Becoming Rain

He looked worried before. Now, he looks terrified.

All I can do is hold out hope that it didn’t work to scare him enough to talk, that he’ll remember my words, that the lawyer who shows up is good. Because I know they don’t have enough for a conviction and the second the lawyer pushes to see the charges laid and the evidence, they’re going to realize that too.

I feel Warner’s eyes on me. They’ve been on me a lot since we arrived at the station.

“What’s with the Alexandria Petrova angle?” I ask. “Why does Sinclair care about a late mobster’s wife?” Sinclair hasn’t mentioned digging up information on her since the night he called me on it. I figured that with all the other evidence trickling in, he had forgotten about it. Stupid of me.

“He doesn’t. But he’s going to try and use it to keep Luke on obstruction, leveraging what we got from your detail.”

“Will that even work?”

He shrugs.

“So, what’s going to happen then? Are they going to just show up to her ranch and interrogate her?” An image of police cruisers rolling up the driveway to dig up painful truths the poor girl has put past her hits me. I close my eyes.

“You look sick.”

“I feel sick.”

“Luke Boone is not an innocent, misunderstood guy, Bertelli.” He holds up a stack of case files. “Look at the shit he’s mixed up in. Did you forget that while you were sneaking around with him? Lying to me? Jeopardizing our entire case?”

There’s no small amount of judgment in his tone and I’m not in the mood for this. “Just say what you’re dying to say.”

Warner closes in on me, dropping his deep voice. “You did what you said you wouldn’t. What you laughed at when I suggested it. You got too close to your target.”

“No, I didn’t,” I deny, taking in Luke’s hunched posture, his fingers locked behind his head, his elbows resting on the desk. He won’t even look up at the glass. He won’t look up at me. “I did what I had to do.”

“So when were you guys meeting up? At night? In the park, while walking the dogs?” Warner pushes. “You weren’t even in your room, that night in the yacht, were you?”

I set my jaw firm.

“You don’t think that if I walk in there right now, he’s not going to hang you out to dry? You don’t think he’s going to tell his lawyer everything? You’re going to get crucified if this ever makes it to court. Your career is done!” Thank God these rooms have thick walls because Warner is borderline yelling. “You may as well stop protecting him and admit everything to me right now. Maybe we can contain this.”

Warner’s probably right. There’s no reason to protect what I had with Luke because it died the second I stepped through that door. Hell, it’s always been on life support, waiting for someone to pull the plug. I know that. I’ve always known that. Yet, I chose to ignore it. I chose to act with my heart and not my head. I chose to think that I could somehow change him.

Save him.

I need to try and save myself now.

And yet my jaw tenses at the very thought of divulging my most intimate moments with Luke. I don’t fight it, turning to level Warner with a hard stare. “Is this an interrogation?”

“Dammit, Bertelli.” Warner closes his eyes. “Don’t make me prove it to you.”

When I don’t answer, he pushes past me, out the door.

And into the room with Luke.

Chapter 57

LUKE

“Her brother. Good one,” I admit, watching the tall guy fold into the chair across from me. “I’m not talking to you without my lawyer here.”

“I wouldn’t suggest it.” He slides the paper bag forward. “Come on, you should eat. You’ve been here a while.”

Even the smell of the sandwich is turning my stomach right now. One bite and I’d no doubt puke all over this table. Then again, maybe then they’d leave me the fuck alone.

“Would you prefer Clara to cook for you?” he says very carefully, making a point of shifting and straightening all the pictures lying on the table. His dark, emotionless gaze lifts to meet mine. “Oh, I’m sorry. Rain. She really fooled you, didn’t she?”

Clara.

I can’t keep my eyes from flickering toward the one-way mirror, or prevent the roughness in my voice. “She sure did.”

I’ve only ever felt that level of cold shock one other time in my life—a week ago, when two police officers showed up at my door to tell me that Rust was dead.

I had marked that day off as the worst day of my entire life.

But then that douchebag introduced Rain as she stepped into this holding room.

Rain knows everything that I know.

Everything.

I trusted her.

And now I’m completely fucked.

And Rust called it. He said she made him nervous. He saw it right away. Me? I saw nothing but pretty blue eyes. A gorgeous smile. A charming personality. A girl I couldn’t get enough of. I’m a fucking idiot. What was Rust ever thinking, bringing me into this?

“She’s good. That’s why we picked her. I’ll bet you’ve been sitting here for the past hour, replaying the last few weeks in your head. All the conversations you had, asking yourself how you fell for it.”

Replaying the last few weeks? Try every last second of every day since the moment she stepped out of her car at the garage. All the qualities I admired in her—how she listened to me, how she never got angry when I had to take off, how she was so happy to see me, so willing to go anywhere with me . . .