Page 51 of Marked By the Devil

I brushed her auburn hair back, gazing at her face as she slept half draped over me, her head on my chest.

Maybe you were never cut out to be a field agent, Red.

Maybe you were supposed to just end up being caught by me.

“I can hear you thinking,” she muttered, proving she wasn’t asleep after all.

“Yeah?”

She opened one eye to peer at me sleepily. “I didn’t say that I know what you’re thinking. Just that you are.”

“Hmm.” I stroked her cheek.

“All right.” She cleared her throat and nestled closer to face me. “What are you thinking? Am I allowed to ask you that?”

“You’re allowed to ask me anything you want.”

“You just won’t answer everything.” She smirked.

“I’m thinking about what the biggest threat is in my life at the moment.”

“Me?” She huffed.

Losing you is.

“No, but on that note, my brothers are wondering if you’re a spy.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure. Since I’ve got contact with my superior who set me up to do a stakeout where I was almost killed.”

I furrowed my brow, studying her. “You’re not afraid of that?”

“Of what?”

“Dying.”

She shrugged, and I nearly groaned at the rub of her bare breasts against my chest with that motion. “Isn’t everyone? It’s inevitable. And with any law enforcement job, the risk is inherent.” She gazed at me with something like respect in her green eyes, softened by the darkness of the room. “And with any Mafia job, that same risk is inherent as well.”

I nodded.

“But I knew that when I wanted to go into the academy and college for law enforcement. I knew that when my mom told me that my father was killed in the line of duty. I knew that again when she was killed on her shift.”

“And none of that deterred you from wanting the same future?” I asked.

“No. I would be more upset if I lived whatever lifetime I have and wasted it by not doing something good, protecting those that I could by bringing down criminals.”

“My self-righteous little martyr.” I completed the mockery by kissing her brow.

“Tell me you have a different attitude,” she challenged. “You’re born and raised in this Bratva. Your family members have been killed and hurt in the line of ‘duty’. Yet you’re only following in their footsteps. Tell me how it’s different.”

“It’s not.” I cleared my throat. “Except in one way.”

“And what’s that?” She traced her fingertip back and forth on my chest. It was an idle motion for her but it was a soothing tease for me.

“Family. Everything I do in the name of duty is for my family. My legacy. Everything you do as a cop or agent would only be following the rules of whichever department or agency wants to hire you for however long they will. To serve a loose idea of a governmental body that may or may not be corrupt.”

She twitched her lips in a sad frown, probably too proud to admit that I was right. Sensing that this topic was always going to end with us not seeing eye-to-eye with us on opposite sides of the spectrum where seeking justice was concerned, I changed the subject. “My brothers asked if I thought you might be a spy based on an email that Adrik received through one of his business accounts.”

She didn’t reply as I reached for my phone off the nightstand. Adrik had sent the email from Smithson to me, and I showed it to Wren now.