I'd downplayed how much my knee was hurting because I knew Benita would want me to go to the hospital, and all I wanted to do was get back home. Now, however, as Bron and I made our way toward my apartment, I found that I could barely put any weight on it without wincing.
“Want me to carry you?” Bron broke the silence between us.
I laughed, appreciating the offer both as a moment of humor, and because I knew he meant it. “No, Bron. I’m okay. It’ll just take a little longer to get there, but I’m fine.”
“Okay. Just know that if you decide walking isn’t for you right now, I can pick you up and carry you back to your apartment. It’s really not that far.”
I shook my head. The last thing I needed was to be in his arms, resting against his chest. My thoughts and emotions were already completely chaotic at the moment. “I'll prop it up and ice it. It'll be fine.”
I was glad we were talking about my knee though. While Bron and I had both been giving our statements, Benita asked a question that hadn't occurred to me until that moment. Why hadn't Bron run after Uaine too? He'd saved me from being shot, sure, but when I'd gotten up and run after Uaine, why hadn't Bron been right behind me? He'd followed close enough to end up near the alley where I'd lost the creep, but I knew how fast he was. Even with my head start, he should've caught up to me.
Benita told me in an aside that Bron told her that he'd followed but hadn't tried to catch up because he knew he didn't have any authority, but I could tell that answer hadn't sat right with her. It wasn't sitting right with me.
Was it possible that, after all of this, Bron had been hoping his former mentor would escape?
I didn't like what that implied for Bron's deal, his honesty...or what it meant for us. While I didn't feel like having this conversation here and now, I definitely intended to get a real answer out of him before the night was over. I was tired of guessing what was going on in that mind of his.
Chapter Two
Bron
I didn’t want to admit to Karis that the reason I hadn’t chased Uaine down with her was because of that damn gun. It was a miracle I’d been able to shove her out of the way and knew I’d only managed that because my need to protect her had kicked in before I'd been paralyzed with fear. I'd shouted at her to go because I'd known what it would take for me to get my legs back under me again.
The gun had turned me into a child, the boy I once was.
I hadn't been there the night my parents had been killed, but I'd been at the trial, I'd seen the photos and heard the descriptions. I knew how my parents died. The coroner had listed a gunshot to the head as my father's cause of death, but that had come from the last bullet. He'd been shot five other times first, all in the torso. My mom had been shot three times, none of them instantly fatal, but the doctors hadn't been able to repair the damage to her body.
I knew what guns could do.
My hands were still shaking at the thought of what could have happened if I hadn't pushed Karis out of the way. What could have happened if she'd cornered Uaine and hadn't been fast enough with her own weapon?
“Fuck,” she cursed under her breath as she leaned against the door and tried to get her shoes off.
“Let me.” I knelt in front of her and ignored her protests as I helped her off with her shoes. I glanced up at her. “Pants too.” She glared at me, but let me take off her pants as well.
It took everything I had not to look at her, not to touch her, when I knew too well what those panties looked like. I stood and turned away.
“You go sit down. I'll get you some ice.”
“Thank you,” she said, genuine relief on her face. She hobbled over to the couch, hissing out a breath as she sat down.
I headed for the kitchen, grateful for something to do while I tried to forget about the very thin layer of silk that lay between me and what I wanted.
When I came back, I gave myself permission to look at the swollen and bruised knee that was giving her so much trouble. I put the ice pack on it, my stomach clenching when she hissed in pain.
“That’s going to be pretty in the morning,” I said lightly.
She laughed despite the pain I knew she was in, then accepted a couple pain pills I'd found in her medicine cabinet. I'd considered pouring us both wine but didn't think it'd be a good idea to mix alcohol and the drugs I'd given her, so I handed over a bottle of water. While she swallowed the medicine, I sat next to her and chugged half a bottle of water for myself.
“I’m okay,” she answered my unasked question. “What about you, Bron? Are you okay?” She looked at me, and I heard the concern in her voice.
Instinctively, I knew she wasn't asking if I'd been injured. Even though she hadn't seen any of what I'd gone through after my parents' deaths, she knew me well enough to know how it would've affected me.
I looked down at my hands. “I guess so,” I said uneasily. I wondered if I could change the subject without things getting weird.
Fortunately, I didn't have to worry about it. She changed the subject first, though it wasn't anything better.
“I know you said things between you and Uaine ended badly, but this seems a bit extreme,” she said. “Trying to shoot an FBI agent in public; probably not the best thing to do when hiding from the authorities.”
“Uaine and I haven’t been on good terms for a while,” I admitted. “You talked to Arielle. You know what kind of man he is, what he's capable of...what he did...”
“Back up,” she said. “I know what Arielle said, what little you've told me, but none of it prepared me for being shot at.” She gave me a steady look. “It's time to talk to me, Bron. For real.”
She was right. I'd tried to downplay things before, make light of how things had been for me. I'd known Uaine was dangerous, but I'd thought it was better to keep her in the dark. I didn't have that option anymore.
“After child services took me away, I was shuffled around in the system for a little while. Ran away. You know that. You know that's when I met Uaine. My new last name, Du Murier, came from him.” I couldn't look at Karis, couldn't bear to see the pity on her face when I told her everything. “He offered me the first somewhat stable situation since my parents. He recruited me to work with him, and he started...grooming me.”
I'd always hated that term. Grooming – like I was a damn dog.
“He taught me everything he knew, and it wasn’t long before I started to feel like I was great at what I did. Honestly, if anyone could rival Uaine, it was me. We made a great team even though I knew how violent he could be.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. I knew Karis suspected based on a couple stories I'd shared before, but now I was going to confirm it.
“Whenever one of us screwed up, he'd have some sort of punishment for us. Sometimes, if it was something little, he wouldn't let us have a meal or he'd take away our blanket, make us sleep on the floor.” I shivered even though it'd been years since I'd been cold at night. “There were other punishments too, depending on what we'd done.”
I rubbed the scar on the back of my hand, remembering the pain when Uaine poured boiling water over it. It'd been far from the worst thing Uaine had done to me, but I knew I'd gotten it easier than the others.
I'd been a fast learner.
“You don't have to–” Karis began.
I cut her off, knowing if she let me off now, I'd never finish.
“Beatings with belts, canes, but never anywhere anyone could see. We might've been orphans and runaways, but good grifters had to look good most of the time.” I risked a glance at her and was relieved to see no pity there. Lots of other emotions, but no pity. “The worst part of it wasn't the pain, but how he looked doing it. Like he was empty. He wasn't the sort of guy who snapped and threw things or anything like that. No, he's the kind of guy who smiled while he yanked your nails out.”
She put her hand on my arm. “Bron.”
“There's more,” I said. “The reason why Uaine and I parted ways.”
/> Her fingers tensed, and I forced myself to look at her. Technically, I had a deal, but I wouldn't actually have immunity until we caught Uaine. So anything I told her now could be used against me. I couldn't, however, hold it back, not when Karis's safety was at stake.
“A few years back, we got hired by some collector to rip off another one. Something went sideways, and we ended up face-to-face with a security guard. The guy had a taser, but that was it. He couldn't take both of us, and we all knew it. We could've figured out a plan to get away, but this guy started mouthing off, threatening to go to the authorities.” I took a slow breath as the memory came forward. “Uaine pulled out a gun, didn't say a word, just pulled the trigger, right there. Point blank. The he looked at me and told me to finish the job. I knew in that moment that if I hesitated, he would've killed me too without a second thought.”
I knew that if I closed my eyes, I'd relive that moment. The sound of the gunshot, muffled by the silencer. The way the man's head exploded. The smell of the blood and gunpowder.
“No one ever found out he did it?” she asked me.
I laughed hoarsely because it was the only way to get the shit out of my head. “Hell no. We'd done our job well, and I wasn’t about to turn him in for something I was mixed up in. I helped him grab the pieces we came for, and we left. When we got back to the hotel, I packed my things and said I was branching out on my own.”
“I take it he didn’t like that too much,” Karis added.
“No, he didn't. And he really didn't like it when I told him that the murder was the reason why. He knew my past but didn't understand that it hadn't made me numb to violence. We fought and argued, and I still left.” I smiled at her, but knew it was pitiful as hell so I let it drop. “The worst part was, I actually missed the bastard. For a long time.”
“He gave you a family again,” she said, and I saw the understanding on her face. “Of course you'd miss him.”
“I missed what he represented.”
After a moment's hesitation, she spoke again, her voice soft this time. “Tell me something, Bron. Do you ever wish your life could be more...permanent?”
An overwhelming sort of wistfulness came over me, and my heart twisted painfully. If anyone else had asked the question, I might've said that they didn't know what that idea meant to me, but it was Karis. She understood what she was asking.
“You know,” I said, “nothing in my life has ever been permanent. The one thing that was supposed to be permanent...” My voice trailed off. I put my hand over hers and lifted it to my lips, kissing her knuckles. “I gave up on that hope a long time ago.”
Her eyes locked with mine and my stomach lurched. Even with all of the insanity of the day, I still wanted her more than I wanted anything.
I cleared my throat and the moment was broken.
“Look, I’m going to help you get to your room. We both need to get some sleep. We have another long day ahead of us tomorrow,” I told her.
“No, no,” she said, standing. She lurched a bit but managed to stay on her feet. “I can get there myself. I'm going to shower, then go to bed.”
I sat on the couch and watched her stubborn ass hobble into her room wearing only her work shirt and panties. I waited until she closed the door behind her to adjust myself.
It was going to be a long night.
Chapter Three
Karis
The next morning, my knee was still a little swollen and sore, but I could walk on it without any help. I could tell Bron was concerned, but he, wisely, kept his mouth shut. Women in the FBI had to work twice as hard to prove themselves to their male counterparts. It didn't matter that my knee had turned half a dozen different colors, and I could barely bend it. Broken bones and gunshot wounds were the only injuries that warranted attention.
We took the agency car in to work since I knew that the more walking I did, the harder it would be on my knee by the end of the day. When I limped into the office, I was glad I'd made that choice. My knee was already protesting the walk from the parking garage.
I didn't, however, have much time to think about it, because Benita was waiting for me, two statement forms in her hand. She stopped us before we could sit down.
“We’re going to the briefing room,” she said. “You need to look over your statements and sign them before we address our case.”
Her tone was hard, and I frowned. I thought about the incident, ran it back in my head, and tried to figure out what about it could have pissed her off, but there wasn’t anything. Well, nothing except the fact that I'd been stretching the rules with Bron and if I hadn't, we might've caught Uaine last night.
“Where’s the briefing room?” Bron asked.
“This way,” Benita said. She gave me a cursory glance. “Something wrong with your knee, Agent Melendez?”
Okay, something was up. “I landed on it when Bron pushed me out of the way. It's no big deal.”
“You'll need to fill out a form for that too,” she said curtly. “Since you were with Mr. Murray here, you were technically on the job.”
I sat down, and Bron took the seat next to me, leaving Benita with the one across the table. Even though there was one of her and two of us, I felt like I was about to be interrogated.
“Read over the statements you gave last night, make sure everything's accurate,” she said. “Once you sign them, they're an official part of the investigation, and you don't want them used against you in court if you realize that you made a mistake.”
I shifted in my seat. Statements always made me feel guilty, like I had done something wrong as part of the incident. Having my partner pissed off at me didn’t help matters any, either. Benita was my friend, but also my mentor. She was the one who'd taught me the unspoken rules of what was and wasn't done within the agency. Having her upset with me was worse than if Colman had come in to yell at me himself.
“Here you go,” Bron said, handing his over. His was less than half of what mine had been, but that wasn't surprising. Even if he'd gone into exact details about what happened, he hadn't seen much after I'd run after Uaine.
I finished reading what I'd said last night, gave myself a mental pat on the back for being able to recall so much detail, and then signed my name at the bottom of the sheet.
“You'll want to get another form from HR about your knee,” she said as she took my statement.
I nodded. I'd do it because I was expected to, but I wasn't planning on asking the agency for any time off, and I didn’t want to see a doctor.
“Now,” Benita said as she leaned back in her chair, “you want to tell me what the hell you were thinking?”
Here it came. That was good though. I'd rather have it all out in the open than let it fester. I didn't want this to hurt my relationship with Benita.
“You knew this asshole was dangerous, and you decided to go out to eat without any back-up? Bad enough you kept round-the-clock duty, but I thought you at least had enough sense to stick to the office and your apartment.”
I really hoped she didn't find out about Bron and my trip to the art gallery. I had a feeling that would've made things so much worse.
“It's not her–” Bron began.
“I’m not talking to you,” she snapped without looking at him.
Wisely, he shut up.
“I trained you better than that, Karis.”
Guilt and shame swept through me. She was right. I knew better.
“I excused you going to Colman behind my back to take on Mr. Murray as your responsibility. And even though I knew it was a shitty idea, I had your back when you pulled some unorthodox shit with the safe house.”
Bron shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation. I didn't look at him though. This was between Benita and me.
“I know this is your first big case, and you want to do well, but you can't take it all on yourself. This is why we have partners to begin with.”
I also heard what she wasn't saying. That she knew how much
I wanted to help Bron, but that I should've let her work with me on it. I'd let my personal feelings get in the way, and it'd nearly gotten me killed.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You're right about all of it. I screwed up, and I know it.” I glanced toward the two-way mirror where I knew Colman could be watching. “I let this case get to me from the start. I should've let you take the lead with all of it. I wasn't thinking straight.”
“Damn right you weren’t. Don’t you ever do that shit to me again, Rookie.” Her eyes narrowed, but I saw the flash of fear in them anyway. “Next time, I’ll finish what the perp started.”
The door opened, and the tension in the room shifted as Colman entered.
“I was just getting ready to bring Karis up to speed on our tracking of the suspect before I brought the statements to you,” Benita said. “Did you want them now?”
“No.” Colman's expression was unreadable. “Take them to Mead. He's in charge of the shooting incident.”
Benita stood, but didn't walk toward the door. She folded her arms as she stayed between Colman and me. “What’s this about?” she asked.
“It doesn’t concern you,” he told her. “Go touch base with Mead and make sure you're coordinating your efforts to find this Leconte fellow.”
Benita glanced at me, and I nodded. She knew how Colman was with me and often ran interference with him. This time, however, I knew I had to do it myself. I'd made this mess, and I had to own the responsibility. It would be bad enough for my career if this got out, but if I hid behind Benita, I might as well assign myself to desk duty for the rest of my life – and that was only if I didn't get fired.
She left, but I could tell she wasn't happy about it. I wasn't either, but I was ready for whatever consequences came my way.
Once the door closed behind Benita, Colman turned toward me. “I know what’s going on between the two of you.”