But she might be the only one, and it would put her in a bad spot with the rest of the team.
He didn’t realize he’d sighed aloud until Rueben spoke.
“You okay, man?”
Braden’s nod was slow. “I’m good.”
But he wasn’t. He was sick of this shit. Sick of pretending to play for the good guys when the good guys were either too tied up in bureaucratic red tape to do their job or were eroding the system from the inside. It’s not like this agent would be the first one to turn dirty.
“You need anything else before I leave?” Rueben asked.
“I’m all set. Thanks for staying late.”
Rueben reached out to clasp his hand. “Anytime, man.”
He ambled for the door and disappeared into the hall.
Braden let his eyes travel the empty office. He’d spent countless hours of his life here. It had been the first place that felt like home since he’d been a teenager. Princeton had never been a good fit. He’d toughed it out because that’s what people in his family did, but he'd never been happy with his nose in the books. The military had been a different kind of disconnect; he’d been deployed so many times that he hadn’t had time to feel at home anywhere but inside the metal confines of a Humvee or a tent. But here… here was a place that had made him feel grounded. Made him feel useful.
It was where he and Nora had started their post-academy life.
But it didn’t feel like home anymore, and if he was honest, it hadn’t for a long time. He’d been assigned to so many special projects over the past couple of years — most of them having to do with the takedown of an organized crime empire known as the Syndicate and the fallout from its demise — that he hadn’t spent much time in the office. He’d even been assigned as a liaison to Homeland Security on a couple cases.
He’d left all of them feeling like he hadn’t changed a thing. Maybe he’d gotten a bad guy or two off the street, but there were always bigger and badder ones behind them. He’d almost started to sympathize with the friends he’d made at the Syndicate. Most people would call them criminals. Hell, they were criminals. He wasn’t kidding himself about that.
But he’d started to wonder if they were just more honest about taking out the trash. It was a thought that had occurred to him more than once — the idea that there might be another way to make a difference.
A real difference.
In the past, he’d pushed the thought away. It was traitorous to both the Bureau and the men he’d fought alongside in the military.
But he was surprised to find it was still there: a backup plan he’d never intended to keep in his pocket. And suddenly it seemed like the only thing to do. To move the needle in the real world — and to start his housekeeping with the Bureau.
He picked up his phone and dialed, waited for someone to answer the private line, in spite of the fact that it was three hours later in New York.
“I wish I could say I’m surprised.” The voice on the other end of the line was dry, with a hint of humor that had become familiar to Braden.
“Nico,” he said. “Remember that contact you told me about in La Jolla?”
6
Nora pulled her Prius into the lot and stepped out of the car. She was heading toward the entrance when she heard Mike’s voice behind her.
“Every day I’m surprised you make it here alive in that tin can.”
She laughed, slowing a little to let him catch up. “Ha-ha. We’ll see who’s laughing when gas goes up to four dollars a gallon again.”
“I’ll still be laughing,” he said. “Because I’ll have banked hundreds of hours driving my Mustang and I’ll just hitch a ride with you.”
“You wish.”
They entered the building, showed their IDs to security, and moved through the checkpoint. They continued to the elevator, stepping to the back and waiting as a throng of employees crammed in after them. The doors shut, the elevator rising in the old building.
“What’s up for the weekend?” Mike asked, dipping his head toward hers.
“The usual,” she said. “Errands, laundry, beach.” She didn’t know why she omitted her drinks with Braden that night. Was it because she didn’t want Mike to invite himself along? Because her feelings about Braden weren’t as innocent as she tried to pretend they were?
“Exciting,” he said.
“Hey!” She scowled at him. “I like my weekends.”
He kept his eyes forward, plastering a look of placid acceptance on his face. “Your weekends are fine.” He broke into a grin. “For an eighty-year-old grandma.”
She laughed and shook her head. “You’re such a dick.”
“You mean that in a good way, right?” he asked as the door opened on their floor.
They pushed through the crowd to follow two other people out of the elevator.
“No. I just mean you’re a dick,” she said.
“You love me and you know it,” he said.
Something in his voice made her look up, and she caught a flash of innuendo in his eyes. It wasn’t unfamiliar. He flirted with her pretty much constantly, and he’d hinted at the fact that he was more than open to the idea of taking their friendship to the next level.
She was a fool not to take him up on the offer. It was a great match on paper. He was a great-looking guy. He made her laugh, was fun in a douche-y kind of way. And he was someone who wouldn’t ask too much of her, who wouldn’t make her stupid.
But the thought left her cold. Which didn’t make sense.
They stepped through the glass doors into their division and Nora immediately slowed down. Something was up. Everyone was too quiet, their eyes directed on the glass walls separating Alvarez’s office from the bullpen where everyone else worked.
She followed their gaze, her eyes coming to rest on Braden’s wide back in front of Alvarez’s desk. They were alone in the office, Alvarez’s face drawn, a look of defeat in his eyes that Nora could see even from across the room.
“What’s going on?” Mike asked no one in particular.
“Don't know,” Miller said. “Kane walked into Alvarez’s office and closed the door. They’ve been in there for almost half an hour.”
Nora walked to her desk, trying not to stare at Alvarez’s office. She wondered if Braden was being assigned another special project. It had happened a lot in the past couple of years, and she’d watched with a mixture of professional and personal jealousy as he’d flown from Rome to Paris to Switzerland. He’d even gone to Spain and Algeria. He hadn’t been able to talk about the assignments, but he’d somehow returned looking tan, healthy, and oddly resigned.
She took her seat and shuffled through her reports from the raid the day before, trying not to stare as Braden stood on the other side of the glass walls. He and Alvarez shook hands and Braden stepped out into the bullpen. She expected him to wear an expression of determination, the expression that settled into his features when he was already anticipating a mission. Already planning for it.
Instead she was surprised to see that his expression was relaxed, his shoulders unusually slack. He walked to his desk, pulled a box out from underneath it, and proceeded to open drawers and throw stuff into the box while everyone watched.
“Dude, what’s going on?” Perelli finally asked.
Braden closed the bottom drawer of his desk and stood, picking up the box. “I’m out.”
He headed for the door, his eyes on Nora as he passed her desk, some kind of unspoken communication passing between them. She wanted to stop him, wanted to ask what was going on, but she was in shock. Paralyzed by the unlikelihood of Braden Kane quitting the FBI with no warning whatsoever. Her throat closed as she watched him go, her breath growing shallow as she ran through everything that had happened in the past forty-eight hours, searching for something, anything, that would lead to one of the Bureau’s most promising Special Agents walking out.
She had nothing.
The elevator dinged, pulling her out of her stu
por, and she pushed away from her desk and hurried out into the hall. The elevator was already on its way down when she got there, and she opened the door to the stairwell and took the stairs two at a time, racing around the landings on each floor until she finally reached the ground floor.
She burst into the lobby in time to see Braden disappearing out the front doors. Racing past security, she pushed the glass doors open and spilled out into the warm September morning.
She found him in the parking lot, bent over the backseat of his Saab as he shoved his box of belongings into the car.
“Braden, wait!”
He straightened, his eyes coming to rest on her as she hurried toward him. Was there relief in his eyes? Had he been hoping she’d come after him?
“Hey!” she said, coming around his car. “What are you doing?”
He shrugged, the gesture looking strangely boyish in his big man-body. “I quit.”
She shook her head. “What do you mean? Why would you do that?”
He drew in a deep breath, pulled his eyes from hers to look at something over her shoulder. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”
“Then don’t quit!” she said. “You can take it back!”
He returned his gaze to her face, his expression softening into a smile. “I meant that I don’t know what I’m doing here anymore. It’s just… not working for me.”
“Did something happen?” she asked.
He hesitated and she knew she’d hit a nerve. Could see it in the too-still set of his features designed not to give anything away. They’d all learned it. Don’t blink too rapidly or too slowly. Don’t look away. Don't look up (people often looked at the ceiling when they lied). Don’t fidget.
“No,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about it for awhile. I’m not sure I’m doing any good here anymore.”
She swallowed, stuck between sorrow and a strange kind of fear. Something wasn’t right. “What are you talking about? You’ve done more good than all of us put together. I don’t understand.”
He looked at her for a long moment, and she felt it stretch between them, all the things they hadn’t said. All the chances they’d had to say them.
“This is just something I have to do. It’s the best thing for me — and for the Bureau. You’re just going to have to trust me on that.”
She wanted to scream at him. She didn’t trust him. The Bureau would suck without him. He was the best of them, and he was doing something crazy. Making a decision he would later regret.
But she saw the resolve in his eyes. Knew him well enough to know he had made up his mind.
She tucked a piece of loose hair behind her ear. “Dammit. I’m going to miss you, Kane.”
He lifted a hand, and for a moment she thought he was going to touch her. Then he looked up at the building looming over them and dropped his hand to his side.
He grinned and it was like feeling the sun on her shoulders after it had been hidden behind a particularly cold bank of clouds. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” he said, opening the door to his car. “We have plans tonight remember?”
She nodded, the vise around her heart easing up just a little. “Rosa’s?”
“Rosa’s. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
He slid into the driver’s seat, closing the door before she could reply. She was still standing there when he pulled out of the lot. It was only then that she realized the strangeness of his final words. They were friends. They usually met at the restaurant. When the weather was especially nice, they’d meet on the corner and walk the rest of the way together.
He’d never picked her up before.
7
Braden stood in front of his closet and plucked a gray blazer from the row of jackets hanging there. He slipped it over his white shirt and headed for the door of his apartment, pausing to look around the living room on his way out.
It was a modest place, paid for with his salary from the Bureau rather than the money that had been sitting in his trust fund since his father died eight years earlier. That money felt tainted, and Braden still hadn’t figured out how to use it without remembering their last, vicious argument.
He wasn’t particularly attached to the apartment, but it was close to Nora, and that meant something to him. Their drinks and dinners and the times they met for a walk on the beach meant something to him. He’d spent years using work as an excuse, and now that he’d left the Bureau it would still be an excuse, although in an entirely different way.
But not tonight. Tonight there would be nothing between them.
He pulled the door closed and stepped into the night air, heavy with the scent of jasmine and salt as the ocean rolled in a block from his apartment. He was getting into his car when his cell phone rang. He looked at the display, hesitated, then picked up.
“Mother,” he said. “What’s up?”
“What kind of way is that to answer the phone, Braden? Really!”
The sound of her voice in his ear brought back a million memories. A million times that she’d mediated between him and his father. He remembered the way her voice had trembled during the last big argument between them. The way she had raged at him at his father’s funeral.
“I’m sorry, Mother,” he said. “I’m on my way out.”
“There’s never a good excuse for bad manners,” she said.
He pictured her in the big house in Seattle, the bedrooms long empty, Monty, the little Dachshund she loved like a second child, sliding across the wood floors. Was she lonely? He knew if she asked she would say no, but he wondered if it would be true. It had been a couple of months since he’d seen her, and he resolved to visit soon. It was a short flight. All the unspoken words between them were no excuse.
“I know. How are you, Mother?”
“I’m fine, dear. Monty caught a cold last week, but you don’t want to hear about that and I don’t want to tell you about it.”
He laughed into the phone as he backed out of the carport and into the alley that separated his building from the one next door. “What do you want to tell me about then?”
“Nothing in particular,” she sniffed. “You’re my son. I wanted to check in on you.”
“I’m fine.” He paused, contemplated telling her about quitting the Bureau, then thought better of it. His decision to join the military had not gone over well, and his move to the Bureau after his father’s death had only been further proof of his rebellion from the old money, political office, and corporate power that had been a hallmark of the Kane family since his great-great-grandfather had struck it rich during the gold rush. “I might be out of town for a bit though.”
“Really? Is it another special project?” It was as close as she’d come to asking about his work.
“Something like that,” he said, pulling into traffic. “But I’ll stay in touch.”
There was a long moment of silence. “I hope you will.”
Something in her voice unsettled him. “Are you all right, Mother?”
Her chuckle was brittle. “Of course. Everything’s just fine.”
He wasn’t sure she was being straight with him but there was nothing he could do about it from where he was, and it was obvious she had no intention of telling him anything now.
“If you say so,” he said. “I’m going to come for a visit soon, I promise.”
“That would be fine.” She said it stiffly, like he was another engagement on her social calendar. Another charitable board meeting or fundraising event.
“I’ll call soon and we’ll plan something. I love you.” He’d never had trouble saying or feeling it with his mother in spite of the aloofness she wore like a shroud. It was his father who had seemed to hold the key to words Braden could never say. Words he hadn’t been able to say before his father’s death.
“Yes, me too, darling. I’ll talk to you soon.” She hung up without saying goodbye.
He rolled down his window, breathing in the ocean air to clear his head. His mother’s
voice brought the past too close. It was too easy to get lost in his mistakes. In the regret and anger that had already taken up too much space in his life. The past was the past. Reliving it as some kind of penance was a waste of time. There was no way to change it. No way to undo it.
He’d had enough of regret. And enough of playing by the rules, too.
8
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
She had been waiting to ask the question, assuming Braden would talk to her when he was ready. But they’d gotten through the strangely awkward exercise of Braden picking her up (as if it were a date, and it most definitely wasn’t a date… was it?), two huge margaritas at Rosa’s, two equally huge bowls of tortilla chips with Rosa’s famously spicy salsa, and two burritos. They’d discussed the botched raid in San Pedro, talked about Alvarez’s increasingly massive ego, even talked about the possibility of another rent increase on Nora’s apartment.
But nothing about Braden’s decision to leave the Bureau.
He looked more gorgeous than ever, and she wondered if it was because she knew their days were numbered. Knew that whatever his reason for leaving, he would be moving on. She’d spent the past hour-and-a-half trying to memorize the perfect symmetry of his features, the tiny patch of skin, smooth and tan, visible at the base of his neck, the way his eyes seemed to darken in the candlelight flickering from their table. More than once she’d had the urge to touch his hand, to finally close the distance between them before it was too late.
The words had emerged from her mouth instead, an attempt from the more reasoned part of her brain at returning to safer ground.
He put down his fork, looked at his plate before returning his gaze to her. “I’m not sure we should talk about this.”
She leaned back in her chair. “Why? We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Is that what we are?” he asked softly.
The question — said with an air of confusion she’d never before heard in his voice — took her by surprise. Was he calling her out? Asking her to reveal her feelings for him?
Rogue Love (Kings of Corruption Book 1) Page 3