal and Marcos could slap cuffs on him threatened the whole operation. But the idea hung on, refusing to let go.
For years, he’d had an image of Brenna Hartwell in his mind: a perfect, grown-up version of the little girl who’d made his heart beat faster. And even though she probably couldn’t have lived up to that fantasy even if she weren’t a criminal, he was still drawn to her in a way he couldn’t really explain.
“I should go to bed,” Brenna said, interrupting his thoughts. She stared a minute longer, like she wanted to say something, but finally turned and headed off to her room.
All the while, he longed to call after her, longed to ask her why she’d set that fire eighteen years ago. Instead, he watched her go until the door near the end of the hallway clicked quietly shut behind her.
Then Marcos headed to his own room, down a different hallway. He’d just turned the corner when Carlton pushed away from the wall, out of the shadows, nearly making Marcos jump.
The drug kingpin’s eyes were narrowed, his lips tightened into a thin line. “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear at dinner,” Carlton said, his voice low and menacing, almost a snarl. “So, let me be plain. Stay away from Brenna. Or our business here is finished before we get started.”
* * *
“SHE’S A ROOKIE!”
“Sir, she’s determined. She dug all this up on Carlton Wayne White herself. She’s found an angle we never even considered and I think it’s going to work. She—”
“She’s got no undercover experience.”
“No, but we can give her a crash course. She’s smart. We’ve never gotten this close to him before.”
“I don’t like it. And the DEA wants this guy for themselves. They won’t be happy if we jump into their territory.”
“So don’t tell them. It doesn’t have anything to do with drugs anyway. Not really.”
“Hartwell could get herself killed.”
Brenna had overheard the conversation last month, between the chief at her small police station and her immediate boss, the guy who’d convinced her to join the police force in the first place. Victor Raine was the closest thing she had to a friend on the force. She’d met him years ago, when she’d first gotten out of foster care and gone to a presentation on job opportunities. He’d been there, talking about police work, and she’d gone up and asked him a bunch of questions.
Ultimately, when she’d gotten a surprise college scholarship offer that covered not just her tuition, but also part of her lodging, she’d chosen that instead. But years later, after she’d graduated and bounced from job to job without feeling fulfilled, she’d looked Victor up. She’d visited him at the station, and somehow found herself applying to the police academy.
Before she knew it, she had graduated and was a real, sworn-in police officer. It was scarier—and better—than she’d ever expected. But typical rookie patrol assignments had lost their luster quickly, and she’d started digging for more.
Her plan to infiltrate Carlton’s network had come to her by accident. She’d been on foot patrol with her partner, a newbie right out of the academy, barely out of his teens. Next to him, her six months of experience had seemed like a lifetime. They’d gotten a call about a disturbance, and when they’d arrived, they’d found a kid stabbed and left for dead on the street.
She’d cradled his head in her lap while she’d called for help, and tried to put pressure on his wounds. He’d stared up into her eyes, his baby blues filled with tears, silently begging her to help him. But he’d been too far gone. He’d died before the ambulance had gotten there, and she’d been left, bathed in his blood, to answer the detectives’ questions.
She’d had nothing to tell them. He hadn’t said a word, just looked at her, his gaze forever burned into her memory. So, as they’d dug into his murder, she’d followed the case’s progress.
She’d learned the kid’s name: Simon Mellor. And she’d discovered he was just eighteen years old, a few months out of the foster care system, probably killed running drugs for someone because he couldn’t find any better options for himself.
The fury that had filled her then still heated her up whenever she thought about him. The investigation had stalled out and it looked destined to become a cold case, so Brenna had made it her mission to figure out who’d killed the kid. What she’d discovered had led her back to Victor, to the biggest favor she’d ever asked her mentor.
And he’d agreed, gone to their chief and begged for her chance to go undercover in Carlton’s operation. Brenna had stood outside the door, just out of sight, but she’d heard her chief’s “no way” coming long before he’d said it.
So when he’d announced, “Hartwell could get herself killed,” Brenna had pushed open that door, slapped her hands on her hips and told him, “That’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
This morning, as she slipped into another slinky dress Carlton had bought her, she realized that was a strong possibility. She was way out of her league here. The quick training she’d received on undercover work—how to remember a cover story, how to befriend a criminal and keep the disgust she really felt hidden—could only take her so far. And now, with Marcos here, she felt unfocused when she needed every advantage she could get.
Carlton Wayne White was behind Simon Mellor’s death. He hadn’t held the knife—he was too far up the chain for something like that. But he’d ordered it. And Brenna was determined to make him pay.
But if that was all there was to it, her chief never would have approved this assignment. What Brenna had uncovered went way deeper than one boy’s murder. Because he wasn’t the only kid who’d wound up dead shortly after getting out of foster care, with rumors of a drug connection surrounding his murder. She didn’t know how he was doing it yet, but Carlton was using the foster care system to find pawns for his crimes.
If she was right, he’d been doing it for years, building his empire on the backs of foster care kids.
Most of what she remembered from that horrible night eighteen years ago was the fire. The smell of the smoke, the feel of it in her lungs. The heat of the blaze, reaching for her, swallowing up everything in its path. But one of the things in its path had been papers, and years later, when she’d seen similar papers at the foster system headquarters, she’d known.
Carlton Wayne White was using someone in the system to get names of kids who were turning eighteen. Kids who’d have nothing: no family, no money, no help. He’d swoop in and offer them a chance to put a roof over their head and food in their bellies. And then they’d die for him.
It all ends soon, she promised herself, yanking open her door and striding into the hallway—and smack into Marcos.
What was he doing outside her room?
She didn’t actually have to speak the words, because as he steadied her—yet again—he answered. “Carlton told me to come and get you for breakfast.”
She couldn’t help herself. Her gaze wandered over him, still hungry for another look after so many years. Today, he was dressed in dark-wash jeans and a crewneck sweater that just seemed to emphasize the breadth of his chest.
“Brenna,” he said, humor and hunger in his tone.
She looked up, realizing she’d been blatantly ogling him. “Sorry.” She flushed.
The hunger didn’t fade from his eyes, but his expression grew serious. “Brenna, I want—”
She wanted, too. Maybe it was just the chance to finally do something about her very first crush, or the fact that she’d never expected—but always hoped—to see Marcos again.
It was foolish and wrong for so many reasons, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. She leaned up on her tiptoes in another pair of ridiculous shoes and practically fell toward him, looping her arms around his neck.
His hands locked on her waist, and then her lips were on his, just the briefest touch before he set her back on her feet.
“Brenna,” he groaned. “We can’t do that. Carlton—”
“He’s not here right now,” she cut him off, not wanting to think about Carlton and the dangerous mission she’d begged to get assigned to. Because all she could think about was Marcos. The boy she’d never been able to forget, morphed into a man she couldn’t stop thinking about. She leaned back into him, and she could tell she’d caught him off guard.
Before he could protest again, she fused her lips to his. Just one real taste, she promised herself, and then she’d back away, leave him alone and go back to her mission.
He kissed the way she’d imagined he would in all those childhood fantasies she’d had, where she grew up and got out of those foster homes she’d been sent to after the fire. Like a fairy-tale ending come to life.
Except this wasn’t a fairy tale. And Marcos was a drug dealer.
She pulled away, feeling dazed and unsteady. He didn’t look much better; he actually seemed shocked he’d kissed her back at all. But as she stared up at him, breathing hard and trying to pull herself together, she could see it on his face. He was thinking about kissing her again.
And, Lord help her, she wanted him to.
“I warned you to stay away from her!”
Carlton’s voice boomed down the hallway, making her jump. She almost fell, but braced herself on the wall as Carlton strode toward them, fury in his expression and ownership in his voice that made a chill run through her.
Then he snapped his fingers and his thugs pounded down the hallway, too.
Marcos put his hands up, trying to placate him, but it didn’t matter. One of the guards slung his semiautomatic rifle over his shoulder and punched Marcos in the stomach, making him double over.
As Brenna gasped and yelled for Carlton to stop them, the thugs each took Marcos by an arm and dragged him down the corridor.
And she knew what was going to happen next. They were going to kill him.
Chapter Four (#uaaef5620-3af9-5b56-b4e3-b0fc4176c1de)
Marcos tensed his muscles, but it didn’t stop the pain when one of Carlton’s guards slammed an oversize fist into his stomach. The punch doubled him over, his eyes watering. They’d been hitting him for five minutes, and he could feel it all over his body. Gasping for air, he staggered backward, giving himself a few precious seconds to gauge his options.
Fight or flight?
His car was a few feet behind him, his DEA phone secreted in the hidden compartment, his keys always in his pocket. But there was no way he’d make it. Both bodyguards had semiautomatic weapons slung over their backs. He couldn’t run faster than they could swing the weapons around and fire.
Fighting was a problem, too. These two might have looked like more brawn than brain, but they weren’t stupid. They were staying on either side of him, one at a time stepping forward for a hit, the other keeping enough distance that he couldn’t take on one without the other being able to fire.
Besides, Brenna was still inside. He could hear her, screaming at Carlton to stop them. And it didn’t matter what deal she had with the drug kingpin. If Carlton was this angry at Marcos for a simple kiss, what would he do to Brenna for choosing Marcos over him? Marcos couldn’t leave her.
Not that he was going to have much of a choice, the way things were going. The guy came at him again, before Marcos could fully recover, and swept his feet out from underneath him.
He hit the concrete hard, pain ricocheting through his skull. Black spots formed in front of his eyes and bile burned his throat. His biggest undercover assignment, and he was going to die all alone in the middle of the Appalachians. Would they even find his body? Would his brothers know what had happened to him?
The thought gave him strength, and as he made out a size thirteen crashing toward him through his wavering vision, Marcos rolled right. His stomach and his head rebelled, but he held it together, shoving himself to his feet. He was unsteady, but standing.
And then he spotted her. Brenna stood in the doorway to the house. She was screaming, he realized—it wasn’t just his ears ringing. Carlton had his arms wrapped around her, lifting her off the ground, but not moving as she swung her feet frantically, trying to escape.
Fury lit Marcos, and it seemed to intensify the pain in his head. He must have swayed on his feet, because the guards both moved toward him at once, smiling, and Marcos recognized his chance.
The first guard swung a fist. Instinctively, Marcos ducked, then stepped forward fast, getting close enough to slam an uppercut into his chin.
The guard’s head snapped backward, but Marcos didn’t waste time with a follow-up punch. He twisted right, bringing his palm up this time, right into the second guard’s nose. Blood spurted, spraying Marcos as the guy howled and staggered backward, his hands pressed to his face.
In his peripheral vision, he could see Carlton’s surprise as he let Brenna go. She stumbled, losing one of her shoes as she came running toward him. Behind her, Marcos could see Carlton’s hand reach behind his back—surely where he had his own weapon.
He opened his mouth to warn Brenna to duck when the first guy he’d hit shoved himself to his feet. Marcos barreled into him, taking him to the ground hard, his only hope to grab the guy’s weapon and shoot first.
It was a desperate move, and unlikely to work, but he didn’t even have a chance to try, because the second guy pulled a pistol that had been hidden under his T-shirt. He was swinging it toward Marcos when Brenna slammed into him, taking the guy down despite the fact that he must have outweighed her by a hundred pounds. They fell to the ground together, but Marcos didn’t have time to do more than say a silent prayer neither of them had been shot as the guy underneath him suddenly rolled, bucking Marcos off.
He shoved to his knees, ready to slam into the guy again, but he’d somehow managed to yank his AK-47 up toward Marcos.
Marcos’s breath caught and then a gunshot rang out.
Shock slammed through him, and it took several seconds before he could process it. He hadn’t been hit. The guy in front of him was down, though, eyes staring blankly at the sky, gun lying uselessly at his side.
Marcos glanced over at Carlton, but the man looked as surprised as Marcos felt. Carlton’s weapon dangled in his hand, like he’d been getting ready to use it but hadn’t been fast enough.
Swiveling to stare at Brenna, Marcos watched as she slowly lowered the weapon she’d somehow gotten away from Carlton’s other bodyguard. He lay half underneath her, moaning in pain.
She was breathing hard, blinking rapidly, and he knew instantly that she’d never killed anyone before.
Marcos saw movement from the corner of his eye, and he knew before he looked up that Carlton was raising his gun hand. Marcos gauged the distance to the nearest AK-47, but it was too far, and he knew it even before Carlton barked, “Don’t even think about it.”
His gaze lifted, and he readied himself for a second time to be shot, but Carlton wasn’t pointing the pistol at him.
He was pointing it at Brenna.
* * *
“DO YOU HAVE some kind of death wish?”
Carlton’s voice, usually loud and boisterous, was scarily quiet. But the menace came through as clearly as if he’d screamed at her as he pointed the gun at her head.
Brenna realized her mistake instantly. She shouldn’t have lowered her weapon. She should have swung it toward Carlton.
But she’d never shot anyone before. Sure, she’d fired a weapon hundreds of times. In practice. She’d even held a weapon on resisting suspects before. But she’d never had to use it to protect herself or someone else.
Until now.
There was no question Carlton’s bodyguards were going to kill Marcos. Nothing she’d said had swayed the drug lord. And when he’d released her, she’d acted on instinct. Instinct and fury, and something fiercely protective that scared her.
And afterward, when the man had dropped to the ground, no dying scream, no time for surprise to register on his face, her hand had just gone slack on her. She hadn’t even consciously decided to kill him and now it was over.
She’d just killed someone. Regret hit with the force of a tidal wave, but there hadn’t been any other way. She couldn’t just stand by and watch Marcos die.
Pushing the emotions down, Brenna tried to focus, telling herself she could deal with her regrets later—assuming she lived through the next few minutes.
“Carlton,” Brenna said, her voice shaky. “I was just trying to—”
“You’d die for this man?” Carlton boomed, making her flinch. “After just a one-night stand?” His eyes narrowed, and he glanced from her to Marcos and back again, but too fast for her to lift her own weapon.
He suspected she and Marcos had a deeper connection than the lie she’d given about picking him up at a bar. And Carlton was right. But she and Marcos had only known each other for a few months. A few months of the worst pain in her life. A pain that had brought her here.
Resolution overtook her fear. She’d come this far. She wasn’t going to die without a fight.
And with Carlton, she knew her best weapon wasn’t her fists or the gun clutched in her hand. Tossing the pistol away from her, she lifted her hands in the air and got slowly to her feet, stepping slightly away from the bodyguard moaning on the ground.
Her hair was a disaster; pieces of it stuck to her lipstick, more of it was in her eyes. Her knees were skinned and bloody, her dress hiked up way too high. She ignored all of it, locking her gaze on Carlton and tipping her chin up. “You read my file, right? You know about the fire?”
She sensed Marcos tense, but she couldn’t dare glance at him as Carlton gave a brief nod.
“Then you must know the rest of it, too.” Her voice hitched, remembering the things that had come after that fire, when she’d been sent to other foster homes. Places without smiling boys with dimples to greet her and hold her hand, but older boys with a scary gleam in their eyes.
Carlton’s eyes narrowed even more, but she could tell he was listening. Maybe he even cared.
“If you really looked, then you know this isn’t about Marcos. Marco,” she corrected herself. “It’s about me. I’m here because I want a different life from the one I grew up with. I want security. I want to feel safe.” She let the truth of those words ring through in her voice. “So, I’ll work with you, but you don’t own me. If that’s what you want, I’m not interested.”
A smirk twisted his lips, then faded, and she wasn’t sure if she’d just signed her death warrant or gotten through to him.
Beside her, the bodyguard she’d knocked to the ground pulled himself to his knees, snarling at her. For a second, she thought he was going to jump up and tackle her, when Carlton fired his gun, making her jump.
His bodyguard slumped back down, dead.
She stared at Carlton, speechless, and he shrugged. “He failed me. Kind of like you, Brenna.”
She hadn’t gotten through to him. Brenna took a breath and closed her eyes.
“This is supposed to be a business arrangement, right?” Marcos spoke up.
Brenna opened her eyes again, glancing at him, wondering if it was smart of him to remind Carlton of his presence.
“Because I’ve got to tell you,” Marcos continued, getting to his feet, too, and leaving behind the bodyguard’s weapon, which had been at arm’s length away, “this is how my family did business. All these feuds. It’s derailing their business. Why do you think I want to branch out on my own?”
His family? Brenna frowned, wondering what game he was playing. Some of the kids in the foster homes she’d been to had family out there, either people they’d been taken from because of neglect or abuse, or people who’d given them up. But not Marcos. She knew he’d grown up in the system from the time he was an infant, that they’d never been able to find any extended family. Had that changed? Had he found blood relatives after the fire?
“Let me ask you something, Marco,” Carlton replied. “Or is it Marcos?” His gaze snuck to Brenna, then returned. “You’ve met Brenna once? She was that unforgettable?”
Marcos frowned, and a sick feeling formed in her stomach at the way the drug lord’s eyes wandered over her, way more blatantly than he’d ever done before. As if she was his, whether she liked it or not.
Carlton Wayne White was a killer. A man who’d use kids with no one to help them as disposable pawns in his business. Why should it surprise her if he was also a rapist?
She’d been clear with him that she didn’t want to sleep with him. She’d thought he actually respected that; she’d believed he saw her as a better business partner because of it. But maybe she’d been fooling herself. Maybe he’d never cared because he hadn’t planned to ask.
Before Marcos could answer Carlton’s question, he continued, “Or you just have a problem with loyalty? Is that why you’re dealing with me instead of sticking with family? I looked into you, Costrales. You’re the black sheep, aren’t you?”
Marcos shrugged, spitting blood onto the ground. “You say black sheep. I say visionary.”
Carlton snorted. “You’re awfully confident for a man I still might kill.”
“My family and I may not always see eye to eye, but they’re pretty good at blood feuds.”
Carlton nodded slowly and lowered his weapon. “So they are.” He gave a slight smile. “I suppose I don’t want to have to deal with your entire family coming after me. Too messy for me to clean up.” He nodded at Brenna. “I guess this means you’re vouching for her?”
Marcos paused a long moment and Brenna held her breath, not sure what to hope for. Whoever Marcos’s family was—if his story was even true—they had sway. But if Marcos vouched for her too quickly, would Carlton really buy that they didn’t know one another well? Or would he think the two of them were playing some kind of scam on him, maybe trying to steal away his business?
“I don’t really know her,” Marcos said, not even glancing her way. “And I don’t know what kind of business arrangement you two have. So I’m not sure I can do that. But I’ll tell you this much. I betray you? Fine, kill me. I’d do the same. But playing some sort of ownership game with a woman who’s not interested and shooting anyone who gets in your way? That’s not how I work. So, I tell you what. You leave her alone and so will I.”
Carlton tucked his gun back into his waistband and Brenna let out a breath, tugging down her dress and yanking the hair out of her face.
“Well, hasn’t the mob gotten progressive?” Carlton asked. “All right. We’ve got a deal.” He glanced at Brenna. “I guess this means our time together is over.”
He turned and walked inside, and Brenna stood rooted in place. That was it? All the months of work and she’d let a foolish attraction to a man she hadn’t seen in almost two decades ruin everything?
She blinked back tears as Marcos sent her a brief, unreadable glance and followed Carlton, leaving her all alone in the drug lord’s driveway.
Chapter Five (#uaaef5620-3af9-5b56-b4e3-b0fc4176c1de)
When she’d joined the police department, Brenna had known the day might come where she’d have to shoot someone in the line of duty. It was a responsibility she’d accepted, the idea that she might have to take one life to save another.
But nothing could have prepared her for the roll of emotions making her chest feel tight and her stomach churn right now. She pressed a hand to her stomach and tried to calm her breathing as she stood just inside Carlton’s mansion.
His two remaining guards had been called up and were dealing with the bodies outside, and then they were supposed to escort her to her car and send her home. But after all the work she’d put in to get here, she couldn’t leave. Not like this. Not with Carlton still planning business deals, and Simon Mellor with no one else willing to take up his cause.
The truth was, there were a lot of Simon Mellors out there. Other kids just like him who were getting ready to leave the foster system and had no idea the challenges that awaited them. Kids who Carlton might target by offering them things they couldn’t resist, like a way not to be homeless and hungry.
Brenna straightened and strode to her room. She yanked off the dress, heels and diamonds Carlton had been trying to woo her with, and she’d been pretending to be infatuated with, and traded them for her normal clothes. Then she headed to the living room, where Carlton had settled alone after killing one of his own guards. She might have thought he felt some regret, too, but she didn’t think the man knew what that meant.
Throwing the clothes and jewelry at him, she planted her hands on her hips and exclaimed, “I thought you were a businessman!”
He shoved the items off him onto the floor and raised an eyebrow. “And I didn’t realize that you were a drama queen.”
“I came here because of all the things we talked about over the past few months. I came here to start a business deal with you, and this is what you do to me?”
“Careful now,” he said, the amusement dropping off his face. “I gave you a second chance today. Don’t make me regret it.”
“How is this a second chance? Sending me home with nothing?”
“I’m letting you live, aren’t I?”
His words stalled her angry tirade, but she shouldn’t have been surprised. She hadn’t had enough of a plan when she’d come out here.
Taking a deep breath, Brenna started over. “Look, we each have something the other one wants. You plan to find someone else in the foster care system who can do this for you? Fine, give it your best shot. Most of them are overworked and underpaid and are either there because it’s what they can get, or because they want to make a difference. You approach the first type and yeah, you might get a bite, but they won’t be as aggressive about this as I will. You approach the second type, and you’ll get turned in to the police so fast your head will spin.”
“The police,” Carlton mocked. “They’re not smart enough to prove anything.”
But she could see on his face that her words were getting through to him, that he wanted her connections more than he was showing, so she pressed on. “I started working in the system because I thought maybe I could make things better for kids like me. But the truth is, that will never happen. Someone like you is their best chance. And you’re mine, too, because I might not have had control over my life since I was thrown into the system, but I do now. And I plan to make the most of it.”
A slow smile spread over Carlton’s face. “I may have acted too hastily, Brenna. Consider your invitation to stay here extended, and our business deal back on.” He looked her over, from her well-used tennis shoes to her inexpensive T-shirt. “But before I hand over any more benefits like diamonds and clothes, you’re going to have to prove yourself.”
She nodded, elation and disgust with herself at the tactics she was using fighting for control. In the end, determination won out. Before this weekend was over, she was going to have Carlton on the hook with a plan he couldn’t resist.
And that would be the beginning of his downfall.
* * *
“WHAT ARE YOU doing here?” Marcos had been sitting on a bench outside, but he lurched to his feet, nearly groaning aloud at the pain that spiked all over his body. He almost thought the hits he’d taken to the head were giving him hallucinations.
But there was no way even his mind could conjure up Brenna like this. She looked antsy in a pair of jeans and a loose aqua T-shirt that made her brown skin seem to glow and brought out the caramel highlights in her hair. Instead of the stilettos she’d been wearing all weekend, she wore a pair of hot pink gym shoes. The outfit looked way more natural on her than the skintight dresses and ridiculous heels.
She was also teary-eyed as she looked him over, her gaze lingering on his myriad of bruises that had turned a dark purple since this morning. But she didn’t say a word about them, just took a deep breath.
He’d expected her to be long gone by now. And he’d been equal parts relieved and depressed over it all morning.
“I convinced Carlton that we should still be working together.”
A million dark thoughts ran through Marcos’s mind as he lowered himself carefully back onto the bench. “How?”
“Carlton might have a bad temper—and apparently a possessive streak—but at heart, he’s a businessman.”
Marcos felt himself scowl and tried to hide it. A real drug dealer would think of himself as a businessman, not a criminal.
By the expression on her face, she’d seen it, but she didn’t say anything, just continued, “I have access that he wants. And he’s better off with someone who will do the job without a personal distraction.”
He held in the slew of swear words that wanted to escape and instead asked calmly, “You sure it’s a good idea after what happened today?”
“No.” She let out a humorless laugh and sank onto the bench across from him. “But I’ve come too far to give up now.”
What did that mean? He suddenly realized he’d been so distracted by seeing her again that he’d failed to dig into why she was here. He knew what Carlton could offer Brenna: money. But what could she offer him, especially now that she’d made it clear sex was off the table? She said she worked in the foster care system, not exactly the sort of connection Carlton would need.
“What exactly is your arrangement with Carlton?” Marcos asked.
She fidgeted, as though she’d been hoping to avoid this question. “I can get him information he needs.”
The answer was purposely vague and Marcos raised an eyebrow.
“How about you, Marc-O?” she pressed. “What can you give him?”
“A new network,” Marcos answered simply, wishing he didn’t have to lie to her. Wishing it didn’t come so easily. But that was good—it meant all his training had worked if he could even lie to Brenna.
“For drugs? How?”
It was time to get off this topic and convince Brenna to rethink her decision to stay here. “Carlton is dangerous,” Marcos said softly.
“Yeah, no kidding,” she replied, looking him over again.
Her voice cracked as she asked, “How badly are you hurt?”
“Could have been worse. Thank you for that. Where’d you learn to fight?”
Her legs jiggled a little, a clear sign he was about to get less than the full truth. “Foster care.” She glanced around, then lowered her voice. “Not all of us can find long-lost family.”
“Yeah, well...” Now it was his turn to feel antsy, but he’d had a lot of practice being undercover. So why did lying to her feel so wrong? “Carlton doesn’t know about my years in foster care, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
She tipped her head, like she was waiting for more details, but he stayed silent. Better if she just kept her mouth shut about his past altogether. Because the story Carlton knew didn’t match up with Marcos ever having been in foster care.
As far as Carlton knew, he’d grown up in the massive Costrales family, where joining organized crime was in the blood. The DEA had backstopped a story for him that involved being a bit estranged from his family, but still on the payroll. As far as they could tell, Carlton’s empire didn’t yet stretch to the area the Costrales family ran, but there was no way to prepare for all possible overlap.
On paper, Marco Costrales was the youngest son of Bennie Costrales, born of a mistress. He hadn’t grown up with the Costrales name, but he’d been given it—and a large sum of money to build his own empire—when he’d hit eighteen. On paper, Marco had gone to jail a few times, but never for anything major. Just enough to show he was in deep to something the Feds couldn’t prove.
It was their best way in, because years of trying to infiltrate Carlton’s organization had proved he wasn’t willing to work with anyone he didn’t know. This was the DEA’s way of upping the ante, because they knew Carlton had always wanted to expand his connections. The problem was, if Carlton had a personal connection to the Costrales family they didn’t know about and he asked about Marco, he’d quickly find there was no such person.
And then today’s beating would look like a party in comparison to what would happen to Marcos.
“How are Cole and Andre?” Brenna asked, bringing him back to the present. “The three of you are still family, too, I assume? Even after your biological family came into the picture?”
Was that wistfulness in her voice? Had she never found anyone to call family in all her years in the system?
He knew it happened. He’d bounced around from one foster home to the next from birth until he was seven. Then he’d landed in the foster home with Cole Walker and Andre Diaz, and for the first time in his life, he’d realized how little blood mattered. These were the brothers of his heart. Five years later, when their house had burned down, they’d been split up until each of them had turned eighteen. And now they lived within an hour of one another and saw each other all the time. The way real brothers would.
“They’re doing good. Both are getting married in the next year.” He didn’t mention their profession, because how could he explain being a drug dealer if he told her Cole was a police detective and Andre an FBI agent?
“Did they ever put you back together?” She twisted her hands together, like she knew she was getting into dangerous territory.
“You mean after you set the house on fire?”
She flushed. “I didn’t know you realized... I was young. It was stupid.”
“Why was our foster father in the back of the house with you when that fire started?” It was something he’d been wondering—and dreading finding the answer to—for months. He’d never expected to be able to ask Brenna herself.
“What?”
Brenna’s eyes widened, and she had to be wondering how he’d known that when he shouldn’t have even known she’d set the fire in the first place. At the time, all the reports on the fire had called it an accident. Only recently had he seen an unsealed juvenile record showing that Brenna had set the fire. But it had been his brother who’d remembered that neither Brenna nor their foster father had been where they should have been when the fire started.
The rest of the family had been upstairs in bed, asleep. So why had Brenna and their foster father been downstairs, in the back of the house, in his study?
“How did you know that?”
“Was he hurting you?” Marcos’s chest actually hurt as he waited for the answer.
She shook her head. “No. It was...look, he found me in his office. I’d lit the candle, and he came in and I tossed it.”
Why was he positive she was lying? “I don’t believe you.”
She looked ready to run away on those more sensible shoes. “Why not? You said you knew I’d set the fire.”
Marcos leaned back, studying her, wondering why she’d lie about the reasons for setting the fire, the reasons for his foster father being nearby, when she so easily admitted to setting it. His agent instincts were going crazy, but he wasn’t sure about what. “I meant, I didn’t believe you about why he was there.” There was way more here than he’d ever realized. “I think you owe me the truth.”
“You, Cole and Andre were reunited, right? What does it matter now? I was upset about my mom’s death. I—”
“I almost didn’t make it out of that house.” The fact was, it was amazing none of them had died in there that day.
She sucked in an audible gasp.
Those moments after he’d dived through the living-room window came back to him, Cole slamming into him, knocking him to the ground and patting out the fire that had caught the back of his pajamas. He remembered Brenna running around the side of the house a minute later, just as the ambulance doors had closed. He didn’t think she’d seen him, but it was the last memory he had of that day.
Brenna’s terrified face, their house burning to the ground behind her.
* * *
“STAY HERE!”
Her foster father’s voice rang in her ears now as clearly as if he was sitting right beside her, as clearly as if it was eighteen years ago. But back then, she couldn’t have moved if she’d tried.
She’d been dry heaving into the grass, her lungs burning from all the smoke, her eyes swollen almost shut. The fire had caught fast. She wouldn’t have made it out of there at all if he hadn’t screamed at her, then yanked her right off her feet and ran for the back door.
He’d practically flung her on the grass, then turned back, surely to return for his wife and the other foster kids in the house. But the door they’d come through had been engulfed by then. She’d watched through watery eyes as he’d tried to break a window, searched for another way in. She didn’t know how long he’d contemplated, before he took off running for the front of the house.
She’d picked herself off the ground and limped after him and relief had overtaken her. Their foster mother was clutching two of the foster kids close. Three more were huddled together closer to the house. Only—
No, it wasn’t three. It was two, with a paramedic tending to one of them.
Panic had started anew because Marcos had been missing. Then she’d seen the ambulance as it flew away from the house. She’d started screaming then, and hadn’t stopped until someone had told her over and over again that Marcos was okay.
Within hours, she’d been at the hospital herself, getting checked out, then hustled off to a new foster home. She’d never seen anyone from that house again. The truth was, she’d never expected to.
“I saw the ambulance,” she told Marcos now. “But they told me you were okay, that it was just a precaution.”
She must have looked panicked, because he got up and sat beside her, taking her hand in his. And it should have felt very, very wrong so close to Carlton’s house, after what had just happened, but instead it felt right. Her fingers curled into his.
“I’m okay. But I spent years wondering what bad luck it was that I’d finally found my family, only to have them torn away from me.”
Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. She knew exactly how that felt, only in a different order. All her life, it had just been her and her mom. They’d been more than family; they’d been best friends, the two of them against the world. And then one drunk driver, one slippery patch of road, had taken her whole life away.
“At least you got them back,” she whispered, even though she knew it was an unfair thing to say. It wasn’t his fault her mom had died. And it wasn’t his fault he believed she was to blame for splitting up him and his brothers. She’d told him as much.
“I did, eventually,” he said softly. “What about you? You never found anyone to call family after you left that house? I’d always hoped you would.”
Her hand tightened instinctively in his. She didn’t like to think about those days. They were long gone now. “No.”
“And what you were telling Carlton, about why you wouldn’t sleep with him? About your file? You want to tell me about that?”
His voice was softer, wary, like he was afraid what she might say, and she hesitated. It was in her file in the foster system, because back then, she’d been stupid enough to think that if she could just get out of that house, the next one would be okay. Maybe it would be like the one with Marcos. Maybe they’d even move her wherever they’d sent Marcos. But they hadn’t. And she’d learned to take care of herself.
She was going to shake her head, but when she glanced at him, she realized if she didn’t tell him, he’d think the worst. And somehow, even after believing she’d purposely set fire to their house and almost killed him, he still cared what had happened to her.
“The place I was sent to next, there were two older boys who lived there. One was in foster care, like me. The other was the foster parents’ son. The first night I was there, they came into my room, and they told me they owned me now.”
Marcos didn’t say anything, but his jaw tightened. “You were eleven.”
“Yeah. Not all foster homes were like the one we were in.” As she said it, she realized the irony. In his mind, she’d been the one to destroy that.
But all he said was, “I know.”
“It was bad.” She glossed through the rest of it. “They came after me, and I got lucky. And after that, I learned how to fight. That’s what you saw today.”
A shiver went through her at the memory. Those boys had been fifteen and sixteen, and much bigger than her. They’d come toward her, and she’d screamed her head off. One of them had tried to smother her with a pillow while the other yanked at her clothes. She’d expected her new foster parents to come running into the room, because she knew they were home, but they hadn’t. Luck had been on her side, though, because police officers happened to be on a traffic stop down the street and heard her screaming.
She’d told the cops what had happened, she’d told the foster care workers what had happened, and instead of looking as horrified as she’d felt, they’d looked resigned. They’d moved her to a new foster home, and the first thing she’d done was to steal a steak knife and hide it under her pillow. That year, she’d stolen money from those foster parents to pay off some older kids at school to teach her to fight.
“And now?” he asked. “You didn’t find family growing up, but what about afterward? You must have a circle of friends, a boyfriend?”
She shrugged. “Sure. Not a boyfriend,” she added quickly, though it would probably be better for both of them if he thought she did. “But friends, sure.” Sort of. She only let them get so close, though. Foster care had taught her how quickly people came and went, and it was usually easier to keep them at a distance.
“Are you sure this is the direction you want to go? Working with Carlton? There’s still time to back out.”
She shook her head. “No, there’s not. He and I have a deal. And I might not be totally convinced he won’t turn on me anyway, but I know one thing for sure. If I back out now, he will kill me.”
Chapter Six (#uaaef5620-3af9-5b56-b4e3-b0fc4176c1de)
Brenna looked around the garden. It was late November, and what had apparently been a flower garden was now bare vines and plants. Around them, fir trees rose a hundred feet in the air, mixed with trees in various stages of losing their leaves. Everything was orange and red, and it reminded her of fire.
It reminded her of the fire. She wanted desperately to tell Marcos the truth, but that would blow her cover. And even though she couldn’t reconcile the sweet boy with the huge dimples with the mob-connected man jumping into the drug business, she needed to remember he was a criminal. But how had he ended up with a mafia family?
“I thought you were Greek,” she blurted.
“Yeah, well, apparently I got renamed when I entered the system,” Marcos said as he pulled his hand free and stood. “My biological family tracked me down later. I went to live with my mom, and then my dad came into the picture, got me connected.”
It made sense, and she knew it happened—people who’d lost their kids to the system reconnecting years later. So why did she feel like he was making up this story on the fly? Surely Carlton would know if he wasn’t part of a Mafia family.
But he was backing away from her slowly, and she knew whatever his story, asking about it was driving him away. And he might be her best bet for information right now.
“Have you met any of Carlton’s other business partners?” It wasn’t her best segue, but he stopped moving.
“Not really. Just his nephew. That’s how I got invited.”
“His nephew.” Brenna nodded, disappointed. She knew Jesse, too, and she felt sorry for the kid. Fact was, she felt a bit of a kinship with him. His family died, and he got thrown in with Carlton. What choice had the kid really had? Probably fall in line with Carlton or get tossed into the cold—or worse.
Anger heated her, the reminder of why she was here. It wasn’t about Marcos Costa. It was about Simon Mellor, the eighteen-year-old boy who’d died in her arms.
“So you haven’t seen Carlton with kids?”
“Kids?” Marcos frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Eighteen, nineteen. Kids who work for him?” The words poured out, even though she knew she was stepping in dangerous territory. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to sound like a cop interrogating a suspect. Her heart rate picked up as he continued to stare at her, those gorgeous blue-gray eyes narrowed.
“I’ve never met Carlton before yesterday,” Marcos said slowly.
She held in a curse. She should have realized this was a first meeting. She’d just assumed they’d had others and that this weekend was a final test.
“Why do you want to know about kids who work for Carlton? And what exactly do you think they do for him?”
She tried to look nonchalant, even though her blood pressure had to be going crazy right now. “I’m just trying to figure out how his business works, what I’m getting into here.”
He wasn’t buying it. He didn’t have to say a word for her to know she’d made him suspicious.
“What are you getting into, Brenna? You never did tell me exactly what kind of access you could offer Carlton.”
In this moment, all the years they hadn’t seen each other didn’t matter. The fact that he was an aspiring drug lord with mob connections didn’t matter. Because she knew without a doubt that if he figured out what she was pretending to do, he’d hate her. And he’d do whatever he could to stop her from working with Carlton.
He’d been in the system since he was an infant. And even at twelve years old, he’d talked to her about the plans he and his brothers had—plans to look out for one another when they left the system. He’d known there was no net for foster care kids. And the fact that she was pretending to take advantage of that would be a worse sin than anything he was doing.
“You work in the foster care system,” he said before she could come up with a believable lie. “You said you wanted to start a program to help kids make the transition to the real world.” He shook his head, looking disgusted. “What does that mean, really? Carlton sets up front businesses and you populate them with foster kids to do his dirty work?”
“I...” She faltered, trying to figure out how to smooth this over without risking him hearing the truth from Carlton anyway.
Then his eyes narrowed, and he took a step closer until she was forced to lean back to look at him. “What aren’t you telling me, Brenna? Why are you really here?”
* * *
“YOU’RE A COP, aren’t you?”
It made total sense, Marcos realized, instantly relieved. Except if a police department was running an operation on Carlton, the DEA would know about it. Anything to do with drug operations by any organization went into a system the DEA could access. And they’d made very sure before he came here. There was nothing.
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