Boarlander Silverback (Boarlander Bears #3)(19)

“I haven’t been upfront with you,” she murmured, holding onto the handle on the door as Kirk sped around a curve in the road. “There is a reason I was picked for this task force. Or not task force as much as a post up here in the mountains.”

Kirk tossed her a dangerous glance. “Are you spying on us?”

Anger blasted through her veins that he still thought she was some kind of snitch on him and his people. She took an extra beat to steady her temper before she responded. “No, I’m not a spy. But I think you should know the whole story before you pick me.”

“Too damned late, Holman. It happened that first night I saw you in the woods. Sleeping with me only made it ironclad. You still have an out. You do. I’m not pressuring you to continue with me, wouldn’t want to force a pairing with anyone. I don’t want to drag you along beside me for this.”

“Do you have an out?”

Kirk clenched his teeth so hard a muscle twitched in his jaw. “Too late for me. Like Audrey said, you’re it.”

“It’s a lot for a first date.”

“And you’re flighty, which is why I have been trying to keep this slow and casual.”

“But I shot you!”

“And I still couldn’t bring myself to be mad at you!”

“I was pulled from active duty,” she blurted out.

Kirk’s angry expression faltered. “What?”

“You should know what kind of terrible person you got mixed up with, Kirk. You should know just in case your animal can take that decision back. In case you want to pick someone else.” She sucked in a shaking breath and explained, “I was working undercover at a cocaine factory. It was this huge setup, and they had a guy who had been undercover for years and worked his way up the chain of command. But they needed someone who was always there, taking note of who was involved, who they dealt with, how much product was moved. Someone who could get their hands on documents and proof when the time came.”

“You?”

“Yeah. I was young and looked hard. I was a street rat and knew the language, knew how to play the part. I landed a job cutting coke from bricks and bagging it up to deal. I was lucky. That’s what my handlers said, but they weren’t there. They didn’t understand the cost, or maybe they didn’t care. I lived in a roach-infested one-room apartment at night, and during the day, I worked in a dark, dank, hot room. And I wasn’t allowed to wear clothes.”

Kirk swallowed hard and looked sick. Slowly, he pulled over to the side of the road and put the car into park. “Why not?”

“Lots of reasons. Fabric is flammable, less risk of us stealing product if we were naked, the powder could’ve got on our clothes and tipped off drug dogs. Lots of reasons were given, but it didn’t take away from the fact that I was nothing. Naked. Invisible if I was lucky. The tattoos were a way of feeling covered. I started getting ink the second week I worked there.”

“Because you didn’t like people looking at you?”

“One in particular. Riggs was the undercover cop who had risen mid-level in the operation. I respected him. I was uncomfortable being naked in front of him because…” Her cheeks burned, and she dipped her gaze to her clasped hands on top of the to-go boxes. “I cared for him. He openly flirted with me in the factory. It was expected, and lots of the guards did it. One of the lower-level guards had taken a fancy to me, and his attention was terrifying, but Riggs swooped in there and took me under his wing. Told the guy if he ever even looked at me sideways, he would rip his throat out. And he played his part well. Too well maybe. I don’t know. I grew feelings. I looked forward to seeing him on the days he was supposed to come in. I felt safe when he came in, but how seriously could he take me if I was naked? If I was always cowed, just observing the operation, cutting coke, day after day, doing my part. Doing a job that kept me less-than. We went on like that for two years and, eventually, it didn’t feel like undercover work anymore. I gave into the show. It felt like my life.”

“Where is Riggs now?”

She swallowed bile and squeezed her eyes tightly closed at the memory of him lying on the floor, gasping for breath, eyes on her, silently telling her not to give herself away. “They made him as a cop, and they killed him. They made an example of him in front of all of us. It was slow.” A tear slid down the bridge of her nose, and she shook her head, desperate to ease the pain in her chest. “I wanted to stop after he died. Wanted to grieve and run far away from that hell hole, quit my job, the whole nine yards. But I was cracking that operation wide open with my intel, and we still needed to connect big names to it. I was supposed to just carry on, but I couldn’t get Riggs out of my head. The guilt… I didn’t do anything.”

“You couldn’t have. They would’ve killed you, too.”

“I know, but most days, I thought maybe that would have been better. Easier.”

“Fuck,” Kirk gritted out, wrapping his hand around hers.

“He was the only friend I made in all that time. The only one I allowed myself to have. And when he was gone, the man who killed him started looking at me with this sick hunger in his eyes. So, one day, he took me into one of the back rooms, and I’d been prepped, you know? I was supposed to do whatever I had to do not to get made, but he’d killed Riggs, and I couldn’t just spread my legs for him. Couldn’t.” She wiped her tears from her face with the sleeve of her shirt and looked up at Kirk so he could see what a monster she was when she whispered, “And so I killed him.”