INFORMANT (19 page)

“So you came to me,” Miguel says.

“Yes.”

“And you wish me to intercede on your behalf, to call Sun Yee and ask him to return your nephew.”

“
Sun Yee?”
My heart slams against my ribs and my breath comes out in a rush. My mouth is so dry I can barely form words. “You know who has Dally? You know how to reach him? You can talk to him?”

“Of course. That is why you’re here, is it not?”

“Yes.
Yes.
That is why we’re here.”

“And if I do this… favor, what can I expect in return?”

“Anything,” I say. “
Anything
.” I will make a deal with the devil if that means getting Dally back.

Miguel’s smile is patronizing. His leering gaze slowly rakes me over, then he gives a slight shake of his head. “Gracias, senorita, but no. As you can see behind me, we have no shortage of whores.” His words are received with a smattering of laughter from the assembled crowd.

Ricco objects in a flurry of Spanish, but his father holds up a hand to silence him. “I am talking to
you
,” he says, pointing to Ronnie. “You come here, wanting to use my men, my influence, my power. What will you give me in exchange for the life of your son?”

Ronnie doesn’t hesitate. “I can tell you where and when the Lucky Dragon’s next shipment is coming in.”

Miguel quirks an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“They bring everything they need in shipping containers from China.”

“Rice? You are offering me rice?” His mocking words are greeted with more laughter.

“No, not rice,” Ronnie says. “Guns, drugs, money. They bring everything in at once. It’ll be coming in through one of the piers south of the city. Their next shipment is arriving ten days—I don’t have all the details yet, but I can find out.”

Heavy silence rings through the room. “Now that,” Miguel drawls, “that would be a satisfactory favor. Possibly even worth the life of your son.” He glances over his shoulder at a man standing in the crowd. “Call Sun Yee’s men and tell them I want a meeting. Tomorrow. Tell them the child they took has my protection and must be returned.”

Ronnie wavers for a moment, and then collapses to his knees. “Thank you. Thank you.” He’s shaking all over. I should collapse as well, but all I feel is numb.

Miguel dismisses us with a wave of his hand. “Leave us.”

The bald guy jerks Ronnie to his feet and shoves him toward the door. I still can’t move. My gaze locks on Ricco. I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. How do I put into words the depth of my feelings?  I am so wrapped up in this ugliness that I’ll never get out. At the same time, if Dally lives, it’s because of Ricco and his father. Before I can decide what to say, the burly driver wraps his hand around my upper arm and pulls me away, thrusting me toward the door. My time is up.

I follow Ronnie down the rickety wooden stairs of the building and outside to the black Lincoln. Ronnie slides into the back and Miguel’s men resume their places in the front. I’m about to get in the car when Ricco’s voice stops me.

“Kylie.”

I turn and walk toward him. He stands in front of the building and holds open his arms. Shaking, I fall into his embrace. “Your nephew will be safe now,” he says. “I promise.”

“Ricco, I don’t know what to say.”

He rests his chin atop my head and brushes his hands down my back in long, soothing strokes. “Tell me why you didn’t trust me. Why you wouldn’t speak to me or return my messages.”

He’s referring to our last night together in the Mission, at Carnaval. I don’t pretend not to understand. He is speaking candidly, so I will, too. “I got scared. I’ve never been with anyone like you.”

“Like me?”

“Someone with the sort of…” I hesitate, fumbling for the right words, “
connections
you have.”

“Yet my father and I were the first ones you called when you needed help.”

“Yes.”

“Power can be frightening if you’re not accustomed to it.”

“Power? Is that what I saw in the alleyway?”

He gives a mild shrug. “An extension of power,
si
.”

“What happened to that man in the alley?”

“I told you. He was injured, so we brought him into the shelter to see a doctor.”

A wave of sadness washes over me. He’s lying, but there’s no way for him to know that I know. No way for him to know that I’ve already identified Julio Juarez to DEA agents. I would be dead if he knew that.

“And now?” Ricco asks.

“Now?”

“Now what happens between us?”

This is where it gets tricky. I tilt back my head to study his eyes. “I like to think we’re friends.”

He smiles, obviously amused at my words. He has control here, and we both know it. “I like to think we’re more than friends.”

His hands slide up to cup my ass. He pulls me to him, grinding his hips against mine. His lips slant over my mouth, taking me in a kiss of hungry possession. There is no gentleness in his touch, no soft persuasion. He is dominate, rough, crudely forceful.

I try to pull back slightly, to slow him down, but he won’t allow it. He is claiming me as his, whether I want him to or not. My resistance is both slight and futile. His fist clenches around my hair, holding me in place.

With his opposite hand, he reaches into my blouse and fondles my breast, squeezing hard. I bite back a cry of pain. I feel his erection pressing against my hip, and I wonder for one frantic moment if he means to take me right there against the side of the building. Just toss up my skirt and go at it.

But I guess that’s not the point. The point is to show me that he could, if he wanted to. From this moment forward, I belong to him, whether I want him or not. The ruse of being friends, of him courting me, is over. He doesn’t have to ask anymore. He’ll just take.

That’s our bargain. It’s unspoken, but Ricco’s intentions couldn’t be more clear. I’ll get my nephew back and he will get me.

My thoughts must show on my face, for Ricco pulls back with a satisfied smile. He lightly runs his fingers across my cheek. “
Si
. We will be much more than friends,” he says.

It’s early evening. I don’t have any idea what time, but the street lights are just beginning to flicker on. We are distracted by the squealing of tires as a car floors it around the corner of Delores and 21
st
Street. I look up in time to see a dark green BMW wagon driving off into the distance. Beckett.

I guess it should have occurred to me sooner that the DEA would stake out Diaz’s building. Beckett must have seen everything.
Fuck.
A wave of total mortification washes over me.

Without a word, I turn away from Ricco (or should I say, he
allows
me to turn away), and climb into the waiting Lincoln. The driver puts it in gear and heads back to the Sunset District. I feel Ronnie’s gaze on me, but I avoid his eyes. I set my jaw and stare militantly out the window instead. My humiliation at being publicly groped is too fresh.

After a mile or two, Ronnie touches my knee. “Hey,” he says. “You okay?”

I reluctantly turn and our eyes meet. I read dark understanding in his gaze, along with tension and impotent fury. He’s beating himself up for the entire situation.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m okay. It’s all gonna work out.”

I only wish I believed that.

Day Seventy-Seven

Night

On Saturdays, my mom goes straight from her day shift at Walmart to her night shift at the assisted living center, so I’m home alone when I get a text from Jane.

Hey. I thought you and Ricco broke up.

Cute. Just to piss him off, I text back:
We did.

But I just saw you together.

I know. It’s complicated.
To further piss him off, I add a winky face before I hit send.

He doesn’t respond.

Ten minutes later there’s a knock at my door. I know it’s Beckett before I swing it open. What I am completely unprepared for is how strongly the sight of him affects me.

It has been almost two weeks since I last saw him. I remind myself that I can’t completely trust him. That I can’t trust myself whenever I’m around him. He is bad for me, I am bad for him, and we are wrong together. Especially now. Beckett is DEA. I have just sold my soul to the Cuban mob. Hard to imagine this working out for us.

The right thing to do would be to slam the door and send Beckett away.

But I can’t. My body reacts to him the same way a drowning man reacts to his first gulp of air. The way a junkie lunges for a needle. Beckett is my oxygen, my drug. I have no idea whether he is saving me or destroying me. All I know is that I feel as though I’ve been holding my breath for days on end, and only in this instant am I truly alive again.

Here’s the worst part: until now, I’ve held it together. I didn’t fall apart when I learned that Dally had been kidnapped. When I saw my sister’s bruised and battered face. When I looked into Miguel Diaz’s dark, sociopathic eyes and begged for his help. I even held it together when Ricco manhandled me on the street.

But Beckett represents safety, security, strength. He is larger than life. My gaze hungrily rakes in his height, his broad shoulders, and the leather strap which holsters his gun. The gratification I feel at seeing him standing there is beyond overwhelming. Jess and Ronnie are together at their flat. My mom doesn’t know anything—we are all convinced she would immediately call the police if she knew what was happening—so I’m staying home alone and pretending as though everything is totally normal.

Now that’s changed. Beckett’s presence means I don’t have to bear the entire weight of this nightmare all by myself. Tension leaves my body like helium escaping a balloon. I am limp with relief. Though I have to admit, he doesn’t look like he’s here to save me. He looks totally pissed off. Furious. I don’t care. All that matters is that he’s here.

“Kylie,” he says. “What the fuck?”

I grab him by the front of his shirt, pull him inside, and lock the door behind him.

“I thought you were getting out,” he says. “I thought you quit.”

I shake my head. “Beckett,” I say, my voice breaking, “
I can’t
.”

I don’t mean to lose it, but I do. To my horror, my tears come fast and hard. Some women manage to look beautifully vulnerable when they cry. Not me. I am a horrible, messy, ugly crier. My eyes swell, my nose turns red, and my skin gets all blotchy. I
never
cry in front of other people. Except in front of Beckett, apparently.

Since I can’t seem to stop them, I bury my face against his chest and let my tears fall. He stiffens, asks me what happened. Gasping, I shake my head. I can’t talk yet. Eventually he realizes there’s nothing to do but ride this out. I feel his arms wrap around me, hear him murmur soothing nonsense against my hair. He pulls me with him onto the sofa, cradles me in his lap, and rocks me back and forth.

“Kylie,” he says, “you’re scaring the shit out of me.”

I give a choked laugh. “I don’t mean to.”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

I can’t. Not yet. My tears have finally stopped, but if I talk about it, I’ll fall to pieces again. This is all I can handle right now. I am sitting in my darkened living room—the lamps are off and I haven’t bothered to turn them on—curled in Beckett’s lap. I don’t know how long we simply sit there like that until something occurs to me. “Remember that baby gorilla we saw at the zoo?”

It was cradled in its mother’s lap in exactly the same position Beckett and I are now. The only difference is that they were perched on a tree limb, rather than on a sofa.

I feel, rather than see, Beckett’s smile. “Yeah,” he says. “Does that make me a mama gorilla?”

“I guess so.”

“All right.” He softly strokes my hair. Then he pulls back and looks at me. “Better?”

I shake my head and draw in a deep, shuddering breath. “No.” I made it through the emotional storm, but nothing’s changed. The reality of my situation is exactly the same.

His brow furrows. “What’s going on?”

“I’ll be right back.” I stand and go into the bathroom. My head is throbbing and I ache all over. I blow my nose, splash cold water on my face, down a couple of aspirin. When I return to the living room, he passes me a cup of water and watches as I slowly sip it.

“When’s your mom coming home?” he asks.

“Around midnight.”

He pulls out his phone and checks the time. Quarter till nine. “Kylie, talk to me.”

I do. I don’t hold anything back. I lay out the whole sordid mess. Ronnie running drugs for the Lucky Dragon, the duffle full of counterfeit money, Dally’s kidnapping, my phone call and subsequent meeting with Miguel Diaz and his crew. Incredibly, it sounds even worse when I say it all out loud.

When I’m done, Beckett doesn’t say a word. I’ve been pacing while I talk, but he remains sitting on the sofa. He drags his hands over his face and stares at the carpet. Finally he says, “Where’s the baby now?”

Dally.
My chest constricts painfully. “Sun Yee’s men still have him. Miguel put in a phone call to say that Dally was under his protection. He brokered a meeting with Sun Yee for tomorrow. We’ll get Dally back then.” I say that forcefully, confidently, unwilling to even consider any other outcome.

“Sun Yee,” Beckett repeats. He shakes his head. “Jesus Christ. Do you even understand what you’ve gotten yourself into?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“
It doesn’t matter?”
  He surges to his feet, towering over me. “Do you have any idea how powerful Sun Yee is? Christ, the Chinese own half of this town, and the Cubans own the other half. This whole thing could blow up. You’ve put yourself right in the middle of two warring gangs.”

“It doesn’t matter because I would do anything,
anything
, to get Dally back.”

“
God damn it
, Kylie. What the fuck were you thinking? You should have come to
me
, not Miguel Diaz.”

I don’t retreat from his rage. Instead, I meet it head-on. “I should have come to you. Right. Think about that, Beckett. Just think about that. How many people at the DEA know about you and me?”

“None. No one. So—”

“
Exactly
,” I cut him off. “And you really believe you’re the only one at the DEA who’s hiding a little secret? Come on. All it would take is one person—
just one agent who’s on the take, one rogue cop with a drug habit he’s keeping under wraps—
to tip off
Sun Yee’s men that we were coming after him, and Dally’s dead. That’s assuming we could even find out where Dally was. Tell me, where would you begin to look for one tiny little baby in a city the size of San Francisco?”

Beckett stares at me. A muscle in his jaw ticks furiously.

I move toward him, rest my hand gently on his chest. “Beckett,” I say softly, “I need you to understand. I didn’t have a choice. I had to go to Miguel. He’s the only one who could get through to Sun Yee. The only one who Sun Yee
might
listen to.”

Beckett closes his eyes, unwilling to look at me, unwilling to accept the truth of what I’m saying. His chest heaves as he draws in a ragged breath. I know that he’s remembering what he witnessed outside Miguel’s building on Delores Street. He opens his eyes and looks at me. His gaze burns brilliant, righteous blue. “And in return for his help, you belong to Ricco,” he says. “You’re his to fuck whenever he pleases.”

I flinch at his words. Put like that, it sounds unbearably crude. It’s also unbearably accurate.

Still, I refuse to play victim. I made my choice. “As long as I get Dally back, I can live with the consequences.”

Silence stretches between us. Then Beckett slowly shakes his head. “Well, I fucking can’t,” he says. “I will kill him before he touches you again.”

His arm snakes out and locks around my waist. He pulls me against him, holding me so tightly that our bodies meld. It’s no longer clear where I end and he begins. He lowers his head. His lips slant over mine. I open my mouth, so hungry for the taste of Beckett’s kiss that I’m trembling all over.

Beckett’s kiss. Oh my God, Beckett’s kiss.

While we were apart, I tried to convince myself that what we had was perfectly ordinary. Easily replaceable. Now I recognize that lie for what it is. This is more than natural desire or sexual compatibility. This is white hot, scorching bliss. Tasting Beckett is like sipping some rare, intoxicating elixir. And the more I taste him, the more insatiable my hunger becomes.

I love the way his tongue sweeps against mine. I love the gentle pressure of his jaw, the spicy clean flavor of his mouth, even the way his teeth clash against mine. I love the way his breath falls against my cheek, and the tickle of his whiskery stubble against my chin. I love the way kissing feels like dancing when we are together. We sway and grind and rock, our bodies moving in a rhythm that is as instinctive as it is exhilarating.

I don’t know how long we stand there like that. Tasting and sucking and writhing together. But eventually Beckett pulls slightly back. His breathing ragged, he rests his forehead against mine.

He softly traces his hands over my upper arms and says, “Holy shit. We have to do something about this.”

“About what?”

“This. Us. It’s crazy. It’s fucking crazy to feel this way.”

Our eyes meet and my heart skips a beat. The air is thick with unspoken words. I can see that Beckett is struggling with the intensity of his emotions, desperately trying to come to terms with what we have. I’ve already stopped trying. It’s not manageable, not containable, not sustainable. Lightening in a bottle. All right, so maybe it’s not meant to last. But at least it’s ours—a gift beyond anything I’ve ever received. For the moment, that’s enough. 

He slips one arm beneath my knees and hoists me into the air. I tumble against his chest, snuggle into his embrace. Even before he turns, I have no doubt at his intended destination. “You know,” I say, “I manage to walk into my room all by myself, every night.”

“Do you?”

“Why don’t you put me down and I’ll show you?”

“Nope. Not gonna do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because this feels too fucking good.”

He’s right. It feels absolutely amazing to be back in his arms. This is exactly what I need. I need Beckett to make love to me, to take me away from the horror of this day, if only for a little while.

He carries me into my room. It’s stuffy and warm in there, and it’s about to get hotter. Beckett unceremoniously drops me on my bed, and I actually bounce. I give a shriek of alarm, but that is swallowed by his kiss. The entire weight of his body is on mine, pressing me into the mattress, trapping me beneath him. I can’t budge. I should protest, but I don’t. The feeling is absolutely delicious.

After a bit—right at the point where it feels as though my lungs will surely burst for want of air—Beckett pulls back. He props himself up on his elbows and grabs the hem of my t-shirt, pulls it over my head and tosses it aside. On a total whim, I put on my prettiest bra this morning, and now I’m glad I did. I’m wearing a deep emerald push-up that’s edged with black lace (a rare splurge at a Victoria Secret two-for-one sale).

I watch as his eyes light up. He traces his fingers over my cleavage, then he follows the motion with his lips. The sensation is maddening—the sensuous softness of his lips combined with the masculine tickle of his rough velvet skin. Yet I can’t get enough. I arch my back, thrusting closer. He reaches beneath me and with one deft motion, unhooks my bra and peels it away.

Beckett’s gaze rakes over my chest. I should be embarrassed, but I’m not. I like the way he looks at me. I like the hunger that glistens in his eyes, and the way he wets his lips in anticipation, as though I’m a treat to be devoured. I feel the same way about him.

Eager to rid him of his own clothing, I tug open the waistband of his jeans and lower them over his slim hips while he peels off his jacket, gun, and holster. Unlike the first time we were together, tonight we are moving at an unhurried pace, stripping each other of all unwanted garments and leisurely exploring each other’s bodies.

Finally we are both naked. Beckett lightly traces his fingers over my hips and across my ribs. His gaze is so hot I can almost feel it burn my skin as it travels intently over my body.