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“You could have told me that,” I insisted.
“Yeah.” He rolled his eyes. “Sure I could have.”
“This is fucking crazy Griffin!” I yelled, slamming my hand down on the counter as I straightened up again. “You lied to me.”
“By omission,” he said, his own voice rising. “We had to lie to you. To both of you. Because you’re so blinded by your love for each other, you’d have sacrificed yourselves. Again. And that’s how you both ended up almost dead in that warehouse to begin with.”
“He’s my brother.” I blinked back tears as I glared at my husband.
“Yes,” Griffin agreed, lowering his voice again and taking another step toward me. “And I had to do what was best to protect you both.”
“You really thought a cat was going to make this better?” I scoffed, huffing out a humorless laugh. “Can I see him? Can I talk to him?”
“No,” Griffin said firmly. “You’re in WITSEC, dummy. Witness protection means no outside contact.”
“Well, what about him?” I demanded. “How are you keeping him safe?”
“It’s a guarded facility,” Griffin said. “Later, maybe we can figure out a way for you two to be in contact. But while the cartel is still looking for us, it’s best if they continue to think Kenny is dead.”
“You’re right, I’m pissed,” I said, blowing out a heavy sigh. “And I’m keeping the cat.”
“I know,” Griffin said. “His name is Speedball.”
“You mother fucker.”
Griffin crossed the distance between us and pulled me into his arms, kissing me firmly on the lips, and I returned it.
I knew, deep down, that everything he’d done had been to protect me. Even when I couldn’t see it at the time, he’d always looked out for me. And this was no different.
But I was still pissed at him.
“You know you’re sleeping on the couch tonight, right?” I murmured, wrapping my arms around his neck as I rested my forehead against his.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I know.”
“And I’m letting the cat sleep on your side of the bed.”
“That’s fair.”
I pulled away from him and went back to the stove, fixing us each a plate and carrying them to the table, where Griffin was pouring drinks for us.
“On the plus side,” I admitted as we sat down across from each other. “I guess this is more motivation to take down the GSD.”
“Like you needed more motivation.” Griffin rolled his eyes.
That was true. The moment we’d settled into the WITSEC community, I’d jumped at the chance to help the rest of the neighborhood work through the piles of reports they’d gathered on the cartel.
Long before we’d gotten there, the cops and agents who’d been shunted here had started requesting background information from departments and agencies across the country. I had no idea how they managed to get it all without being discovered, but that was probably a good thing. If I had access to backdoor channels like some of them did, I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t attempt to contact Kenny.
But now, we were all working together like a joint task force to locate heavy hitters in the cartel, to try to anticipate their moves and identifying other undercovers who’d been lost out there. It was exhausting and never ending but doing it from someone’s living room every night sure as hell beat being in the thick of it, fighting for my life every day.
And the more we dug and sifted…the closer we got to the King. We knew that taking him down was the ultimate goal, but that it wouldn’t fix everything. Once the head of the cartel was brought down, there would be a hundred guys lining up to take his place.
The work had never been easy. And it might be decades before we managed to actually disband the GSD. But with our family in blue on the frontlines, and us working behind the scenes, we were making progress. And that wasn’t nothing.
“I love you,” Griffin said, reaching over to squeeze my hand.
“I love you, too,” I said.
And that wasn’t nothing either.
