PLAYED - A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE (46 page)

“Of course, there’s always the possibility she doesn’t
hit it on her first shot,” he continued, and for a moment, my guts twisted.
What the hell was he doing? But he shot me a sideways glance and smiled, and I
kept my mouth shut. “And hey, maybe the can won’t explode, but that gun she’s
holding is a standard issue Sig P220 full of .45 ACP. Ten in the magazine, one
in the chamber,
and
she’s got the high ground. Do you have any idea how
big of a hole that will leave at this range?”

He swaggered to my side, taking a long draught from
the tumbler and licking his lips before again regarding the thug, almost like he’d
forgotten about him.

“How much ground do you think you can cover before she
unloads her clip? Your friends down there might get away, if they run, but I’ll
take great pleasure in knowing that
you
most certainly won’t.”

O’Rourke didn’t answer. Behind him, his groupies
shifted uneasily. No one took their eyes off me, but I could tell that some
silent exchange was going on between them. I hoped that none of them could tell
I had no idea whether or not Nathan’s little plan was going to work.

I could hit the gas can, sure. But could I make it
blow? That seemed like something straight out of an action movie. I preferred
to keep the business end of my gun pointed right where it belonged: center mass
on the Irish asshole with the big mouth.

Standing next to me, Nathan seemed so calm. I could
feel his stoicism, his self-assuredness radiating from his body. I gripped my
weapon tighter and nodded in agreement.

“So, what’ll it be?” I asked him with far more
certainty than I actually felt. “You boys wanna do this the easy way, or the
hard way?”

I didn’t have to wait long for an answer. O’Rourke’s
face pulled taut in cold, hard rage, and then he turned and descended the
stairs, his men following soon after. My eyes found themselves firmly planted
on the oversized handgun tucked into the back of his waistband.

“Leave the gas cans,” I instructed, finally tearing my
eyes away from them to look up into Nathan’s face.

He waited until they’d shut the door to look down at
me. Then he produced the faintest of smiles.

I holstered my gun, leaving the thumb-strap open in
case we were in for any more visitors. “Thanks,” I said, though it pained me to
do so. Maybe Nathan was a bit braver than I’d given him credit for. “You really
think a bullet would set the gas off?”

“No,” he answered, downing the rest of his whiskey in
one harsh gulp. “I don’t. And I’m pretty sure the boys downstairs would have
riddled us with holes before you took down more than two of them.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I replied, a
shiver passing through me. He was right, of course. I only had a clean shot on
two of them, at best. Even if we ducked back into Nathan’s office, they could
have lit the house and left us to smolder…

“So if I couldn’t stop them, why did they back down?”
I asked.

“Because they know where I live, and they were just
here to scare me. I think it might be time to talk about that safe house,
detective,
” Nathan replied, his smile
growing. “I suddenly have a
burning
desire to put this place on the
market.”

CHAPTER TWO

“So
, it’s worse
than we thought.”

I stood in front of Captain Pierce, looking down at
his wizened face as he leaned back in his chair. His fingers touched his lips,
drumming softly the way they did when he was thinking hard about something. His
bright eyes narrowed as he stared off into nothingness like an oracle searching
the aether for answers. When his faraway look receded, he turned his attention
back on me.

“I made a mistake sending you without backup,
Williams. If something had happened to you today, it would’ve been my fault. I
would’ve had to live with it. It was a bad call. It won’t happen again.”

I straightened. That was the closest thing I’d get to
an apology, and I was happy to take it. Captain Benjamin Pierce wasn’t exactly
renowned for his overabundance of sentiment, and given how he felt about me, a
female cop doing what he felt to be a
man’s
job, it was more than I had
expected.

He stood up from his chair and walked to his office
window, lowering one of the horizontal blinds that made mincemeat of the
sunlight streaming in. The department had a great view of the city from here
and overlooked the distant bay. I got the feeling that he was silently wishing
this case away so he could be out in his fishing boat hauling in a marlin or
two.

“Look… I want you to keep what happened out there
quiet for now. No reports. It’s possible those men stopping by our playboy’s
mansion wasn’t a coincidence. Someone might be feeding them information from
the inside, letting them know who we’re talking to as we build the case.”

“You think we
have a rat?” I asked, my voice low.

“I think we have reason to be careful,” Captain Pierce
replied, shifting his gaze back to me. “I spoke with Mr. Hale,” he began. “He
said you handled the incident well, despite your obvious disadvantage. I know
there wasn’t much you could do, given the circumstances.”

Obvious
disadvantage?
The words burned in my mind.

“Yes, sir,” I answered, though I didn’t particularly
agree. I couldn’t help but feel like I’d fallen short in my efforts to protect
Nathan, especially since he’d had to step in and convince those goons I was
serious. In all my time on the force, I’d never fired my gun on duty. This
time, I was a breath away from pulling the trigger. I felt like a rookie on her
first day, and worst of all, I had no doubt that was how the other officers and
detectives would choose to see me. I wanted to be angry at Nathan, but I could
only be mad at myself. This was my failure, and I needed to own it and not let
it shake me up for round two.

Captain Pierce must have read my expression, because
he sighed, ran a hand through his white hair, and turned to face me.

“Sandra,” he said, “everybody has something go wrong
at some point. Today, you had to let Wallace’s boys walk free to save yourself
and the witness. Nobody got hurt, his property is still intact, and you not
only convinced Mr. Hale to testify, but to move to the safe house he was so
adamantly against last time I sent a uni out there to talk to his spoiled ass.
I know it’s not a perfect score, but I think you can count this one as a win.”

I nodded and
forced a smile. “Yes, sir.”

He mirrored my expression. “Good. Now, let’s talk
about where we go from here.” He put his hands on his hips on either side of
his pot belly. “Mr. Hale will be transferred to a secure location on the other
side of town. It’s nothing fancy, just some apartment complex near the tracks,
but it’s the last place
anyone
will look for him.”

“The Peachtree Overlook?” I asked, raising a brow.
Captain Pierce nodded, and I stifled a laugh. “Oh, yeah. He’ll just
love
that.”

I couldn’t imagine Nathan Hale, a man accustomed to
living in the lap of luxury, reacting to the Peachtree Overlook with anything
short of disgust and horror. Those apartments weren’t exactly the worst the
city had to offer, but they were far from the best. Located just a stone’s
throw from the railroad tracks, they had a layer of grime and soot embedded
into the exterior, and from what I’d heard, the inside wasn’t much better.

“A rich boy living in the Peachtree Overlook,” I
mused, shaking my head. “I almost wish I could see it.”

“I’m glad you said that, because you
will
see it,” Captain Pierce answered.
“You’re still on the case, detective. In fact, you’ve been assigned to him
full-time until the trial.”

I felt all the blood rush from my face. My lip
trembled for a moment, disbelief slackening my jaw as I tried to process what
he’d just said.

“Wait—full-time?
Meaning…”

“Meaning you’ll be sitting on Mr. Hale until the start
of the trial,” Captain Pierce finished, sitting down again behind his desk.
“The paperwork’s already been filed. You’ll be undercover, of course, posing as
Mr. Hale’s girlfriend, Candy Love.”

I shot him an “are-you-serious?” look. I couldn’t help
it—
Candy?
Really? Like some kind of stripper?

The captain waved his hand dismissively, as if that
detail didn’t matter. “It’s just for a week, detective. And you won’t be the
only cop there. We’ve arranged for undercover officers to be present on each
floor. If you need something, just holler,
Candy
.”

I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. The captain
made it sound like I was staying in a guest room at some quaint little bed and
breakfast. “Just holler” was more likely to mean “if we hear gunshots, we’ll
come running.” I didn’t need him to candy-coat this for me.

I also couldn’t figure out if I was being punished or
rewarded. An undercover operation was a serious undertaking, but a week with
Nathaniel Hale was an even more arduous one. Why me? Why not someone with a
little more experience who hadn’t let five criminals walk free just a few hours
ago?

“Sir,” I began, measuring my words carefully. “I’m…
not clear on why you need
me
for this. I’m a first-year detective. I’m
sure there are more appropriate choices…”

“Not on this one,” he quickly answered, folding his
hands on his desk. “This is a big deal. Nathan Hale’s testimony is going to put
away a sex trafficker, murderer, and illegal arms dealer. We’re talking about
unraveling the whole organization. With Wallace gone, the rest of the Paddies
will crumble. That’s a feat even the FBI hasn’t been able to accomplish. It’ll
look good for the department...”

There was an implication there, a subtle reminder that
cops who did things to bolster the department’s reputation were always
rewarded. Doing this might mean a chance at respect, but could I respect myself
for dancing to this man’s tune by shacking up with some yuppie billionaire and
calling myself
Candy?

But he was right about the Paddies—the gang Wallace
headed up with ties to the Irish mob. They had to go, and if this would oust
them from the city once and for all, maybe it really was a small sacrifice.

“I get the point, sir. But I don’t know if it’ll be
that easy. One of those men who came to Hale’s mansion—he called himself
Francis O’Rourke—there was something about him. An air of authority? I think he
might have been higher up the food chain than the others. Even with Wallace out
of the picture, the Paddies might be able to hold their ground if that man’s
been groomed to take over.”

Captain Pierce nodded grimly. “I’ll see if the FBI is
willing to let us in on who some of the other major players are. In the
meantime, get your things in order and meet me back here in an hour. I want you
two moved into the Peachtree Overlook by this evening. The sooner, the better,”
he added.

I shook my head. “I still don’t understand why you’ve
chosen me, sir.”

The captain sighed. He looked weary. “Do you really
want to know?”

I nodded. “Yes,
sir. Absolutely.”

I’d been hoping for some speech where Captain Pierce
admitted how much the department needed me, how I was an invaluable member of
the force, and how handing me this responsibility was just the first step in
showing the rest of the boys how capable I really was.

Instead, Captain Pierce spread his hands helplessly.
“Mr. Hale wouldn’t agree to our terms any other way. He requested you,
personally
.”

My heart sunk. Once again, I was Nathan’s pawn and
plaything, a bargaining chip to ensure he would get what he wanted. I wasn’t a
valued member of the team—I was a sacrificial lamb.

I wanted to rage at the captain, and at Nathan, too. I
wanted to tell them both in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t there for their
entertainment, that I was a cop who had earned her stripes and who deserved
better than to play babysitter to an entitled billionaire.

But I didn’t say anything. Instead I let the heat rise
in my cheeks, my pulse pound in my ears, and my hands shake behind my back as I
held in every ounce of anger surging through me.

For the greater good,
I told myself.
Once you do this, everyone will look at you differently. You’ll be a hero,
Sandra.
It all sounded like lies.

“Detective,” the captain said, lowering his voice.
“You can say ‘no.’_”

For a moment, I let my rage get the better of me. “Can
I, sir?”

Captain Pierce nodded. “Yes. You can. Mr. Hale strikes
me as the type of man who’s used to getting what he wants. He’s playing a game
here, and he’s not afraid to make people uncomfortable or unhappy to get his
way. We both know he’s not going back to his house after what happened today,
whether you agree to this or not. If this is going to be a problem for you,
detective, then I wouldn’t hold it against you if you said ‘no.’_”

That gave me pause. I lowered my eyes, considering the
Captain’s offer. If he was right, the absolutely best case scenario was that it
wouldn’t reflect poorly on me. I’d go back to my job exactly how I left it,
Nathan would become someone else’s problem, and I could refocus on other parts
of my life that mattered much more than some billionaire’s welfare.

But an image flashed in my head, or rather a series of
them: Nathan’s impossibly green eyes; his lazy, lopsided grin; the way he’d
stepped in at the last second and potentially saved me from a thug with a gas
can and biceps that could have snapped my spine like a twig.

No, that wasn’t right—there was no “potentially” about
it. If Nathan hadn’t shown up at that moment, that guy was going to put my
training to the test. Even if I took him down, one of his men was almost
certainly going to kill me and set the whole place on fire, maybe not even in
that order.

The sad fact of the matter was that I owed him one. I
tried not to think about how, strangely, I didn’t really mind. A small part of
me was looking forward to a few days shacked up with Nathaniel Hale. I had to
take a moment to push that thought straight out. This was all a game for Mr.
Hale, and if I didn’t assert myself all I’d ever be is the girl he bent over
his desk whenever he wanted to. That chapter of my life was over now. I wanted
to stay safe inside my web of lies where Nathan’s compelling stare couldn’t
reach me.

Right, so I
owed him one. We’d go with that.

“No,” I told Captain Pierce. “I mean—yes. I’ll do it.
I’ll be back in an hour.”

Captain Pierce looked both surprised and almost
impressed. “Fair enough, detective. Pack only what you need.”

I nodded, then stepped out of his office and into the
hall. My stomach was churning with the implications of what I’d just
done—upended my entire life for a man who probably wouldn’t even appreciate
it—when I nearly ran face-first into Nathan’s warm, hard body.

“Jesus!” I yelped, clutching at the collar of my
blouse as though it would help the breath return to my lungs. “You scared the
hell out of me.”

Nathan looked down at me, grinning from ear to ear.
“Sorry about that, detective. It’s probably the shoes.” He lifted a foot,
showing me the soles. “My company has been importing them from Japan where this
guy, this designer, Shinji Watanabe, started a brand new line of samurai-inspired
fashion. His footwear collection is largely based off traditional Japanese
designs, and this is his take on the
jika-tabi
, soft-soled shoes that
give you tactile connection with the ground…. and… uh…”