by Lexi Blake
“I’m glad she did.” She’d been right. Not a word out of his mouth changed a thing. “This is why you have the children’s charity.”
“I have to help in some way.” He dropped his forehead to hers. “I’m glad you’re not running.”
She had to smile at that because he was pretty much lying on top of her. She couldn’t run if she wanted to, and that was likely somewhere in the back of his head. He caged her, but this was one cage she didn’t want to be free of. As long as he stayed in it with her. “I told you I never run away from a good thing.”
“You need to know that I am rapidly falling in love with you, so you better mean that,” he whispered right above her lips.
“And you remember what I told you,” she replied. “You are not alone in this. I’m right there with you.”
He kissed her again, this time sweet and brief, and then he rolled off her, cradling her close. “Get undressed and get into bed with me. I want to hold you. I’m tired.”
And he’d just talked about the worst moment in his life. He needed pure affection, not sex. She chucked her clothes off and settled in beside him. His body was big and warm.
Thank god for her dads. There was zero chance the evening would have ended like this if they hadn’t shown up. She wasn’t sure if Josh would have gone through with his threats, but she definitely wouldn’t be climbing into bed with him. This wasn’t a change for the night. They’d crossed a bridge and there was no going back.
He pulled the covers over them and laid down, his tension palpable. “I’ve never slept with anyone. Not in years and years. If I have a bad dream…”
“I’ll wake you up and we’ll deal with it.” She laid her head on his chest and breathed him in. He’d taken a shower at some point and smelled clean and fresh and masculine.
“And if I try to hurt you?”
“I’ll put you on your ass. Now do you want to know what you get when you sleep with me?” She had the feeling it would be difficult for him to close his eyes, his mind still back in the past.
He chuckled, his lips finding her head. “Besides getting put on my ass?”
“You get a bedtime story.” She would give him something else to think about. He had a spectacular imagination. She’d seen some of his ideas for films. If she told him a story, he would see it in his head like a film being exhibited just for him.
He rolled to his side and curled against her. “Excellent. Tell me a story.”
“So I was in Singapore,” she began. “And my handler was supposed to meet me there.”
“Good,” he whispered against her ear. “I love the John Bishop stories. He’s a badass.”
She could feel him relax as she began her tale. “He was indeed. So Bishop was late and I started to worry that I was being watched…”
Before she could even get to the good part—the super-bloody part—he was snoring lightly beside her. She cuddled against him and let herself find some sleep.
Chapter Thirteen
“You’re different than I thought you would be,” his companion said.
Josh looked up, smiling at the man sitting across from him in a suite at the Chateau Marmont. It was lunchtime and he was meeting with his new consultant, a lovely table of room service between them.
Tyler Williams was a blandly handsome man somewhere in his mid-forties. He was the kind of man who would blend in depending on the clothes he wore. Put him in a suit and he was a cog in the corporate wheel. Give him jeans and a button-down and Josh could see him in front of a computer coding some new software. He could be everyman, someone’s dad, someone’s happy husband. It was weird to think of this quiet-spoken man as a hardened DEA agent.
Until he started talking, and then the dude knew his shit. It was a little like listening to his Kayla.
His Kayla. Who was back in Malibu, probably showing her dads around town. They were somewhere having brunch together, and damn but he wished he’d been able to go with them. Duty had called. Tyler Williams had made it into town and been willing to meet before he headed to Mexico tomorrow to spend some time with the director. Until Josh got down there next week, this was the only face time he would get with the man.
This was typically the kind of thing Josh lived for. He loved meeting people like Williams and getting under their skin, finding little tics and mannerisms he could use in his characterizations. Sometimes he loved this part of the job as much as the actual acting.
So he should pay attention to Williams instead of thinking of all the dirty things he’d done with his girl this morning.
“I’m not what you expected?” Josh asked. “How so? I’ve found most people have an opinion of me and it can be hard to counteract that. People tend to see what they want to see.”
“Yes, I’ve found that, too,” Williams agreed. “It’s human nature to not look much past the surface of what’s going on around us. In some ways it’s a defense mechanism. If you don’t understand what’s going on, you don’t have to feel bad about not stopping it.”
Like a sullen boy being dragged from a car into the house. From the outside, it would have looked like nothing more than a harried parent trying to deal with his demon spawn of a child.
No one wanted to see what had happened to him. How would they handle the mere fact that it had happened to him? Should he show his true self or let the world believe he was nothing more than blessed with a pretty face and the right ties to the business? “So what’s under my surface?”
Williams sat back, an iced tea in his hand. “You smile more than I thought you would. I’ve done some research on you in the last couple of weeks. You’re a very serious man. You don’t tend to come off as this friendly in interviews.”
He winced. He was going to have to work on his reputation. “I might have some issues with reporters. It’s hard to be open around them when they can use anything you say against you. Though I have to admit you’re not who I thought you would be either. Tough as nails DEA agents don’t typically order tofu burgers.”
A brilliant smile crossed the man’s face. “Oh, they would if they had my cholesterol. And my wife’s love for all things with a face.”
“That’s a lot to do for love.” Thank god Kay was a carnivore.
“I’d rather face down a mountain of tofu than a single reporter,” Williams admitted. “I’ve always been very private. It would bug me.”
“Oh, it bugs me. It bugs me every day, all the time. It’s why I don’t talk about myself a lot, and it’s probably why I don’t smile. Not that I’m some happy-go-lucky guy. Never have been. My girlfriend would say I’m a brooder. I can be a little paranoid, but I’m in a good relationship right now. It kind of changes the way you look at things. I guess it’s kind of my first good relationship.”
It was absolutely the first time in his life he trusted a woman he was sleeping with. He’d trusted Tina, but that had been a different kind of relationship. This was full-on, musical-worthy romance. And he was the dipshit almost ready to break into song. Of course, the song would be about blackmail and human trafficking, so it would be on the dark side, but Kay could handle it.
The man seated across from him smiled, showing even white teeth and a single dimple in his left cheek. “There’s nothing a good woman can’t fix. I’ve learned that myself. Well, nothing inside a man she can’t fix. There’s plenty of stuff we fuck up ourselves that need fixing.”
“Amen, brother.” He still had to deal with the blackmail, but he had some time. His lady blackmailer would back off for a while. He had three months before he had to make a decision. Three months to talk it all over with Kay and decide what to do. When they got back from Mexico they would sit down with a crisis management publicist and a lawyer and talk everything out. “My girl might not be able to fix everything, but she makes it seem possible, if you know what I mean. Things that before were impossible problems seem a little simpler to solve.”
“I do indeed,” Williams replied. “I married a lovely woman. She fixed a lot of m
y problems simply by loving me, but things from the past creep up. Especially in my business. You make some tough calls out in the field and you have to live with them.”
They’d gone over a few of Williams’s issues with the script, some procedural flubs the screenwriter had made and some language Williams thought the fictional DEA agent would use. Williams had been open about all aspects of working for the government—some good and some bad. He was an easy man to talk to. “You have many of those regrets?”
For a moment Williams’s eyes seemed to darken, and that was the moment where Josh could see the agent he’d been. Dark. Ruthless. Capable of getting the job done. “Oh, yes. I made a lot of calls in the field. I stand by most of them. I made them for the right reasons at the time. When you’re out in the field you have to go with a combination of the intelligence you have in front of you and what you feel in your gut. Sometimes your gut is far more important and then sometimes you ignore your gut because the setup in front of you is too perfect to pass up. That’s the worst thing you can do.”
He was completely fascinated by this man. He didn’t even fully understand why, but there was a rich character arc flowing through Tyler Williams’s seemingly normal veins. Josh could see how interesting it would be to dive into the man’s psyche. “At the time? Are you saying you wouldn’t do the same thing now?”
“I’m saying I’m a different person now,” Williams corrected. “The person I am today does not make the same calls, but I understand his reasoning. And honestly, I don’t know that the person I am now would be better at his job than the person I was. It’s the difference between youth and wisdom, though sometimes wisdom never comes to some. As I’ve aged and seen the world from a different light, my priorities have changed. But for the purposes of this script, I can explain things from my old self’s point of view.”
“How did you get into the DEA?”
“I went into the military straight out of high school,” Williams explained. “It was the only way I could get into college. No money. No family. I was good at being a soldier. I enjoyed the discipline of the lifestyle. After, I found myself recruited by the government. I worked for them for a good decade and then left to pursue other opportunities. It’s funny but when I joined up, it seemed like an inevitable thing. I had a brutal childhood and I went into a rather brutal business. It was what I knew. Sometimes we take the road we know simply because we don’t think to look for off-ramps. We have blinders on, and even a violent world can seem normal and comfortable while you’re inside it. Being able to see through another’s eyes, to understand that there are other worlds out there, that’s the true mark of maturity.”
“Are you sure you’re not a shrink?”
Williams chuckled. “Just a guy who’s seen a lot. I’m worried about you.”
That was a surprise. “About me? Why?”
Williams’s face went grave. “I’m not going to beat around the bush, Joshua, and I hope you’ll do me the courtesy of being open and honest with me. There’s a reason I wanted to meet with you before we get on set. I’m no longer in law enforcement so your answer to this question is merely for my own intelligence and will not leave this room.”
Shit. What the hell was going on? He’d been a little surprised the guy had insisted on meeting in his hotel room when Josh had offered to take him out to lunch. Had the ex-agent brought him here because he’d found out about Josh’s previous use? He found himself tightening up for the first time that day. Damn. He hadn’t realized how much of his life was spent tense and waiting for the other shoe to fall. “All right. Ask away.”
A sad smile crossed Williams’s face. “I mean what I say. I don’t care how you answer this question. I simply need to get a lay of the land. And if you’re in trouble, you might talk to me about it.”
“Trouble?”
“Joshua, are you planning on seeing Hector Morales while you’re filming in Mexico?”
“Of course. He’s a friend of mine.” That was overstating things. “Friend is probably not the right word. He’s an acquaintance who’s been extremely good to my charity over the years. I’ve spent some time at his place before.”
Williams’s sharp eyes narrowed on him and Josh was reminded of a hawk looking for dinner. “You’ve been to the compound?”
“I would call it a mansion. Compound has a weird connotation.” A working connotation. A compound was where cults lived and militaries trained. It wasn’t a good name for Hector’s gorgeous manor house.
“Are you aware that Hector Morales goes by another name? Have ever heard the name El Comandante?”
He suddenly felt like he was being interrogated. Which was ridiculous. He glanced around the room. Was this some kind of setup? Were there cameras on him? “If this is a joke, I don’t think it’s a terrifically funny one.”
Williams stood up and went to his small laptop bag. He pulled out a folder and came back to the table. “Hector Morales runs one of the largest drug cartels in the world. You wouldn’t know that unless he told you and you’re a part of his inner circle or you’re a member of elite law enforcement or intelligence. The file I’m about to show you is highly classified.”
Definitely a joke. “Okay, now it’s kind of funny. This is Kay’s doing. She knows I love the classified stuff.”
Williams looked grim as he placed the folder in front of him. “Is that your woman? Kay is a nice name. You should be careful about taking her into dangerous places.”
He opened the folder and it took everything Josh had not to jump back. Blood. That was Hector, but not the way he’d seen him before. Not a smiling businessman in tailored suits. This was a snarling animal, watching over a group of bloody men.
“The men with the guns to their heads were two of his lieutenants. Unfortunately, they had large shipments confiscated by the DEA shortly after they were smuggled over the border. You don’t get a second chance with the Jalisco Cartel.”
“Are they dead?” A stupid question.
“Oh, yes. In my estimation, Morales has had over two hundred people murdered or assassinated. He’s killed members of his cartel, civilians who threatened him, several members of US intelligence, and I won’t go into how many Mexican law enforcement officers he’s had murdered because they were trying to do their jobs. He specializes in opioids. By some reports he’s responsible for about half of the illegal opioids smuggled into the US in the last five years. We believe he took on some new partners who have aided in his business, people who helped him get around the DEA and local law enforcement. One of those partners…well, do you remember when I told you I’d made mistakes? She’s one of my mistakes.”
“Why are you telling me all of this?” He closed the folder. He didn’t need to see anything more. This man was a DEA agent. He would know who the drug dealers were.
“I’m telling you because I think you should cancel your trip out to his place. Over the years, I’ve learned to trust my instincts, and something isn’t right. I wish you could stay out of Mexico entirely, but I get that you’re filming. Are you supposed to visit him at the end or beginning of the shoot?”
His head was reeling. How could he have not seen what that man was capable of? He prided himself on being able to see through the masks people wore, but Hector had fooled him entirely.
Was that why Hector always insisted on staying out of the spotlight? Josh had thought it was refreshing to have a person who wasn’t interested in being in the tabloids, who didn’t want to take pictures with the Hollywood actor. For Josh, that meant Hector was real, authentic.
Hector was a criminal who was somehow using him. But how? Why start up a friendship with him and lie about everything?
“Josh? I know this is hard,” Williams was saying.
He shook his head. “I don’t understand why he would lie.”
“I’d like to find that out, too,” Williams explained. “I’ve been out of the game for a few years, but I have some worries that this isn’t about you, though you’re being used.”
“Used to what purpose?”
Williams’s mouth closed.
“What? It’s classified?” Now the man clammed up on him?
Williams sighed. “It’s better we leave it here. The truth is I’m not sure what’s going on and who’s involved. Some of these people could be very dangerous and it’s best you don’t get in too deep. In this case, the less you know the better off you’ll be. I’ll be down there with you and I’ll take a look around, talk to some old contacts. When I can, I’ll let you know what’s going on. And until then, I definitely think if you care about that woman you talked about, keep her far away from that place.”
He took a deep breath. This was good. It was good that he knew what his “friend” was capable of. And yes, it was good that he now knew not to take Kayla into that compound. No matter how badass she was, she was still human, and she would be outnumbered and outgunned and moving into a situation neither one of them understood. Hell, just the fact that she used to be CIA could get her killed at that compound.
“I might leave her here altogether.” He could take Shane and Declan with him. “I’m scheduled to go out to Hector’s place at the beginning of the shoot, but things can go awry with a shoot like this. It will be fairly easy to tell him I can’t come until later and then fly out early. I can keep the set closed and if he shows up, I’ll act like nothing’s out of the ordinary.”