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The second the words are spoken, the blood drains from my cheeks, and panic seizes my chest.
Cal shifts his body and grabs me by my upper arms, giving me a slight shake. “What is it, baby?”
Cupping my mouth with both hands, I meet his concerned gaze and mumble through my fingers. “I think I know who it is.”
The room closes in on me. It’s getting hard to breathe.
Leaping up, I shake out my hands and force a deep inhale to fill my lungs. My legs eat up the floor, propelling me in a frantic loop around the couch.
He plants himself in my path and grabs my cheeks to steady me. “You’re safe, Mia. I’ve got you. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Ever.”
Yeah, but what if it’s not only me in danger?
Lifting my hands, I lay them on top of his, desperate for more of his soothing touch.
“Can you tell me who?”
I nod and focus on his hazel depths. “Tony.”
“Okay, great. Who is Tony?”
Cal’s voice is calm, ebbing my hysteria instantly.
“He was my counterpart at the FBI. We worked on trafficking cases together.” My face pinches when I add, “And we sort of slept together occasionally.”
Cal’s jaw clicks, and his eyes frost over. “I hate him already. Now, tell me why you think it’s him, and then tell me where I can find him so I can end his life immediately.”
Finally composed enough to explain, I pull his hands from my face and lace our fingers together to steady him the same way he does for me. “A few years into our work together, little things started going wrong with our cases. Missing evidence— some of which was digital. Warrants were fucked up, which rendered the search and seizures illegal and made the traffickers nearly impossible to prosecute. Key witnesses would suddenly recant their statements or go missing altogether. Files we needed would become corrupted. It was a dozen things. At first, it happened sporadically. Soon, it was too prevalent to ignore. It had to be someone on the inside.”
“Was it him?”
“I never found out who it was. I asked for his help to find the rat, but he refused and gaslighted the hell out of me. Instead of focusing on the botched cases and uncovering the source, he kept spinning the conversation to ourrelationship.” I throw up air quotes around the word because it was hardly more than stress banging. Well, that’s all it was for me.
Cal’s sexy upper lip curls into a snarl, drawing a tiny laugh from me.
I pulse my hands around his. “Settle down, stud. It was a fling a long time ago.”
“Move along. What happened?”
“I didn’t suspect him at that time. I assumed he refused to help me find the mole as revenge for not returning his feelings. Although he wouldn’t help me, I kept at it, but the mole hid his tracksso well.I needed his help because he was the only person who could out-hack me. He’s Tomer on steroids.”
I pause as the memory of that night wraps its frozen hand around my spine.
Cal prompts me to continue. “So Tony has the skills to hack your security system and pull off the FBI open door trick.”
“Yes. But there’s more.”
His earlier jealous anger recedes, bringing back his tender side. “Go ahead, baby.”
“After almost a year of failing to find the mole, I approached him again, ready to beg. But there was something different about him that night. His eyes were bloodshot. I figured he’d been drinking. I should have left then, but I was hell-bent on convincing him to help me, so I went inside.”
“What the fuck did he do to you?”
“It’s not what you’re thinking. He didn’t attack me or anything. It was his demeanor and the things he said.” I sway my head while attempting to remember the exact phrase he used. “He threatened me. Told me to let it go before someone gets hurt. Then he paused and said, ‘You wouldn’t want to be responsible for someone else you love suffering, would you?’ Obviously, he was talking about Portia. But the thing is, I never told him about her.”
“He must have looked it up.”
“Yeah, but I never told him I had sisters. And how did he know I was to blame for Portia’s attack? The whole thing was fucked up.” I squeeze the bridge of my nose. “Anyway, I left, called my director, and asked to be reassigned immediately or I’d quit. The next morning, I went to Tony’s boss to express my concerns over his behavior. I showed her the evidence I had and shared my suspicions about him. I asked her to continue the investigation or forward it to someone who could. And then I left.”
