Page 12 of Riptide
Reagan was quiet for a long moment. "But the paperwork is fake."
"Yes."
"And someone found out."
"A woman showed up this morning. A professional... finder, I guess you'd call her." Cara's voice hardened. "She's threatening to expose everything unless I pay her fifty thousand dollars in two weeks."
Reagan's expression didn't change. "And if she follows through?"
"I lose everything. The bakery. Haven Cove."You. The life I've built. And I go back to prison, where I'll probably die.
They sat in silence for a long moment.
Finally, Reagan spoke. "Okay. Here's what we're going to do. Tomorrow, we call an emergency team meeting. You don't have to tell us everything. Just the blackmail part."
"They'll ask questions."
"Probably. But you don't have to answer all of them. We agreed—no digging into pasts." Reagan's expression was firm. "But we also agreed to help each other. And this is you asking for help. Right?"
Was it?
Could she really do this? Ask for help while still hiding the truth?
"I don't know if I can."
"You can." Reagan stood. "Seven PM tomorrow. Basement. We'll figure this out together, and we’ll take this woman down."
"What if figuring it out means discovering things about me you don't want to know?"
"Then we'll deal with that when it happens." Reagan headed for the door, paused. "Cara, whatever you did before Haven Cove, whoever you were—you're part of this team now. You're family. We don't abandon family."
She left before Cara could respond.
Cara sat alone in her apartment, food growing cold, Reagan's words echoing.
We don't abandon family.
But what if the family didn't know what they were protecting? What if the truth would make them wish they'd never met her?
And Gabe.
What about Gabe?
She thought about the way he'd looked at her that morning in the bakery. The way he always found excuses to stop by for coffee, like her bakery was part of his patrol route even though it wasn't.
The way he'd said, "people I care about" and then caught himself, like he'd revealed too much.
She was falling for him. Had been falling for him since they met, when she'd watched him put aside his own future if it meant saving his brother.
A good man. An honest man. A man who'd spent his career hunting people who broke the law.
And she was exactly the kind of person he'd spent his career chasing.
Her phone sat silent on the table.
She could text Dom. Should text Dom. He'd told her to reach out if she was ever in trouble.
But texting her old handler meant putting him at risk. If Blaire was watching her communications, if she'd somehow figured out how to trace Cara's contacts, if anything went wrong...
