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Callie flinched and peered up at Rafe from tired eyes. Her makeup had run, so there were dark smudges on her cheeks. It was a look he’d seen many times before, the universal expression of defeat. That was what it looked like when good people gave up hope.
“What happens now? Nathan will never let me go.”
Rafe wasn’t good at this part. The comforting, the drying of the tears. Years ago he had been. He’d been the person who held his baby sister when she cried and told her that everything would be okay. Then he’d had to leave her, and all that emotion ceased to exist.
But this was supposed to be a new beginning, wasn’t it? Going forward, he could decide what kind of man he would be.
“He will let you go. I’m going to make sure of it.” Rafe didn’t touch her, wasn’t sure if it would frighten her, but he did gesture the other direction to let her know that it was safe to walk that way. They didn’t need to stay; Oskar had things well in hand.
As Rafe turned to walk behind her, his skin prickled. He paused, then glanced over his shoulder. Oskar already had Nathan on the ground and was securing him with zip ties. Rafe’s eyes scanned over the alley and then up to the roof of the buildings above. It was dark, and only a few of the windows in the building were lit up. Most people were asleep right now, completely unaware of the things happening floors below. People in this neighborhood didn’t want to be aware of what was happening outside. The less you knew, the safer you were.
Rafe knew all about that.
Nathan was on the ground, no longer struggling. In about an hour, he’d be found by the police with a kilo of cocaine strapped to him and a weapon that had been used in a murder a year ago.
The gun was actually Nathan’s; they hadn’t manufactured that. He’d wiped it down and asked one of his runners to dispose of it. That same runner had come to Blake Security for help getting his sister away from Nathan.
“All good?” Oskar appeared at his elbow, his eyes narrowing as Rafe continued to peer at the buildings around them.
“Yeah. Just had a feeling…”
Oskar snorted. “Your Spidey sense was tingling?”
Rafe scowled. “You can never be too careful.”
“You don’t need to be so jumpy. You’re not a narc anymore, remember? We’re the good guys.”
“I was never a narc,” Rafe responded automatically. But as they led Callie back to the SUV they’d parked a few streets over, the other man’s words rolled around in his mind.
The good guys.
What did that even mean? Fucking guys up in dark alleys, planting evidence? Not so different from his past. Except now he was the one making the decisions.
For years he’d been a member of ORUS, an elite shadow organization supporting the US government. Now he was his own man, no longer a weapon to be used for unknown agendas. He could decide what was right and what was wrong. After what they’d done, Callie would be going home and sleeping in her own bed, safe and sound. The streets of New York would have one less asshole peddling poison to those too vulnerable to protect themselves.
Messy, yes. But it was the best result they could have as
ked for. Rafe had learned over the years that he couldn’t always make things right, but he could try to make them better.
Maybe better was enough. For now.
She had no idea what he was doing.
Diana Vandergraff squinted and then blinked as if her eyes were deliberately deceiving her. She watched in disbelief as her target walked away from the drug dealer, instead approaching the woman behind him. Even from a distance and through binoculars, she could see that his movements were gentle. Reassuring.
He was reassuring her? Nothing about this made sense.
Then again, nothing about Rafael DeMarco made sense. And she would know. She’d been watching him for ages now.
Stalking. You’ve been stalking him.
Diana smiled in satisfaction. Yes, she’d been keeping tabs on DeMarco for almost a year. It was fitting, really. The hunter becoming the prey. After all the people DeMarco had tormented, now he was the one who was looking over his shoulder.
At first she’d only tailed him to and from his apartment. Ideally, she’d have loved to get in there and look around right away, but the place was like a fortress. While posing as a pizza delivery girl coming to the wrong door, she’d noticed the steel contacts around the doorframe. Definitely not your average security system. Besides that, DeMarco rarely left the place except to go to a modified warehouse in Manhattan. The building had been demolished and rebuilt in the early 90s. The first five floors were still warehouse spaces, but a commercial building had been constructed on top of that, boasting some twenty floors. And at the very top sat a penthouse… home of Blake Security.
So far she hadn’t been able to determine exactly what he did there. Either way, she wouldn’t give up until she’d peeled back every layer DeMarco had. It didn’t matter how long it took or that she was currently cold, cramped, and uncomfortable while spying on him from a rooftop.
It had been too long, and she’d come too far to give up now.
