Risky Temptation

by Hart, Gemma

  It was like sending a kitten loose into the maws of a hungry jungle. My jaw tightened just at the thought of all the danger Halle had been blindly facing.

  But I had to remind myself—I had lost my chance at freedom because of her. She had lied to me. And because of that, I would probably never be able to leave Roy or the Desmond Mafia.

  If she had felt what I had felt when we had been together, she should’ve told me. She should’ve been honest with me. We could’ve worked it out together.

  But did you tell her about Europe? a voice needled me patiently.

  I sighed, the hot water steaming up around me.

  Did you tell her your plans for escaping? What would you have done if the moment had come and Halle had been by your side? Would you have just left her? Or blurted everything out right then without giving her a chance to think or make a decision?

  I slammed a fist against the wall of the shower. I couldn’t deny the logic in the voice but at the same time, I also couldn’t suppress the frustration and anger I felt. Both occupied the same amount of space in my heart and both were hard to ignore.

  “And I won’t ask you to forgive me. I know that wouldn’t be reasonable. But I just want you to know that every moment I had with you was completely and truly real. Short of my real occupation, everything I shared with you was real.”

  Had it been though? Had it been all real?

  When she had walked in on me in the gym and I had finally tasted her truly for the first time, had it been real? When I had pushed my cock deep into her warmth and made her gasp in surprised pleasure, had that all been real?

  My cock twitched, remembering how gorgeous she had looked with her back arched and breasts pressed forward. Her lips had parted slightly and I could see that hazy glow of pleasure shining through her eyes.

  You know it was.

  I believed Halle when she had said she wasn’t a trained field operative. I had met many FBI agents over the years who had tried their best to worm themselves into the Family. You could spot them a mile away. They had a scent to them—a scent of covered agenda and desperation.

  But Halle had had none of that.

  She had been so guilelessly natural it had been easy to believe she was an accountant who had perhaps been hard up for some money.

  I snorted. It made more sense now why a girl like her would work in a place like this.

  And as an untrained agent, it was easy to see that she had let a lot of her own emotions and feelings rise to the surface. She had had no artifice.

  Except the artifice of her trying to wiggle her way into the Family and bring down everything around us, I argued.

  Yes, but…so what?

  Didn’t I want the same? Did I like knowing what Roy Desmond was capable of doing? I, of all people, knew the extent of his cruelty and greed. Why else would I have worked so hard to try and get away?

  “I wanted to do right. Roy Desmond has hurt so many people and could hurt so many more. I wanted to help stop him. And that had been my only goal. I had never intended to hurt you.”

  I could hear the tears in her voice as she spoke. I knew without looking that those shining aqua eyes would be shimmering with unshed tears.

  The entire bathroom was now covered in a thick hazy steam. I knew I should get out of the shower and yet the hot water and the sprinkling noise of the showerhead helped ease my mind a little and I was reluctant to leave.

  If you could give yourself the grace in admitting that you had not intended to fall in love with her, couldn’t you extend the same understanding to her as well?

  We had both met while under the cover of a very convoluted web. I had been in the midst of my elaborate plans while she had been under the secret mission of the FBI. Neither of us would’ve thought falling in love would be high on our agenda.

  Besides, who are you to judge?

  How bloodsoaked were my own hands? Admittedly, the men that had died by me were not good men. Some had even been as bad as Roy. But nonetheless, I had done the killing. I had done the beatings. My body was lashed and scarred with the history of it.

  Neither of us were pure.

  I shook my head, spraying water droplets.

  But so what? So what if we came to a mutual understanding and could forgive each other the sins of the past?

  Now it was too dangerous for us to take any actions. If Roy thought Halle dead, it was all the better for her. There would be hell to pay if he found out she was alive and connected to the FBI.

  And to keep her hidden, I couldn’t visit her or see her. Roy would definitely find out about her if I did that. And then I would be completely culpable for whatever happened to her.

  No, to keep her safe, I would have to let her go.

  No matter what I felt, no matter what I forgave or what I understood, there was no way I would put Halle back into such danger again. If I really loved her, and I was sure I did, then I would keep her safe.

  Even if that meant tearing my own heart out to do so.

  And just like that, like Jamie, like anything else worth loving, I had to keep myself near the dirt and the devil to keep those precious things safe.

  I sighed as I turned off the water.

  “So be it.”

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Halle

  I made a little grumble in frustration as I turned another wrong corner. Pivoting on my heel, I stomped back down the way I had come again, checking the numbered plates by the door.

  Why would they want to do the meeting in their offices?

  Agent Hadfield and Truman had finally contacted me about debriefing. They asked me come into the office but instead of meeting them in the conference room, which is where we had typically met before, they had asked me to come to Agent Truman’s personal office.

  The fourteenth floor of the building was where all the field agent offices were. They were quite anticlimactic considering the highly trained operatives the floor housed.

  It was just row after row of normal offices, complete with the small black numbered plates by the doors and the folding plastic blinds in the windows.

  But that made it all the more difficult to find the correct office. They all looked alike and all the numbers ran together.

  I needed to find 1452 but it seemed as if that particular door had disappeared. I had seen 1451 on my first incorrect trip around the floor. And I had seen 1453 on my third incorrect trip around the floor. But I had yet to find this elusive 1452.

  Thank goodness I had arrived early. I had anticipated a little trouble finding the right place and so had arrived early with plenty of time to find my way. But I hadn’t anticipated this much trouble. I was literally lapping around the whole fourteenth floor.

  Not wanting to waste time and possibly run late, I decided to slow down and carefully search each door as I passed. I walked at a snail’s pace to make sure each and every door was not 1452 before I passed it.

  I checked my phone and luckily I was still twelve minutes early. Hopefully, I could find 1452 within the next twelve minutes.

  That seemed like plenty of time and yet this was what felt like my fifteenth time around the floor.

  I walked slowly and paused when I found 1450. Okay, close but no cigar yet, I thought, wondering how finding an office could be harder than infiltrating a notorious crime family.

  1451.

  I was about to turn in the direction I had before when I suddenly heard a muffled voice.

  I turned around, wondering where it was coming from.

  Behind me, was a wall with a small forgotten potted ficus. I had thought it was a dead end to the hall but as I peered in, I realized that in fact, the ficus was covering a half wall. I walked closer and noticed that the mysterious 1452 was hidden behind the half wall.

  Who in the hell could find such a—

  I was about to head right in when I heard a voice that sounded like Agent Truman’s chuckle.

  “That man is just a whack job,” Agent Truman said, letting out anoth
er chuckle.

  I heard a muffled grunt of amusement that sounded like Agent Hadfield. “Well, it worked, didn’t it? You gotta give the old coot some credit.”

  “After much unnecessary elaboration, sure,” Agent Truman conceded. “Except for his son. I guess old Roy don’t know his boy like he thought.” There was another burst of smug laughter.

  I felt a sudden chill run down my spine. The way the agents were talking, there was a sinister familiarity that made my heart want to curdle. What were they talking about? What ‘worked’? They couldn’t possibly be talking about the Juarez deal, could they? Because that was the opposite of anything that ‘worked.’

  Agent Hadfield let out a big sigh. “He should’ve just been content to let the Juarez Family take the fall. It would’ve been enough. If he remains careful and plays by the rules, he shouldn’t have to worry. But of course, that paranoid sonofabitch needed to axe his son as well.”

  I gulped dryly, hearing my heart pounding in my ears. This sounded like some kind of terrifyingly odd parallel dimension where up was down and down was up. If I could make it out, which was hard to do with my heart in my throat, it sounded dangerously like the FBI were in cahoots with Roy Desmond.

  “Jesus, what an elaborate mess that plan had been,” Agent Truman said. I could hear a chair squeaking as he presumably leaned back in his reclining seat. “It couldn’t be enough that we had that twitchy little Agent Moralez in with the Juarez clan. He wanted someone else with him so that he could try and lure his son into the mess.”

  “Well just be glad we found someone with the tits and ass to match Roy’s standards,” Agent Hadfield said dismissively.

  My face burned. That was me. That was me that they were talking about.

  I was the tits and ass.

  As I had suspected, they had only seen me for my physical nature and nothing else. It hadn’t mattered if I had worked my tail off to prove myself. To them, I was just tits and ass.

  “Where is Agent Moralez, by the way?” Agent Hadfield asked off handedly, as if he couldn’t really care too much about what happened to the mole.

  Agent Truman made a dismissive noise. “Oh he’s on desk duty. God, that weak nutted bastard was too easy to manipulate. I knew we wanted a green agent to fuck up but who knew he’d fuck up so spectacularly? All he needed were a few confusing radio orders and the kid just blows up.”

  “Hey, it all worked to our benefit,” Agent Hadfield corrected. “Except of course for the last bit—no Marco Desmond.”

  “That was fucking idiotic,” Agent Truman commented casually. “Roy should’ve just let the Juarez Family take the fall. With a coup like that, the Desmond Family could coast quietly for at least another decade before there’s another big witch hunt.”

  “But that man is too paranoid for his own good,” Agent Hadfield replied. “You can tell he can’t even trust his own son anymore. But it doesn’t matter. Clearly Agent Margot didn’t do her job in catch Marco Desmond’s eye.”

  The way he emphasized the word ‘agent’ made it clear that he thought that title clearly just a formality when it came to me. I was less an agent to him than Moralez.

  “Roy had overestimated Margot’s ability,” Agent Hadfield continued. “He thought for sure that by bringing her to the deal, Marco would follow.” Agent Hadfield made a tsk-ing noise. “Then Marco would’ve either been shot in the shoot out or arrested with the rest of the Juarez clan. Either way, he’d be rid of him.”

  There was a pause between the two men.

  My vision almost started to swim before my eyes. This couldn’t be real. I couldn’t really be hearing this. This had all been a set up. Everything had been a lie from day one.

  I hadn’t been hired by the FBI. I had been hired by Roy Desmond.

  And my mission hadn’t been to seduce Marco but to lead him to his death.

  An ice cold stone dropped into the pit of my stomach at the thought. This was a complete mess. Everything was much more tangled than I had ever imagined. How could such corruption be happening at such a deep level of the Bureau?

  “It is too bad though,” Agent Truman said wistfully. “If we had also gotten Marco Desmond, dead or alive, we could’ve gotten some real attention. That would be tantamount to capturing the Desmond Family itself. We could’ve gotten some real recognition then.”

  “Not to mention that cut from Roy,” Agent Hadfield grumbled, clearly resentful that he would not be getting his sizeable bribe now.

  And of course, with Marco imprisoned or dead, Roy would have even more anonymity. People would be less thirsty for Desmond blood, thinking they had captured the worst of the Family. And Roy would have an even tighter hold on the Mafia since he would have proven that he was willing to throw his own son over if it meant keeping the Family in line.

  “Well, if we’re lucky, maybe we can still grab that cut,” Agent Truman said mysteriously. There was a loud thunk as his chair swung forward. I imagined him leaning forward towards Agent Hadfield, conspiratorially.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Apparently,” Agent Truman said, his voice a little lower, more confidential, “Roy isn’t quite finished in trying to off his son. He’s gonna give it another go and wants us to stay in touch. With how close it’ll be to the Juarez arrest, this can be good publicity for us. And him.”

  There was a tense pause. “When?” Agent Hadfield asked, clearly having had his interests whetted. I could almost hear the greed in his voice.

  “Tomorrow,” Agent Truman said immediately. “Original drop point. Same time.”

  “Fuck,” Agent Hadfield said breathlessly. “This might be our best year yet.”

  I slowly started to step away. I inched back till I was near the opposite end of the hall.

  This was so fucked.

  Roy Desmond and the FBI were on the hunt to kill Marco Desmond.

  I blinked and then rubbed the heel of my hand hard against my eyes, hoping I would wake up suddenly from a horrible dream. But instead I found myself in the same fluorescently lit hallway, staring down towards the door that held a horrible fate.

  I had worked my whole life to live up to my father’s legacy. He had been a good and decent man. And so I had assumed that everyone else would live up to his standards. But it was clear now that that wasn’t the case. The FBI had just as many criminals as the outside world but they were more dangerous because they had wormed their way into the highest level of federal defense.

  Marco had had the opposite life. Forced to live under his father’s rules and demands, he had grown up into a honed killing machine. He had become a man that he did not want to be. The only reason he held up the pretense was to protect those he loved.

  Perhaps it was time we both shed off the burden of our fathers.

  Perhaps it was time to live our own lives.

  I took in a deep breath and swallowed. Roy had brought me to the deal as a lure for Marco. And although the timing hadn’t worked out, thankfully, Marco had still come. He must’ve known how dangerous it would be and yet he had still come.

  This time, I would rescue Marco. I would save the man who had saved my heart.

  Carefully, I took a step forward. Then another one. And another one. I carefully arranged my face into a neutral expression.

  This debriefing was clearly a joke. No wonder we weren’t meeting in the conference room. They were just too lazy to keep up the complete charade.

  Marco, I’m coming for you. I’ll protect you.

  I knocked on the door, hoping my face was completely relaxed and oblivious looking.

  “Agent Margot?” Agent Truman called out from inside, his voice holding no hint of all the corruption it had been speaking of earlier. “Come in, come in.”

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Marco

  After the countless months of planning coupled along with the whirlwind of having Halle in my life, the aftermath of everything seemed dull in comparison.

  After the Juarez bust,
it seemed like I was just floating. I had been working towards such a specific goal for so long that to have it now taken away made me feel unmoored and in limbo.

  And having seen Halle now, I felt even more off kilter. Yes, I wanted her. Even after everything, I still wanted her. Bad.

  But there was no way that I would endanger her life again just to have her in my arms once more. She should never have been involved in such a crazy mission in the first place. The last thing she should be doing is getting herself back into the risky mess that the Desmond Family swam in.