Page 5 of Married to the Enemy

Rubbing his forehead, Raffe entertained the fantasy of just walking away. He could toss his gear into the back of his truck and drive west until the ocean stopped him. California. The Pacific Coast Highway. Dive bars, sea lions, cold beer, and maybe a bikini-clad woman who didn’t come with secrets or lies.

So, why the hell was he picturing her again—the too-thin woman in the too-big jeans? Lovely in a haunted way, her eyes as dark as midnight. Timid on the surface, sure, but when she’d met his eyes… there’d been steel there. Secrets too.

And secrets were his business.

He slid into his truck, stripping off the filthy jacket and cramming it into a duffel in the backseat. From there he pulled out his red ball cap and pulled it on—the visual marker of his “other” life. The one where he wasn’t invisible, wasn’t ignored. The one where he was Special Agent Raffael Moretti, hunter of mobsters, demolisher of illusions.

Unfortunately, he hated secrets almost as much as he hated the people who used them to destroy lives. And that woman? She clearly had more than most.

His phone rang as soon as he started the engine.

“Anything?” his boss asked, her tone sharp and efficient. Diane never wasted words, which he appreciated.

“Nothing today,” Raffe answered, shifting the truck into gear.

“How’s your friend?”

Raffe tensed, his grip tightening on the wheel. For a split second he wondered if Diane—or worse, someone else on the task force—had seen his “fiancée.” The very thought made his hackles rise. Why the hell did it matter? She was a stranger, a complication he should forget. But the idea of her being spotted, questioned, dissected by Bureau eyes? That set something raw and protective churning in his gut.

“Nothing important,” he muttered, too quickly.

“He looked sad today,” Diane sighed, her voice softening. That’s when he realized that his boss was talking about Freddy, not the mysterious stranger who wanted to marry him tomorrow morning.

For some reason, that eased the tension in his shoulders.

Raffe could picture her pinching the bridge of her nose, fighting the frustration that never seemed to leave her these days. “Freddy is a good kid. I wish I could foster him. Hell, I’d adopt him. But I can’t even keep a cactus alive. No judge in the world would give me custody of a kid.”

Raffe’s jaw flexed. She was right, about both of them. “I’ll figure out how to get him the surgery,” he vowed. He hit the brakes at a red light, staring through the windshield at nothing. Ten miles from the barren apartment that he used to crash between shifts. Not a home. Just a place with four walls, a roof, a bed, a shower. No food in the fridge because he’d forgotten to hit the grocery store. Again.

Diane’s next words cut through his thoughts. “The FBI has great health insurance. You could take over my job, maybe even get custody of him.”

There it was. Again.

Diane had been pushing for months, hinting, nudging, practically begging him to take her place as task force supervisor. She wanted out, wanted to move on to something new, but couldn’t until she had a strong enough replacement. And she thought he was it.

Raffe had considered it, for two whole minutes, before throwing the idea out. Supervising wasn’t him. Sitting at a desk, pushing paperwork, managing agents from behind glass walls? He wasn’t built for that. He was muscle and instinct, grit and surveillance. He belonged in the cracks, not seated at a conference table.

And yet…

“Your hours are too long, Deb,” he deflected, merging onto the highway. “Even with the responsibility shift, I doubt the state would let me adopt him.”

“You don’t know that,” she argued after a pause. Then, gentler: “Just…think about it, okay?”

“Will do, boss.” He disconnected before she could say more.

But her words haunted him. The hum of his tires on the asphalt did nothing to quiet the thoughts racing through his head.

And then a crazy thought popped into his mind; maybe the state officials would let him adopt Freddy… if he had a wife. If he wasn’t just some scruffy undercover cop with no stability, no roots, no family. If he took off his disguises and showed up to court with a wife, if he appeared… normal. Reliable.

His gaze dropped to the envelope stuffed in his jacket pocket. The one filled with small bills, pressed into his hand by a desperate woman who needed a husband.

What if…?

The thought pulsed in his head, insane but relentless. What if her solution could also be his?

He pulled into his usual parking space, lost in the swirl of possibilities, and forgot to kill the engine. It wasn’t until a neighbor’s headlights washed across his windshield that his instincts kicked in, snapping him upright. Thirty minutes had bled away while he sat there, the truck rumbling beneath him, caught between two lives—one that demanded he keep fighting in the shadows, and one that might, just might, offer something more.

Shutting off the engine, he pocketed the keys and cranked the windows closed by hand. His old truck didn’t have air conditioning or power anything, but he didn’t care. He liked the crank windows. He enjoyed the wind in his face on the long drive home, almost as if the breeze could blow away the grime that clung to him after eighteen hours of surveillance. The illusion of cleansing. Of becoming human again.