by Paige Tyler
“Like I said. Trevor’s my partner. It’s not like that.”
Kathy nodded but didn’t seem convinced. “We’ll see.”
Alina closed the door and turned to find that Molly had hopped up on the couch and assumed her normal comfy position to one side of the cozy sectional. But this time, instead of staring at the TV waiting for Alina to turn it on, her fur baby was staring intently at both of them, apparently waiting to see what was going to happen next. Alina had to admit, she was curious about that, too.
Trevor walked over to meet her as she crossed the living room, and for a second, she thought her partner was going to sweep her into his arms. But instead, he stopped a few paces short and nodded toward the door.
“I should be going, too. I have to get up early to make it up here in time to pick you up and get us to work on time.”
She was confused for a moment, not sure what he meant by that. Then she remembered her car was still down at the DCO training complex in Quantico, nearly an hour away. Crap, she’d completely forgotten that.
“You sure you don’t might driving up here to pick me up in the morning?” she asked. “The traffic coming north will suck if you’re not here early.”
He grinned and took a step closer, and suddenly, the possibility of a kiss coming her way was back on the menu.
“I don’t mind,” he said softly. “Something tells me I’m not going to get a lot of sleep tonight anyway.”
Her breath caught at the implication in his words. She guessed he’d been having more than a few unprofessional thoughts of his own this evening. For some insane reason, that made her happy.
She licked her lips, ready for what she was sure was coming next, when Trevor’s damn cell phone rang.
Crap, if they were interrupted one more time, she was going to scream.
Trevor growled as he pulled out his phone. He glanced at the number, frowning as he answered it.
“Hold on a second,” Trevor said. “Alina’s with me. Let me put you on the speaker.”
A moment later, Seth Larson’s voice came over the phone. “You gave me your number and said I should call if I needed to. Well…I needed to.”
“What’s wrong?” Alina asked. “Is Cody okay?”
“Yeah, he’s okay, just a little freaked out. Earlier tonight, some thugs from the DCO came to visit. They were real assholes, asking me all kinds of questions regarding what you and I talked about, what I’d seen that morning, who else I might have talked to.”
“What’d you tell them?” Trevor asked.
“As little as possible. I mentioned you guys thought I might have seen something the morning of the bombing, but I told them I didn’t see anyone. I didn’t even bring up the employee photos you sent to me. I kind of got the feeling you wouldn’t want me to say anything about it.”
“That’s good,” Trevor said. “Did Cody have a problem with them being there?”
On the other end of the line, Seth sighed. “Yeah. They got a little physical with me, and Cody didn’t handle it well. It took two hours to calm him down.”
“I’m sorry, Seth,” Trevor said, his jaw tightening in anger. “I didn’t intend for any of this to come back on you.”
“I know. Don’t worry about it. We’ll be okay. The only thing that bothered me is that they showed up at my place. How did those guys know you’d come to see me?”
Trevor looked at Alina. “I’m not sure, Seth. I guess the information must have fallen into the wrong people’s hands.”
Alina winced. It was obvious Trevor had a good idea where those thugs had gotten their information. She’d told Dick, and Dick had sent some goons down there to check out her story. She hadn’t told Dick anything specific, but it had been enough to put Seth Larson on the man’s radar.
She was angry at herself, but more than anything else, she was disappointed. It sucked knowing she was the reason those men had shown up and scared Cody. And it double sucked that Trevor, a partner she’d been getting closer to by the minute, was looking at her like she’d betrayed him.
“Hey, before you get the impression that it’s all dark clouds and spilt milk,” Seth added in a lighter tone, “I also called you to say I talked to that friend of yours. He lined me up some pretty cool IT work. He’s even going to come in and set up a home office with a secure computer network for me. It sounds like a pretty sweet deal, so I just wanted to say thanks. I really appreciate it.”
Trevor’s mouth edged up. “I’m glad to hear that. If anyone has earned the right for something good to happen in their life, it’s you.”
Seth didn’t think that was true, but he said he wasn’t going to turn down the job offer regardless. “I’m too desperate to stand on principle.”
They talked for another minute or two, then Seth hung up after promising to let them know if anyone else from the DCO showed up. Alina expected Trevor to immediately ask her who the hell she’d told about Seth. He had every right to. She’d screwed up.
But he didn’t say a word. Instead, he gave her a nod and headed for the door, his face an expressionless mask. That was ten times worse than anything he could have said to her.
“See you tomorrow morning?” she asked as he turned the knob.
He hesitated for a moment but didn’t look back at her. “Yeah, I’ll be here.”
Then he was out the door and gone, leaving Alina feeling like ten pounds of crap as she wandered over and collapsed on the couch beside Molly. Her fur baby put her head on Alina’s lap with a sigh, as if she completely understood what Alina was going through.
“What the hell am I going to do, girl?” she whispered. “I was hired to figure out if Trevor was a bad guy, but right now, I’m the only one betraying anybody.”
Molly lifted one brow, then the other, apparently as torn as her human happened to be. Clearly, there wouldn’t be any advice coming from her canine companion.
Alina sat there caressing Molly’s fur and trying to figure out what the heck she was going to do. She’d spent the past three years hating Wade for betraying her team, and yet here she was, doing the same thing. No, she hadn’t gotten anybody killed, but she still felt like crap on a stick.
She was still staring restlessly at the wall when she heard her phone ringing from nearby. It took her a moment to remember she’d tossed her little purse on the couch when she and Trevor had come in. She looked around and realized that Molly was lying on it.
After yanking the purse from under her, Alina dug out her phone, hoping it was Trevor. But it wasn’t her partner. It was Dick.
Alina groaned. She’d completely forgotten Dick said he wanted updates from her every night. Her thumb hovered over the green button, but she just couldn’t tap it. Between kissing Trevor, confirming Thorn’s involvement in the bombing, seeing their witness to that fact die right in front of them, then discovering Dick had sent men to harass Seth, there was no way in hell she was going to tell her new boss anything.
She let the call go to voice mail, then stood. She was exhausted and needed to get cleaned up before going to bed. She doubted she’d get much sleep, but she might as well try.
“Come on, Molly. Let’s get ready for bed. If nothing else, at least I can watch you sleep.”
* * *
Tanner wasn’t sure if the preseason football game he was watching on the TV in his DCO dorm room was happening in real time or whether it was a replay. Considering it was nearly one in the morning, it had to be the latter. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t like he was paying attention to the game anyway. As usual, he was thinking about Zarina.
He ran his hand through his mane of dark-blond hair and took another long drink from his fourth bottle of Mountain Dew for the night. While there were no bars on the windows or padlocks on the door of his small efficiency apartment, he was as much a prisoner here as Sage was in her cell. The only difference was that his imprison
ment was self-imposed. He could walk away at any time, but for reasons he was only now starting to explore, he stayed here surrounded by people who considered him to be little more than a monster.
At first, he’d told himself it was so he could get a handle on the hybrid rages that happened whenever he got angry. To be truthful, he’d succeeded in that. Until this most recent slipup with Sage, he hadn’t lost it in months. But instead of leaving, he’d convinced himself if he stayed a little longer, Zarina might actually find a way to rid him of his animal side. It was a long shot, but it allowed him to justify staying.
Staring at the TV now, his mind a thousand miles away from the football game, he finally admitted it wasn’t his control issues or the cure for them that kept him here. It was Zarina. And the fact that he loved her so much it hurt.
Tanner took another swig of soda and glanced at the big throw pillow Zarina liked to hug when she curled up on the couch and watched TV with him. While their nightly get-togethers were frequent, no one would call them dates. But he enjoyed the time they spent together, even if all they did was talk about football and why anyone would play a game where the men in the striped uniforms were throwing their hankies on the ground all the time—Zarina’s words, not his. It was fun and casual and made him feel like he was a normal guy.
He was anything but normal, though. It was about time for him to accept that and move on with his so-called life, so Zarina could move on with hers. And he needed to do it sooner rather than later.
He was still considering that when he heard footsteps outside his door. For a crazy half second, he thought it was Zarina. His heart beat faster at the possibility, but then his hybrid instincts took over, calculating the weight of the person from the heavy thud of their footfalls and their height by the interval in between strides. It was a tall man, wearing dress shoes. A moment later, he picked up Trevor’s scent.
Tanner was off the couch and across the room before Trevor could even knock. As he opened the door, he was about to point out it wasn’t a good idea for people to see them together, but one glance at the coyote shifter’s face, and he changed his mind. The guy looked like shit.
He took in the suit Trevor wore, his nose wrinkling at the whiff of fresh blood coupled with the subtle flowery scent of a woman’s perfume.
“Nice fashion statement, dude,” Tanner remarked as Trevor walked in. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone wear a suit without a shirt. I’m pretty sure it’s not going to catch on.”
Trevor didn’t answer but simply flopped down on the couch.
“I’d offer you something alcoholic, because you sure as hell look like you could use it,” Tanner said, closing the door. “But Zarina thinks it’s a bad idea to mix hybrid and booze. So the best I can do is a Mountain Dew.”
“That’s fine,” Trevor said.
Tanner grabbed two bottles of soda from the fridge, then handed one to Trevor before taking a seat on the other couch. When he’d first come to the DCO, he and Trevor rarely crossed paths, mostly because Trevor and his counterespionage team had always been on missions. Since John’s death, they’d both committed themselves to helping their friends who’d been implicated in his murder as well as finding the real killer, so they’d become friends in addition to allies.
“Shitty night?” Tanner asked.
He knew Trevor had gone to Baltimore to look for a person who might have info on the bomb that killed John but not much more than that.
“You could say that.” Trevor opened the bottle of soda and downed half of it in a few big gulps. “I had the guy who made the bomb right in my hands. He came out and admitted Thorn paid him to make the device and deliver it to the visitor’s center at the main gate of the DCO on the morning of the explosion.”
“Which confirms our worst fears, that someone who works with us picked up that device and put it in John’s office.”
Trevor shrugged. “Yeah. Unfortunately, a bunch of muscle-headed bouncers from the club came out and thought we were robbing the guy. The idiots got trigger-happy and killed him before he got a chance to tell anyone.” He shoved a hand through his dark hair and let out a growl of frustration. “I had Thorn’s balls right in my fucking hand, then it all went to shit.”
“Is that how you got shot?” Tanner asked.
Trevor nodded. “Yeah. I got distracted at the wrong time, and one of the d-bags creased my ribs. It’s nothing.”
Distracted wasn’t a word Tanner would usually associate with his friend. Trevor was the kind of man who seemed to be able to focus on the details in the middle of the biggest shit storm.
“Alina okay?” Tanner prompted.
“Oh yeah, she’s wonderful. Peachy, in fact.”
Tanner wasn’t the most perceptive guy on the planet when it came to picking up nonverbal cues, but even he figured out something was going on here.
When he asked, Trevor was silent for so long, Tanner thought he wasn’t going to answer. Finally, his friend took a deep breath and took the plunge.
“Alina isn’t turning out to be the person I thought she was.”
Tanner wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
“I thought she was supposed to spy on me and tell them everything I’m doing,” Trevor continued.
“Now you don’t think so?”
Trevor let out a short laugh. “Oh, she’s almost certainly reporting back to Dick. Two days after we talked to Seth Larson, Dick sent someone to rough him up and find out what he knew. The only way Dick could have known about Larson is if Alina told him.”
Tanner frowned. “Okay, so you’ve confirmed that she’s a spy for Dick.”
Trevor shook his head. “Yeah, but you should have seen the look on her face when she realized I’d figured out what she’d done. She seemed genuinely contrite, like she knew she’d made a mistake.”
Tanner lifted a brow.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Trevor held up his hands. “That she’s playing me. I admit, the thought has crossed my mind more than a few times. But I do this spy-versus-spy thing for a living. I usually know when people are playing me. I’m telling you, something else is going on with Alina. Sometimes it seems like she’s actually on our side.”
Now Tanner was even more confused. Either Alina was working with Dick, or she was one of the good guys. “Speak English, would you? What the hell are you saying?”
Trevor told him what happened at the club, saying he and Alina had fought well together, and how she’d brought him back to her place to fix him up afterward.
“If she was simply doing Dick’s dirty work, she didn’t need to do any of that. Hell, she could have let those guys kill me,” Trevor added. “My gut’s telling me that while she might have told Dick about Larson, she had no idea what he was going to do with that information.”
“That doesn’t mean she’s on our side,” Tanner pointed out.
Trevor turned back to the TV, his breath coming out in a rush. Tanner was tempted to call it a sigh, but since real men didn’t sigh, it had to be something else.
“We kissed,” he said quietly.
Tanner tried not to overreact—and failed. “You what?”
Trevor shook his head. “It wasn’t like that. Well…it wasn’t supposed to be. Alina and I needed a cover to get us into a club in Baltimore, and Skye and Evan set us up as a couple of newlyweds. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, we were put in a position where we had to act like a man and woman who’d just been married. So we kissed.”
“And?”
“And all it was going to be was a quick peck. Just part of our cover. But while it might have started out tame, it sure as hell didn’t finish that way. I’ve never had a kiss like that in my life.”
Tanner took a long drink of Mountain Dew as he considered that. “It might have been that way for you, but what about Alina? Maybe it really was part of your cover for h
er.”
“I thought that at first, too,” Trevor admitted. “But when Alina was tending to my gunshot wound later at her place, she kept running her hands over my chest and stomach long after she’d cleaned off all the blood. She was definitely into me.”
“How do you know?” Tanner asked. He hated to be obvious, but he got the feeling Trevor wasn’t seeing the situation clearly.
“Because I could smell her arousal.”
“Oh,” Tanner said.
Okay, that was definitely TMI. There was a reason men didn’t share this kind of stuff with their friends.
“Up until that point, I’d assumed Alina was very good at deception and that she was playing the role Dick had given her. But you can’t fake arousal, no matter how good you are.”
Tanner couldn’t argue with that. “What are you going to do?”
“I have no frigging idea.” Trevor dropped his back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling as if the answer was written there. Or maybe he was simply looking for divine inspiration. “I want to ignore what my head is saying, just go with my instincts, and trust her. I want to believe this thing that seems to be going on between us is real. But at the end of the day, how do I toss aside all my doubt and trust her completely, knowing that if I do, and she’s dirty, it won’t be me paying the price? It will be our friends.”
Tanner would have answered, but he had no idea what to say. He sucked at relationships almost as much as he did at giving personal advice. Fortunately, Trevor’s phone rang, relieving him of the responsibility of solving his friend’s dilemma.
Trevor pulled out his phone and looked at it warily, as if he was worried it might be Alina calling to ask if they were talking about her. After a moment, he thumbed the button and put it to his ear.
“No, Evan. It didn’t go well tonight,” Trevor said in a deadpan voice. “Is there another reason you called?”
Evan must have said something interesting, because Trevor told him to hold on. “I’m putting you on speaker so Tanner can hear.” He pressed the button. “Go ahead.”
