“Relationships that count,” he said solemnly. “You’re quoting the tabloids and making assumptions. I have very few relationships that count, Kalina.”
“Why? You have everything. What reason could you possibly have for being as reserved as I am?”
“No amount of money or success can block out the pain. If something has hurt you, odds are you’re never really going to get over that hurt.” He shrugged. “I’ve resigned myself to that fact and I function accordingly.”
“And does ‘function accordingly’ mean sleeping with women then moving on?” Her lips snapped shut. That question had just sort of rolled out. She’d been thinking it and there it was. To his credit Rome didn’t look too affected by her words.
“That’s been my past experience.”
“And now? What’s this for you now, Rome?” Because she really needed to know. For her, it was getting too deep. What she’d been feeling as she’d lay in his arms, the thoughts growing steadily in her mind, were so much more than she’d ever anticipated in her life. Much more than she’d ever been willing to risk. The least she could do was get a direct answer before suffering the disappointment.
He looked as if he were contemplating his words. “It’s more than I ever thought would happen to me.”
She didn’t know what to say, how to respond. “Oh,” she finally managed. She wanted to kick herself, it sounded so lame.
“I didn’t intend for this to happen,” she told him honestly. “I was just trying to do my job.”
“And you love your job?”
“It’s all I have.” Damn, again with the slipping of the tongue. She was telling this man too much, giving him even more. It was a dangerous situation, she knew.
“Now you have me.”
His words were somber, serious, and she wanted to grab hold of them, wrap herself in them, and believe that maybe, just maybe, they were true.
“I’ve never had anyone. My parents didn’t want me and neither did most of the foster parents I lived with.”
He was moving closer and she knew she should retreat, protect herself from this bad situation growing worse. But she didn’t. Couldn’t. His gaze, his simple presence held her still.
“My parents died when I was young,” he said, coming to stand right in front of her, reaching down to take her hands in his.
“I know,” she said softly.
“I was so angry when they died and I felt so alone.”
Kalina shook her head. “But you weren’t alone. Your housekeeper took care of you.” When he looked a little stunned at her words, she shrugged. “I did a lot of research on you.”
He smiled. “We’re some pair, huh? You investigating me and me following you.”
“Not really a match made in heaven,” she added with a tentative smile of her own.
“But we’re a match,” Rome said, his warm breath whispering over her face as he moved in. “We belong together, Kalina. Without knowing the why or how, we belong together. I believe that.”
And God help her, so did she.
Closing her eyes as his lips touched hers, Kalina thought, We belong together.
Kalina’s cover was officially blown.
Rome didn’t want her back in the office, which was fine. She’d found about all she was going to find there. But she wasn’t finished investigating. There was still a reason why the DEA was looking at Rome in the first place and she wanted to know what it was. Pulling out her cell phone, she called Agent Dorian Wilson again, this time leaving him a message letting him know it was about the case and she had a new development. Then she’d tried to call her commanding officer at the precinct, only to be told that he was out investigating a new murder.
She was still at Rome’s house, in his room. He’d gone downstairs—to another meeting, he said. He seemed to have a lot of those. On the desk was a laptop, so she made her way over to turn it on. If she were at home she would have turned on her police scanner to find out what was going on that the top brass wasn’t in the precinct at near ten in the morning.
While she waited for the computer to boot up, she thought about last night. Of all the things she’d discovered and how they made her feel in the light of day. She felt rejuvenated, actually, like a new person in her old body. It was weird and almost too good to be true. But Rome wasn’t angry with her for betraying him, he still wanted her—a fact that thoroughly baffled her. She’d never been wanted before, never felt the completeness of a union of any kind. This morning she was thinking that maybe, just maybe, that was all changing.
Parts of her future were still uncertain—what she was going to do about her job for one. The fact that she hadn’t found anything incriminating against Rome—and not for lack of trying—was enough to raise a few eyebrows. That was one of the reasons she was so desperate to talk to Agent Wilson. The other was to report Ferrell and his strange and unprofessional behavior. Kalina was sure he’d been high on something yesterday when he’d come to see her. And just before Rome had come in, she’d thought she smelled a familiar scent. Which was strange in and of itself; scents weren’t usually what she remembered about people. Eye color, voice tone, a strange birthmark, and even an accent were usually the traits that stuck in her memory. Yet she was almost certain it was Ferrell’s scent that was ringing a bell in her head.
Noises from the laptop jolted her from her thoughts. She moved closer to the desk, fingers hovering over the keyboard in hopes of at least accessing the Internet.
She found the link to the local paper and read today’s headlines.
SAVAGE KILLINGS CONTINUE IN THE DC METRO AREA
She read down farther. The article cited the brutal slayings of Senator Baines and his daughter a few weeks ago. Ralph Kensington was being linked to Baines through their mutual political ties. Yet another murder—this must be the double homicide Reed was talking about the other day—involved two suspected prostitutes, brutally killed in the same vicious manner. What did all these killings mean? The press alleged a serial killer. The police declined comment. Words like Mafia, cartels, drug lords, retaliation, gang recruiting all circulated through the two-page article.
A feeling of dread washed over Kalina. She kept clicking to find more information. The screen blinked furiously with her clicking as her mind seemed to move faster than the speed of the Internet connection. Then she must have hit a wrong button with all her clicking, because the screen went black, then blinked on and off. When it came back on the background was black with white pages. The pages looked like they’d been scanned and had handwriting scrawled over them. Instinctively she began to read:
Joining forces … governing accordingly … accountability … discretion … and finally a name that stuck out as if it were printed in bold block letters, Cortez.
Kalina’s heart pounded as she read further. A lot of the writing she didn’t understand, or rather she couldn’t figure out what the writer was referring to. There were names she didn’t know, only Cortez striking a chord with her. But it sounded like the writer was planning something and that maybe he needed Cortez’s help.
Then a particular passage caught her attention. “My work is so that my son and those after him will know what it means to be a Shadow Shifter and to live freely with dignity among the humans. Roman will one day lead the shifters. The relationships that I form now will assist him. These human men are powerful and will be an asset to our cause.”
The writer was Rome’s father. Rome’s father knew Cortez.
Flipping through her mental database, she pulled up what she knew about Raul Cortez. He was only thirty-five years old, having just come into leadership of his father’s organization. These documents were written when Cortez would have been only eight years old. It didn’t make sense, unless … the writer was talking about Julio Cortez, the father of the Cortez Cartel.