to her room.
All the while, he longed to call after her, longed to ask her why she’d set that fire eighteen years ago. Instead, he watched her go until the door near the end of the hallway clicked quietly shut behind her.
Then Marcos headed to his own room, down a different hallway. He’d just turned the corner when Carlton pushed away from the wall, out of the shadows, nearly making Marcos jump.
The drug kingpin’s eyes were narrowed, his lips tightened into a thin line. “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear at dinner,” Carlton said, his voice low and menacing, almost a snarl. “So, let me be plain. Stay away from Brenna. Or our business here is finished before we get started.”
* * *
“SHE’S A ROOKIE!”
“Sir, she’s determined. She dug all this up on Carlton Wayne White herself. She’s found an angle we never even considered and I think it’s going to work. She—”
“She’s got no undercover experience.”
“No, but we can give her a crash course. She’s smart. We’ve never gotten this close to him before.”
“I don’t like it. And the DEA wants this guy for themselves. They won’t be happy if we jump into their territory.”
“So don’t tell them. It doesn’t have anything to do with drugs anyway. Not really.”
“Hartwell could get herself killed.”
Brenna had overheard the conversation last month, between the chief at her small police station and her immediate boss, the guy who’d convinced her to join the police force in the first place. Victor Raine was the closest thing she had to a friend on the force. She’d met him years ago, when she’d first gotten out of foster care and gone to a presentation on job opportunities. He’d been there, talking about police work, and she’d gone up and asked him a bunch of questions.
Ultimately, when she’d gotten a surprise college scholarship offer that covered not just her tuition, but also part of her lodging, she’d chosen that instead. But years later, after she’d graduated and bounced from job to job without feeling fulfilled, she’d looked Victor up. She’d visited him at the station, and somehow found herself applying to the police academy.
Before she knew it, she had graduated and was a real, sworn-in police officer. It was scarier—and better—than she’d ever expected. But typical rookie patrol assignments had lost their luster quickly, and she’d started digging for more.
Her plan to infiltrate Carlton’s network had come to her by accident. She’d been on foot patrol with her partner, a newbie right out of the academy, barely out of his teens. Next to him, her six months of experience had seemed like a lifetime. They’d gotten a call about a disturbance, and when they’d arrived, they’d found a kid stabbed and left for dead on the street.
She’d cradled his head in her lap while she’d called for help, and tried to put pressure on his wounds. He’d stared up into her eyes, his baby blues filled with tears, silently begging her to help him. But he’d been too far gone. He’d died before the ambulance had gotten there, and she’d been left, bathed in his blood, to answer the detectives’ questions.
She’d had nothing to tell them. He hadn’t said a word, just looked at her, his gaze forever burned into her memory. So, as they’d dug into his murder, she’d followed the case’s progress.
She’d learned the kid’s name: Simon Mellor. And she’d discovered he was just eighteen years old, a few months out of the foster care system, probably killed running drugs for someone because he couldn’t find any better options for himself.
The fury that had filled her then still heated her up whenever she thought about him. The investigation had stalled out and it looked destined to become a cold case, so Brenna had made it her mission to figure out who’d killed the kid. What she’d discovered had led her back to Victor, to the biggest favor she’d ever asked her mentor.
And he’d agreed, gone to their chief and begged for her chance to go undercover in Carlton’s operation. Brenna had stood outside the door, just out of sight, but she’d heard her chief’s “no way” coming long before he’d said it.
So when he’d announced, “Hartwell could get herself killed,” Brenna had pushed open that door, slapped her hands on her hips and told him, “That’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
This morning, as she slipped into another slinky dress Carlton had bought her, she realized that was a strong possibility. She was way out of her league here. The quick training she’d received on undercover work—how to remember a cover story, how to befriend a criminal and keep the disgust she really felt hidden—could only take her so far. And now, with Marcos here, she felt unfocused when she needed every advantage she could get.
Carlton Wayne White was behind Simon Mellor’s death. He hadn’t held the knife—he was too far up the chain for something like that. But he’d ordered it. And Brenna was determined to make him pay.
But if that was all there was to it, her chief never would have approved this assignment. What Brenna had uncovered went way deeper than one boy’s murder. Because he wasn’t the only kid who’d wound up dead shortly after getting out of foster care, with rumors of a drug connection surrounding his murder. She didn’t know how he was doing it yet, but Carlton was using the foster care system to find pawns for his crimes.
If she was right, he’d been doing it for years, building his empire on the backs of foster care kids.
Most of what she remembered from that horrible night eighteen years ago was the fire. The smell of the smoke, the feel of it in her lungs. The heat of the blaze, reaching for her, swallowing up everything in its path. But one of the things in its path had been papers, and years later, when she’d seen similar papers at the foster system headquarters, she’d known.
Carlton Wayne White was using someone in the system to get names of kids who were turning eighteen. Kids who’d have nothing: no family, no money, no help. He’d swoop in and offer them a chance to put a roof over their head and food in their bellies. And then they’d die for him.
It all ends soon, she promised herself, yanking open her door and striding into the hallway—and smack into Marcos.
What was he doing outside her room?
She didn’t actually have to speak the words, because as he steadied her—yet again—he answered. “Carlton told me to come and get you for breakfast.”
She couldn’t help herself. Her gaze wandered over him, still hungry for another look after so many years. Today, he was dressed in dark-wash jeans and a crewneck sweater that just seemed to emphasize the breadth of his chest.
“Brenna,” he said, humor and hunger in his tone.
She looked up, realizing she’d been blatantly ogling him. “Sorry.” She flushed.
The hunger didn’t fade from his eyes, but his expression grew serious. “Brenna, I want—”
She wanted, too. Maybe it was just the chance to finally do something about her very first crush, or the fact that she’d never expected—but always hoped—to see Marcos again.
It was foolish
