Transfer

by Aly Martinez

  “Fuck you. I know enough. You’re asking her to risk her life to make your case and you’re planning to use her life as leverage to convince her.” He paused and barked a loud humorless laugh. “You and the rest of the DEA can suck my cock. She’s coming home with me.”

  I whipped my head in his direction, my hackles instantly raised. “Excuse me?”

  He met my gaze. “I’ve got the space. The security—Leo’s sending in more men tomorrow. And we both know what those DNA results on Tessa are going to read when I have them ordered tomorrow. Elisabeth isn’t real excited about taking the little girl from Clare, so yeah, you heard me. They’re both coming home with me.” He turned his attention back to Tomlinson, but his words were aimed at me. “And, the way I see it, she needs all the people she can get at her back, so you are more than welcome to come with her, Heath.”

  While I would have felt miles better with the DEA watching her ass rather than whoever Leo James had sent Roman, options were never a bad thing to have.

  I smirked at Tomlinson. “Sounds like she won’t be talking after all.”

  “Light,” he warned. “You try to pull this shit on me and you might as well turn in your badge now.”

  Digging in my back pocket, I retrieved my badge and then offered it his way. “Not a problem if this is the kind of man you are, using an innocent woman and kid to get a conviction.”

  My woman. My kid.

  Jesus fuck.

  I needed my head examined.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and glowered, making it known he wasn’t accepting my half-assed resignation.

  Our gazes were fused in a stare-down. He was my boss, but I didn’t back down. Not even an inch. Not when it came to Clare and Tessa.

  Never when it came to them.

  “Either take my badge or give me your word,” I demanded, breaking the silence.

  His gaze flashed to my outstretched hand then back again. “Fuck, Light. What are you doing? This isn’t like you.”

  He definitely wasn’t wrong about that. I was known to be steady and emotionally detached. I thrived on well-thought-out strategies. But, then again, I’d never met Clare.

  “I will ask you one more time,” I replied evenly. “And only because I respect the hell out of you and I know you’re working on a snap judgment of what you saw on that video from Noir’s place. You have a man she trusts, Lieutenant. Use me. I won’t cross any lines. I’m not sleeping with her. It’s not like that.” And, as much as it burned on my tongue, I had to remind myself that it never would be. I cleared my throat and forged ahead. “I’ve spent the last three months getting to know her. We have the same goal here—her survival. There’s nothing, and I mean nothing, I won’t do to ensure that. You could put a dozen different agents with her and none of them would keep her safe like I will.” I held his gaze but shoved my badge back in my pocket. “Put me with her and let me do my job.”

  He closed his eyes and grumbled.

  Hope swirled in my veins.

  “Shit.” He groaned. “You better get me something good here, Light. I’m putting my ass on the line.”

  A victorious smile split my face. “She hates him. I won’t have to get you anything. She’ll gladly give it all.”

  “You know he was gone when our boys got there,” he informed me.

  I’d figured as much. We had surveillance on the Noir house, but it wasn’t like the old-school movies where we had guys around the corner in an unmarked van.

  “Yet another reason we need to be vigilant here,” I retorted.

  He nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll send a team out to Leblanc’s as soon as she’s released.” He turned his attention to Roman. “You working with Leo James?”

  Roman nodded curtly, the big guy behind him relaxing a fraction.

  “I can’t imagine where you got his name,” he said sarcastically. “I’m sure you had nothing to do with that, Light.”

  I grinned. “Nope. Pure luck.”

  “Right. Well, Leo was my team leader before he left the Administration. You’re in good hands. I’ll give him a call and get things set up. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I got a shitstorm of phone calls to return.” He turned on a toe and walked away, leaving me smiling like a maniac in the middle of the hospital hallway.

  Roman waited for Tomlinson to round the corner before asking, “She asleep?”

  “They both are.”

  “Good. They need it.” He tipped his chin to where Tomlinson had disappeared. “He gonna send someone to guard the door?”

  “If I had to guess, there’s a sea of men downstairs, but yeah. I’ll shoot him a text about getting someone up here,” I muttered and offered him a hand.

  He clasped his with mine but didn’t immediately let go. When I looked up, his eyes filled with a determination that matched my own.

  “We’re gonna do right by them,” he vowed.

  “Fuck yeah,” I agreed.

  “No. Heath. We are gonna do right by them. No matter the cost. No matter the sacrifice. Priority number one and two are behind that door. The way we rank those priorities might be a little different, but that does not mean we aren’t in this together. You got me?”

  I nodded and gripped his hand even tighter. “They’re both my priority number one, Roman. But yeah, I got you.”

  “Good. Devon and I will be out here all night. You go ahead and get back in there before she wakes up.”

  Good fucking plan. It was a sad day when I was already jonesing after having been away from her for ten minutes.

  Christ, I was fucked.

  “Where are we going?” I nervously asked as Heath made another trip around the 285 loop.

  He kept his eyes on the road as he replied, “We’re just taking the scenic route to make sure no one is tailing us.”

  I turned and looked out the back window to see traffic as usual, no sign of Walt or any of his guys—as far as I could tell, anyway.

  “Turn around and relax,” he ordered.

  “Sure thing,” I smarted, righting myself in my seat and once again adjusting the oversized scrubs the hospital had given me to wear.

  Relaxing was easier said than done. I didn’t get to experience it often, and after my briefing this morning from a salt-and-peppered Richard Gere–lookalike named Mark Tomlinson, it wasn’t something I figured I’d be experiencing much of any time soon.

  No one had seen or heard from Walt since Heath had left him unconscious on our driveway. But I knew Walt; he was off somewhere, licking his wounds. I could only pray that we were safe at the Leblancs’ house, under the watchful eye of the DEA and Roman’s private security team, by the time he decided to make his move.

  “Hey,” Heath called to catch my attention. “We’re good, ya know? We’ve got a car in front of us leading the way and a car behind us watching for anything suspicious. I’m just waiting for the all clear before making our way to Roman’s place.”

  “Oh,” I said softly. Something akin to relief but much less relaxing washed over me. At least, if what he’d said was true, we probably wouldn’t be gunned down in the middle of the highway.

  “Luke!” Tessa yelled.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin as I attempted to scramble over the center console to get to her before Heath’s arm went up between the two seats and blocked me in the front.

  “You all right back there, Tessi?” he asked the rearview mirror. Cool, calm, and collected. Everything I was not.

  “I spilled my fish,” she replied as grief-stricken as an almost-three-year-old could be about having spilled their favorite snack.

  “Well, quick! Catch ’em before they swim away.” Heath chuckled.

  She giggled. “They can’t swim, Luke!”

  I’d told her that morning to call him Heath, but I still called him Luke on occasion. There was definitely going to be a learning curve involved for both of us.

  “Oh! You mean your crackers,” he teased. “I thought you might have brought your pet fi
sh with you.”

  She cackled louder. “I don’t have no fish!”

  She’d never had any kind of pet. Animals weren’t allowed in Walt’s house. Excluding him, of course.

  “Clare.” Heath’s voice was low so she couldn’t hear him. “You need to calm down and show her there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  I swallowed hard and did my best to slow my pounding heart. “Yeah. I might need a step-by-step instructional video on how to do that.”

  He turned his head my way, flashing me his blue eyes and one of his signature smiles that transformed his entire face from the badass Heath Light to the friendly and easygoing Luke Cosgrove.

  “I’m not sure they make YouTube tutorials for that,” he joked.

  I rubbed my sweaty palms over my thighs. “Yeah, I can’t imagine ‘how to relax while on the run from your neurotic crime lord husband’ has much of an audience.”

  “Probably not,” he replied, flashing me another one of those smiles as he flipped his blinker on and switched into the exit lane.

  “Are we getting off here?” I asked.

  “Yep.”

  A second round of nerves took up root in my stomach, but for a completely different reason. “How far out are we?”

  “’Bout fifteen minutes still, depending on traffic.”

  I pulled the visor down and used the mirror to inspect my face for the first time since we’d arrived at the hospital. Based on the impaired vision, I’d known my eye was going to look bad, but I wasn’t prepared for the rest of it. The doctors had glued numerous gashes on my face, and they were all starting to bruise. My lips were swollen, and dried blood still stained the corner of my jaw from the split on my ear despite the thirty-second shower I’d taken while Tessa had played peek-a-boo with the shower curtain.

  Heath had offered to watch her while she’d sat in his lap, watching videos on an iPad he’d magically produced. However, I hadn’t been anywhere near ready for there to be a door dividing us if Walt showed up.

  Closing the visor, I gave up on the lost cause that was my face. I looked like hell, but there was not one thing I could do to fix it.

  The nerves rolled all over again.

  “You good?” he asked the windshield.

  I glanced back at Tessa then asked him, “Have you met her?”

  “Who?”

  “Elisabeth Leblanc.”

  He sighed. “Yeah. Once.”

  “What’s she like? I mean…is she nice?” I mentally chastised myself for sounding like a high school girl. I was twenty-eight years old, but I’d never been good with women. Though, given my current predicament, I wasn’t all that great with men, either. “Never mind. Don’t answer that. I’m sure she’s great. She’s opening her home up to us.”

  “She looks like Tessa.” His eyes flashed to mine then back to the road. “I just want you to be prepared for that.”

  I focused on my lap. “Yeah. I’ve seen a picture of her.”

  “It’s eerie though. First time I saw her, I couldn’t drag my eyes away.”

  My stomach wrenched. Why did that hurt? And not the idea of her looking like Tessa—I’d accepted that fun fact weeks ago. But the idea of Heath gawking at her seared in a way I had no right to feel.

  “I’m sure she’s beautiful,” I mumbled and shifted awkwardly in my seat.

  His head swung in my direction, his lips tight and an eyebrow arched in curiosity.

  “I just mean, if she looks like Tessa, she has to be gorgeous.” I smiled.

  His hands tensed around the steering wheel. “Don’t do that,” he said roughly.

  My head snapped back at his tone. “Do what?”

  “Put on that fake-ass smile and lie to me.”

  “I’m sorry. What?” I snipped, glancing back at Tessa and finding her astutely listening to our conversation. I smiled and tossed her a wink.

  She smiled back, but it never reached her eyes.

  “See? You’re even teaching her to do it,” he said—again roughly.

  I cocked my head to the side, leaned an elbow on the console, and hissed, “What is your problem?”

  “Don’t placate me with a smile,” he replied curtly. “Open your mouth and tell me what’s bothering you.”

  “Nothing is bothering me except your attitude.”

  Tipping his gaze to the rearview mirror, he asked, “And what about you, sweet girl? You worried about something back there?”

  She looked at me with wide eyes and instantly shook her head. “No.”

  Crap. She was scared. Guilt pooled in my stomach. She’d seen way too much in her young life. If I wanted her to feel comfortable with Heath, it was definitely going to be a lead-by-example kind of thing.

  I sucked in a deep breath as he pulled to a stop at a red light.

  “I wasn’t placating you with a smile,” I lied.

  He twisted in his seat to face me, resting his muscular forearm on the steering wheel.

  I focused on Tessa to avoid his gaze—and his sexy forearm—before continuing. “I’m just nervous about meeting Elisabeth, and I look like…well.” I waved my hands over my face and down my scrub-covered body. “Like this.”

  I cautioned a glance back in his direction, but his face was unreadable.

  Slowly and purposely, he raked his eyes over me from head to toe, a chill spreading over my skin in their wake.

  When he got back to my face, he licked his lips and told me, “You look like a survivor, Clare. And the minute you find something ugly in that is the moment we have problems.”

  Shit. That felt good. And, if he had stopped there, I probably could have made it the rest of the way without tears. But he didn’t stop there.

  “Tessa,” he called. “How do you think your mama looks today?”

  “She beautiful,” she answered.

  He smiled and tossed me a wink. “Your girl’s got good taste.”

  She did. But only because she’d always liked him.

  My chin began to quiver as I fought tears back. “Thanks, Heath.”

  “You can’t thank me for the truth.”

  He was wrong. But I didn’t have the words to correct him.

  The light turned green and he slowly accelerated. However, a dirty and broken piece of me would forever be left at that stoplight. He’d taken it from me and replaced it with something to be proud of. The tiniest smile pulled at my lips as a single tear rolled down my cheek.

  “Elisabeth and Roman are both good people, Clare,” he said, misreading my overflowing emotions. “I wouldn’t be taking you there if I didn’t know that.”

  I nodded and peered out the window. I felt his eyes on me every so often, but he didn’t speak the rest of the drive, allowing me my own moment of privacy even as he sat directly beside me. It was the kindest thing he could have done. And it stripped another piece of my filth and left it on the side of a Georgia road.

  Right where it belonged.

  Ten minutes later, Heath followed an identical black SUV down a private drive. I found immediate comfort in the lack of a gate.

  Sure, there was nothing to keep someone out.

  But there was also nothing to keep me locked inside.

  A large but somewhat modest, considering who Roman was, old, white Victorian house with dark-blue accents stood tall in the middle of a decent-sized private lot. The yard was far bigger than ours—no, Walt’s—but the grass and the flowerbed needed some serious help.

  And then I saw her. Standing on the front porch, her arms folded over her chest to ward off the November chill, her side pressed into Roman’s chest, his mouth at her temple, anxiety etched in her face.

  I hadn’t been wrong; she was beautiful. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that a pang of jealousy hit me. This was her life. The worst that had probably ever happened to her was having shitty grass and an overgrown flowerbed. I didn’t want her to see my baby. To be able to offer her something I couldn’t—stability.

  There she stood, in her designer dress and h
eels, with a man who adored her and had probably never lifted a hand to her.

  She was a better version of me—better than I’d ever be.

  My heart lurched into my throat. “I can’t do this.”

  “Then we’ll wait until you can,” Heath said, putting the car in park, but he left the engine running.

  I kept my eyes glued to her as she turned and asked Roman something.

  Even from yards away, her resemblance to Tessa was uncanny, and it hurt so fucking badly. In that moment, regardless of what I’d wished over the last few weeks, I selfishly didn’t want her to be Tessa’s biological mother anymore.

  That was my job.

  The anxiety started in my hands, gradually working its way up until it engulfed my entire body.

  “Breathe,” I heard Heath say, and I momentarily managed to drag my eyes off Elisabeth.

  Concern painted his handsome face, but it was his comforting blue eyes that cut through my panic.

  I exhaled on a sob as I threw my arms around his neck. “I can’t do this.”

  “Shit,” I heard him mutter as I buried my face in his neck. His left arm wrapped around my shoulders, but I felt his body angle forward and his right arm reach into the back seat. “It’s okay, sweet girl,” he soothed. “Everything’s fine.”

  I lifted my head an inch and saw his hand patting Tessa’s leg. The silent tears streaming from her eyes immediately sobered me.

  “Hey. Hey. Hey,” I cooed, sitting up and drying my eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “You cryin’,” she squeaked, swiping her cheeks with the backs of her hands.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  I lifted my gaze to Heath, who was studying us both warily.

  “Right. Well…” I took a deep breath and did my best to collect myself. “I’m happy, baby. This is where we’ll be staying for a while.” I motioned out the window. “We’ll be safe here. Remember Roman? He’s going to let us stay with him and his wife.”

  She looked out the window then to Heath for a beat before looking back at me. “Luke, too?”

  I smiled, and it wasn’t even fake. “Yeah, baby. Heath is going to stay too.”

  She nodded, her little body visibly relaxing into her car seat.