“Yeah, mostly on outings outside of the casino.” His eyes turned down. “What happened in New York to Tinley and Rayna shouldn’t have happened.”
Patrick’s gaze drifted past me; his focus lost somewhere in the past. For a man in control, it was jarring to see anguish flash across his face.
“What happened in New York, exactly?” I touched his arm, but he pulled it away and frowned.
“It won’t happen again.” He exhaled and then stood up. “Kyler and Josh want to give them more freedom, but there’s a limit to the amount of control they will give up. It’s my idea to bring you in to spend time with them. But I want to make sure they are comfortable being around you, too. So, we’ll ease into that part of your job.”
He was holding something back—I could feel it—and I was pretty sure I knew what it was. It scared me. “Are they still in danger?”
“The world is a dangerous place, Kylie.”
He walked away before I could ask what that meant, and I stood there with a chilly feeling of having just agreed to something I didn’t yet understand.
CHAPTER 4
PATRICK
New York was not your fault.
Kyler’s voice rang in my ear, but it was hard to believe it. My job was to keep him and the people he loved safe, and my team failed. So, I failed. I wasn’t even there. I should have been there. It reminded me that I couldn’t let my guard down. Not even for a minute. Especially around those two little ones. They found trouble.
And adding Kylie to the mix. She seemed lost, but she was trained and would be alert as long as she kept her little self in check. Yeah, she was a little. I’ve been studying her long before she arrived in Las Vegas. She caught my eye the few times I attended a briefing with Agent Stanley’s task force. I already knew about her sister; that part of her story was true, but I also remember her face in New York when she was briefed regarding Tinley being targeted because of her kink. The pointed questions made me think she had some experience. My own research into her outings in Brooklyn confirmed it. After Tinley’s briefing at the FBI last month, she watched Josh consoling her, the longing in Kylie’s eyes was hard to miss.
“Excuse me.” She waved her hand in front of my face. “You okay?” When she stood, the top of her head barely reached my chin. At five-five, she wasn’t short, but against my six-two frame, she felt small.
“I’m sorry.”Reel it in, Patrick.“So, you will have access to what you need to do your job. If there’s something we don’t have, just ask and we’ll get it for you. You will discover we have even more resources than the FBI and less . . . restraints.”
She sat back down, contemplating. She had questions, but she wasn’t asking them.
“What’s your hesitation?”
“Not hesitation, just want to be fully aware of what the job will entail.” Her eyes darted around.
“I’ll admit. It’s uncharted territory for all of us, but we have the same goal: to help as many victims as we can. We all have our own motivations.” I stopped myself from saying more.
“Will I have access to Kyler and Josh and the other brothers?” She straightened her shoulders. “I need to see what y’all have done to guide how we proceed.”
I lowered my head to get to eye level. “You will get whatever you need.”
She blinked and looked to the sky, scanning the top of Quad IV. “Can I ask a question?”
“Of course.” I stood up. “But I might not answer.”
“Fair enough.” She laughed, and it seemed genuine. “I assume I’ll be signing some sort of NDA, right? So why would I be limited?”
“Let’s just see how it goes.” I stood and walked toward the door to Quad II. Kylie followed behind me.
“Okay, I have another question. Hopefully, it won’t give away any closely held secrets.” She stopped in the middle of the courtyard but turned toward Quad IV. “Why is that building so much shorter?” She pointed.
A genuine laugh escaped me, a release I didn’t know I needed. “Quad IV is not so much a hotel as a destination. You know about Quad IV. It’s not like it’s a well-kept secret.”
“I’ve heard rumors, but they're just that, rumors.”
“Well, you’ll see it soon enough.” There was a littles’ night coming up and Rayna had been dying to visit again; her last visit, she complained she couldn’t enjoy it because her Daddy was breaking her heart. The dramatics of a little. “Come on. I’ll walk you back to your room.”
We entered the lobby of Quad II, where Kylie’s hotel room was. As the more reasonably priced hotel, the crowd was dense, and the casinos were full and buzzing. We made our way across the casino floor toward the elevators.
“If I accept the job.” She stood next to me and looked up. Her blue eyes appeared lighter and her face more youthful in this light. She was twenty-nine years old and had graduated from college and law school by the time she was twenty-three. She only took a year off when her sister disappeared and accepted the FBI’s offer. “When do I start?”
