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Ineverthoughtthat I would see her again.
When I watched her say yes to another man, when he asked her to marry him, I forced myself to leave her in the past. I’d made the decision to come back into her life too late.
Now, she is back in my life again. She is single. I should have known when Terry mentioned the woman’s name was Andi, that it was her.
Frustrated, I grumble and bang my head against the wall in the break room. It’s been five weeks since our encounter. When I went home after our ‘date’, I was able to search her farm and find her cellphone number on her business site.
I’ve called and left messages, I’ve texted her, I’ve even sent her flowers. It’s definitely creepy and borderline harassment. She doesn’t respond. But she hasn’t asked me to stop, so I continue.
Five weeks is nothing, compared to the decade we’ve spent apart, and it’s nothing compared to the amount of time I’m willing to spend making things up to her. I didn’t want to ruin her relationship before, but now it doesn’t matter.
“Whoa,” Logan says cautiously. I open one eye and watch her slowly close the fridge. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you–you seem depressed, Black. What’s going on?”
She takes a sip of water and leans against the counter opposite me. While Levins is my roommate, Logan is like a sister to me. In fact, everyone on my team is family. It’s why I love my job so much. Milo and I are two of the OG’s that have been together for eight years, while Sarge has been here three, and Levins and Logan have only been on the team a year. There is also Backer, who has been with S.W.A.T. as long as I have, but recently transferred to our squad four years ago.
“Levins hasn’t told you, then?” I lift my head off the wall.
Logan shakes, no. “What’s going on, Dom? You’re normally always smiling, but I haven’t seen you acting yourself in at least a month.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “You know I was undercover before I transferred to S.W.A.T., right?”
“Yeah, you worked with the Revels. Took down Link.”
I nod, recalling the best days of my life before I fucked it all up. “Well, I met this girl. She wasn’t associated with the club at all. She was just a girl I met right when I started the assignment. I fell for her. Hard. But she knew me by my undercover alias. So, when the operation was done, I ended things. Two years later, I took my first hit to the Kevlar. It freaked me out and made me realize how much time I’d wasted. So, I went to tell her everything, and I walked in on her new man proposing.”
I slump down on the bench. Why I was telling all this to Logan, I didn’t know. “I forced myself to leave and get over it. Only she’s come back into my life recently, and she’s divorced. She wants nothing to do with me, of course, and I don’t blame her. But I don’t think I can walk away this time. It’s eating me up, inside.”
Logan lets out a low whistle and pushes off the counter. “I don’t really know what to say.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “That seems messy.”
“Yeah,” I laugh pathetically, and scratch my eyebrow. I was running off the high of seeing Andi, the last few weeks. But today, she responded after she received the latest flowers, and she finally told me to leave her alone.
I liked it better when she was ignoring me. At least then I could pretend that she wanted me. Now, she is making it clear that is absolutely not true.
Milo hops into the break room. Literally, he swings from the door frame and lands on both feet, halfway through the room. “Sarge just brought in a person of interest on that underground poker ring,” he says. “He wants you, and me, to interview him.” He points and wiggles his finger.
I nod, vaguely remembering the bust set up for next week at a Chinese restaurant that we’ve been told is holding illegal gambling after hours in the basement.
“Who is it, and what are we trying to get from him?” I ask.
Milo fills me in on all the details as we leave the break room. I groan when he mentions Mac’s given name, Michael Sorrento. I really do not want to interview him. There is a high chance he will attempt to strangle me.
Milo opens the door to the interrogation room where Mac is sitting at the metal table, arms crossed, waiting. When the door closes, he looks up and takes in Milo. Then he turns to me and his eyes widen as he recognizes who I am.
I’d imagined he would turn red, his fists would clench and he would grunt and growl as he jumped up and rushes over to wrap his thick wrists around my neck. Instead, he laughs. Mac, six-foot-five inches, and is easily 250 pounds of muscle, just shakes his head and laughs at me. I am pretty sure that I am being Punk’d. I’ve never seen him smile, let alone laugh, and especially not where I’m concerned.
“I fucking knew you were a cop!” He bangs his fist against the table. “I couldn’t ever ID you, but I knew it. Who else just disappears like that? With no one looking for them?”
“How long did it take for you to realize?” I ask, because I’m not sure how else to respond to what is happening to me.
“A few weeks. Andi thinks you’re dead, you know? That’s fucked up, dude. She didn’t deserve that.”
“She hasn’t told you?” I arch an eyebrow, surprised that he doesn’t know. Andi tells Mac everything. If she doesn’t want him to know that we were set up on a blind date together, it must be because she doesn’t want him to dig a ten-foot hole for me. He would have found me and strangled me already. He’s too overprotective of her. More than I ever was.
“What hasn’t she told me?” Mac asks.
“We... ran into each other a few weeks ago. She hates me, but she knows I’m still breathing.”
He processes the information. “Well, she didn’t tell me. Must mean she wants you alive.”
