Deep Under (Tall, Dark and Deadly #4)(27)

“I’m way too hungry to wait,” I say, glancing down at the pizza, “and the sauce and cheese really do look good.” I pick up a slice and glance at the bottom. “It’s not really that bad on the bottom. Just a little brown so you can skip your fork.” I take a bite and the cheese and sauce explode in my mouth with delicious results. “It’s actually really good, Kyle. Really good.”

He looks skeptical, but reaches for a slice and tries it, and nods. “Okay. Well at least they kept the recipe. Maybe I’ll buy the damn place just to save it.”

“Just like that? You’ll just buy it? Are you serious?”

“I actually might. I have a few investments that need to keep growing.”

“What kind of investments?”

“Real estate mostly,” he says. “It’s easy to hire management and just forget about it.” He opens his water, gulps a drink and then reaches for a slice. “My security work keeps me busy.”

“So you just take random bodyguard jobs?”

“I take random jobs that pay well, and don’t require a long-term commitment, but we were talking about you and your sister before the pizza arrived, not me.”

So much for fun and laughter. “What’s wrong with talking about you?” I ask, taking another bite to ensure I have an excuse to process whatever question he throws at me next.

“Nothing,” he surprises me by saying, finishing off a bite of pizza. “You need to trust me and I’ll be glad to give you every reason I can to make that happen.”

I set the burned crust of my slice down and straighten. “Really?”

“Really,” he says, tossing his crust onto a plate. “The sauce is still damn good, right?”

“Very. Sweet and still spicy. I love it.” And eager to take advantage of his invitation to ask him questions, I get back to the topic of him. “Why’d you leave the FBI?”

“Quid pro quo,” he says softly, a rasp of suggestion in his tone. “You give me something I want and I’ll give you something you want.”

Is this where he tells me why he really took this job? Or what he’s really after? “What do you want?”

“Many things, it seems, but I’ll settle for hearing about two sisters who are birds of different feathers.”

He’s back to Kara, which seems to support his claim that he’s been hired to keep her away from me, or me from her, but I want every tidbit of confirmation I can manage. “Tell me again why this is important?”

“Considering the biggest fear Michael Alvarez seems to have is your sister-”

“I get it,” I say, considering he’s just repeated my thoughts from moments before. “You need to know if she’s a problem that could bite you in the ass. She’s not. She thinks I’m dead. I told you that.”

“She’s resourceful and you’re no longer underground.”

He’s right.

“You’re right,” I concede, and I suddenly want to tell him whatever I can to ensure she doesn’t find me. “She is very resourceful and if you’re the one who’s going to make that happen, then you do need to understand the dynamic between us.”

“Which is what?”

“Kara and I were really very much alike. Our mother was a highly successful fashion model, who retired to open her own clothing line, and both me and my sister were helping her prepare for the launch when she died.”

“But you ended up holding onto her dream, while Kara followed in your father’s. It’s hard to see the likeness in that.”

“Our reactions to the murder of our parents was the great divide. Kara got angry and wanted to fight crime, and I got angry at my father.”

“Why were you angry at your father?”

“He was always gone, and when he was around, he wasn’t the father I remembered in my younger years. He was a hard person, even mean, and ultimately he ended up getting my mother killed. He almost got us all killed.”

“He’d been undercover for years inside a notorious motorcycle club,” Kyle says. “I’m sure it affected him. And you were young. I’m sure that made it harder to deal with his transition back to the real world.”

“Yes,” I say. “And logically as an adult, I believe that to be true, but at the time, it had a lot to do with how I responded to the murders, and my future. And to Kara. I mean, he brought those criminals to us, and she wanted to join the same agency, and do it all over again.”

“She wanted the control, not them,” he supplies.

“Staying off their radar was the control I wanted, and she refused,” I say, trying not to think about how stupid I sound considering I’m in Michael Alvarez’s bed.

“Because of your father, the agency brought down a big portion of their criminal operations. He saved a lot of lives, Myla, and I’ve looked at your sister’s record. She has as well.”

“I know and it might seem like I’m not proud of them, but I am. Actually, very proud of them.”

“You don’t seem like you know or that you are.” He lifts his hands. “You’re here.”

“This wasn’t planned. It’s complicated.”

“In what way?”