Wannabe: An Against The Odds Novel

by Christa DeClue

  Titus leans over and whispers to me, “Do you think he’s trying to use us for grunt work to solve this case and take the glory, or do you think he’s really trying to work together?”

  “You know DEA. Most of them are egotistical and can’t see past their own importance to actually work with the local PD. I don’t know why, all of a sudden, they want to work together now. It’s unprecedented,” I whisper back.

  “Uh, guys…” Jensen butts in and I cut him a look, but I tune the captain and the other guy in at that moment.

  “Ah, here they are. Agent Daniel Evers, and our UC Agent, Isabella Jennings. Agent Jennings has been our man on the ground for a couple of years now,” the gray-haired suit says, and my world is set on fire as Amber and her “boyfriend” walk into the room in suits. All of us suck in a sharp breath as disbelief courses through me.

  “What the fuck? Is this a joke? Amber?” I grit out and her eyes meet mine. She gives me a sad look and I see her DEA badge hanging from her belt. This makes me realize everything—every single goddamn thing—we had has been a lie. I look over to her partner, not her fucking boyfriend, and he just gives me a sympathetic look. I lose everything that is said to the roaring in my ears and the betrayal in my gut. Her partner and the other guy, who now I’m assuming is Michael, take a seat next to my captain. Amber starts to speak.

  “Close to three years ago, we were tipped off that some drug kingpins were making their way into St. Louis. Our source told us they were going to make a play for the sex trade—dancers, prostitutes, pornographic movies. Those were all where they were going to start pushing their products. The men we sent to investigate came back empty-handed, every time. People were scared, nobody was willing to talk. About that time, bodies started dropping. The product that was pure before was now being laced with a very deadly substance we all know to be fentanyl. It was then my bosses decided to send somebody under to try to root these people out. Find the drugs, find the kingpins. I volunteered.” She takes a deep breath and a muscle is ticking in my jaw as I feel her eyes stray to me again. I can’t bring myself to look into her beautiful, lying eyes.

  “We found an in with a local girl. A college student whose name is Briar Thames. She was told that I was a local Psychology student doing my thesis on sex workers, which I needed to go ‘undercover’ at a strip club to finish. She got me the job because she bartended there, and no one would question a sudden hire if it was Briar’s friend. After a while, it became apparent that while there were drugs in play at Dark Angels, it was nowhere near the source. So, we decided I would try to get the local working girls to trust me by pretending to be a working girl myself. I had no intention on following through with that, multiple plain clothes agents were stationed nearby if they needed to see me pick up a John. As all of you know, I got arrested that night.” She shoots a smile in my direction, but I pointedly ignore her. With a sigh, she continues.

  “That night, in lockup, I made good connections with multiple working girls. They started to open up and tell me bits and pieces. And every time I let myself get arrested, they would tell me more and more. By pretending to be the ditzy blonde, they no longer saw me as a threat. Now, a majority of them report to me. I haven’t had a break in the case in a little while, but this week, I visited an unknown sex club with the same Miss Thames. While I was there, I was witness to an overdose to a Miss Nastassia Bennett. Thinking it a freak occurrence, I tried to visit with her the next day at the hospital, but she wouldn’t speak to me. Someone had her deathly afraid. After Ryan was shot…I mean, after Sergeant Stone was shot, I tried to see her again.”

  She pauses and I finally look up at her, our gazes clashing. She gives me another beseeching look, but my face is grim and cold. Her eyes lower for a moment before she visibly collects herself and straightens her shoulders.

  “She had been checked out AMA, in the care of someone I had also met at the club. I went to Briar for answers and she did some digging. She found that a large portion of the deadly overdoses were people somehow connected to this sex club. I think we found ground zero for the heroin epidemic right here, and she is now putting me as a member so I can have unfettered access to this club. But unfortunately, to access this club, you have to have a collared submissive or be one. I do not have one nor am I willing to be one.”

  I suck in another breath, which she thankfully ignores.

  “That’s where you guys come in. DEA can’t afford to send anyone else, and I know Narcotics has been itching to bust these guys as well. We need to stop the body count. I’ve laid a lot of the groundwork and now I need help to finish this.” Her voice trails off and she takes a seat by her partner. Her eyes never leave my face and I clench my teeth as her boss gets up.

  “I’m Deputy Director Michael Nader, DEA. What Agent Jennings failed to mention is that in her work, she has somehow caught the eye of the Ordonez Drug Cartel.” His eyes cut to me and I swear softly, knowing I was the cause for that. He gives her a look as well and she grimaces.

  “Agent Jennings, as of yesterday, has a contracted hit put out on her, which the cartel has picked up. She needs protection and manpower. We also need to close this case. She has not been made, but as ‘Amber James,’ she’s pissed off some very prominent people. It’s come to my attention that most of the people in this room had a run-in with that same cartel last year and have been receiving threats. This means we are racing against the clock to close this shit. Captain Marshall has agreed that Agent Jennings will head the task force, with me overseeing it. He also assured me that you men are completely capable of working with us on this without argument.” He looks at each one of us in turn. At our silence, he nods.

  “Good. We’ll meet later to discuss our next move.” At his dismissal, I’m out of my chair like a shot.

  I hear Amber’s, or Isabella’s, or whoever she is, voice calling my name, which I ignore. The clacking of heels sounds behind me and suddenly a hand pulls on my left arm, whirling me around. My angry gaze meets Amber’s sad ones. I feel more betrayal, just by being this close and still wanting to kiss her.

  “Please, Ryan, just talk to me. I tried to tell you last night, I swear. If you just give me a chance to explain…” she says, almost convincingly. I laugh bitterly and interrupt her.

  “Is Amber even your name at all, or was every single thing a lie?”

  “Yes, my name is Amber Isabella Jennings. I’ve never gone by Amber until I went undercover. Now, I can’t imagine being called anything else. We weren’t a lie, Ryan. How I feel about you, that’s not a lie. You have to believe me.” Her tone is beseeching but my heart feels like it’s in my stomach. She’s lied to me. She had a million chances to tell me, and never did. Fuck, she let me inside her body, when she knew she was lying to me. I scrub a hand down my face.

  “Everything about you is a lie. You claim to have feelings for me, but at not one point did you tell me the truth. Not when you saw me struggling with your profession, and my feelings for you, did you ever think ‘hmm, maybe he deserves to know I’m not fucking people for money.’ I could have had your back through all of this, but you didn’t trust me enough.” I break loose of her grip and start to stalk away, but her voice stops me.

  “That’s not fair. You’re law enforcement, you know as a UC, you don’t jeopardize your mission. You never blow your cover. I was going to tell you last night. You won’t even let me explain. Please, I love you.”

  I turn back around sharply. “You don’t get to say that. Not now. Not when you put your fucking mission before me. I put you first, even when I shouldn’t have. I drove myself crazy when you got hurt. I deserved answers then. Now, it’s too late and I don’t want to hear any more of your lies. I’m working Narcotics because my mother was a junkie prostitute who never loved me or protected me. She never put me first. I wanted to save other kids from that. You pretended to be similar to her, but I fell for you anyway, because unlike her, I thought you put me first. Against my better judgment, I fell for you, but you can go b
ack to your partner, Agent Jennings. The mission comes first, remember that. I certainly fucking will from now on.”

  A single tear slides down her cheek and I almost waver, but I remember the way she held me last night and then betrayed me today, so I do the only thing I can. I stalk away from her as my heart turns to stone.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Amber

  I feel like I’m dying. I can’t breathe. My legs give out and I sink down the wall in the middle of a St. Louis precinct with hundreds of people milling around, giving me curious looks. My shell breaks, and the persona I’ve meticulously cultivated crumbles around me. I start gasping for breath as I put my head in my hands. My shoulders start to shake, and a full-blown panic attack starts hitting me when I feel strong hands grip my upper arms and pull me to my feet. My startled eyes shoot up and find Danny standing before me.

  “Not here. I get it, that you’re starting to break, but it can’t be here. All of these eyes on you, we don’t know if they’re friendly or not. Some of these people in here will expect you to lead them. They need to know that you won’t break. That you’re cool under fire.” His soothing whisper helps center me slightly, but I’m still gasping for breath and he starts swearing.

  Danny practically drags me into an empty interview room. He closes the door and turns back to face me, tipping my chin up and mimicking the breathing motion. Following his lead, I focus on him. On breathing, on what I can physically feel, hear, touch, and taste, like my therapist tells me. After a good five minutes, my lungs start to expand easier, and I can suck in breath without feeling like I’m going to pass out. Danny is staring at me hard when I reopen my eyes, and I give him a tiny smile.

  “Bella, that was a bad one. That hasn’t happened since you were first recruited for the DEA. What triggered it?”

  It takes me a few minutes of clearing my throat before I can actually force words out.

  “You know what triggered it. You predicted it. It ended badly. No fairytale ending for me, Moose. I assumed he would give me a chance to explain. I assumed he loved me enough to accept that I had to do it, and while I might not have met him through honest means, it didn’t make my feelings for him any less real.” My words are barely above a whisper. Danny looks at me so solemnly, I almost start to cry again.

  “Bella Bear, just because he needs a few days to accept this new truth doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. From everything you’ve told me about this man, and everything I’ve seen, he won’t let this stop him. It might knock him down for a while, but he’ll come back. Just because this began on the basis of a lie doesn’t mean it can’t have a fairytale ending. Cinderella did, the redheaded fish bitch got one. You’re way better than a Disney princess, you’re DEA badass. The most important thing right now though, is making sure no one else dies. We’re here to close this case. You needed these guys to do that. Do what you do best, Bella. Plan.”

  I find myself nodding at his hilarious version of a pep talk, then straighten my shoulders and take a deep breath. Danny nods approvingly but starts frowning as I pull out my phone. He leans over to see the screen and I give him a weird look as I move it out of his reach.

  “What are you doing? You better not be texting him!” Danny tells me in his “fed up with Bella” voice. I stick out my tongue at him.

  “I’m not texting him. I’m texting Briar, doing what you told me to do. I’m making plans. Get off my back, Dad.”

  “I’m telling Delilah you called me daddy,” he says childishly.

  “Eww, what the fuck? No.” A startled laugh leaves my throat. He grins impishly at me, causing me to roll my eyes.

  As I’m typing out my text to Briar, my phone starts ringing in my hand. Zaydra’s name causes me to swear a blue streak. The ass told her. I know he did. I debate on not answering it but fumble the phone and accidentally answer it anyway.

  “Son of a… Hello?” I grumble.

  “Were you not going to answer my call…Isabella?” I put my right hand to my face at her soft tone.

  “It’s Amber, Zaydra. It’s always been Amber. Isabella is my middle name.”

  “Not Renee James? Isabella Jennings?” she questions and my sigh is loud.

  “No, Zaydra, I lied about that. I had to make the working girls trust me, I thought you were a new contact. I’m sorry. Renee was my mother’s name and James was my father’s name. But the dildo collection was real. Sometimes I name them. Antonio is the green one and he’s my favorite.” I hear a choking noise and I forgot Danny was in the room with me. I roll my eyes as he fights laughter.

  “So…you’re DEA then.”

  “Yeah, I’m DEA. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, there were more lives at stake than just mine. I wanted to, a million times. I’m so sorry. Who told you? Was it Stoney?” The question rushes out of me with agony.

  “No. It was Collin. He had a team of investigators and he found out about you a little while ago. He said he was going to let you tell me on your own time, but Ryan just called him, and he wasn’t sure Ryan wouldn’t tell me. So, he thought it best if it wasn’t going to be you, that it would be him.”

  “I understand if you never want to talk to me again. I know lying to you was wrong.”

  “Are you nuts? I mean, lying to me for so long was shitty. But you literally saved my life in New Orleans. If you hadn’t had the intuition to place that tracker on us, they never would have found me. I get trying to save people’s lives. That’s what Ryan and Collin used to do in the Special Forces. Give him some time, he’ll come around. I can’t believe you went to Yale. You sympathized with me when I got a C in Statistics in my college classes, and you never got a C in your life.” Her voice shifts to accusing and I let out a watery laugh.

  “That’s what you’re mad at? Over everything, that’s what you choose?”

  “Well, yeah. Unless I find out you were creeping into my room at night and taking feet pictures to sell to random men on the internet.”

  “Uh, no, I only crept in there once to take pictures of your boobs to show my doctor what I want.”

  “Hey!”

  “What, it’s not my fault you like to sleep naked. Wait… oh my god, they’re going to get bigger now that you’re pregnant.” My eyes widen with glee. Her peals of laughter sound over the phone.

  “I’m getting off here now. It’s good to know you’re still my crazy ex-roommate. Let your freak flag fly, babes.”

  “Always,” I tell her with a smile and hang up. I turn and grin at Danny. He nods sagely, like it was his doing, and I cock my brow at him. “That went better than expected. How is it the world thinks the female gender is the one who overreacts the most?”

  He just shrugs, so I get back to making plans. I send the text after typing it out carefully.

  I have a few more people I need to bring in. Can you do a guest pass?

  Her response is instantaneous as my hand buzzes.

  What? No. Girl, this isn’t Six Flags. There’s no fast pass. You can bring someone as your submissive and because I’m your friend, I will bring someone you choose, as mine. Okay?

  I try one more time.

  I really need two more people to be brought in as well. They’ll pay whatever fee they have to, to be expedited as members. Please, it’s crucial to this investigation.

  The three dots pop up on my phone, then go away before they pop up again. Finally, they stop. My grip tightens and then my phone buzzes.

  Fine. But they’re paying double. Mama’s gotta eat. Also, any criminal drug charges cannot be brought against the club. They get full immunity from that. It’s not our fault someone is dealing there.

  My sigh of relief is audible, and Danny comes up behind me to read over my shoulder.

  Done. But I need you to meet at the precinct tonight at six to iron out these details. You’re part of this operation now. You need to be here.

  Will do. I’ll tell Matthew we both have food poisoning and we keep shitting ourselves.

  I’m grateful to Briar in that moment beca
use I had completely forgotten about Dark Angels. My eyes lift from my phone and settle on Danny again. He quirks his own eyebrow at me. I grin evilly at him.

  “Let the boys know that we’ll have a meeting tonight at six. I have a surprise for them.”

  “I don’t like your tone or that look. I’m really not going to like this, am I?” he grits out.

  “Probably not.”

  He starts swearing and I smile genuinely for the first time since I saw Ryan’s angry face in that conference room.

  Chapter Thirty: Ryan

  I can’t seem to get my head straight. My mind is consumed with thoughts of shady shit I should have noticed before. How Amber was never concerned about being arrested, how she seemed too intelligent for what she was doing, and how she seemed to always understand my job. I beat my hand against the steering wheel of my Range Rover and curse. Talking to Collin didn’t clear my head like I hoped it would, so now I’m driving around aimlessly. The pain in my side and shoulder are the only thing I can focus on, because the pain in my heart might just kill me.

  The shrill ringing of my phone breaks me out of my thoughts. I pull over and grab my phone. Seeing Titus’s name, I quickly answer.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’d you go? We’re needed back here at six. You need to get here. I know your head has to be messed up, but you have to put your game face on right now. The Captain is relying on us.” His words barely penetrate.

  “Yeah, okay. I’ll be there shortly.” My words are clipped.

  I hang up before he can give me any more words of wisdom. The drive back to the precinct goes quickly. I pull into my spot and put it in park, then rest my head back against the headrest. I don’t know how to get my head right, or how to fucking wrap my mind around the betrayal and hurt I feel. The opening of the passenger side door jerks me from my musings. I relax when Jensen climbs in, my breath escapes me slowly.