Raid (Unfinished Hero #3)(45)

I said nothing.

What I did was push back into the couch when Raiden leaned toward me, putting his elbows to his thighs and kept talking.

“I don’t push dope. I don’t run guns. I don’t pimp women. I don’t steal. I don’t con. I don’t blackmail. I don’t squeeze people for protection money. I do not act as an enforcer. My business never touches the lives of honest citizens. The people I deal with made their choices, the wrong ones, and I’m a consequence of those choices. I didn’t force their choices. I do not do one f**kin’ thing that contributes to their business or the shit they do. They f**k up and wander into the real world where there’s a possibility that they can make decisions that will put good people doin’ their best to live decent lives in jeopardy, I reel them back in so that shit does not happen. I’m not tryin’ to convince you that that shit always bleeds. Sometimes it’s contained, but there’s always the possibility that someone could get tweaked, panicked, do something entirely f**ked up where someone innocent pays, and what I do stops that before it could even start.”

He was scaring me. All of this was, but still, I found the courage to note, “Raiden, it’s clear you’re determined to do what you do and you have your reasons, but, honestly some of it sounds like rationalizations.”

“Yeah?” he asked. “You stopped Bodhi and Heather from f**kin’ you up the ass. You let that play out, I would have stopped those shipments from goin’ out with your afghans and I would have eventually traced all that shit back to the man who’s instigating it. Now he’s gonna find another Bodhi and Heather who will likely find another Hanna Boudreaux they can f**k up the ass and she might not be as lucky as you.”

Oh my God.

That totally made sense.

“People do a lot of shit,” Raiden told me. “You’re so insulated by family, friends and Willow, thank Christ, you’ll never know all the seriously jacked up shit people can get up to. And I didn’t tell you that about Bodhi and Heather to make you think I’m on a crusade to shut down drug dealers or any kinds of other scum. The men I work for, I don’t make judgments and I don’t get involved. But when shit bleeds and I staunch the flow, that jacks up job satisfaction and it does it huge. You want it straight up, odds are Bodhi and Heather were good people who got caught up in something they couldn’t control. They were squeezed. They were forced to make a choice. I don’t know what happened and I don’t give a f**k, but I’ve seen a lot of people, and those two do not have black souls. But they jacked up somewhere along the way, felt the consequences and that’s fair. What isn’t fair is they roped you into that shit and I don’t get to feel good about disentangling people like you often. It happens enough that I like what I do enough to keep doin’ it until I have the money to quit doin’ it, kick back and have a decent life where I answer to no one and I can just breathe.”

He stopped speaking and I said nothing.

We held each other’s eyes.

This went on a good, long while as my mind turned over what he said, everything he said, and a lot of things he didn’t say.

I had to admit, all of it made sense. It was his sense because Raiden had untwisted some scary, twisted stuff and forced it to make sense, but he did it in a way that it even made sense to me.

It was what he didn’t say that penetrated, dug deep and settled with the intention of staying awhile.

Maybe forever.

As I thought this he watched my face, and I knew he knew when he sat back and ordered quietly, “Now, Hanna, come here.”

I didn’t decide to do it. I couldn’t actually believe I was doing it even as I did it.

I let my legs go, curled them under me, put my hands to the empty seat between us and crawled his way.

The instant I got close he leaned toward me and his arms sliced around me so tight my breath constricted. He hauled me to him, his hand at the back of my head forcing my face in his neck and I felt him bury his in mine.

“Jesus, f**k,” he whispered, relief dripping heavy in those two words.

I closed my eyes, and again I didn’t decide to do it, but still my arms shoved into the cushions of the couch so they could round him.

He shoved his face further in my neck and squeezed tight.

I let this continue because he needed it, and maybe I needed it. Then I couldn’t let it continue because I didn’t need to pass out.

“Raiden, I’m finding it hard to breathe,” I rasped.

His arm loosened.

“Are you with me?” he asked my neck.

Oh boy.

Oh God.

Heck.

“Yes,” my mouth decided for me.

His hand in my hair fisted and he repeated, “Jesus, f**k.”

Grams was right. She always was.

Raiden was dangerous.

And I knew I shouldn’t. She warned me to be careful.

But for some reason I didn’t understand I couldn’t stop myself from being that woman who tried to withstand hellfire.

No.

I knew the reason.

It was because I wanted to know nothing for the rest of my life sweeter than the love Raiden could have for me.

It was also more.

I wanted him to know nothing for the rest of his sweeter than what I could give him.

“I think I’m in trouble,” I told his neck.