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What happened in this room was supposed to be the turning point of the case. It was an ‘in’ and a way for me to prove myself to Rouxier and whoever pulled his strings. If I could show I was a reliable person to use in these blackmailing situations then I could work my way inside the organization.
What the fuck was I doing? This would destroy Josh and leave his son, Ben, in the hands of a sadistic criminal.
I can’t do this to him.
There must be some other way to do this. What if I could get Josh to play along? Would Josh believe a word I said?
I took Josh’s hand, cursing that I had no ID on me to back up what I was going to say.
“Masters.” I paused, well aware I was fucking up five months of surveillance and undercover work with one sentence.
“Special Agent Ethan Masters. FBI.”
ChapterThree
Josh
I’ve seeninterrogation rooms like this on reruns ofLaw and Order; sterile, empty of everything but the stainless steel table in the middle, a chair, and the ubiquitous mirror on the wall. Unlike the shows where the cops interview the guilty, the one who brought me in here hadn’t cuffed me to the table. I’d been given coffee, a bottle of water, and a sandwich that may or may not have been left over from 2019. The same cop asked me to wait, so waiting was what I did, even though a million questions spun in my thoughts about what someone on the other side of what I assumed was a two-way mirror might be doing. Was it Ethan out there? Were there others staring at me? What would they be saying about me if they were?
Maybe that I was a fucking idiot?
Maybe that I was the worst father in the world for giving in to my base instincts when all I should have been thinking about was my son?
I hadn’t seen Ethan since cops or agents had led me away from the hotel, and the bombshell that the man I’d purchased for a fuck was an FBI agent was horrifying and humiliating.
What did I do?
I’m going to lose everything.
The coffee was cold, and the sandwich sat untouched because the idea of eating made me gag, and sipping water made me nauseous. I turned the chair with my back to the mirror so no one could stare as I crumbled. One of the agents had asked for my phone and suggested I wait for assessment as to an arrest. God. I’d need to call in a lawyer if I were arrested.
Connor might have been willing to help me battle one of the county’s most prosperous and influential men over Ben’s wellbeing, but he was also the last person Iwantedto call. Friends since college, Connor—even as my lawyer—would lose his mind when he heard how much I’d fucked up when we’d been so close to making everything right.
So, I sat alone, and it was the perfect torture to leave me in an empty room with regrets and fears laced with terror.
Why!
The door opened as if my growing need for answers had willed it, and a man walked in, dragging a chair behind him. Tall, clean-shaven, in a smart suit, he was precisely what I expected a federal agent to be like, and nothing like Ethan Masters who’d looked like a freaking hooker.
“Why has no one talked to me?” I snapped. “I need someone to tell me what’s happened. Who was that man? Is Ethan Masters his real name? Is hereallyFBI?”
“Special Agent Danvers.” the man introduced himself but didn’t offer a hand to shake. “Let’s talk about how much trouble you’re in,” he sat down and smoothed the seam of his pants.
“Am I under arrest?”
Danvers ignored me. “There are serious repercussions for what happened tonight, not least of which is how much this impacts your custody case. So, we need to talk.”
“I don’t understand.” My chest tightened in fear as the man paused for a moment and stared at the ceiling as if searching for divine inspiration.
“You got fucked,” Danvers said with a huff. “Literally and figuratively.”
“If I’m not under arrest then I want to leave.”
“Well, you can’t.” Another soft laugh, and the hackles rose on the back of my neck.
“You can’t make me stay unless you arrest me.”
“Arrest you?” He shook his head. “That would be entirely too easy.”
