“That’s the same for any mafia family and their associates, though, isn’t it?”
A smile touched the corners of his mouth. “You’ve done your research.”
“It’s been six years, Detective. Yeah. I’m done my research.”
“So you know that even if he were to hurt you, or if he knew somebody was setting out to hurt you, it wouldn’t be out of vengeance or anger. It would be the result of six years of brainwashing, in essence. They’ve trained him to believe the family is everything—not your family, but theirs. He might not have completely taken to the training, since you say he still comes home from time to time for a family meal.”
“Yeah, he does, but it’s seemed more and more like he’s only physically there. Not mentally, and definitely not emotionally.”
He nodded with a thoughtful frown. “It’s pulling him apart,” he concluded. “The two sides of his life—the good and the bad. He feels tied to them, like that world is the real world and yours isn’t. But he’s still connected to you and your parents. It would be easier for him if he had been born into the life instead of coming in from the outside.”
“I wish I could feel sorry for him, but I don’t anymore,” I admitted.
“And that’s understandable, too. When a person spends years loving someone who keeps hurting them, when they spend years worrying about them, it takes a toll. And outsiders wonder how you can be so cold, writing off a member of your family. But it’s not that you want to write them off or that you wouldn’t take them back in a heartbeat if they wanted to come back and sincerely make a change.” His voice sounded a little lost, sort of faraway. He had a similar look on his face, like he was speaking from the heart.
“That’s exactly how I feel—especially since I’ve seen what this has done to my parents. Sometimes I’ll come to visit and Mom will be sitting there with a picture of him in her lap. I mean, it’s enough to tear my heart out. I feel like I have to be both me and him, if that makes any sense.”
“It makes perfect sense.” We looked at each other then, and it was like we totally understood each other.
“I have to admit, it feels good to talk to somebody about this. Somebody who understands. Nobody in my life knows about Michael.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place. I wasn’t always on the detective path,” he grinned.
“No? What did you want to be?”
“A psychologist. I have a Master’s in it, actually.”
“You do? What made you…” I trailed off when a certain veiled look shaded his eyes. Of course. I would’ve bet anything it was his sister who made him change his mind and join the police force.
He cleared his throat and stood up, then slid his arms into the sleeves of his suit jacket. It looked a little rumpled, but I was used to seeing him that way. Like he’d slept in it or tossed it aside after shucking it off in a hurry. I guessed he didn’t make a ton of money—cops rarely did. “And the memory card?” he asked, careful to avoid looking at me. He had to know how impossibly difficult it was for me to hand it over.
I stood, blanket around my shoulders. I needed something to help combat the chill in my bones. He followed me to the bedroom, where my purse sat beside the bed. I pulled out my wallet and unzipped the change compartment along the back, then slid the card from it. I was sure my heart would break. Why else would it feel like something was sitting on my chest? That tiny little card was so much heavier than it looked and felt. I brushed a tear from my cheek.
“You’re doing the right thing,” he murmured from the doorway.
I snorted. “I wish I felt like I was, even though I know you’re right. I know in my head that this is the only way. I just…”
“Think about it this way,” he suggested. “It’s one thing for your parents to someday soon find out what he did. It would be another if anything happened to you, and we caught him anyway. They would have nobody left.”
Just when I thought the pressure in my chest couldn’t get any tighter. “You’re right, of course.” I closed my hand around the card in its little plastic case and held my fist to my mouth. I knew it wasn’t as simple as he made it sound. Sure, they would have me around and alive, but would they want me? Or would they shut me out when they knew I had betrayed their son? I’m sorry, I thought, talking to all of them in my head.
Then I went to Ricardo, opened my fist, and dropped the card in his outstretched hand.
“You’re sure this is the right one?” he asked, without a trace of humor in his voice.
“I’m positive. It holds the pictures I took that night.” God, forgive me.
He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a plastic baggie as if by magic, then dropped the card inside and slid the bag back where it came from. He needed to leave, but I sensed from his reticence that there was something more he wanted to say.
I decided to make it easy on him. “Thank you for being so understanding.”
“I know you’re not making this decision lightly,” he said. I nodded with a smile, which sent him down the hall and out to the back room where Brett was waiting for me. I heard them murmuring back and forth for a minute before the door opened and closed, signaling his exit.
Brett found me sitting on the bed, hands clasped in my lap. “You did the right thing,” he said in a confident tone of voice.
“I hope so. I really hope so.”
Chapter Sixteen– Brett
“There’s one good thing about being here, instead of at my place,” Molly whispered as she crawled up from between my legs with a wicked smile. I watched as she unrolled a condom over my still-hard length. All she did was get me more ready for her, which was just what she wanted. So did I.
“What’s that?” I asked with a smirk, like I didn’t know. Being able to jump into bed without anybody asking questions was nice. I only felt slightly guilty, like we were hiding something from the rest of my team. Probably because we were. Pax knew better than to tell us not to get involved with clients—not that any of us made a habit of it, but Spencer had hooked up with his client over a year earlier and things were going great between them. It didn’t have to end badly or get in the way of a case…at least, that was what I told myself as the raven-haired beauty with her hands around my cock gave me a smile.
And I thanked God for that as Molly straddled me, then guided me inside her. I watched as I disappeared the more she lowered until I couldn’t go any deeper. We both took a deep breath and adjusted—me to her tightness, her to my size. “Let me watch you get yourself off,” I muttered as I ran my hands over her silky skin. She responded by rocking her hips, grinding her clit against my pelvis. She knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to get it—there was something painfully sexy about a woman like that. I almost forgot the stirrings of pleasure building in my cock and balls as I watched her. But just almost.
“Yeah, baby. Let go. Get what you want.” She rolled her hips in slow, sexy circles—teasing both of us. I stroked her ass, her back, then slid around to the full tits that swayed just a little as she moved. She groaned her approval when I took them in my hands and played with them.
“Oh, Brett!” She gasped as she threw her head back, and a waterfall of thick, black hair fanned out behind her. She was lost in pleasure, eyes closed, mouth half-open. Searching for what she wanted, heading straight for it. I could only watch in awe as her body reacted—her thrusts picked up speed, got frantic. Her nipples tightened as her tits bounced. Her head rolled from side to side as she slid from pleasure into bliss. She started clenching around me almost all at once, so tight, until she was crying out and pulsing as the rest of her body shuddered.
I lost myself then as I took her by the hips and slammed her up and down while thrusting from underneath her. She let out a high-pitched whimper that turned into a wailing cry as she came again right on top of the first orgasm, and I exploded somewhere in there. We collapsed side by side and stayed that way while we caught our breath.
Once it was all
over, I reminded myself that things didn’t have to end badly, and that it was ethical for us to be sleeping together. Nobody knew, as far as I could tell. I wasn’t obligated to share that information, either. As long as we were both mature and handled ourselves like adults, I didn’t see any problem with it.
Before I could think of something to say, my phone let out a quick double buzz from where it sat on the nightstand. I rolled over to see who was texting, and sat up when I read the message. “Shit. Ricardo will be here any minute,” I announced as I got out of bed. The perils of an afternoon roll in the sack.
“I wonder what he wants.” Her voice was tight with worry on the other side of the room as she scrambled to find her clothes.
“You can’t worry every time he comes by,” I reminded her as I slid into a pair of jeans. “He might have good news.”
She shot me a dirty look as she hooked her bra closed. “Do you really believe that? Like, knowing what you know?”
I turned away. No. I didn’t believe that. Ricardo’s footsteps on the kitchen floor were a welcome distraction—I left her there, still getting dressed, while I went out to see what he wanted. He was pulling a water from the fridge. “Sometimes I wish you guys would stock something stronger around here,” he muttered grimly.
She was right. It wasn’t good news. “What’s up?”
He uncapped the water with a sigh. “I guess there’s no sense in beating around the bush. We have an idea—well, I had it, and everybody working on the case agrees it’s the only way to go forward since we’re standing still.”
“Hit me with it.”
“You’re not going to like it,” he warned. “But we want her to reach out to her brother to set up a meeting.”
My jaw nearly dropped. “No. You’re joking. You can’t expect her to do something like that.”
“Do something like what?” Molly walked into the room and looked from one of us to the other. “What are you talking about?”
Ricardo’s eyes bore into mine. “You know how important this is.”
“Not important enough to put her in that sort of danger.”
“What are you talking about?” Her voice was like a whip. It cracked through the air and got through to us. I turned to her. How was I supposed to say it?
She wouldn’t want me to baby her.
“He wants you to meet with Michael. As a trap for him.”
She let out a sharp laugh. She didn’t believe it. Her head snapped around to look at Ricardo. He wasn’t laughing. “You have to be joking,” she half-laughed.
“I’m not. And you know I’m not. And it isn’t just me. We’re getting federal pressure on this, too. This is important to them. The FBI’s been on the DeMarco organization for decades. They’re looking at your brother as a key part of that puzzle, but I won’t let it get that far. You’re our priority.” I had never heard Ricardo take something so personally before, and I wondered exactly how close the two of them had become during the little talk they had.
“But…that’s impossible! How am I supposed to trap my own brother?” She shook her head and waved her hands like it would be that easy to sweep us both out of her life. “Nope. No way. You’re crazy.”
“Molly. Think about it. You’ll see it’s the only way.”
“Funny,” she replied, turning back to Ricardo, “I don’t see it that way at all. I see that my brother will see right through it. He isn’t normal anymore. He’s not the person I used to know.”
“You’ve said he is,” I reminded her.
“Yeah, well, I’ve had time to think it over and I see how wrong I was.” She shook her head again and wrapped her arms around herself, walking back and forth across the narrow kitchen. “I can’t believe you would consider something so obvious as this.”
Ricardo shifted uncomfortably. He wasn’t used to anybody telling him his plans were obvious. “I realize we’re not rewriting the police handbook here,” he muttered, “but there’s a reason it keeps coming up. It works. We need to draw him out, and you’re the only person who could do it. Unless you want to get your parents involved.”
“You know I don’t,” she snapped. “Besides, he would see through that, too. And I doubt he would want to see them right now. He just did something they would never approve of. He can’t face that.”
“You’re so sure?”
She nodded. “I still know him. I don’t know what he’s capable of anymore, I’ll admit that, but I know him. There’s still part of him that wants to please his family.” She laughed again, and I thought for a second that she might be losing her grip. That laugh sounded like the laugh of somebody coming apart at the seams, a stitch at a time. I had heard it before—guys who were strong, cocky, ready to stand up to any challenge. They found out pretty fast what they were capable of, and what the enemy was capable of. She was about a few days away from imploding. We had to get things closed up, fast.
Her eyes were wide and haunted when she stared at the floor, still pacing. “He wants to please his family, but they’re his family now. Not us. What happens if he does something for them? What if they tell him to kill me?”
She was only thinking out loud, but it didn’t seem right to let her go any further down that road. Ricardo and I exchanged an uneasy look. “They wouldn’t do that,” he reminded her. “They don’t know who you are. I don’t know if he’s deliberately misleading them or what, but he’s keeping them away from you. That has to say something.”
“It doesn’t mean he won’t flip out when he sees me and do something drastic.” She glanced at us. “You know that’s right.”
“We have to take that chance,” Ricardo finally admitted.
She opened her mouth, but I cut her off. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Do you like the idea of her having to hide for the rest of her life?” he asked, then turned to her. “Do you like that idea?”
“What’s your end game, then?” She stopped pacing and tapped her foot on the floor, suddenly impatient. Nervous, more like. “You want to draw him out with me as the bait, and then what? Arrest him?”
Ricardo nodded. “That’s the general idea.”
“But that doesn’t mean anything. You arrest him, but the entire Demarco family is out there looking for me.”
“Like I said, they don’t know who you are. Besides,” he shot me a look, “we have something in mind for that. There’s more to it than just putting your brother behind bars. A much bigger plan is in the works, and if he loves you, he’ll go for it.”
“I don’t know anymore,” she whispered. They shared a moment I wasn’t totally comfortable with when their eyes met.
“I do,” he murmured. “If he didn’t, he would’ve turned you over right away. He’s not completely in their pocket yet.”
“So you think I should do this? I mean, really? Knowing everything?”
He nodded. “And I’ll tell you something else: this is bigger than just protecting you. You’ll be protecting him in the long run.”
“I wish I understood what you’re talking about.”
“You will. You just have to trust right now. I wouldn’t ask you to do anything that’ll hurt you or him.”
She looked at me, eyebrows raised. “Do you think I should?”
Did I? Ideally, no. I hated the thought of her standing there, waiting for him to decide if he was going to let her live or not. I hated it no matter what Ricardo had in mind. Nobody knew whether or not this Michael was stable. Would he flip out as soon as she got to the meeting place? Would he bring his buddies with him? Would they follow him even if he didn’t intend for them to ever know who the mystery witness was?
I felt Ricardo’s expectant gaze. He wanted me to go along. I remembered something he said: without this, she would have to hide out for the rest of her life. I didn’t want that, either.
“As long as we have something in place to keep her safe, no matter what happens.” I directed that to Ricardo, of course, who nodded.
“We
will. You’ll see.”
I didn’t have a choice but to agree. “All right. Then I’m for it.” It was one of the toughest things I ever had to say. I hoped he knew what he was talking about.
Chapter Seventeen – Molly
The phone had never looked so dangerous. I looked at it, sitting there on the table, waiting for me to pick it up and make the phone call that could change all of our lives.
You’re being ridiculous. It was my ego’s meager attempt at keeping me sane, but it didn’t work. Because I wasn’t being ridiculous, not really. Maybe a little dramatic, but all things considered I felt I had the right to be a little dramatic just then. When everybody expected me to call my brother and lure him into a trap.
“This is the right thing to do,” I reminded myself in a faint whisper.
Brett was on the other side of the room, only because I needed my space. It had been almost twenty-four hours since Ricardo had approached me, and I’d needed that time to think things through. It didn’t matter to me that he thought it was a good idea and Brett cosigned on it. I didn’t care if the entire police department and FBI wanted me to do it. What mattered was how I felt about it. And I felt like shit, plain and simple.
The worst part was keeping it from my parents. I had to—not just because it would kill them, but because it could literally get them killed. The fewer people who knew, the better. What would they think if they knew what I was about to do? Would they agree it was right, since Michael had made his choice and there was no turning back from it? I wished I had the answers. I wished I were a little girl again, without the weight of everybody’s future hanging in the balance. Mine included.
“When you were a kid, did you think your parents had all the answers?” I asked, looking up at Brett.
A ghost of a smile played across his face, and his blue eyes twinkled a little. “Yeah. My dad was the smartest. My mom was the best mom. I would beat the hell out of any kid who said otherwise.”
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