Secret Agent Surrender

“And now?” he asked. “You didn’t find family growing up, but what about afterward? You must have a circle of friends, a boyfriend?”

She shrugged. “Sure. Not a boyfriend,” she added quickly, though it would probably be better for both of them if he thought she did. “But friends, sure.” Sort of. She only let them get so close, though. Foster care had taught her how quickly people came and went, and it was usually easier to keep them at a distance.

“Are you sure this is the direction you want to go? Working with Carlton? There’s still time to back out.”

She shook her head. “No, there’s not. He and I have a deal. And I might not be totally convinced he won’t turn on me anyway, but I know one thing for sure. If I back out now, he will kill me.”

Chapter Six (#uaaef5620-3af9-5b56-b4e3-b0fc4176c1de)

Brenna looked around the garden. It was late November, and what had apparently been a flower garden was now bare vines and plants. Around them, fir trees rose a hundred feet in the air, mixed with trees in various stages of losing their leaves. Everything was orange and red, and it reminded her of fire.

It reminded her of the fire. She wanted desperately to tell Marcos the truth, but that would blow her cover. And even though she couldn’t reconcile the sweet boy with the huge dimples with the mob-connected man jumping into the drug business, she needed to remember he was a criminal. But how had he ended up with a mafia family?

“I thought you were Greek,” she blurted.

“Yeah, well, apparently I got renamed when I entered the system,” Marcos said as he pulled his hand free and stood. “My biological family tracked me down later. I went to live with my mom, and then my dad came into the picture, got me connected.”

It made sense, and she knew it happened—people who’d lost their kids to the system reconnecting years later. So why did she feel like he was making up this story on the fly? Surely Carlton would know if he wasn’t part of a Mafia family.

But he was backing away from her slowly, and she knew whatever his story, asking about it was driving him away. And he might be her best bet for information right now.

“Have you met any of Carlton’s other business partners?” It wasn’t her best segue, but he stopped moving.

“Not really. Just his nephew. That’s how I got invited.”

“His nephew.” Brenna nodded, disappointed. She knew Jesse, too, and she felt sorry for the kid. Fact was, she felt a bit of a kinship with him. His family died, and he got thrown in with Carlton. What choice had the kid really had? Probably fall in line with Carlton or get tossed into the cold—or worse.

Anger heated her, the reminder of why she was here. It wasn’t about Marcos Costa. It was about Simon Mellor, the eighteen-year-old boy who’d died in her arms.

“So you haven’t seen Carlton with kids?”

“Kids?” Marcos frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Eighteen, nineteen. Kids who work for him?” The words poured out, even though she knew she was stepping in dangerous territory. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to sound like a cop interrogating a suspect. Her heart rate picked up as he continued to stare at her, those gorgeous blue-gray eyes narrowed.

“I’ve never met Carlton before yesterday,” Marcos said slowly.

She held in a curse. She should have realized this was a first meeting. She’d just assumed they’d had others and that this weekend was a final test.

“Why do you want to know about kids who work for Carlton? And what exactly do you think they do for him?”

She tried to look nonchalant, even though her blood pressure had to be going crazy right now. “I’m just trying to figure out how his business works, what I’m getting into here.”

He wasn’t buying it. He didn’t have to say a word for her to know she’d made him suspicious.

“What are you getting into, Brenna? You never did tell me exactly what kind of access you could offer Carlton.”

In this moment, all the years they hadn’t seen each other didn’t matter. The fact that he was an aspiring drug lord with mob connections didn’t matter. Because she knew without a doubt that if he figured out what she was pretending to do, he’d hate her. And he’d do whatever he could to stop her from working with Carlton.

He’d been in the system since he was an infant. And even at twelve years old, he’d talked to her about the plans he and his brothers had—plans to look out for one another when they left the system. He’d known there was no net for foster care kids. And the fact that she was pretending to take advantage of that would be a worse sin than anything he was doing.

“You work in the foster care system,” he said before she could come up with a believable lie. “You said you wanted to start a program to help kids make the transition to the real world.” He shook his head, looking disgusted. “What does that mean, really? Carlton sets up front businesses and you populate them with foster kids to do his dirty work?”

“I...” She faltered, trying to figure out how to smooth this over without risking him hearing the truth from Carlton anyway.

Then his eyes narrowed, and he took a step closer until she was forced to lean back to look at him. “What aren’t you telling me, Brenna? Why are you really here?”

* * *

“YOU’RE A COP, aren’t you?”

It made total sense, Marcos realized, instantly relieved. Except if a police department was running an operation on Carlton, the DEA would know about it. Anything to do with drug operations by any organization went into a system the DEA could access. And they’d made very sure before he came here. There was nothing.