“I’ve noticed.”
“You bring it out of me.”
“I usually bring out a man’s more violent side.” I yawn.
“Not this man’s.” Tate grabs my chin. There is conviction in his deep brown eyes. They’re pools of warm Belgian chocolate now. “I’ll never hurt you. But I will kill for you.”
“We’ll see,Guapo.” I yawn once more and stretch.
“The shark is ready to sleep. I told you I’d wear you out.” He’s arrogant.
“I was on top. I wore myself out.” I don’t give him an inch.
“You can tell yourself that all you want.” Tate wraps his arms and legs around me like in a submission hold. “But I know the truth.”
“And what’s that?”
“You just want to be happy and naked with me.”
“You can tell yourself that all you want,” I echo his words, kiss his cheek, and close my eyes.
11
Tate
“I’d walkover water and straight through hell if it meant I’d get to stay in your bed. I’m not like the others,Tiburona. You can trust me.”
I said those words to Dove, and I meant them. Even if I am betraying her. Even as I sit here in the middle of the night giving a recorded testimony of the ongoings of the Deltoro cartel, I still stand by them.
Being an undercover DEA agent, you walk a fine line between legal and illegal. Between doing things that can keep you alive and keep your job. It’s a foggy arena you must navigate with no light. And I have done it at an expert level for the last seven years. Fresh out of the police academy, I was recruited by Agent Taylor. He found me in the police gym and liked my swagger. He said I didn’t carry myself like your typical cop. And when he found out I was bilingual, it was an even bigger bonus. He started me out in small assignments with the permission of my chief of police, and it was soon apparent my talents went way beyond small-time busts of street dealers and side hustlers.
Taylor soon had me pushed through the bureaucratic ranks and enrolled in the first DEA Academy class he could. He has been my handler since the day I graduated. He has been a mentor and a role model, and at times a royal pain in the ass. But I have the highest respect for him. I wouldn’t be where I am today without him. That doesn’t mean my life is simple. Especially now. Being so involved with the Deltoros and emotionally invested in Dove. He doesn’t know that, of course. He just sees our involvement as a means to an end. As part of my cover. He doesn’t even really know how deep it goes, and I intend to keep it that way. There is no telling how this will play out. But experience tells me not well. But that’s a decision I made alone, and consequences I’ll have to face. There are usually three reasons a cop loses his job — money, women, or drugs.
I don’t want to be one of those statistics.
But I also don’t want to lose Dove. She is as untrusting as they come already, and every second we spend together under the guise of my cover is another day I deceive her. Is another day I betray the fragile trust she’s instilled in me. But right now, it’s the only way.
“We’re having a fuck of a time with these wiretaps,” Taylor complains. “Every time we finally get a warrant for the number, it changes. These burners are the fucking bane of our existence.”
I suppress my smile. Dove is smart. She knows what’s up. She insists she and Stefania change numbers every few weeks and keep shop talk to a minimum over the air waves.
“What if I pulled a switch?” I suggest.
“Switch?” Taylor raises an eyebrow.
“What if Dove’s phone breaks, and I convince her to use mine until she replaces it. We can set it up to get the warrant on my number, and then pull the switch. It should give us some time.”
Taylor scratches his five o’clock shadow, intrigued. “That just might work.”
Guilt eats me alive, but I still have a job to do and only so much time to do it. Sooner or later the higher ups will pull the plug if we aren’t providing sustainable intel. And although I am folded into the everyday operations, the real smoking gun has yet to be revealed to me. I don’t know where the drugs are processed, or stored, or distributed from. That secret Dove and Stefania keep close. Even from me. I’m more eyes, ears, and muscles. Which is still a respectable rank to have given I’ve been with the cartel for such little time, but it’s not affording me the information I need.
Not enough to build a robust federal case. But every little crumb counts at the moment.
“Let’s do it,” Taylor agrees. “I’ll get the paperwork started immediately.”
I nod, a slip knot tying tightly in my stomach.
* * *
