“Joss?”
I shook my head as if I had cobwebs in it. “Sorry.” I flicked my gaze to Agent Reigles and then back to Agent Green. They were both about to know me a whole lot better. “Eric, you’ve known me for how long?” He shook his head as though he couldn’t remember.
“Three … four years?” I asked.
“About that.”
“There’s something you need to know about me. Please let me finish before you stop me because I have a plan.”
“Okay.” He nodded.
“Agent Reigles, this may sound familiar, but please let me finish.” She nodded as well.
I took a deep breath, took a sip of coffee, and then another deep breath before I began. “When I was seventeen, my mother sold my virginity …” My gaze flicked to Agent Reigles as she gasped.
I proceeded to tell them the entire story up until Bryce wanted the plea deal. “There’s no one more determined than I am to bring this asshole Tony down. To answer your question, we can trust him. He’s my brother, but I didn’t find out until the day I arrested him. I didn’t even know it was him until I arrested him.” They stared at me as I continued talking. “I was thinking that the only way for this to really work is to partner me up this time. Send me with someone I can trust. But not with a female. We need a male.”
“A male?” Eric asked.
“Yeah, I want you to bring in someone for a special unit. Seth McKenna is a detective with the DCPD. I trust him with my life. I want him as my partner.”
“We can provide you with a partner, Joss,” Agent Reigles stated.
“I know, but he also knows Bryce. If you want this case to be solved, it’s in your best interest to put the two people on it who would want it solved the most.”
Eric thought for a few seconds. I knew that the FBI partnered other agencies with different tasks forces all the time. It wasn’t unheard of to bring in outside help. Seth had the credentials to have been able to become FBI before I did. He just liked solving murders and working the streets. I knew going undercover and helping me with Bryce wouldn’t be a hesitation.
“All right. Let’s get him out here.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Paul
She’d left and walked out the door with my heart.
I knew I’d been a complete asshole the moment I woke up on the couch, my head pounding and the tequila bottle staring me in the face. I’d tried calling her over and over and over, but she never picked up the phone.
Rolling off the couch, I stood and walked down the hall to her empty room. I half expected her to be in there, but she wasn’t. I’d seriously fucked up. If it weren’t for my fucking mouth, she’d be sleeping in our bed and I’d be making us breakfast. So what if her name was Joselyn and not Andi—at least Joselyn’s a girl’s name. A gorgeous name; as gorgeous as she was. And she worked for the FBI. Well, If she didn’t, we would have never met. I was a fucking idiot. I’d let the best thing that had ever happen to me walk out the door. And worst of all, I had no one to talk to about it.
I kept trying her cell over and over, but she never picked up. I just wanted to tell her I was sorry. We’d had a fight. People fight. We’d had a fucked up, crazy day and we needed to be with each other—I needed her.
She never answered. Instead, like she’d said, a moving company came and took her stuff. They packed up her room as if none of it mattered. As if we hadn’t matter.
Well, fuck that shit.
If what she’d said was true and everything we had together was real, then she wasn’t getting away that easy. I refused to love for this reason, and now that I’d opened my heart to love again, I wasn’t going to lose it—again.
I wanted what Gabe and Autumn had. I wanted to feel what I saw on their faces—the love they felt when everything around them didn’t matter because they had each other. I wanted to know what it felt like to have the family I’d always wanted. To have the child I’d once lost.
We all had our flaws, and I didn’t care about Joselyn’s. I knew she worried that I cared about her past, but I still loved her. Her past didn’t define her future. It was how she’d overcome it that made her who she was now.
I just had to prove it.
As the moving truck pulled away, I followed it. Joselyn said she was staying undercover. I didn’t know if that meant in Vegas, but I had an idea. It also involved me quitting S&R and stat.
Add stalking to my resume. Or creeper—whatever. Joselyn was either going to arrest me after what I was about to do, or have hot monkey sex with me. I was obviously hoping for the latter. I wasn’t used to the whole dating for real thing, so if this went south, Gabe was going to need to bail me out of jail.
After I’d followed the truck, I wrote down the address. It was a house still in Vegas so I knew Joselyn was staying in town. I called Mark on my way to the jewelry store where I was going to buy her the biggest diamond I could afford. I didn’t care we were broken up and she’d moved out. I loved her.
Mark was pissed he was losing another one of his escorts. In fact, he’d said he was losing his best escort. What could I say—I knew how to fuck. Joselyn hadn’t seen my best moves yet because she was only getting into her groove, but if she said yes … oh, if she said yes, she’d know why I’d had so many dates and repeat clients.
After the jewelry store, I went home to pack and wait.
That was the worst part.
Waiting for the right time to make my move felt like torture.
My entire house was packed in boxes and my Jeep held my suitcase. I told Mark that I’d be out by the end of the month. If what I was about to do didn’t work out, then I would find a place of my own.
I was sitting out front of the house that I’d seen the moving truck deliver all of Joselyn’s belongings to and I was beginning to get nervous.
I was starting to second guess my plan.
I wanted this.
I wanted her.
I wanted her more than anything in the world.
But what if she didn’t want me?
Taking a deep breath, I opened the Jeep door and got out. I needed to find out my fate. My heart was racing, my palms were sweaty, and the damn velvet box with the two-carat, solitaire cushion diamond on a platinum band was burning a hole in my jeans pocket. I’d never been so nervous in my life. War wasn’t this nerve racking and that was crazy to think about. Going into combat, you had no time to over-think, but the last few days, that’s all I’d done.
I walked up to the front door, my suitcase in tow, and rang the doorbell. I hadn’t seen her for almost a week and it had been the longest week of my entire life. I hadn’t eaten. I’d canceled my classes at the gym. Gabe and Autumn had tried to see me, but I’d told them I was sick. I didn’t want to see anyone until I knew what the future held for me and the girl who’d come into my life like a wrecking ball.
She opened the door with a smile spread across her face and then it fell—so did mine along with my heart.
“Are you going to let me in or are you going to leave me standing on the porch?” It was the same line she’d said to me the first time we’d met. It was my only saving grace.
She looked down at my suitcase and didn’t say anything, so I moved to the next part of the plan and just walked in. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m barging into your life, gorgeous, just like you barged into mine. You don’t get to walk out of mine when we have a fight.”
“We had more than a fight.” She closed the door, but I was on the inside. This was a good sign.
“Did we?”
She nodded. “We broke up.”
“Why?”