Re/Leased (Doms of the FBI Book 5)

by Michele Zurlo

  Food disappeared from her plate, and she stared at the empty disk.

  “Do you want more?” Malcolm’s question broke through her increasing melancholy. “I can make another one.”

  She looked up, staring at him openly. He didn’t have a horse in this race, and she didn’t get the sense he hated her. But how reliable was her intuition? She didn’t get the sense that any of them disliked her, though David’s actions certainly indicated hatred. It took a moment, but she reminded herself to answer him. “No, thank you.”

  Just to get away from David for a minute, she stood and gathered her plate and glass.

  “I’ll get that.” Dean took it from her. “You and David have a conversation to continue.”

  “We’re done talking.”

  “Sugar—” David tried to take her hand, but she jerked it away.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “Let’s go into the living room.”

  “No.” She parked her ass back on the chair and folded her hands on the table. “I can’t think of anything more we have to discuss.”

  “I have questions, and you’re going to provide answers. Did your father teach you to pick locks and break into safes?”

  She was not answering questions about her father. She’d been a fool to even mention him to David, and now she reverted to tried and true methods of avoidance. “Did your father teach you to be controlling and overbearing?”

  His nostrils flared, but she didn’t know if she’d scored a direct hit or pissed him off—maybe both. “Autumn, I warned you. Answer me, or I will spank you.”

  She turned to face him, her chin high, and she challenged his threat. “No, you won’t. I won’t let you. Perhaps Jesse didn’t tamper with my brakes, but he knows who did it, which means you do too.”

  “Autumn, I swear I didn’t see anybody around your car except that woman you talked to.” Jesse met her gaze, his pale blue eyes nothing but sincere.

  She countered with incredulity. “You were watching my car, but you didn’t see who did this? What the hell kind of tail are you?”

  “I wasn’t watching your car. I was watching you. There’s a tree I can stand behind where I have a clear view of you in your sister’s room, and unless you’re looking for me, you’re not going to see me.”

  With a jolt, she realized that she had seen him, but she hadn’t thought anything of it. Many people hid out over there to take an emotional break from visiting a loved one. Sunshine Acres had a hospice section, and lots of emotional trauma went on there. She turned away, again staring out the window at the spectacular sunrise. The beauty out there seemed incongruent with what was going on in here.

  David grasped her chin, forcing her to face him. “Did you father teach you how to break into places and rob them?”

  Was he really going to try this tactic again? Autumn sighed. “My father was a good man. He was kind and caring, always there for me, always supporting and encouraging me. I’m not the one with Daddy issues, David—you are.”

  He stood swiftly, lifted her up, and threw her over his shoulder. The air rushed from Autumn’s lungs, and she was momentarily stunned.

  “Are you sure you want to do that?” Dean asked.

  “I don’t need an audience.” In seconds, David had carried her to his room. He tossed her on the bed, where she landed hard.

  She put her hand to her stomach. “You took a real chance doing that right after I ate. You almost got to see an encore of my breakfast.”

  “Get up.” The Dom was in the house, and Autumn found herself obeying even when she didn’t want to.

  She was nervous as all hell. Had he read her mind? Did he know her deepest desires? Did he have Clue One that she needed him to prove that he cared about her?

  His grim expression and the hands perched on his hips didn’t bode well. “I can’t be in a relationship with a woman who keeps secrets—big secrets—from me. Autumn, you either tell me everything right now, or I will release you.”

  Release her? He’d never given her a collar. She wasn’t sure if he’d been a real Sir to her, or if he’d been pretending. It hurt, and she hated herself for being weak. This man had never loved her. He hadn’t even bothered to lie to her about it. He’d never given himself to her the way she’d given herself to him. They’d both kept secrets, and many were still hidden. “Then it’s official. We’re through.”

  She turned away to hide the way she swiped at the tears spilling down her cheeks. Don’t fall apart in front of him. She breathed through the pain, but it didn’t help. She felt his hands loosely grip her shoulders, and even that light touch sent searing pain directly to her heart. “Autumn, I never used you.”

  That lie cut deep, and she couldn’t take more. She shook him away and faced him, tear-streaked face be damned. “But you did, and I was desperate enough to let you.”

  She marched into the kitchen, grabbed her stethoscope and lock picking kit, and faced Dean. “Where is my car?”

  He studied her face, and she scowled to hide her feelings. Finally he spread his palms. “I dropped it at your apartment and took a cab here.”

  Great. Now she was walking home. It was only seventeen miles away. No sweat. Malcolm came out as she waited for the elevator. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

  “Thank you, but that’s not necessary.”

  He got on the elevator with her. “Oh, but it is. Darcy would kill me if she found out I didn’t.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “You fucked that up.” Dean strolled into the bedroom through the door Autumn had left open. She’d been too upset to want to slam it on her way out. He felt like shit about the way he’d handled the whole affair.

  Jesse dragged the chair from the vanity closer to where David sat on the edge of the bed. He swung a leg over to sit backward, and he rested his arms on the seatback. “This is why we let Frankie and Dean handle interrogations. I lack patience, and you not only lack patience, but you have no finesse.”

  Dean perched on the corner of the bed, creating an intimate triangle. “What did you hope to accomplish by breaking her heart?”

  He hadn’t meant to break her heart. He’d envisioned the questioning going a completely different way. In his mind, she’d opened up and told him everything, and then he’d held her hand as the others presented the information Keith had dug up on her father. It was going to hurt to hear how deeply he’d betrayed her and her sister, but her Sir would be there to help her weather the emotional storm.

  Instead of a hero, he was the villain. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He swallowed. “I told her that if she couldn’t be honest with me, I would release her. She said it was over, and she left.”

  Dean winced, and Jesse shook his head. “You asshole. Even I knew she was crying out for understanding.” Jesse was known for not caring about a woman’s emotional state. He was all about having a good time and moving on. “I tried to help you out, but you blew up every lifeline I threw your way.”

  Is that what he’d been doing? It had sailed clear over David’s head. “I thought you were buying into the way she was trying to control the conversation.”

  “Usually we’re on the same page,” Jesse said. “But with her, I’m not sure what book you’re reading. I don’t think you know, either.”

  Dean chuckled. “He’s in love. Be patient. This is new for David. He’s spent the last three years dabbling in emotional entanglements so that he knew exactly when to cut and run.”

  Nothing they were saying was untrue. However, this time, David hadn’t bothered to devise an exit plan. He didn’t want out. “Is she out there with Malcolm?”

  “No. Malcolm took her home.” Dean rubbed his palm on his pants. “We had to assure him that you had no intention of spanking her.”

  “Maybe she needed me to.” David pinched the bridge of his nose and thought about the first time he’d spanked her. She’d displayed attributes of a smart-ass masochist, a submissive who verbally eggs on her dominant. “She’s a sometimes-SAM,
so maybe the sass was her way of telling me that she needed it.”

  Jesse snorted. “You were not in a headspace that would allow you to be objective or reasonable. Dealing with a SAM is tricky because she walks a fine line between submission and topping from the bottom. You can’t be pissed off when you’re in a scene with one. And today is not the right day for a scene.”

  “Jesse is right—she needed your understanding and acceptance.” Dean got up, nervous energy driving him to pace. “It’s hard to give when you don’t quite trust someone. Has she ever lied to you?”

  This was the source of many disagreements. “Besides using a false name the first time we met, no, she hasn’t lied. But she hasn’t told the whole truth either.”

  Dean waved away his concerns. “The name thing doesn’t count, and you don’t always tell someone the whole truth when you’re getting to know them.”

  That’s what she had claimed. David didn’t like it coming from Dean as much as he’d hated hearing from Autumn. “I needed to know the whole truth about her father.”

  “She’s not ready to give you that.” Dean paused by the window. “She doesn’t even know the whole truth about him, or about herself. But she told you what you wanted to know about the robbery. That’s something, David. She’s emotionally skittish—you knew that even before you knew the reasons why. Pushing her like this was wrong. It was too much for her to handle without you giving her the emotional support she needed.”

  He rubbed his eyes. Lack of sleep hadn’t helped him have a clear head. “What now?”

  “Now?” Dean tapped the window frame. “Now you and Jesse will pay a visit to the bank in the Cayman Islands where Malcolm traced two hasty transactions. You need to find out whose name is on it.”

  “It won’t be Autumn’s.” Though he was vehement, he spoke quietly.

  “I don’t think it will be.” Dean turned, crossed his arms, and leaned against the window. “She may be good at some things, but the long con isn’t one of them. This is a crazy long con, and whoever did this has an exit strategy, which Autumn does not. She’s tied here because of her sister. However, right now, all the evidence we have points directly to her.”

  “With big, neon signs,” Jesse added. “Any court would convict.”

  Every user account that had been tampered with led them to one computer—Autumn’s. The hacks had happened before and after hours, or on days when the account owner was out of the office. Malcolm had traced each transaction to Autumn’s desktop. In some cases, she’d signed out of her account, and someone had signed in again minutes later.

  David nodded. “What will you be doing while Jesse and I are gone?”

  “Following Autumn. Whether she is involved with this or not, someone tampered with her brakes, and someone called in a suspicious activity report that nearly led to Autumn being caught. In all respects, she covered her bases. This robbery should have gone off without a hitch. It was a good plan.” Dean wiped a hand across his eyes, the first sign that he wasn’t operating at full strength. “And she’s being set up at CalderCo. It’s too much to be coincidence.”

  Dean was right. David frowned. “Then you go to the Caymans. I’ll stay and watch Autumn.”

  “Negative.” Dean frowned, and his entire demeanor transformed. Nobody would mess with this menacing man. Though David wasn’t afraid, he knew he wasn’t going to win this argument. Dean was the de facto head of SAFE Security for a reason. “You’re too close to this. You’ll focus on her and not what’s around her. She’s seen our faces, so I won’t worry about hiding.”

  This was going to piss her off even more. David closed his eyes. “I’m going over there to talk to her. I can’t leave it like this.”

  Jesse got to his feet. “I’ll book a flight with an open-ended return date. Getting information from banks there is extraordinarily difficult.”

  Autumn spent the rest of the morning crying. By noon, she’d fallen into a deep sleep, and when she woke up, David was sitting on the floor under the window. The back of his head rested against the wall, and he’d closed his eyes.

  “What are you doing here?” She wasn’t going to ask how he’d been able to come in without a key. He’d probably made a duplicate of hers.

  He lifted his head and opened his eyes, but he didn’t otherwise move. Profound emotion stained his eyes dark brown. “Making sure you’re okay.”

  “I don’t see why you care.”

  He shook his head. “You’re right. It makes no sense.”

  Disgusted, she sat up and threw off her covers. “You can leave now.”

  “No.”

  Her jaw dropped. “No?”

  He didn’t move. “No. You like to refuse to do what I want, so I’m refusing to do what you want. I want to stay here. I want to know things, Autumn. I need to know why you wanted to rob that gallery. Give me this one thing. Help me understand how the vulnerable, fragile, sassy, resilient woman who wrapped me around her finger is also an accomplished thief.”

  This part of her life wasn’t one she wanted to share with him—not because she didn’t trust him, but because she knew he could make her feel ashamed of some of her greatest accomplishments. This was at the core of who she was, and his rejection—even his disapproval—would irrevocably wound her. But maybe that’s what it would take to make him leave her alone so that she could rebuild the walls around her heart. She picked at a thread on the hem of her shirt. “If I tell you, will you leave?”

  He considered this. His cheeks puffed out, and he exhaled loudly. “No, but after you tell me, I have some things I need to tell you.”

  This was intriguing. He wanted to open up to her? This was going to be an even exchange? Maybe she’d been wrong about him. Maybe he hadn’t been faking it with her. They’d both acknowledged his lack of skill with verbal communication. She dared to let herself hope, but she also knew better than to make a full confession. “Everything I tell you is just a story. Allegedly, it’s how I was raised.”

  “To steal?”

  She loved her dad more than anything, but she also knew the way he’d raised her hadn’t been completely honest. “Yes. I’m good with puzzles, and I have a light touch. I grew up learning to count cards, pick pockets, and trick people with street scams. As I got older, Dad taught me new skills.”

  “You mean he taught you and Summer, don’t you? Allegedly?”

  She looked away. “Yeah, but Summer wasn’t great with puzzles. She can’t pick a lock or open a safe without a drill or explosives, and she loathes explosives. Also she didn’t have a light touch. She was great with art and sculpture, good enough to allegedly do a few forgeries.” Thank goodness she’d prefaced this by telling him it was made up. “As much as we loved the challenge, we also hated it. When we were kids, and we didn’t know quite what we were doing, it was fun. Once we grew up and got tired of sneaking and lying, we started resisting. Dad never forced us to do a job, but he could be very persuasive, and I had a hard time refusing him anything. Summer is the one who finally convinced Dad to let us stop. We didn’t want to live on the run anymore. We wanted to have jobs and maybe enroll in college—normal stuff.”

  “That was six years ago?” The worry lines between his eyebrows and on his chin were back.

  “He left us alone for three years, and then one day, he showed up on our doorstep. God, I was so happy to see him. Summer was too. We were close. Growing up, we only had each other, and we’d missed him terribly.” Thinking about what happened made the tears start up again. Grief over loss never quite went away, and sometimes, like now, it washed over her as if it had just happened. She let the waves crash and begin to settle down.

  “He wanted you to pull another job.” David waited until she had her emotions under control to continue. She was grateful he hadn’t tried to hug her. She wasn’t sure she could handle it quite yet.

  She lifted a hand and let it drop. “We said no. Summer helped me stick to my guns. It was hard, but I refused to help him. He did it anyway. Summ
er and I were trying to stop him when the accident happened. She crashed into his car on purpose, but then an eighteen wheeler came along and crashed into both cars. Dad’s friend—I don’t know who was in the car with him—ran away. He died, and Summer…She was just trying to stop him.”

  “And now you pull jobs to help pay for her care, don’t you? That’s why you work as a pro Domina as well?” He came to sit on the bed next to her, but he didn’t try to touch her.

  “Ms. B. was a friend of my dad’s. She doesn’t like to give me work, but if I call her up and beg enough, she’ll throw me something every now and again. Safe clients. You know, most of the models have sex with the clients. I don’t.” She understood Ms. B.’s reticence, and she shared it herself.

  “Why didn’t you ask me for money? I would have given it to you.” He tried to touch the back of her hand, but she pulled it into her lap and tucked it under her other hand.

  “I don’t want your money, and if I had started pumping you for it, then you would have thought I was some kind of gold digger. That’s not who I am.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, which already stuck up in a thousand directions. “I’d rather pay for your sister’s medical bills than have you end up in prison. You’re not a criminal, Sugar.”

  She didn’t want to be, but she couldn’t deny the sense of accomplishment she derived from breaking into a place, moving around undetected, and leaving without anyone the wiser. “No, but I do like puzzles. The best gifts my dad ever got me were those safes. Beating them was such a thrill. I loved it.” And this morning, she had been in her element opening that safe. Even now, she had an urge to go back just to see if she could crack it. Really, she just needed a few more minutes. “Where does this leave us? Do I still have a job?”

  Now he touched her lightly, the trace of a caress on her jaw to turn her to face him. “You definitely have a job, though I’m thinking you should take tomorrow off as well. Come back Monday. Don’t take a sick day. I’ll tell my dad that I have you working from home. I have to go out of town tomorrow to take care of some things, but I should be back Tuesday or Wednesday. For now, I’ll put you back in accounting. And us? I just know I don’t want to lose you.”