I jerked my eyes back to the road and felt ice take up the spot where the heat had been sneaking in. “You’re right. I don’t need to learn any lesson more than once. So how did you get Hartman to agree to this setup? If he went to all the trouble of building a castle for his queen and princess, why would he let the wicked witch in the gates?”
He gave me another hard, sideways look. “Because he has his own agenda, and now I owe him. Race is neck-deep in stuff he shouldn’t be in, and being able to call in a major favor like this isn’t an opportunity a smart guy like him can pass up.”
A heavy ball of guilt and something uglier, something dirtier, lodged in my throat. “So you are compromising yourself for me, for this plan of yours? You would never give anyone a free pass otherwise.” I didn’t want Titus to go against his own code just to get me close to Conner. I didn’t want him to change at all. I loved the way he was . . . loved the way he came off as heroic and brave. Knew I could so easily love him with my entire heart if it didn’t seem so impossible.
He swore softly under his breath and then wheeled the noisy muscle car down a ramp that looked like it led to an underground garage. He turned to look at me, his eyes almost at bright as the headlights shining in the dark in front of us. He sounded resigned and tired when he told me, “I can’t tell the difference anymore between the bad guys and the good guys that are bad because they don’t have any other choice in the matter. I’m not compromising, I’m adapting. Isn’t that the first rule of survival?”
It was, but I didn’t want him to adapt. I wanted him to stay just the way he was, and I would die before being the reason he felt like he had to change.
Chapter 6
Titus
THIS WAS SOME SPECIAL kind of hell that I wasn’t sure I was going to survive.
It had been a week since I moved Reeve into the loft at Race’s compound. A week in which I killed myself at work trying to figure out why exactly Roark had declared war on the city. I called the marshals and got shut down because they didn’t want anyone else to know they had a viper in the nest, so I was working around them instead of with them. I was also going to the condo at night and pretending not to watch Reeve while she paraded around in clothes that were too tight and too short for my sanity or peace of mind. A week in which I tiptoed around her because the loft was just that: lofty. It was totally open, so there were too few walls and not enough places to hide. The bedroom was just a platform set above the open-plan kitchen, so there wasn’t even a door there to shut and hide behind. I heard her in the shower, I saw her kick off the covers in the middle of the night, I heard the sound of clothes rustling as she got dressed and undressed. The noise scraped across my skin, and all of it was making my insides itch and my temper quick to boil over. It was all a frustrating waste of time and I was almost at the end of my rope.
I gave her the bed and took the couch. I tried to find other places to be so that I didn’t have to breathe her in, and pretended to ignore the way every part of my body reacted to her. I was walking around with a constant hard-on, and even if I decided to ignore the pulsating sexual tension between us, Reeve didn’t. I caught the way she looked at me out of the corner of her eye. She was waiting, watching. I wasn’t sure what she expected me to do, but whatever it was, I refused to give in to the allure of her or the temptation of us together.
We were supposed to be out there putting on a show to draw Conner out, but I hadn’t had the time to figure out what was next and I wasn’t sure I could pull the game off as wound up as I was. My plan was half developed at best, and until I had a more secure end game in place, I wasn’t willing to risk her neck or my own. The condo had floor-to-ceiling windows that went dark and opaque with the flick of a switch on a remote and Race assured me that even if someone could see in during the day, they couldn’t send anything through the glass. He had literally built an impenetrable fortress, and I didn’t even want to think about where he came up with that kind of cash to sink into those types of security measures.
Every night when I finally went back to the apartment, I had to fight the urge to grab Booker by the throat and throw him out of the loft or into the closest wall. Even with a noticeable scar that decorated half of his face, Noah Booker was a good-looking dude. He was almost the same size as I was but had a much rougher façade. He wouldn’t go down without a fight, but the easy way he was with Reeve made it seem like they were both way too familiar with life on the bottom and far too comfortable there. It irked me to an irrationally furious level. Booker knew it pissed me off, so he went out of his way to make himself comfortable in the condo and with Reeve. Every time I turned around he was putting one of his massive paws on her shoulder or nudging her with an elbow like they had been friends for a hundred years. In turn, the raven haired beauty was flirty with him in an effortless way she didn’t have with me. I wanted to walk away from this stupid idea of mine and forget the whole thing. I couldn’t, but the temptation was there.
I was lying on the couch with an arm thrown over my eyes. It was well past midnight and I had been working the dead-girl-on-the-dock case all day. It turned out she had no one. She was a child of the system. Another poor kid no one wanted, so she ended up on the streets doing whatever she could to survive. It surprised me how furious Nassir was over her situation. Not that one of his girls was murdered by the same enemy that had burned his club down, but that there was no one to claim the body and mourn for her. I silently handed over the information he would need to claim the body and make sure that the young woman was put to rest properly. Nassir never struck me as the sentimental type, but it was a pleasant surprise to find out that he actually did have a heart somewhere under that three-thousand-dollar suit he wore. He cared about those girls more than the income they generated for him, and while I couldn’t condone what he was doing, I appreciated that he was doing it with his own kind of good intention.
I was tired. I was more than tired. I was soul weary and there were no reserves left to tap into. I had to recharge and get this plan to draw Roark out into the open moving. I needed an idea and I needed it yesterday. I couldn’t handle being stuck with Reeve for much longer, fighting my instincts and my body’s urges while trying to do my job effectively.
I heard the covers rustle and heard her mutter something sleepily as the moonlight cut silver shadows through the darkened windows. I bit back a groan and shifted restlessly on the couch. Luckily it was a big leather couch, so there was enough room for me and my bulk, but it still wasn’t as comfortable as my own bed or as tempting as the king-size bed up on the platform containing a too-sexy-for-her-own-good Reeve.