Someone was going to pay, and right now, Cletis was the only candidate he had.
He threw a punch into the other man’s face, ostensibly to get him to stop thrashing but just as much for the satisfaction. Then he balled Brown’s shirt in his hand and shook him against the pavement.
“You owe me, motherfucker. You can either talk or I can take it out of you here and now.”
Cletis stopped moving, eyes wide, a trickle of blood leaking from his nose. “I already told you everything,” he said. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“You already told me everything?” Braden gave him another punch, leaned in close to his face. “Is that why you ran when you saw me coming?”
“It’s never good when you guys are coming,” Cletis gasped, lifting his head to spit blood onto the pavement.
“True,” Braden conceded. “But we both know in this case that’s bullshit. You talked to someone after I left today. Who was it?”
“I didn't talk to no — ”
Braden stopped the flow of words with another punch. “Do you really want to do this the hard way, Cletis?”
“Okay, okay!” he said. “Jesus Christ.”
“Start talking.”
“Guy came up to me on the corner about a half hour after you left. Said he was with the Feds. Said you weren’t really one of them. Gave me the “impersonating a federal agent” bit… the whole thing.”
Braden ignored the implicit question in Cletis’ statement. “And?”
“He told me if I didn’t talk he’d go to my parole officer about the weed in my pocket.”
“Jesus,” Braden said. “What the fuck are you doing with weed? You want to go back to Chino?”
“It was just weed!” Cletus protested. “I wasn’t expecting to get the shakedown twice in one day.”
“What did he look like?” Braden asked.
“Tall, black hair, toothpaste smile.”
Braden froze. “Toothpaste smile?”
Cletus gestured to his own yellowing teeth. “Like a toothpaste commercial. Shiny. White. Some Top Gun shit.”
Braden shook his head. Cletus was talking about Shields.
Fucking Shields had been on his tail after he dropped Nora at the office.
He straightened, still straddling Cletis’ body, and opened his phone. He scrolled through his pictures until he found one of them at Marty’s, a picture Nora had sent him that he’d only kept because she was in it. He turned the phone around.
“This the guy?” he asked. “On the other side of the woman?”
“That’s him,” Cletis said. “That’s fucking him. Can I get up now?”
Braden got to his feet, slipped his phone in his pocket, already trying to piece together how much Shields might know. How much of it was about what was going on at the Bureau and how much of it had to do with Shields’ obvious feelings for Nora.
He turned away from Cletis, sitting up on the pavement, wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve. Braden was almost to the sidewalk when he turned back.
“You should leave, man.” He looked around the neighborhood. “This is no good. You want to be free, you need a new start. Go somewhere with fresh air. Someplace where there aren’t bars on the fucking windows.”
“Easy for you to say!” Cletis shouted at his back. “I don’t have a pot to piss in right now.”
Something in the man’s voice stopped him, tugged at some vestige of conscience still alive and kicking under his rage. He walked slowly back toward Cletis, sitting on the asphalt, head in his hands.
He pulled out his wallet, removed all his cash, held it toward the other man. “It’s not a lot, but it’s enough for a bus ticket and a cheap room somewhere while you find work. Get out of here. Seriously. I don’t want to see you again.”
He headed for the corner, anxious to get back to Nora.
20
It took discipline not to mention Braden’s bruised knuckles when he got back in the car. She wanted to know what had happened. Wanted to know if he was okay.
But she wasn’t anxious to play nursemaid to someone who’d been lying to her, and she wasn’t going to be suckered into the role of nurturer just because he’d had a fight.
It things had been different, she would have asked what they were doing in Riverside, who he had beaten up and why, but it didn’t seem to matter in the face of whatever he’d been hiding. It was obviously all connected.
She ran down the possibilities for what felt like the hundredth time: he was undercover, he’d joined some kind of mercenary group and was an assassin, he was dirty — had been dirty the whole time he’d been at the Bureau.
Except none of it jibed with what she knew about Braden and the Bureau. They wouldn’t put an agent undercover two days after he resigned. It wouldn’t pass the kind of examination that was expected when an agent went undercover.
And Braden was no killer.
She’d seen the look in his eyes the night at Rosa’s after he’d left the Bureau. Had seen the torment when he’d said he didn’t think he was doing any good. He believed in justice. Believed in their sacred duty to make the world a safer place.
Which made the last possibility the most absurd; Braden Kane was no dirty cop. She didn’t know what he was into, but she knew he was honorable. Knew he believed everything he did was for the greater good.
Except what if she was wrong? What if her instincts — instincts she relied on for her very survival — were shit?
Everything you need to know is right in front of you.
But it wasn’t. Suddenly it seemed like there was a whole other world — a whole other Braden — hiding under the veil of a reality she no longer trusted.
She turned her head, glanced over at him, watched as the street lights played across the perfect symmetry of his face, the defined line of his jaw. Had it only been hours ago that she’d been naked underneath him?
She was ashamed to feel the animal roar of lust expand in her veins. Ashamed to realize that even knowing he’d kept something from her — had lied to her — she still wanted him with a primitive need that blocked out all reason.
She turned her face back to the window. No. She wasn’t an animal, and she wasn’t a fool. She wouldn't be sucked into something that was bad for her. Wouldn’t be carried along on a wave of lust or love or anything but the cold, hard reasoning of her perfectly good mind.
She thought about Erin, tried to imagine all her sister could have accomplished if she’d lived to kick her addiction. If she’d lived to come to her senses about Ryan. She would be in Boston, maybe showing the portrait photographs she’d been taking ever since their parents had given her an old Polaroid camera when Erin was six years old. Or maybe she’d be in L.A. with Nora, sharing an apartment, watching the sunset every night. Maybe she’d be engaged to a nice man with a good job whose eyes crinkled when he smiled at her.
But she was none of those things. She was dead.
She was dead and gone and it was because she’d gotten lost in the fog of addiction and her love for Ryan. Had lost sight of the shore.
Nora wasn’t Erin. And their mother was wrong. Sometimes the things you needed to remember weren’t right in front of you. Sometimes they were hidden in dark and secret places. They were things you needed to excavate to find.
She drew in a breath, watched the exit sign for Long Beach pass overhead as they veered off the freeway. She wasn’t surprised when they made their way to the airport. They bypassed the commercial terminals and headed for the charter terminal.
She turned to Braden. “Where are we going?”
“I told you we were flying,” he said without looking at her.
“We’re taking a charter?” she asked as they pulled up to the gate of the private terminal.
He showed his ID to the guard and they were waved through a moment later.
“It’s the safest way for us to travel right now.” He pulled the car up to a waiting plane, lights on and staircase extended, on the tarmac. He turned
off the engine and opened the door.
He removed their bags from the backseat. When she came around to his side of the car, a man was standing near the driver’s side door. He was tall and built like most of the men she knew at the Bureau, but there was a kind of lazy grace to him that made it seem that while this was just another day on the job, he could be in a defensive position in seconds.
Braden handed him the keys. “Tell him thank you.”
“Tell him yourself,” the man said, climbing into Braden’s car.
Braden turned to her and hesitated. She wondered what he was thinking, but a moment later he spoke and she didn’t have time to wonder any more. “Let’s go.”
She followed him to the plane and he waited at the bottom of the staircase to let her pass. She stopped, turned to face him, had to resist the urge to take his hand.
“Where are we going?” She expected him to deflect and was surprised when he answered.
“Seattle.”
“What’s in Seattle, Braden?”
“Answers.”
She hesitated, then continued up the stairs, the promise of answers all she needed to get her on the plane. Already defying all the logic she’d promised herself she would use.
She stepped onto the plane and took a seat, was relieved when Braden took one across the aisle from her, obviously sensing that she wanted to keep her distance. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t easy, that there was nothing she desired more than to be near him, but that would defeat the purpose of the distance she’d been cultivating since she realized he’d been keeping something from her. She remained silent instead, buckling her seat belt and looking around the plush cabin as the staircase raised, the door closed, the interior pressurized.
“There’s a bedroom in the back if you get tired,” Braden said. “And a kitchen if you get hungry.”
She turned her face to the window, watched as the city lights rolled past, the plane picking up speed as it sped down the tarmac. Then they were lifting into the air, her stomach dropping beneath her as the plane nosed higher and higher. She watched as the light disappeared behind them, falling away as they headed out over the water.
She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. A short while later she heard a voice at her shoulder.
“Can I get you anything, Miss Murphy?”
She opened her eyes to find a young man in slacks and a button down leaning down next to her. “No, thank you.”
“We’ve reached our cruising altitude,” he said. “You can take off your seat belt for now, get comfortable, move around if you like.”
“Thanks."
He moved to the front of the cabin and rustled around the tiny kitchen. She should have been impressed by the plane, obviously outfitted for comfort, but she had too many questions to be impressed. Who owned it? And what did Braden have to do to call in the favor of a last-minute luxury jet to take them to Seattle?
The fine hair stood up on the back of her neck and she turned to find him looking at her. He held her gaze for a long moment, his forehead furrowed, more uncertainty than she’d ever seen in his eyes. She wanted to reach over, smooth his forehead, tell him not to worry, that whatever he had to tell her wouldn’t change anything between them. That they’d already come too far for that.
But it would be a lie. There were still some lines she wouldn’t cross.
She turned away, closed her eyes and repeated it in her mind like a mantra.
There are still some lines I won’t cross.
21
Braden looked out the window, watching the sunrise hit the city as they came in for a landing at Sea-Tac. They were too far from downtown Seattle to see the Space Needle, and he felt a moment’s regret that Nora wouldn’t be able to see it from the air. Then he looked over at her, eyes closed, face serene, and remembered that she wouldn’t want to talk about the Space Needle or anything else until he gave her the answers she deserved. Unfortunately they had one stop to make before he would be able to give them to her.
He didn’t blame her for being pissed, was half-surprised she’d come with him at all. Expecting anything else would be pushing his luck, and he vowed to tread softly, not push, until he could come clean.
“We’re landing, Mr. Kane.”
Braden nodded at the steward, then looked over at Nora, wishing he didn’t have to wake her.
“Nora.” Her eyes flew open, and he recognized the manic alertness, the instinctual cataloging of a situation that had been lost to you while asleep. It was one of many side effects of their career, and a pang of sadness hit him in the gut. He didn’t want her to be alert all the time. Didn’t want her hand to move to her weapon when she was still half-asleep. He wanted her to sleep soundly with nothing but peaceful dreams. Wanted her to wake up slowly and lazily, knowing she was safe. He hated himself for putting her in this situation. For validating all the things she’d trained to prepare for. “We’re landing.”
She straightened, buckled her seat belt, checked her phone. He watched as she turned to the window.
The plane dipped sharply as it came in for a landing, and Braden watched as the labyrinthine highways and strip malls became larger, the tarmac rising up to meet them as they approached the airport. They hit the runway with a slight bump and taxied toward a hangar in the distance, finally slowing to a stop.
The steward opened the door as the pilot emerged from the cockpit.
“I hope the flight was comfortable,” he said. He was pleasant but formidable looking, and Braden wondered if he was part of Locke’s team or a hired hand paid only to fly.
“It was fine, thank you,” Braden said.
The pilot held out one hand, a key dangling from a Buddha key chain. “Montgomery left this for you.”
Braden tried to hide his surprise as he took the keys. This was the kind of shit he expected from Nico and Farrell, even Christophe. The streets of the Syndicate had always run green with money, but never more so than under its new leadership. Private planes, luxury cars, safe houses all over the world — that was their MO It wasn’t his scene, but he understood the merit of it all. In the Syndicate, power was a weapon wielded to prevent greater power from being necessary, and that power was conveyed at all times in all sorts of ways.
Locke struck him as too enlightened to like the finer things. Even the house in La Jolla seemed a necessary trapping, a fortress from which Locke conducted illegal operations that were for the greater good. Now he wondered if he really understood Locke at all.
They deplaned with their bags to find a white BMW waiting nearby. Braden pushed the keyless entry and heard the doors unlock, then used the remote to open the trunk. He put their bags inside and slid into the driver’s seat. Nora was already buckled in next to him, her face turned to the window.
He hesitated, then reached across the console and took her hand from her lap. She didn’t resist, but she didn’t seem happy about it either.
“Look at me.” He sighed when she didn’t. “Look at me, Nora.”
She turned her head, her eyes as blue as the lightening sky in the window behind her.
“I know this is shitty, and I promise I’m going to tell you what’s going on, but until we get somewhere private, can we just… set this aside? You’re my best friend. I can’t stand to have you not talking to me.”
It was true. For all the distance he’d tried to maintain over the years, for all the feelings he’d kept close to the vest, there was no one at the Bureau he’d trusted more. He wanted to tell her everything. Wanted to let her in on all the secrets he’d been saving for the right time.
The right person.
And he wanted to know her secrets too. Wanted to know about the sister she never talked about, the sadness that crept into her eyes when Braden asked about her family, tried in vain to get her to tell him something that would make her less of a cipher to him. He only hoped he would get the chance.
“I can’t just pretend you haven’t been keeping something from me, Braden,” she finally sai
d.
“I’m not asking you to do that. I’m just asking for a little civility. I know I don’t have a right, but we’re here, and we have a lot of ground to cover today.”
Her eyes flashed. “I wish you’d just told me back in L.A., because the things I’m imagining are making it hard to set aside.”
“What are you imagining? The short list.”
She chewed her lip, like she wasn’t sure she wanted to say any of it aloud now that she’d been given the go-ahead. “You were dirty at the Bureau.”
“I was never dirty at the Bureau,” he said. “Never. You have my word.”
“They’re putting you undercover. Deep cover. Making you resign…”
“I’m not undercover. No one made me resign. It was real for all the reasons I told you.”
A line formed on the bridge of her nose and he knew she was running down the remaining possibilities. “You’re doing some kind of private work that has you in trouble.”
He looked out the windshield, tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, debated the merit of giving her something to hang onto. Something to reassure her that he wasn’t a complete monster.
“I am doing some private work,” he admitted. “But that man back at my apartment wasn’t about that.”
“Illegal work?” she asked, her jaw tense.
“That’s where things get complicated,” he said.
She turned her face to the window. “So it is illegal.”
“It’s not that simple.” He ran a hand through his hair, fighting frustration. He hadn’t slept on the plane. He was tired and on edge. He needed a shower, coffee, food. “Look, I’m just asking you to give me a few hours. By tonight you’ll know everything.”
She met his eyes. “Promise?”
He held her gaze. “I promise.”
She gave a small nod.
He started the car, put it into gear. “We just have one quick stop to make first.”
22
Rogue Love (Kings of Corruption Book 1) Page 9
