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God, he hated all the lies he had going on.
But if she ever found out that he wasn’t one of her kind? Yeah, no. He wasn’t interested in seeing the horror in those eyes of hers.
“Who is it?” she prompted. “Who’s your family?”
As Rio tossed the question out there, she knew Luke wasn’t going to answer it. If he were a made man—and considering how comfortable he was around the dead bodies that had been in this room, and the shooting down in Caldwell, and all the other crap, she had to believe he was—he would never tell her.
She also knew she was in danger of blowing her cover. If she were actually involved in the drug trade at the level she supposedly was, she would never make that kind of inquiry. That was something a cop would do.
Surprise.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “That’s totally inappropriate. I’m not thinking straight.”
“It doesn’t matter who I’m affiliated with.”
“That’s right. All I care about is . . .”
Between one blink and the next, she was back on the floor of that filthy apartment, trussed like a deer, about to be really seriously hurt. And then that dog had come. And then Luke had magically appeared.
“Sure as if I summoned you.”
“I’m sorry?” he asked.
“Back at that trap house.” She didn’t bother to hide the fact that revisiting those memories made her shudder. “It was like I called your name and you came running.”
“It was a lucky break for the both of us.”
“All because you were there to see Mickie.”
As she made some kind of affirming noise in the back of her throat, she hated the fact that she was lying to him, that only she knew they were on opposite sides of things, and not in a way he would ever suspect. They weren’t supplier and dealer, staring across the proverbial negotiating table. They were cop and criminal—and the end result was going to be him behind bars, along with everyone else in here who was in charge. He was certainly facing decades for the dealing itself, as well as the money laundering that was inevitably going to be part of an enterprise this size. And then there was the human trafficking that she knew in her gut was going on.
Unless she’d thought all those cubicles, all those workstations, had been for something other than unpaid, coerced labor?
“What are you thinking about now?” he asked.
Nothing good. “Nothing, really.”
As she looked over, she stared into his eyes, his incredibly beautiful, yellow eyes. “Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Anything.”
“You really wouldn’t have chosen this life?”
It was a moment before he answered. And his expression became so grave, and his voice so deep, that she felt as though he were sharing some part of himself that he did not expect to get back.
“I hate it here.” His voice became hoarse. “I hate everything about this place. It’s cruel. It’s inhumane. This is not an existence anybody would ever want. The things I’ve seen . . . the things I’ve done . . . I was half dead when I was put in here—and I didn’t know how much further I’d sunk until I saw you standing under that fire escape.”
“I’m nothing special.”
“You are so wrong about that.” He laughed a little, and she had the sense he was trying to lighten the mood. “For one thing, I’ve watched you get hit by a car and walk away from it. That’s skills, right there. And now I know you’re good with a gun, but we don’t have to dwell on that.”
Her eyes shifted away to the bloodstain on the floor.
His finger, stroking lightly on her chin, brought her face back to his. “He more than deserved it. And not just for what he’d been about to do to you. He was a piece of evil on the earth, a sick, perverted murderer. Try not to think about it.”
“Why did you save my life so many times?”
“I didn’t have anything better to do.” He winked at her. “All three times.”
Rio had to laugh. “Stop it. I’m serious.”
“Okay, fine. I needed the exercise. How’s that.”
Covering her smile with her hand, she batted at his shoulder. “That is not funny—”
“I thought I could maybe fall in love with you, and I didn’t want a car, or a bullet, or any fucking thing in the world to get in the way of that. So there.”
Rio blinked, her heart stopping. “You don’t mean that.”
No more joking now; he became dead serious. “They’re my words. I picked them because I know what they mean.”
“You don’t know me.”
“And you don’t know me.”
Shooting him a stare, she pointed out, “Well, I didn’t just tell you I’d fallen in love with you.”
“I said I might be able to.”
Stop, she told herself. Stop this right now.
“Well . . . have you?” she breathed. But then she put her hand up. “Don’t answer that.”
