Say the Word

by Julie Johnson

“You two bet on whether or not I’d have sex with Bash tonight?”

  She nodded. “Simon thought you’d hold out till after Centennial, but my money was on tonight!”

  “That is beyond disturbing. You do realize that, right?”

  “Yeah, I know.” She shrugged, still grinning. “But I’m pretty sure you should be eternally indebted to me, since I was the one who found that bustier and garter set on sale.” She arched an eyebrow at me as a scarlet blush stole across my cheeks. “Oh yeah, you totally owe me, you little slut.”

  “Was this the reason you dragged me out of bed and away from the best sex of my life at three in the morning?” I asked.

  “No, it’s not the reason,” Fae said, sighing.

  “Then what is it?”

  The sound of the back window rolling down in the limo had both of us swiveling our heads in the direction of the automated glass pane. A male voice called out from the back seat. “That would be me. I’m the reason.”

  Fae rolled her eyes. “No need to be so dramatic, Gallagher.”

  “No need to waste my time, Montgomery,” the man fired back.

  My brows went up.

  “Just get in the car. He’ll explain everything better than I can,” Fae said, pulling open the back passenger door and climbing inside the dark limo. After a brief moment of deliberation, I sighed and followed her in. As I settled onto the seat on the right side of the car, I was surprised to see an attractive man with stunning blue eyes, a day’s worth of stubble, and well-mussed, overgrown black hair falling over his eyes, sitting in the seat directly across from me. He was probably in his late twenties or early thirties, wearing a rumpled black suit that needed some serious attention from an iron.

  “Ms. Kincaid?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “I’m Agent Gallagher.” The man leaned forward and extended his hand, and I shook it hesitantly after a quick glance at Fae. She nodded reassuringly. “I’m with the FBI. I believe Fae told you about me?”

  “Oh, wow,” I stammered, casting a scathing glance at Fae. “Yes, sir, I’m sorry — Fae didn’t warn me you’d be coming. I would’ve dressed…” I trailed off, mortified by the fact that I wasn’t even wearing a bra in front of this super-hot, deadly-serious federal agent. Really, couldn’t she have given me even a five-minute head’s up?

  “Not a problem, Ms. Kincaid. I’m sorry to wake you at this hour, but I needed this meeting to be as private as possible.” His eyes were beautiful but held no humor or comfort. “I work with the New York field office, in the Organized Crime unit.” He flashed a shiny gold badge at me from across the limo.

  “You’re the one who got the dossier on Labyrinth,” I said, putting the pieces together. I turned to Fae. “This is your guy.”

  She nodded, and a small smile twitched her lips up at the corners.

  Agent Gallagher cast a brief glance at her from his peripherals, before turning his attention back to me. “Ms. Kincaid, I’ve been aware of your investigation for a while now.”

  “You have?” I was dumbfounded.

  “Believe me, you’re not the only one who’s been keeping close watch on that brewery. I’ve been working this case for nearly two years now, and before my partner died, he worked it for five.” Sadness flickered in the depths of his eyes. “I nearly pulled you out of there twice, afraid you were going to jeopardize my entire investigation.”

  “Oh, jeeze.” I gulped. “I’m sorry, Agent Gallagher, I had no idea…”

  “I know.” He nodded in acknowledgement. “But these are dangerous people, Ms. Kincaid. You can’t get too close without disappearing. My partner was a good man, but he stepped on too many toes. Made a lot of enemies.”

  “So that’s why you’re here? You want me to back off?” I asked, beginning to deflate at the prospect.

  Agent Gallagher leveled me with a serious look. “Not exactly,” he said, leaning forward. His eyes were suddenly intense. “I’ve been trying to get eyes inside Labyrinth for months, with no success. I don’t have enough cause for a search warrant, and breaking in would be impossible — it’s a fortress. Every perimeter is closely monitored by armed guards and more cameras than you can count. You can’t get in unless you’re a member.”

  Comprehension came swiftly. “That’s why you helped me. You knew I could get in, with Sebastian’s help.”

  “I shouldn’t have given you that dossier. If my boss found out — let’s just say this city would have one less FBI agent walking its streets come tomorrow morning. But when Fae contacted me and told me about you and your boyfriend… Things just seemed to fall into place. I gave you the information you needed, left you on a long leash, and let you run. I knew anything you saw inside could potentially help my investigation.”

  “And, I suppose, if things had gone poorly for me and Bash in there, you’d be free to deny any involvement,” I said, my lips twisting in a wry smile at the thought. “Convenient.”

  “It was a calculated risk.” Agent Gallagher shrugged without remorse.

  Fae snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. “Nice of you.”

  He ignored her. “What I need to know, Ms. Kincaid…” He rubbed at his stubble, a nervous habit. “Did you see anything in there — anything at all — that might tie Labyrinth to the brewery at Red Hook and the trafficking ring I suspect they’re running? Think hard — it could be something small, just a tiny detail that didn’t seem important at the time but, in retrospect—”

  “What’s your name?” I interrupted his somewhat patronizing tangent.

  “Excuse me?” he asked, taken aback that I’d cut him off.

  “Your name. Your first name. The one your momma gave you. What is it?” I asked.

  He stared at me for a moment, no doubt judging how serious I was. My resolute expression must’ve convinced him I wasn’t joking, because he finally sighed and relented. “Conor.”

  “Hi, Conor. I’m Lux.” I smiled at him. “I believe you’re asking me for a favor. Where I come from, people who ask favors have to, at the very least, display a little bit of common courtesy. Especially at three in the damn morning.”

  “He’s always like this,” Fae noted. “It could be three in the afternoon, he’d still be this unpleasant.”

  “Ms. Montgomery, please be silent.” Conor’s jaw clenched. “I know it’s a constant struggle for you, but I’d appreciate any effort.”

  Fae rolled her eyes and sighed.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, Ms. Ki—” He broke off when he saw my chastising look. “Lux,” he amended. “It’s just very important that you think really hard—”

  “Conor, I’m going to stop you right there, before you dig yourself into an even deeper hole.” I met his eyes with a serious look. “I can sense that this is important to you. But you don’t seem to realize how important it is to me as well.”

  He opened his mouth to speak but I plowed onward.

  “I’m not some dumb blonde who stumbled across this mess and thought Hey! That sounds like a neat story to investigate! I’m not doing this for fun, or for fame, or for whatever reason you’ve thought up.” I touched the silver cuff I’d forgotten to remove from my wrist when I fell into bed earlier. “A friend of mine is missing. This isn’t a game to me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Conor said, his eyes softening a little.

  “Downstairs, Labyrinth is everything it promises to be — a sanctuary for blue-bloods. Tea parlors, cigar rooms, and the like, but nothing of interest to you.” I took a deep breath and tried to prepare myself. “Most of the people down there probably have no idea what’s going on upstairs.”

  “Upstairs?”

  “It’s an auction,” I told him, feeling the crushing sadness return to lay against my chest like a heavy weight, as though someone had spliced open my ribs and poured a batch of concrete inside.

  His brows rose. “Excuse me?”

  “They’re auctioning off the immigrant girls to the highest bidder. There’s a room, on the top f
loor. Ten private betting booths, facing a small round platform with a track of spotlights overhead to illuminate the space.” I swallowed roughly. “There are chains attached to the stage — ankle bindings, so the girls can’t run.”

  I heard Fae gasp. Conor’s reaction was more subdued — he released a low expletive under his breath, and the skin around his eyes tightened with tension. “Could you describe it for a sketch artist? We could replicate the space…”

  “No need.” I stared at him for a weighty moment. “We have pictures.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Now

  As I rode the elevator back upstairs, I thought about the conversation I’d just had with my best friend — a woman I once thought I knew everything about, from her deepest secrets right down to her favorite shade of nail polish. I knew now, I couldn’t have been more wrong about that assumption.

  I’d climbed from the car clutching Agent Gallagher’s business card in one hand, feeling more than a little shell shocked at the fact that I, Lux Kincaid — sunny Georgia girl and all round believer in the good things in life — had just had a conversation with a federal agent about a secret human trafficking ring on the Upper East Side, potentially involving people who had the power to wipe me off the face of the earth with a single phone call.

  I’d leaned against the car for some time, lost in my thoughts and half-listening to Agent Gallagher bark orders into his cellphone, until I felt Fae settle in next to me. Her hipbone pressed against mine, our elbows and shoulder blades bumped lightly. Glancing over at her, I’d seen an unfamiliar look in her eyes — it took me a minute to recognize it as worry.

  “Are you mad?” she whispered.

  “What?” My brow furrowed in confusion.

  “I didn’t tell you about any of this.”

  I looked over at her. “About your double life?” I smiled faintly. “No, I’m not mad. If you didn’t tell me, I’m guessing you have a pretty good reason.”

  She nodded. “Remember that night at the bar a few weeks ago, when Simon said he’d always wanted to know someone in the Witness Protection Program?” Her voice was hesitant and hushed.

  I felt my eyes widen.

  “Surprise,” she muttered weakly.

  “Jesus,” I whispered, my mind whirling with possibilities. “I know you probably can’t tell me much, but I have to know… Are you safe, at least?”

  She nodded. “For now, I’m safe enough.”

  “You’re hiding from someone,” I guessed.

  Fae looked over at me for a moment, her eyes intense and sad. “My husband.”

  I felt my eyes well with tears as I leaned over and wrapped my arms around her. “Oh, Fae. I’m sorry, love.”

  “It was a long time ago,” she whispered into my neck, her arms coming up to return my embrace. “I’m fine.”

  The threads of sadness and regret interwoven in her tone said otherwise, but I didn’t push her.

  “No wonder you never date,” I murmured.

  Fae laughed lightly and squeezed me tighter until Agent Gallagher ended his phone call and leaned out the open window.

  “Alright, ladies, time to break up your little love-fest. It’s four in the morning — I’m beat. I want to get home.”

  Fae sighed as she detached from me and turned to face the undeniably handsome, undeniably rude agent. “You could at least ask nicely, Conor,” she muttered.

  “It’s Agent Gallagher to you, sweetheart.”

  “Lux gets to call you Conor and I don’t?” Fae’s face morphed into a scowl. “That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Lux is about to hand me a promotion on a silver platter by helping me bring down a group of criminals the Bureau has been after for years,” he said, smiling for the first time since we’d met. Though handsome even with his typical glower, Conor’s entire face lit up when he grinned. If he’d show off that set of pearly whites a little more often, he’d have women lined up around the block for him. “You, on the other hand…” He looked Fae up and down. “Only ever come to me for favors or when things in your life need fixing.”

  “You’re an asshole.” Fae’s eyes shot daggers at him.

  “Well, you’re an entitled princess.” Conor didn’t attempt to conceal his look of dislike.

  They glared at each other for so long, I began to think they’d forgotten my existence entirely. Wondering what could’ve happened between them to brew a relationship of such anger and animosity, I cleared my throat lightly and took a step in the direction of the elevator. “Well, then, I’m gonna go…”

  In sync, their heads swiveled toward me.

  “You’ll email me those photos as soon as you get inside, Lux?” Conor reminded me, his eyes once again serious.

  I nodded, pushing the button to call the elevator. “I have to get back before Bash wakes up and flips out because I’m not there.”

  “Tell him I said hi,” Fae said, winking at me. “And plan on drinks with Simon tomorrow night. He’ll want the low-down — and so do I.”

  I waved before boarding the elevator and heading back upstairs to the man waiting in bed for me. I was nearly giddy at the thought, my huge grin unstoppable as it spread across my cheeks. Just as the elevator reached the top floor, I felt an insistent vibration coming from the pocket of Sebastian’s sweatpants — my cellphone. I fished it out as I walked down the hall to Bash’s front door, glancing at the screen just as I came to a stop outside the entrance to his loft. I sighed and slid my finger across the screen to answer the call.

  “Hi.”

  “Where the hell are you?” His voice was ragged with worry. “I woke up and you were gone.”

  “Breathe, Bash.”

  “Don’t tell me to breathe. We finally work things out and you fucking vanish in the middle of the night.” I heard his harsh intake of air as he tried to regain calm. “I thought we were past this, Lux.”

  “We are!” I protested.

  “Then why did I just wake up in my bed alone?”

  “I had to meet someone!”

  Silence blasted over the line. “What possible reason could you have for meeting anyone at four in the morning?”

  “You don’t exactly say ‘no’ to the FBI, Bash.” I rolled my eyes and tried the doorknob — it was locked.

  “You’re with the FBI? Why?”

  “It’s a long story. Remember Fae’s guy?” I reached up and knocked lightly on the door.

  “Yeah.”

  “Turns out his name is Agent Conor Gallagher — he’s with the New York field office. Organized Crime.”

  “He wants to know what we found at Labyrinth,” he deduced.

  “I have to send him the pictures.” I reached up and knocked harder on his front door. “Are you going to answer your door, or not?”

  “What?”

  “I’m literally standing at your front door freezing my ass off in this damn, uninsulated hallway, waiting for you to open up. I’ve been knocking for three minutes.”

  I heard the sound of his footsteps echoing through both the door and the receiver at my ear. He pulled open the door and stared down at me, surprise etched on his features and not a stitch of clothing covering his chiseled, naked body. I whispered into the phone, a huge smile stretching across my face.

  “Took you long enough.”

  “Sorry, I was a little distracted between waking up to find my girlfriend missing from my bed in the middle of the damn night and hearing about her clandestine meetings with federal agents.” He grinned down at me so warmly, I decided to ignore his casual use of the g-word, for the moment.

  “You about done with your super-spy antics for the night?” he asked.

  “Just about,” I said, hanging up my phone.

  “Good.” He placed his phone on the small table by the entryway, removed mine from my hand, and tossed it alongside his. Before I could retreat, he bent forward, propped his shoulder against my stomach, and threw me over his back in a fireman’s carry.

  “Bash!” I squealed. �
��What are you doing?”

  He kicked the door closed with one bare foot and carried me across the loft to the bed. As we went, he pulled the over-large sweatpants from my legs and tossed them to the floor. I squeaked in protest when I felt cool air against my suddenly exposed backside.

  “Bash! Put me down!”

  “Gladly,” he muttered, tossing me onto the bed and settling above me. He straddled my thighs, staring down at me with a look I couldn’t quite decipher. With one hand, he reached down to move a strand of flyaway hair from my face; with the other, he began to slowly unbutton the white shirt I’d borrowed.

  “I like my clothes on you.” His voice was deep, his eyes dark with lust.

  When his hands moved beneath the fabric, I arched up into his touch and felt my eyes droop to half-mast, my gaze still locked on his face.

  “I like you in my bed,” he added, slipping the shirt down my arms and casting it quickly aside.

  I felt my limbs turn liquid beneath the heat of his gaze, as his eyes roamed my body. A small, distant thought niggled at the back of my mind, nagging that there was something I had to do — something important — before I could lose myself between Bash’s sheets for the next several hours.

  Agent Gallagher’s scowling face flashed in my mind — Ah, yes. The Labyrinth photos.

  “I have to email those pictures to Conor,” I managed to mumble between gasps, as Bash lowered his head to kiss the column of my naked throat.

  “He can wait,” Bash muttered. “I can’t.”

  I opened my mouth to object, but all that escaped was a breathy moan of pleasure as Bash thrust into me and my mind went blank.

  ***

  I walked into Swagat the next day with an immovable grin on my face. My cheeks had begun to ache from my constant smile several blocks ago, but nothing in the world could dampen my spirits today.

  “Hey, Mrs. Patel!” I called as the door swung shut behind me.

  She waved begrudgingly from her post behind the cash register. Her sari was purple today, covered from the waist down with her usual dull brown crocheted blanket, and her hair was twisted into a high knot at the crown of her head.