Page 75 of South of Justice

His voice softened. “And what happens to you?”

She didn’t answer.

Lucía sat on the bed and folded her arms. “What about you, cowboy?”

Ryan looked down at her, reading between the faint lines on her face that she’d shut up shop in the sharing-her-feelings department. “What about me?”

“You can’t just force me to spill my guts and not reciprocate.”

He arched a brow. “Firstly, I didn’t force you to do anything.”

She arched one back. “And secondly?”

Ryan sat on the bed beside her, head tilted like he was weighing whether to actually say the thing or just let the silence pass.

He chose the thing. “There was a woman.”

Lucía rolled her eyes. “There’s always a woman.”

“She was a federal witness living in Florida. Working as a stripper. She was the kind of beautiful that made people underestimate her. Her testimony put eight Sinaloa guys behind bars.”

Lucía’s eyebrow arched. “Impressive résumé.”

“I was relocating her to a safehouse in Baton Rouge. Then Hurricane Petra hit. I took a detour, ended up sheltering us in a falling-down farmhouse west of Mobile. No cell signal. Storm surge rising.”

She gave a small smile. “Let me guess. You fell for her.”

Ryan’s mouth twitched. “She was sharp. Funny. Said she wanted to be a dance therapist, whatever the hell that is.” He looked down at the floor. “I started thinking…maybe I could disappear. Off-grid. New name. Her, me. She had a way of making you forget the walls were closing in.”

Lucía’s amusement faded just slightly. “But they were.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Because I’d sold her out.”

The words dropped with weight, not volume.

Lucía sat still.

“They had my ex-wife, Kylie. I hadn’t spoken to her in months. Last I knew, she was using again. Living with Noah in a cockroach-infested flat in Philly, bouncing between rehabs. Then I got a call.”

He paused. “It wasn’t her voice on the line. It was a man. He said he’d grabbed her off the street after he’d found her shooting up on his doorstep. He said she was safe, for now. But I’d need to do something for him.”

Lucía’s expression darkened.

“Kylie had told him I was a U.S. marshal. He seemed to think I could assess WITSEC files, and he wanted one in particular: Jessica Meeks’s. Said she’d been a dancer who’d flipped on the Sinaloa boys. Wanted confirmation. Location. Said they’d cut Kylie into pieces if I didn’t do it.”

He looked down, his voice tight. “I pulled some strings. Big ones. Got my hands on her record. Told myself I was saving a life.” He exhaled through his nose. “I told myself a lot of things.”

Lucía didn’t interrupt.

“I gave him the file. Then I tried to fix my own mess by trying to get Jessica to safety. The storm got in the way. So did the truth. Needless to say, we never made it to Baton Rouge.”

Her brow furrowed. “She figured it all out?”

“She did. Afterwards, she vanished again. Last seen headed for Texas, I think.” He gestured around the room. “I did the same. But for different reasons.”

Lucía leaned back, studying him. “So you’re the dirty cop in every movie. The one who sleeps with the witness, breaks protocol, and blows up his whole life.”

Ryan didn’t smile. “Except I didn’t even get to sleep with her.”