“Might be?” Ryan cranked his gaze over to Darren.
Darren nodded. “Her lack of undercover experience is a concern.”
“How much undercover experience does she have?” Ryan demanded.
Sera leaned forward and slapped a hand down on the table, a frown edging her brow. “I’m right here!” she snapped. “If you have questions, ask me.”
Ryan blinked and turned his gaze back to her. “Uh. Okay. How much undercover experience do you have?”
“None,” she began. “But—”
“Then it’s a no-go.” Ryan folded his arms across his chest and leaned back. The ancient chair screeched in protest.
“Wait a minute—” Sera began.
Ward Tanner held up a hand and shot her a look. “Hold on, everyone, let us finish.”
Josh took over, addressing Ryan and Manny. “Last night was a test. A trial run to see if she could handle it. Beck took her in there and let her loose to see if she could do it. And so let us ask you guys—since you were there—how’d she do?”
Ryan scowled, didn’t look at Manny who was probably still smirking. He couldn’t believe this little paper-pusher had walked into The Patch last night looking like a biker chick and had pulled it off. And had fooled him. Completely.
Although he had noticed an unusual classiness and…he didn’t know the right word. Sweetness? But fuck him, he hadn’t even dreamed she wasn’t what she said she was.
“What’d you do with the drugs you bought?” he demanded of her.
She gave him a slow smile. “I already handed it in and recorded it.”
She’d made a fucking drug buy. Ryan shook his head in disgust, but he knew most of his disgust was with himself for being taken in.
“What’d you do to Monkey?” he asked next.
“Just a little martial arts move.”
“You have martial arts training?”
“Fourth degree black belt.”
“Well, if you think that’s going to protect you against the guns and knives those guys carry, you’re fooling yourself.”
She lifted a brow. “I’ve done my firearms training, just like you.”
They stared at each other and heat grew until Ryan’s every nerve ending sizzled. A sharp jab in his side made him glance at Manny, who, sure enough, still wore a goofy smile.
“She’s good,” Manny said. “She handled herself well. She had all of us fooled. I think Carly and she really hit it off, and they trusted her enough to sell her drugs.”
Ryan pressed his lips together as he nodded his reluctant agreement.
“And,” Manny continued, “there’s some kind of chemistry between the two of you that will make a relationship between you completely credible.”
Fuck him, what was Manny talking about? Chemistry? Was he trying to imply Ryan was horny and hot for her? Because he wasn’t. “I’m not…” he began—but then he didn’t know where to go with that and snapped his mouth closed. He met Sera’s eyes again and amusement sparkled there.
“It’s out of the question to put someone in an operation this dangerous without any undercover experience,” Ryan said instead. “It would be like putting a kitten into a cage full of tigers.”
“I’m hardly a kitten,” Sera said.
“Oh yeah, honey, compared to them—you are.”
Ryan became aware the others were watching their exchanges with interest. He glared at Josh. “You shouldn’t have done that. It was dangerous sending in another agent without me and Manny knowing. Fucking harebrained.”
Josh shook his head, unoffended by Ryan’s words. “We wanted to see how you’d react to her. It had to be that way, Ryan. You know that.”
Yeah, he did, dammit.
This whole thing annoyed him to the point of making his blood boil. He wanted to bolt out of his chair and walk out. A four-alarm fire burned in his gut. He shook his head, reached into his jeans pocket for the roll of antacids he lately carried with him everywhere, unwrapped a couple and popped them into his mouth.
“This has ‘big fucking disaster’ tattooed all over it. She’ll jeopardize the entire op. We’ve made it this far—we’ve accomplished so much. We can’t screw up now. She makes one mistake, we’re all dead.”
He stared at her with hard eyes when he said that so she’d understand what she was getting herself into. This wasn’t a game. This was literally life and death. These guys were killers, without hesitation or remorse if they needed to be, and any cop who was caught among them would be snuffed instantly. Her mouth tightened and her eyes narrowed.
“I know the risks,” she said, her voice low and steady. “And I know I can do it.”
“We’ve talked about the pros and cons already, Ryan,” Darren said. “I feel the same as you do—it’s risky. But you need a female agent, and she needs an in. It’s win-win for both agencies.”
“You’re the one who said you need a female agent,” Josh reminded him, and with a stone in his gut, Ryan remembered last night.
“We do,” Manny confirmed, also leaning forward, elbows on the table. Ryan glared at him, willing him to shut up, but no, he had to shoot his mouth off. “Last night one of the wives made a drunken pass at Ryan. It’s been brewing for a while. Her husband was drunk, stoned, whatever, and probably would’ve killed Ryan if I hadn’t been there with another DA to stick up for Ryan. To reassure him Ryan hadn’t done anything. But next time…we won’t be able to convince Chomp.” Manny shot Ryan a glance. Ryan sat there rock-still and fumed. “Next time he will kill you, man, whether you’ve done anything or not. You gotta get a woman of your own. Then Jessie and the others will leave you alone. And they’re wondering why you never hook up with anyone.”
“What about you?” Ryan demanded. “Why don’t they wonder about you?”
“I have hooked up with women.” Manny shrugged. “But I’m not the one their wives are all over. You are.”
Ryan shook his head. Once again, he knew Manny was right, but he was so pissed off at how this all came down, he hated to admit it.
“Fine,” he said shortly. “I need a female agent to play a girlfriend role. But surely to god we can find someone with some experience?”
“Not someone who looks the part, who has such extensive knowledge about the DAs and who’s available right now.”
“Also,” Manny added. “If Sara…Sera?”
“Sera,” she affirmed with a small smile. “Like Vera.”
“If Sera can get in with the women, there are things she might find out that we can’t.”
Ryan sat there, staring at everyone, then down at the scarred table top. He rubbed his lips together, nodded his head slowly. “Looks like I don’t have much say in this.”
“I think after last night the decision is made,” Josh agreed. “You and Manny both confirmed she pulled it off, and the drug buy pretty much sealed the deal.”
“Fine.” Ryan met Sera’s eyes and relief and joy shone there, although she appeared to try to repress the smile tugging her pretty lips. “I just hope you understand what you’re getting into.”
She nodded, her obvious delight pulling at something deep inside him.
“We need to get to work,” Josh said. “You can brief her on everything she needs to know. We created a new identity for her for last night, got her some basics, but we need to do the full backstop, make sure she’s airtight in case they check her out.”
The DAs were known to investigate anyone who associated with them, and had dug deep into his and Manny’s backgrounds to ensure they were who they said they were when they’d started hanging around with them. The ATF was experienced at rock-solid backstopping. Manny and Ryan had new identities complete with social security numbers, credit histories, even high school transcripts, and they’d created a fake arrest record for Manny with some misdemeanor arrests for assault and drug violations, and one for him with arrests for possession.
“We’re thinking at first you show up with her a few times, like you two are dating. Within
the next week or two, we’ll move her into the house to live with you.”
Jesus Christ. Ryan couldn’t look at her. Fine. Whatever. It was business. He nodded.
“She has some ideas how she wants to play this,” Josh continued. “So we’ll let the three of you work on that.”
Ryan nodded again, spreading his hands flat on the table. The suits got up and left, and Ryan knew Josh would be working hard on the behind the scenes stuff.
When the door closed behind them, he looked at Sera again.
“You sure about this?”
Ryan’s lack of confidence in her abilities was just as annoying as their superiors’ had been two days ago when she’d tried to convince them she could do it. Now she’d proven herself. She’d done it, but for some reason he was being a jerk. Like he was pissed off at her, or something. She wasn’t brainless. She knew what she was getting into.
“I’m sure.” She met his gaze levelly across the table.
“Look Sera or Sara or whatever your name is.” Ryan sighed, ran a hand over his pulled-back hair. “You may know a lot about the DAs but you have no idea what you’re getting into here. In their world, having a chick on your arm or your bike—a fender bunny—is just one more accessory. Women are treated like shit. In fact…” he paused. “A lot of them are abused. Physically. Emotionally. Most of them have a lot of problems. Low self-esteem. Drug and alcohol abuse. You really think you can play that role and pull it off?”
“No.”
His eyebrows rose.
“I can’t play that role. I’m not even going to try to play an abused uh…fender bunny. I can’t do that, I know that. But I think I can be convincing in the role I will play. If you work with me.” She held his gaze.
He stared back at her. “How do you plan to play it?”
“I’m going to work for you. Helping with your parts delivery business. I need a job.” She smiled. “Since I just lost my job at the bank for suspected embezzlement.”
Ryan’s mouth twitched. “An embezzler. Huh.”
“That would work,” Manny said. “It would explain both of you being out of town at the same time.”
She nodded. “So, tell me how you guys accomplished this amazing feat of getting in with the DAs.”
Ryan glanced at Manny. “The Coyotes are a small OMG down in Mexico. We’ve got a guy—Jackrabbit—who’s a full patch Coyote and we set up a fictitious Coyotes chapter in Clover City. Manny and I have been hanging out there for a few months, getting to know people, establishing ourselves. Then we showed up with Beck at an Angel rally wearing our colors, managed to convince them we didn’t want to hone in on their territory.”
She listened, amazed. It sounded simple, but she knew only too well what a difficult task they’d set themselves and how astonishing it was that they’d been so successful.
“We were trafficking guns down to Mexico,” Ryan continued. “They’re selling narcotics. We assured them we weren’t trying to take away their dope business. They bought the story and gave us the okay to traffic guns in their territory. We started hanging out with them and just last week they told us it was okay to sell some drugs in their territory too. Told us it was okay to fly our colors. If things continue the way they have been, we can get inside information like no one ever has.”
“Have you met Dominick Casas?”
“Yes. He and Vince are friends, they party together when Dominick’s in Clover City. We were there a couple times.”
“Do they talk about him? What he does?”
Manny and Ryan exchanged glances. “No. We haven’t heard much about him. He’ll likely be in El Mirage next weekend.”
“I’ll be coming with you, then.”
“No.” Ryan’s face tightened and he shook his head. “You won’t be. That’s too soon. We need time to bring you in.”
“That’s almost ten days away.”
“That’s not enough time. You can’t rush things.”
Patience had never been one of her strengths. She knew it and she intended to work on it. Some day. “Ten days seems like ample time.”
“No.”
Their gazes collided and the long, thick silence was broken by Manny’s chuckle. Ryan frowned at him.
“Let’s see how it goes,” she suggested. A damn compromise. Another one of her not-so-strong suits.
He studied her. “I’m the leader of this team,” he said. “What I say goes. You listen to me and you do what I say if you’re going to work with us.”
Her blood heated and she felt it pulsing in her head. “We’re a team.”
“Every team has a leader. And in this case it’s me.” His mouth firmed into a hard, straight line, his square jaw tight.
“Look. I know in the past, female UCA roles have been limited to playing the girlfriend,” she said. “But get with the times. I have my own goals for this operation, so that isn’t going to work for me. I need to get in there and gather my own intelligence.”
They faced each other down again and she vibrated with the need to convince him she was up to this.
He slowly shook his head from side to side, but said, “Fine. Gather your intel. But once again, you’re a rookie and I’m the leader of this team. That’s the way it works.”
Manny inclined his head in agreement. Even he deferred to Ryan.
She clamped her lips together and nodded reluctantly. She hated being told what to do, but it was the reality of being a rookie, the reality of working in a hierarchical government organization.
“The reason we were so successful was because we didn’t push,” Ryan continued, his voice low and tight. “I took my time, showed them the things they needed to see—confidence, loyalty, courage—and I let them come to me. That’s how we did it. We cannot push this. I can’t emphasize that enough.” His eyes flashed.
“I get it.”
“The rally would be a good time,” Manny said. “The whole idea of going there is to show off bikes and girlfriends. And the top dogs will be there for us to pay our respects to. We can talk to Casas.”
Ryan scowled. She looked back and forth between them. She was getting an impression of each of them—Manny level-headed and rational, Ryan a temperamental, egotistical hothead who did things his way or no way.
“What about you?” She lifted her chin and caught Ryan’s eye challengingly. “Are you going to be able to pull this off? Because clearly you hate my guts.”
Manny made a choked, snorting noise, but she didn’t even look at him. Ryan’s scowl deepened.
“I can do it,” he snapped. “And I don’t hate your guts. I just think you’re too inexperienced for this and I don’t have time to babysit. We’re in this deep and I want this operation to succeed.”
“Babysit!” Her mouth dropped open and she closed it with a pop. “I do not need babysitting!”
“Whatever.” He sliced a hand through the air. “You know what I mean. I don’t have time to look after you to make sure you’re safe. It’s going to endanger all of us.”
“I don’t need to be looked after,” she said through clenched teeth. “I can look after myself. I’ve been doing it for a long time.” She leaned forward across the table and he did the same. They met nose to nose. Sparks flashed and heat shimmered between them, just like last night. Every muscle in her body tightened, including the little inner muscles of her pussy, which contracted with hot, wet arousal.
Oh crap. Never mind being afraid of the DAs. She could handle anything they threw at her. But Ryan…was a different story. She was going to be his girlfriend, living with him in the same house for god knew how many months, while this intense sexual awareness sparked between them. Now that was enough to scare the hell out of her.
Chapter Four
Ryan and Manny spent the rest of the day documenting everything they’d done the night before in great detail. Goddamn paperwork—timesheets, activity reports, investigative reports. Ryan hated it. He liked being out in the field, undercover, using his wits, flying by the seat
of his pants. Not sitting in this airless office with ancient metal desks, worn linoleum and flickering fluorescent lighting that gave him a headache.
“Finished reviewing those tape transcripts yet?” Darren Forsythe stopped at his desk.
“Almost.” Forsyth’s eyes were way too small for his face, which was round and pale because he sat inside at a desk all day. His body was round and pale too, in a wrinkled white shirt, ugly tie loose around his neck, sleeves rolled back on scrawny forearms, gut overflowing his belt.
“You know, after that screw up with the Gonzales case, you’re lucky you’re not pushing paper all day, every day.”
Ryan lifted his eyes to the SAC’s. “You have to keep throwing that in my face?” he muttered. “I know I screwed up. I learned my lesson.”
“Let’s hope you did. Because I saw the way you were looking at that hot little DEA agent this morning. You’d better not let your dick run this case like the Gonzales case.”
That was too much. Ryan slammed a hand down on the papers, stood up and stuck his nose in front of Forsyth’s face. “I did not let my dick run that case. I wasn’t screwing that girl. I just cared about her. Like…like a little sister. She was a good kid, got hooked up with a scum pusher boyfriend.”
“Sure.” Forsyth didn’t back down. “A little sister, my ass.”
“It’s the truth.” He glared at Forsyth. Ryan knew what the talk had been after that case had all gone to shit, but he’d maintained he’d never gotten involved with Lucie Gonzales. Not like that. “In your dirty mind, maybe, but it never happened.”
“Whatever. Just take a lesson from that.”
“I have! That’s why we need a female agent on this case. God!” Ryan took a step back, rubbed the back of his neck under his hair. “If I was sleeping with every chick I met on this case, we wouldn’t have the problems we do. We wouldn’t need someone to pose as my girlfriend. For Chrissakes, half those bikers think I’m gay.”
Forsythe’s laugh was a dry bark. “Now that’s funny.”
“Yeah, I’m laughing so hard my side hurts.” Ryan scowled at his superior, longing to drive his fist into his nose. How long until he retired? Everyone knew he was just putting in time. Why didn’t he just go, for Chrissake, and let someone do the job who actually gave a shit. Ryan didn’t know how he’d gotten so lucky to be assigned to his unit after that last case. Maybe someone saw it as punishment. The only thing saving him from punching out his supervisor’s lights was working with Josh. He had a ton of respect and admiration for Josh and the work he’d done, and he wanted to do good for Josh.
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