Deep Cover--A Love Over Duty Novel

by Scarlett Cole

  Cabe rolled onto his back, and tugged Amy under his arm so she rested her head on his chest. He wanted her close, yet needed space. Instead of staring into her eyes, eyes that threatened to undo him, he stared at the long crack in the ceiling. “The day I met you was her birthday. That was why I was out with the guys. They knew it was a tough day for me.”

  Amy’s finger drew circles on his chest, and he reached for her hand, holding it flat against his heart. There was probably some symbolism in that. The very reason it was beating right now was Amy, and he wanted her to know that Jess was easing into the past. Not in a way that meant she’d be forgotten, but in a way that would enable him to build a new future instead of lamenting the one he’d lost. But somehow the words wouldn’t come.

  “That must have been hard for you,” Amy said, her breath whispering against his chest, reminding him that right now there were only the two of them in the room.

  Cabe swallowed deeply and shrugged. “When I flew out this week, I flew to Arlington to visit her grave. That was the two-year anniversary of her death. I’m sorry I didn’t explain that to you.”

  Silence reclaimed the room, and he wondered what Amy was thinking. What questions might be rattling around in that brain of hers.

  “Are you … I mean … have you … shit. Never mind. I’m sorry,” Amy muttered.

  Filled with the need to reassure her, he turned to face her. “Ask it, Ames. Say whatever is on your mind.” If what was happening between them was to go anywhere, they needed to be honest with each other.

  “Are you in a good place? To start something new?” Her hand tightened around his. “You asked me if this was a false start. But I didn’t ask you the same question. This isn’t something you still need to work through, is it?”

  Cabe took a breath and let the question settle. A month ago, before he met Amy, he would have answered that it was. But now? “There are things I am certain of and things I’m uncertain of.” He reached for a lock of her hair, now dry, and let it slip through his fingers. “I’m certain that Jess will always be a part of my past and my present. I’m still friends with her parents, with her brothers. But since meeting you … I don’t know. I can’t explain what happened, but you’ve given me hope that I still have a chance to find the type of relationship I thought I would get only one chance at. I thought I’d lost that when Jess died. You aren’t a rebound. You aren’t a replacement. And I’m here for this. For you. For us. If that makes any sense.”

  Amy nodded. “It does. But what are you uncertain of?”

  Christ, he could write a fucking list. He was uncertain whether his heart was capable of going all in again. Or whether he could handle a relationship with a woman who would perpetually be placed in danger. He was uncertain about his own skills to keep her safe, to keep her alive.

  He kissed her, this time with the churned-up urgency he suddenly felt inside. “I’m a work in progress, Ames. I’m uncertain about everything except the connection between the two of us. Don’t doubt that for a second.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A noise drilled into Cabe’s head. It was loud, and suddenly wherever he was felt a little too bright.

  There were open curtains. And too much daylight.

  His hands stroked the soft skin of a woman’s back.

  And he grinned.

  Amy.

  Shit. That was his phone ringing. He tried to reach out his arm to grab it, but it wasn’t there. Instead, his fingers brushed the container of the little cactus he’d bought her. The cactus Six had given him shit over.

  “It’s on the counter,” Amy said, throwing the covers back and hurrying out of bed.

  Cabe followed her ass as it disappeared through the doorway. Then, as quickly as she’d disappeared, she reappeared, and damn, if he wasn’t momentarily distracted by the way her breasts bounced when she entered the room—so much so that he fumbled the phone when she handed it to him.

  “It’s Six,” she said, before disappearing into the bathroom.

  Before Amy, it had been a long time since he’d allowed himself the simple luxury of waking up in a woman’s bed, with her in his arms. He liked it—more than he probably should.

  “Yo,” he said as he answered.

  “We got a break on the target we followed from the casino. Want to meet up at the office before you guys head into the casino tonight?”

  “Sure thing. What time were you thinking?”

  Six laughed. “Honestly, I’ve lost my wife-to-be to that lab of hers. They’re on the edge of some big break, which means I’m not going to see her today and could pretty much do any time you want, even though it’s Saturday.”

  Cabe envisioned Six making frozen dinners and eating them from a tray all alone in his house while his wife was busting her ass saving the world, one disease at a time.

  “We’ll swing by around three. What’s the thirty-second overview?”

  “We have the relationship between the target and the cashier.”

  Amy returned to the bedroom, and he winked at her as she climbed back under the covers. “Do we have a name yet?” He ran his palm over her breast and mouthed shh, even though she probably understood the need to be quiet. She placed her hand over his and squeezed, and damn, if his dick didn’t respond.

  “We do. Shit, Lou’s on the other line. See you at three. Later.”

  “Okay. Later, bro.”

  He switched his phone off and placed it on the bedside table. Then, in one swift motion, he grabbed her and positioned her so she was sitting over him. “I need more of you, and then I need some serious food,” he said, knowing he was grinning like the Cheshire cat. He couldn’t help it. She did that to him.

  “I need a shower.” She reached up and piled her hair on top of her head. She had to know full well that her arched back made her breasts stand to full attention. Kind of like his dick was. “Plus, my hair takes a while to dry.”

  Cabe sat up quickly and kissed her. “Wet hair suits you,” he said, and grinned, thinking of how her hair had still been damp when he’d taken her from behind the previous evening.

  Amy began to grind over his dick, and he groaned. “Keep that up, Ames, and this is going to be over before it’s even started.”

  She leaned forward and kissed him, her breath minty fresh. Someone had brushed her teeth when she’d snuck away to the bathroom. “Well, if it’s over quickly, it just means we’ll have time to do it again before we leave.”

  Five hours later, Cabe found himself pulling into the Eagle Securities’ parking lot. Amy’s car was already there, and he felt an unexpected jolt of excitement at the thought of seeing her again. Which was ludicrous. Wasn’t he too old to be getting lost in his feelings? Wasn’t it too soon? But those thoughts slipped away as he studied the building, knowing Amy was inside it.

  He used his pass to let himself into the office and his thumbprint to open the second doors they’d had installed. He could hear Amy’s laughter coming from somewhere down the hallway, and he let out a deep breath. There was a peace that came from knowing she was currently in the safest place she could be.

  “So,” he heard Six say, humor ripe in his tone, “Cabe had to wait over half an hour with his head stuck between the railings until the firefighters could come cut him out.”

  More laughter.

  Asshole.

  “Keep feeding her stories,” Cabe said as he entered the room, “and I’ll tell her about that incident in Alaska.”

  Six stopped laughing and eyed him dangerously. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  Cabe folded his arms in front of his chest. “Try me,” he said, before looking at Amy, who sat primly upright in her chair. Her hair was styled into a sleek ponytail, and her makeup reminded him a little of an old-school screen goddess from the black-and-white movie era. His breath caught in his throat.

  “Fine,” Six said, but he looked between Cabe and Amy curiously. “Let’s get started.”

  It felt strange, but Cabe sat down on the opposite si
de of the table from her. Partly because he could steal the occasional glance, but also because he knew himself well enough to know that if he sat next to her, he’d spend the whole meeting resisting the urge to slide his palm along her thigh, or perhaps under her skirt to see if he could make her as wet as she was when—

  “You ready, Cabe?” Six asked, bringing him back to the present.

  A smile threatened to break through his poker face, and he bit it back. Literally. His teeth dug into the inside of his lip.

  When Amy glanced up, Cabe caught her eye, but he revealed nothing.

  “We followed the target from the casino,” Six said as video footage from the drone played on the white wall of the conference room.

  Amy snapped her attention to the screen. And even though he’d of course known it all along, it really struck him that she was a goddamn FBI agent. In their moments together, he’d finally managed to forget that she had a career that would consistently put her in danger. Hell, she was bait in the casino, constantly striving to figure out how to become the next victim.

  And he hated it.

  Hated it so bad that he struggled to focus on the information Six was showing them.

  “The person you spotted in the casino is a very distant relative of Sokolov. It’s his cousin’s grandson … I don’t even think that kind of family connection has a name. Third cousin, maybe? Anyway … if you play the Kevin Bacon degrees of separation, it could be a coincidence that they are related at all.”

  “Have the police spoken to him?” Amy asked.

  Cabe stood and poured himself a cup of coffee before sitting back down. Maybe it would clear his head.

  Six shook his head. “No. They haven’t. They’re waiting on us to decide if we want to. The camera feeds from the casino show him doing exactly what Cabe said. But the thing is, it would be super simple for him to provide an excuse, like he intended to play big, then got sick and felt the need to cash out, or some other impossible-to-disprove statement.”

  Amy sighed. “Okay. Who has their eyes on him?”

  “Right now, your guys,” Six replied.

  “What do we know?” Cabe asked before taking a sip of the coffee. It was fresh and steaming hot but, more important, strong, just how he liked it.

  “He left the casino and headed straight back to San Ysidro. The apartment building we already visited.” Six threw up a map that showed an aerial view of the apartment complex. “These were the buildings the SDPD raided looking for Kovalenko,” he said, pointing to two on the lower lever where they’d attempted to find the man who’d carried out the abduction attempt of Louisa. “But this is where the target lives. His name is Phillip Shevchenko. Age twenty-seven. Works for a family-run scrap-metal firm. He came straight back here. Yesterday morning he left and went to this house in Little Italy.” The image of a small home painted white appeared on the wall.

  Cabe looked at Amy. “Here’s where he tells us who lives there and drops his mic,” he whispered.

  Amy laughed as he’d intended, just as Six put a picture of the casino cashier on the wall.

  “This is who he went to see.”

  The Lucky Seven cashier.

  “CIA wants to move now,” Six added.

  “That’s because they’re desperate to find the cash, as we all are. But if we pick up two grunts, they’ll be dead before we get them to trial. Nobody will take any ownership of them, and the two of them, half terrified that they are going to be assassinated, will probably argue that it was just them anyhow.”

  Amy nodded. “Plus, we get two people for money laundering, but that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with or prove anything in regard to the missing women.”

  “What else?” Cabe asked, knowing there must be more intel for Six to have dragged them into the office.

  “From the camera feed, the photos taken in San Ysidro yesterday, and the use of some facial recognition software, Harley was able to give us three other suspects for the smurfing ring—which still remains the most stupid name, by the way.”

  Three faces appeared on the screen, and Cabe immediately recognized two of them. “I’ve seen the two guys on the left. We need to get the FBI and SDPD to help stake these guys out, find out who they are talking to, who is giving them their instructions, where they’re getting the money from.”

  A fresh lead always gave everybody a renewed boost of motivation. New intel, new direction, new hope. But the feeling of futility returned for reasons he couldn’t explain, and he hated the sensation. It was like an itch, one he couldn’t scratch. In all the years he’d been deployed overseas, even in battles that had raged for decades, he’d never felt as though the situation was out of control. But this one …

  Cabe looked across the table and saw Amy completely engrossed in what Six was telling them. She ran the ends of her hair through her fingers as she listened.

  He hated the feeling that sand was trickling through his fingers.

  And he wondered if she wasn’t the very reason why.

  * * *

  It was getting close to the end of her shift, and Amy felt antsy as she dealt poker. She couldn’t put her finger on what had her so … unfocused. It certainly wasn’t because the flop she’d just dealt had provided a pair of tens—the spade and heart—and a nine of spades. Nor was it because there was nobody playing the private rooms right now, so she’d been asked to deal on the main floor.

  Ever since the meeting earlier, Cabe had been at best ultra-focused, and at worst distant. Cool even. And she couldn’t determine what on earth had changed since they’d woken up in each other’s arms. She knew their relationship was on the down low in public at her request, but a part of her couldn’t help but wonder why the issue was so big of a deal that it would have killed him to at least have taken hold of her hand and squeezed, if only in passing.

  But instead he’d given her a few words of no substance or meaningfulness.

  Just like she’d asked.

  God, even she could tell she was being irrational.

  The betting continued. A woman in a simple black shift dress and intricate updo giving off an Audrey Hepburn vibe fidgeted on her seat. Amy would bet the pot that she had at least one of the other tens in the deck. Poker face was a thing.

  Her thoughts drifted back to Cabe’s underwhelming send-off from Eagle—a nod of the head. A quick, “Take care and see you later.” Weak farewells left her unsettled. After all, on the day her mom had gone out for eggnog, their goodbye had been quick, both of them assuming they’d have time to chat over dinner. If only Amy could go back in time and switch off the damn Stuart Little movie she’d been so engrossed in and go with her mom to the store like she’d asked. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t already seen it a hundred and fifty times already. But her mom had been in a hurry, and Amy had still been in her pajamas and couldn’t be bothered. Not even the lure of people singing carols in the strip mall parking lot and the promise of a hot chocolate from Starbucks had persuaded her to move. Over the years, she’d tried to let go of the idea that had she been with her mom, her mom wouldn’t have been taken. But she couldn’t let go of not being able to remember what shoes her mom had been wearing. Amy hadn’t even turned away from her movie for a millisecond to say goodbye to her mom properly. She’d give anything to have that one last memory of her mom’s face now.

  Going off to do what they did without that last connection to Cabe felt … empty. When had he become so vital to her?

  “Hit us up, sweetheart,” a man in a Duke University T-shirt said playfully. The turn provided a four of clubs.

  Damn, she needed to focus. Make it through the last few hands before she switched out with another dealer. Then she could go home and sleep because Sunday was her night off. She had plans for an at-home spa evening and catching up on Outlander. Or any other thing she could do to put Cabe’s behavior out of mind until she had a chance to sit down with him and discuss it. The last thing she needed was to be distracted.

  With all the bets in
place, she turned the final card and the river provided a six of clubs. By the bouncing around, the woman was showing that the card had provided her with what she felt was a winning hand. Amateurs always got excited at hands without picture cards.

  The woman’s disappointment was palpable when, after making a performance of placing her pair of tens to make a four of a kind, the man in the Duke hat showed a seven and eight of spades, giving him a straight flush, which beats a four of a kind.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” the man said, obviously aware that he’d just stolen her hand. “Will you let me get you a drink to make up for that?” The woman grinned and nodded as she grabbed her remaining chips.

  Amy collected the chips thrown her way as tips and set about cleaning down her table. Ortega walked toward her, watching the couple leave. “You know how many people I’ve seen arrive at a poker table as strangers and leave it together, only to come back years later to celebrate their wedding anniversary by playing at the table where they first met?”

  Amy laughed, unable to help herself. “I didn’t take you for a romantic, Mr. Ortega.”

  Ortega shuddered. “Divorced. Twice. Never doing it again. What about you?”

  “Oh, most definitely single,” she said, even though the words rippled through her uneasily.

  There was a crash over by the bar, and Amy looked over just in time to see Cabe hitting a man in the face. “Oh, my god,” she whispered, as cries of “Knife!” sounded around them.

  Security was running to the scene, and Sokolov, to whom she assumed Cabe had been speaking, was on his feet to wave them over. The two henchmen who usually trailed behind Sokolov grabbed the man, one under each arm, and took him outside. Cabe shook his hand and wiggled his fingers. Without overthinking it, Amy hurried to the bar, grabbed a linen napkin, and reached over the bar for the shovel in the ice tray. She scooped up ice cubes and dropped them into the napkin before twisting the ends to stop them from escaping.

  She headed to Cabe. His eyes were dark, and from the way his chest stretched on every exhalation, she could tell he was breathing deeply. His jaw was set as she took his hand in hers and placed the ice on top of it. “You helped me the other night,” she said, just loudly enough for Sokolov to hear. “I guess this makes us even.”