Page 21 of Direct Action

She wasn’t wrong—normally. But this had nothing to do with Chloe being a woman and everything to do with her not having the first fucking clue about undercover work.

“She’s not trained,” I pointed out.

“But we all are,” Cat parried. “As Pete said, we’ll coach her, and it’s not like we’d just send her in. We’d have her back.”

And that wouldn’t do a bit of good if she was whisked off onto a private jet, taken overseas, and sold before we could get to her.

Worst-case scenarios ran rampant through my mind until all I could think about was Chloe’s beautiful body used and abused.

I blinked away the horrific images and looked at Beck.

A trained DEA law enforcement officer still struggling with the aftermath of undercover work. There were some things you couldn’t unsee. Conversations so horrific you couldn’t erase them from your memory. Deeds you were forced to do to keep your cover that would haunt you for the rest of your life.

I was staring at Beck, but I didn’t need to look at the man to know the struggle. It lived inside of me—plagued my dreams, invaded my DNA until it had fundamentally changed me.

The last thing I wanted was for sweet, happy, funny Chloe to be touched by the filth we dealt with.

The fuck of it was, I didn’t get a say.

At least, not yet.

“If she agrees, I’ll walk her through it,” Beck said.

And suddenly it made sense why Beck was sitting at a table when he never sat in on meetings. Pete had already talked to him. Which meant Pete already had the mission planned—all he needed was to convince Chloe to work with us and it would be go time.

“I don’t fucking like this.” I spat my understatement.

“Ryan—”

Before Pete could say something that would further piss me off, I spoke over him. “I’m going to do what I can to convince her to quit.” I warned. “If I can’t, there’s zero chance she continues working there without me a member.”

“I already called Mercer and left a message we’re interested in membership.”

Motherfucker.

Out-fucking-played by one of my closest friends.

Chapter Eight

And the hits just keep coming.

At this point it felt like the universe was punishing me. For what, I didn’t know. I tried my best to be a good person. Sure, I slipped up every once in a while and got snippy when some jacknut was a rude asshole in public, but who didn’t. The world was filled with temptation. But this . . . I’d done nothing to deserve the day I was having.

Not the way it had started, with a fantasy come to life, dangling in my face, but not being able to reach out and touch it. That right there was enough to mentally torture me for years—Ryan in my bedroom looking sleepy and sexy, waking me up not to have wild sex but to tell me my phone was ringing.

Gah.

And that brought me to the next cosmic fuck-you, and this was a big one—lunch with my mother. Honestly, it had taken longer than I thought it would, but the mask had slipped and the truth had poured out. She was crumbling under the weight, emotionally and financially. Like me, she’d drained the savings my parents had fastidiously contributed to throughout the years to ensure their retirement would be comfortable. Investments accounts were now being cashed in. But it wasn’t the money, it was the utter devastation she could no longer hide.

No one talks about the emotional havoc of grieving for someone who is still alive but . . . not.

The sadness that turns into irrational resentment. The why-mes and why-hims that batter your heart. Then there are the outbursts—the frustrated, angry tirades about . . . nothing. I’d read all I could read, I thought I was prepared, but nothing—absolutely nothing—could prepare a daughter to witness her father’s downfall. To listen to her mother’s sobs. To watch a wife make the unthinkable decision to place her beloved in a home, to have to admit she was no longer capable of caring for the man to whom she’d vowed her life.

My once-beautiful life was now shit.

And now this . . .

I’d already called work to tell them I’d be late. And I’d called the police to report the fender bender. Yes, I made those calls in that order since I was due to work in five minutes and after last night, I figured I was skating on thin ice, and more than ever I needed both of my jobs. A no-show or late walk-in would surely get my ass canned. So I made that call. Thankfully the hostess, Grace, answered and assured me she’d let Ryan know.