As dinner wound down, he began to notice how she avoided looking at Jason. Every time her eyes met his across the table, she tensed before looking hurriedly away. Tristan didn't like it, but he understood. He watched the two of them, trying to figure out how to fix things between them.
When he caught Jason's gaze though, Jason shook his head as if to say leave it alone. He'd lied to her, allowed her to believe that Tristan had used her. If she was still angry with him, they couldn't really fault her for it. But he hoped she would give Jason a chance sooner or later. He might have been a manipulative bastard at times, but he was a damn good friend to have at your back. And Tristan knew Jason would ensure Lillian was safe no matter what.
He and Jason didn't always see eye to eye, but they were a whole hell of a lot alike. The sense of responsibility, the willingness to do whatever it took to close a case…those were simply the tip of the iceberg of similarities between them. They both adored Zoë, they were both martial arts instructors, and they both had similar reasons for recruiting to the DEA.
Jason and Jordan had grown up on the Mexican-American border. Jason had seen more than his share of the violence and chaos caused by drug cartels in Mexico. Shortly after graduating from high school, he'd joined the military. While on his tour, his best friend was murdered by a cartel. Losing Chris had weighed heavily on Jason. He hadn't re-enlisted when his time was up, choosing instead to stick closer to home. The DEA had snatched him up without hesitation, requiring someone with his particular skill set, and set him to working the border.
If anyone understood why Tristan struggled so much, Jason did. He'd cleaned up after the cartels more than once before being transferred to Seattle to help clean up when MDMA began pouring in through Canada. He knew what it felt like to lose someone you knew to the war. He understood, perhaps better than anyone, Tristan's determination and inability to give up and let people like Vetrov win.
Unlike Tristan though, Jason had found something to keep him grounded. Falling for Zoë had shifted Jason's priorities on a grand scale, but Tristan knew full well that his fourteen and sixteen hour days at the office were as much by choice as necessity. Jason was no more capable of walking away from the responsibility he felt than Tristan was.
But more and more lately, Tristan found himself mulling over the prospect of walking away. Trying to imagine actually doing it, though? To imagine walking into Davis's office and handing over his resignation? He couldn't quite see it, and he'd been trying all day. He was good for one thing and one thing only: keeping motherfuckers like Anton Vetrov from winning. He'd devoted his life to that mission.
What was left when that ended?
He still didn't know, and he was honest enough to admit that finding out scared the shit out of him. But when it came right down to it? There was no contest. He needed Lillian safe more than he needed to continue fighting this war. An end to the violence was the only thing he could give her.
"Hey." Lillian nudged his arm.
He glanced up from his empty plate to find her frowning at him. Everyone else had risen to begin cleaning up. He'd been too caught up in his thoughts to notice.
"You okay?" she asked, her bottom lip between her teeth again.
He reached out and gently pried it loose. "I'm fine," he promised, tracing her now freed lip with the pad of his thumb. "I was just thinking."
"About?" The little minx's tongue darted out to brush across his skin.
"Jason," he said, fighting to stay on topic.
Lillian blinked at him, confusion clouding her eyes.
"He used to work the Mexican border," Tristan said, regretfully removing his hand from her face and settling back in his chair. He nodded toward Jason, who laughed at something Zoë murmured in his ear.
"I didn't know that." Lillian's gaze followed his across the table to where Jason stood in the doorway with Zoë in his arms and a grin on his face.
"He and I are a lot alike," Tristan admitted, watching Lillian as she watched Jason. "The cartels killed his best friend a long time ago."
Her eyes snapped back to his. "I didn't know that."
"That's why he got involved with the DEA. He wanted to keep that from happening to anyone else. He doesn't like to lose anyone either."
Her brows furrowed as she watched Jason and Zoë. "That's why he lied to me, isn't it?" she finally asked, glancing over at him. "At the hospital? He didn't want me to get hurt either."
"That was part of it," Tristan agreed.
"And the other part?"
"The other part?" He sighed before admitting the truth. "The other part was your father. He could have caused quite a few complications."
"Such as?"
"He could have forced Tristan from the case," Jason drawled.
Lillian jumped as Tristan turned to face his friend. Neither had realized he was listening to their quiet conversation. Of course he'd heard it though. Zoë had too, for that matter.
"In four years, Tristan has never once failed to locate the source of the drugs and garner a conviction. He's one of the best we have, but had your father demanded it," Jason explained, looking at Lillian, "I would have jerked him off the case and fired him."
"Why?" She asked, shock flitting across her face. "You said yourself that he's the best you have."
"Because what I did was unacceptable," Tristan answered for Jason, being honest. "I put you at risk by approaching you in the club, and then I kicked your door down and said a lot more than I should have. Had you worked for Anton Vetrov like I believed, my behavior would have destroyed the case."
"Oh." Lillian blinked, looking uneasy. "You really would have fired him?"
Jason nodded. "But let's be perfectly clear about something," he said, his voice quiet. "Had I fired him, it wouldn't have been just because your father demanded it. I would have fired him because of what he did to you that night. His behavior was reprehensible."
Lillian gaped openly at Jason before turning to Tristan.
"I left your house that night fully expecting him and Davis to fire me. It's the least of what I deserved—what I still deserve—for some of the shit I said to you." He reached out and tugged gently on a strand of her hair. "I was an ass, and you didn't deserve it. It's a miracle Jason didn't fire me and a bigger miracle you forgave me."
"There was never any chance of me not forgiving you, but…." she trailed off.
"What?"
"That's why I was so afraid last night," she confessed, dropping her gaze back to the table and twisting her fingers together. "I thought you were going to do something drastic like that. When you didn't call, and Jason and Zoë didn't return my calls–"
"You thought I went back inside," he said.
She nodded, still avoiding his gaze.
Of course she would have thought he'd taken that risk. Since she'd met him, he'd done nothing but take risks. That realization settled him in a weird way, made him even more certain of what he needed to do. The trajectory of his life had changed drastically because of her. In so many ways he couldn't define, and in so many ways that made his heart race. He had something to look forward to now, something he wanted more than he'd ever wanted anything else.
She deserved to know that.
Zoë murmured something to Jason and slipped from the dining room, leaving the three of them alone.
"I've messed up a lot on this case," Tristan said. He wasn't used to admitting failure, but he had failed this time. On so many different levels. "I've been selfish and involved you. I've been careless and raised suspicion. Jason will tell you that I've always been a pain in the ass to work with, and I have. I can admit that. But I want you to understand something for me, okay?"
Lillian nodded.
"You were right before, when you said you didn't know if I wanted to survive. I've never really cared if I lived or not. I took risks because the only thing that mattered to me was winning, regardless of how I made it happen or what it cost me in the end." He jerked his chin at Jason. "He knows that and h
as done more than his fair share to keep me alive. I suspect that's why he finally decided to involve you at all."
Jason shrugged, but Tristan could see that he wasn't far off the mark. He'd kind of figured that had been Jason's motivation for involving Lillian. He wasn't sure how he felt about that, honestly. Had he really become so unstable that Jason feared this was the case that ended with him in a casket?
He hated to admit that he had. Before Lillian, he'd been done. He'd grown tired of the job, of constantly being alone. Of never making enough of a difference. Before she had burst into his life, he'd more or less resigned himself to the fact that this job would kill him. And that hadn't bothered him nearly as much as it should have. Hell, a large part of him had been looking forward to it. The people he hadn't been able to save haunted him. Every time he closed his eyes, nightmares plagued him. An escape would have been a relief.
And then he'd met Lillian. Almost overnight, everything had changed.
She brought back to life the part of him that had died so long ago. She erased the nightmares without even trying, gave him peace, and a reason to want more. She made him happy, and for the first time in a long time, he found himself wanting something different for his life. He wanted out. So maybe Jason had made the right choice. Tristan didn't know. But he did know one thing: because of Lillian, there was now light at the end of a really frigging dark tunnel.
"Remember when I told you that things had changed for me?" he asked softly.
"I remember."
"I want out, Lillian," he confessed, meeting her gaze and then looking at Jason who nodded as if he'd been expecting those words. Tristan didn't doubt that he had been waiting for it. After all, hadn't he made a similar decision for a girl once himself?
"I don't understand," she said.
He took a deep breath. "After this case, I'm asking for a transfer out of Jason's division. I'll work with one of the teams if it can be arranged, or as a full-time trainer—I have to talk to Jason and Davis about the details—but I'm done with undercover-ops, beautiful."
"What…? Why?"
He cupped her face between his palms. "You really don't know?"
She opened her mouth, closed it, and then shook her head.
"Last night, I was an idiot. I did exactly what I've worried over for days: I made you wonder whether I was coming home alive. I never wanted you to go through that, beautiful. I don't want you to go through it again."
"But–"
"No buts," he interrupted, placing a finger over her lips. "I've done this job for years and I've hated it since the beginning, but Jason needed me and I didn't have anything to lose. Trying to ease my guilt by stopping people like Anton Vetrov was the only thing that mattered to me for a long time. That's changed. It's changed completely."
Somewhere between him and Jason having it out at the Medical Examiner's office and watching Lillian cry because of him, he'd been forced to face the truth. And the truth was that he couldn't do this shit and come home to her every day. She deserved more than constantly fearing for his life, wondering what he was doing, or if he'd be coming home. He'd lived with grief for so long. He didn't want her to suffer the same.
Figuring out who he was without the job would be hard, but he had something more important to protect. Something he couldn't live without. Spending his entire life fighting for something he would never be able to change seemed so goddamned pointless now.
So he'd made a choice.
He chose Lillian. And he chose life.
To finally be done with this, to have something to look forward to? God, he wanted that so badly he could taste it. Now, he just had to find the strength necessary to make it work. He had to trust himself, get them out of the situation they were in, make sure she was safe, and then he could walk away free and clear. With her.
She stared at him as if she couldn't understand what he was saying to her.
"I want out, beautiful," he said again, offering her a crooked smile. "I want you."
She still looked shell-shocked. "Is this what you really want?"
"It is," he promised her, not wanting her to think he was giving anything up in this equation. He wasn't. He might never have reached this decision had she not come bursting into his life like a comet, but she had, and he wanted out. Not just for her, but for him.
Duty was heavier than a mountain, and he'd been carrying his burden alone for a long time.
Too long.
Chapter Seven
Lillian sat at the table with her hand in Tristan's and her eyes trained on Jason, but her mind had drifted a million miles away. She couldn't believe Tristan wanted to give up his career to be with her. To say she was stunned would have been a vast understatement. She was so far beyond that, the mere word seemed laughable to her. Out of everything she had prepared herself to hear tonight, Tristan telling her he wanted to quit his job had not even made the list.
She wasn't opposed to the idea if that's truly what he wanted. Of course she wasn't. But she would never ask him to choose between her and the DEA. Not ever. She understood why he did what he did, and why someone had to do it at all. Was that what he thought she'd been asking from him? Was that what she'd done last night? Made him feel as if he had to choose between her and his job?
She wanted him safe.
She wanted him to let her in and to stop trying to protect her from important parts of his life.
She wanted him to let her love him.
But she didn't want him to give up something important to him because he felt like he had to do so to make her happy. This job was his life. To give it up when he'd worked so hard to become one of the best was unfathomable to her.
"Davis is working to obtain a search warrant based on the information from Renaldi and the raid on Fu Lin's," Jason said, drawing her from her thoughts.
Her fingers tightened around Tristan's of their own volition.
"Unless you can come up with a better plan, we're planning to raid Teplo on Sunday. We've got Kincaid leading one team through the emergency exit around back. My team will go through the front and round up everyone in the building," Jason explained, drawing an imaginary box on the table top and pointing a finger at two different areas—the points of entry, Lillian assumed.
"What reason is he using to justify the search warrant?" Tristan asked.
"Violation of the Illicit Drugs Anti-Proliferation Act," Jason said, his expression grim. "It's the best we could do, but it should be enough to keep everyone occupied so you can get in and find the evidence the judge demands."
"And if we're wrong about the location of their lab? If it's not in the club?"
"Then we're no more screwed than we are right now." Jason eyed Tristan, daring him to disagree, but he didn't. He simply raked a hand through his hair and sighed heavily. "If we had more time, we'd find another way, but we're out of time, and we're out of options. We have to move now."
"What about Francisco?"
"You know we can't charge him unless we can prove he's involved," Jason said. "And a photo of him and Paulo Vetrov isn't enough. As soon as we're in position, Kincaid's team will move in and sweep up everyone on Vetrov's payroll so they can't send out an alarm. Once you set eyes on the product, we'll detain on suspicion of murder. If we can convince someone to connect Francisco to Anton, he'll be charged, too, but not without compelling evidence. You know how it works."
"Yeah. Shit." Tristan scrubbed a hand down his face. "What about Fu Lin's?"
"We have Yin, the owner, on possession, manufacturing, and intent to deliver. He's in solitary for his safety. I doubt he'll try to warn anyone, but if word gets out before we move in, we're screwed. We offered him Wit Sec. He declined."
"Wit Sec?" Lillian asked.
"Witness Security, the witness protection program," he explained. "Francisco and the Asians both have the muscle to kill him while he's in prison, so he's keeping his mouth shut. The health inspector, Renaldi, is another story. He's told us all he knows, but we may need him to t
estify at trial to link Yin to Vetrov. We're keeping a guard on him until we're sure we won't require his testimony."
"Oh." She wasn't sure why she hadn't thought that far ahead, but she hadn't. She'd just assumed they would cut off the Vetrov supply, send them to prison, and that would be that. Of course it didn't end there though.
"Do you think Yin will talk?" Tristan asked, squeezing her fingers as if he sensed her unease. The nuances of the case were so much more complex than she'd grasped. Even after all that Tristan had explained to her, she still didn't understand all of the intricacies—Asian cartels and Mexican cartels and new drugs and murder. God, did it ever end?
Could he really walk away without regretting it?
He wasn't the kind of guy who could sit by and let people like Pedro Francisco and Anton Vetrov win. He was a protector, a fighter…an agent. Giving all of that up would be as hard for him as losing her ballet career had been for her. Worse, perhaps.
"Doubtful," Jason said, reclaiming her attention. "Not unless we manage to grab Francisco too, and even then it would be a bad idea."
"Why would it be a bad idea for him to talk?" Lillian asked, confused. She thought the whole point of arresting him had been to get him to talk.
"Since Yin works for the Asians, if he talks, it could spark a war with Francisco. Francisco's people outnumber them five to one here. Yin knows this, and so do the Asians. If he talks, they'll kill him. And that still might not be enough to stop a war with Francisco. Yin's not stupid enough to take that type of risk, not even with the Wit Sec offer on the table."
"Oh." Her shoulders slumped. "I didn't think about that."
"It's a lot more complicated than anyone wants it to be. When you get traffickers of this velocity working together, your options are limited. It's why cartels continue to thrive while law enforcement constantly plays catch up. They aren't bound by the same rules, so they have the advantage. And there are a hell of a lot more of them out there than there are of us."
Rhapsody (The Teplo Trilogy #2) Page 8