Page 126 of To Catch a Sub

Colette laughed, and there was a note of shaky relief in the sound.

“Wait a moment.” Rolf held up his hand, brows drawn towards his nose. “Is the OPG?—”

“OPG?” she asked.

“Organized crime group,” Landon explained. “The P is for the Russian word for criminal. Technical name for Bratva.”

“Ah.”

“Are the Bratva,” Rolf amended, “looking for you because Damien considers you his wife, because you escaped…or because they know you saw and copied information about their organization?”

“I don’t know,” Colette said. “I didn’t bring the cell phone I used with me, so it’s possible they found it, though I left it in a toilet tank. An expert might have been able to reconstruct what I did and find both the photos I sent myself and maybe information about my server, but I did everything I could to erase evidence.”

“We need digital forensics to look at your cloud server records,” Andrei said, sitting forward. “See if there was any attempted access.”

“Can you do it?” Landon asked. Andrei specialized in cybercrime.

“Yes, but you should run it through the lead investigator.”

“Fuck that guy,” Landon snarled. “He wants her to?—”

Colette went stiff in his arms, and Landon hated himself for not thinking before he spoke.

“I forgot,” she said softly. “For a minute I forgot that Interpol wants to give me back to Damien.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

Colette shoved to her feet. Landon’s arms tightened around her briefly, arresting her movement, but then he let her go.

The calm of a moment ago was slowly burning away. It had felt unexpectedly good to finally tell someone what happened. She hadn’t spoken to anyone about what she’d been through. She’d known that no one would come rescue her, because no one knew her plan, though her forger had known vaguely where she was going.

Wife. Damien was still calling her his wife. The idea made her skin crawl.

“No one is giving you back to him.” Landon’s statement was firm.

She turned, backing away from him, though her body screamed at her to go back to him. To curl against him. “No? What if it saves other people’s lives? Shouldn’t I be willing to suffer if I can stop him from hurting others?”

“No.” Rolf shook his head. “It’s our job to find information and evidence, not yours to put your life in danger to acquired it. Paid informants are one thing. A civilian should never be used like this.”

Colette kept looking at Landon, something cold and cruel rising in her. “But I’m not a civilian, am I? I’m a person of interest in multiple investigations. You made sure of that, made sure everyone at your office knew what you thought of me.”

Landon shoved to his feet. “That’s not fucking fair, Colette, and you know it.”

No, it wasn’t, but she was scared and lashing out. The very fact that she was desperate to go to him made her push away harder.

“Will you do it, Landon?” she taunted. “Will you turn me over to Damien and?—”

“It’s not going to fucking matter, because I’m going to kill him,” Landon snarled.

Colette stared at him. Logically she knew the statement was hyperbole, as it had been last time. He didn’t mean it. He couldn’t.

“I’ll kill him rather than let him hurt you again.” Landon’s voice was softer now, but no less resolute.

“Please do not plan a murder in my hearing,” Rolf said with a sigh.

“You can’t kill him,” she said.

“Are you doubting my skills or my willingness?”