The Lawmen: Bullets and Brawn

Chapter Five

When she’d joined the police department, Brenna had known the day might come where she’d have to shoot someone in the line of duty. It was a responsibility she’d accepted, the idea that she might have to take one life to save another.

But nothing could have prepared her for the roll of emotions making her chest feel tight and her stomach churn right now. She pressed a hand to her stomach and tried to calm her breathing as she stood just inside Carlton’s mansion.

His two remaining guards had been called up and were dealing with the bodies outside, and then they were supposed to escort her to her car and send her home. But after all the work she’d put in to get here, she couldn’t leave. Not like this. Not with Carlton still planning business deals, and Simon Mellor with no one else willing to take up his cause.

The truth was, there were a lot of Simon Mellors out there. Other kids just like him who were getting ready to leave the foster system and had no idea the challenges that awaited them. Kids who Carlton might target by offering them things they couldn’t resist, like a way not to be homeless and hungry.

Brenna straightened and strode to her room. She yanked off the dress, heels and diamonds Carlton had been trying to woo her with, and she’d been pretending to be infatuated with, and traded them for her normal clothes. Then she headed to the living room, where Carlton had settled alone after killing one of his own guards. She might have thought he felt some regret, too, but she didn’t think the man knew what that meant.

Throwing the clothes and jewelry at him, she planted her hands on her hips and exclaimed, “I thought you were a businessman!”

He shoved the items off him onto the floor and raised an eyebrow. “And I didn’t realize that you were a drama queen.”

“I came here because of all the things we talked about over the past few months. I came here to start a business deal with you, and this is what you do to me?”

“Careful now,” he said, the amusement dropping off his face. “I gave you a second chance today. Don’t make me regret it.”

“How is this a second chance? Sending me home with nothing?”

“I’m letting you live, aren’t I?”

His words stalled her angry tirade, but she shouldn’t have been surprised. She hadn’t had enough of a plan when she’d come out here.

Taking a deep breath, Brenna started over. “Look, we each have something the other one wants. You plan to find someone else in the foster care system who can do this for you? Fine, give it your best shot. Most of them are overworked and underpaid and are either there because it’s what they can get, or because they want to make a difference. You approach the first type and yeah, you might get a bite, but they won’t be as aggressive about this as I will. You approach the second type, and you’ll get turned in to the police so fast your head will spin.”

“The police,” Carlton mocked. “They’re not smart enough to prove anything.”

But she could see on his face that her words were getting through to him, that he wanted her connections more than he was showing, so she pressed on. “I started working in the system because I thought maybe I could make things better for kids like me. But the truth is, that will never happen. Someone like you is their best chance. And you’re mine, too, because I might not have had control over my life since I was thrown into the system, but I do now. And I plan to make the most of it.”

A slow smile spread over Carlton’s face. “I may have acted too hastily, Brenna. Consider your invitation to stay here extended, and our business deal back on.” He looked her over, from her well-used tennis shoes to her inexpensive T-shirt. “But before I hand over any more benefits like diamonds and clothes, you’re going to have to prove yourself.”

She nodded, elation and disgust with herself at the tactics she was using fighting for control. In the end, determination won out. Before this weekend was over, she was going to have Carlton on the hook with a plan he couldn’t resist.

And that would be the beginning of his downfall.

* * *

“WHAT ARE YOU doing here?” Marcos had been sitting on a bench outside, but he lurched to his feet, nearly groaning aloud at the pain that spiked all over his body. He almost thought the hits he’d taken to the head were giving him hallucinations.

But there was no way even his mind could conjure up Brenna like this. She looked antsy in a pair of jeans and a loose aqua T-shirt that made her brown skin seem to glow and brought out the caramel highlights in her hair. Instead of the stilettos she’d been wearing all weekend, she wore a pair of hot pink gym shoes. The outfit looked way more natural on her than the skintight dresses and ridiculous heels.

She was also teary-eyed as she looked him over, her gaze lingering on his myriad of bruises that had turned a dark purple since this morning. But she didn’t say a word about them, just took a deep breath.

He’d expected her to be long gone by now. And he’d been equal parts relieved and depressed over it all morning.

“I convinced Carlton that we should still be working together.”

A million dark thoughts ran through Marcos’s mind as he lowered himself carefully back onto the bench. “How?”

“Carlton might have a bad temper—and apparently a possessive streak—but at heart, he’s a businessman.”

Marcos felt himself scowl and tried to hide it. A real drug dealer would think of himself as a businessman, not a criminal.

By the expression on her face, she’d seen it, but she didn’t say anything, just continued, “I have access that he wants. And he’s better off with someone who will do the job without a personal distraction.”

He held in the slew of swear words that wanted to escape and instead asked calmly, “You sure it’s a good idea after what happened today?”

“No.” She let out a humorless laugh and sank onto the bench across from him. “But I’ve come too far to give up now.”

What did that mean? He suddenly realized he’d been so distracted by seeing her again that he’d failed to dig into why she was here. He knew what Carlton could offer Brenna: money. But what could she offer him, especially now that she’d made it clear sex was off the table? She said she worked in the foster care system, not exactly the sort of connection Carlton would need.

“What exactly is your arrangement with Carlton?” Marcos asked.

She fidgeted, as though she’d been hoping to avoid this question. “I can get him information he needs.”

The answer was purposely vague and Marcos raised an eyebrow.

“How about you, Marc-O?” she pressed. “What can you give him?”

“A new network,” Marcos answered simply, wishing he didn’t have to lie to her. Wishing it didn’t come so easily. But that was good—it meant all his training had worked if he could even lie to Brenna.

“For drugs? How?”

It was time to get off this topic and convince Brenna to rethink her decision to stay here. “Carlton is dangerous,” Marcos said softly.

“Yeah, no kidding,” she replied, looking him over again.

Her voice cracked as she asked, “How badly are you hurt?”

“Could have been worse. Thank you for that. Where’d you learn to fight?”

Her legs jiggled a little, a clear sign he was about to get less than the full truth. “Foster care.” She glanced around, then lowered her voice. “Not all of us can find long-lost family.”

“Yeah, well...” Now it was his turn to feel antsy, but he’d had a lot of practice being undercover. So why did lying to her feel so wrong? “Carlton doesn’t know about my years in foster care, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

She tipped her head, like she was waiting for more details, but he stayed silent. Better if she just kept her mouth shut about his past altogether. Because the story Carlton knew didn’t match up with Marcos ever having been in foster care.

As far as Carlton knew, he’d grown up in the massive Costrales family, where joining organized crime was in the blood. The DEA had backstopped a story for him that involved being a bit estranged from his family, but still on the payroll. As far as they could tell, Carlton’s empire didn’t yet stretch to the area the Costrales family ran, but there was no way to prepare for all possible overlap.

On paper, Marco Costrales was the youngest son of Bennie Costrales, born of a mistress. He hadn’t grown up with the Costrales name, but he’d been given it—and a large sum of money to build his own empire—when he’d hit eighteen. On paper, Marco had gone to jail a few times, but never for anything major. Just enough to show he was in deep to something the Feds couldn’t prove.

It was their best way in, because years of trying to infiltrate Carlton’s organization had proved he wasn’t willing to work with anyone he didn’t know. This was the DEA’s way of upping the ante, because they knew Carlton had always wanted to expand his connections. The problem was, if Carlton had a personal connection to the Costrales family they didn’t know about and he asked about Marco, he’d quickly find there was no such person.

And then today’s beating would look like a party in comparison to what would happen to Marcos.

“How are Cole and Andre?” Brenna asked, bringing him back to the present. “The three of you are still family, too, I assume? Even after your biological family came into the picture?”

Was that wistfulness in her voice? Had she never found anyone to call family in all her years in the system?

He knew it happened. He’d bounced around from one foster home to the next from birth until he was seven. Then he’d landed in the foster home with Cole Walker and Andre Diaz, and for the first time in his life, he’d realized how little blood mattered. These were the brothers of his heart. Five years later, when their house had burned down, they’d been split up until each of them had turned eighteen. And now they lived within an hour of one another and saw each other all the time. The way real brothers would.

“They’re doing good. Both are getting married in the next year.” He didn’t mention their profession, because how could he explain being a drug dealer if he told her Cole was a police detective and Andre an FBI agent?

“Did they ever put you back together?” She twisted her hands together, like she knew she was getting into dangerous territory.

“You mean after you set the house on fire?”

She flushed. “I didn’t know you realized... I was young. It was stupid.”

“Why was our foster father in the back of the house with you when that fire started?” It was something he’d been wondering—and dreading finding the answer to—for months. He’d never expected to be able to ask Brenna herself.

“What?”

Brenna’s eyes widened, and she had to be wondering how he’d known that when he shouldn’t have even known she’d set the fire in the first place. At the time, all the reports on the fire had called it an accident. Only recently had he seen an unsealed juvenile record showing that Brenna had set the fire. But it had been his brother who’d remembered that neither Brenna nor their foster father had been where they should have been when the fire started.

The rest of the family had been upstairs in bed, asleep. So why had Brenna and their foster father been downstairs, in the back of the house, in his study?

“How did you know that?”

“Was he hurting you?” Marcos’s chest actually hurt as he waited for the answer.

She shook her head. “No. It was...look, he found me in his office. I’d lit the candle, and he came in and I tossed it.”

Why was he positive she was lying? “I don’t believe you.”

She looked ready to run away on those more sensible shoes. “Why not? You said you knew I’d set the fire.”

Marcos leaned back, studying her, wondering why she’d lie about the reasons for setting the fire, the reasons for his foster father being nearby, when she so easily admitted to setting it. His agent instincts were going crazy, but he wasn’t sure about what. “I meant, I didn’t believe you about why he was there.” There was way more here than he’d ever realized. “I think you owe me the truth.”

“You, Cole and Andre were reunited, right? What does it matter now? I was upset about my mom’s death. I—”

“I almost didn’t make it out of that house.” The fact was, it was amazing none of them had died in there that day.

She sucked in an audible gasp.

Those moments after he’d dived through the living-room window came back to him, Cole slamming into him, knocking him to the ground and patting out the fire that had caught the back of his pajamas. He remembered Brenna running around the side of the house a minute later, just as the ambulance doors had closed. He didn’t think she’d seen him, but it was the last memory he had of that day.

Brenna’s terrified face, their house burning to the ground behind her.

* * *

“STAY HERE!”

Her foster father’s voice rang in her ears now as clearly as if he was sitting right beside her, as clearly as if it was eighteen years ago. But back then, she couldn’t have moved if she’d tried.

She’d been dry heaving into the grass, her lungs burning from all the smoke, her eyes swollen almost shut. The fire had caught fast. She wouldn’t have made it out of there at all if he hadn’t screamed at her, then yanked her right off her feet and ran for the back door.

He’d practically flung her on the grass, then turned back, surely to return for his wife and the other foster kids in the house. But the door they’d come through had been engulfed by then. She’d watched through watery eyes as he’d tried to break a window, searched for another way in. She didn’t know how long he’d contemplated, before he took off running for the front of the house.

She’d picked herself off the ground and limped after him and relief had overtaken her. Their foster mother was clutching two of the foster kids close. Three more were huddled together closer to the house. Only—

No, it wasn’t three. It was two, with a paramedic tending to one of them.

Panic had started anew because Marcos had been missing. Then she’d seen the ambulance as it flew away from the house. She’d started screaming then, and hadn’t stopped until someone had told her over and over again that Marcos was okay.

Within hours, she’d been at the hospital herself, getting checked out, then hustled off to a new foster home. She’d never seen anyone from that house again. The truth was, she’d never expected to.

“I saw the ambulance,” she told Marcos now. “But they told me you were okay, that it was just a precaution.”

She must have looked panicked, because he got up and sat beside her, taking her hand in his. And it should have felt very, very wrong so close to Carlton’s house, after what had just happened, but instead it felt right. Her fingers curled into his.

“I’m okay. But I spent years wondering what bad luck it was that I’d finally found my family, only to have them torn away from me.”

Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. She knew exactly how that felt, only in a different order. All her life, it had just been her and her mom. They’d been more than family; they’d been best friends, the two of them against the world. And then one drunk driver, one slippery patch of road, had taken her whole life away.

“At least you got them back,” she whispered, even though she knew it was an unfair thing to say. It wasn’t his fault her mom had died. And it wasn’t his fault he believed she was to blame for splitting up him and his brothers. She’d told him as much.

“I did, eventually,” he said softly. “What about you? You never found anyone to call family after you left that house? I’d always hoped you would.”

Her hand tightened instinctively in his. She didn’t like to think about those days. They were long gone now. “No.”

“And what you were telling Carlton, about why you wouldn’t sleep with him? About your file? You want to tell me about that?”

His voice was softer, wary, like he was afraid what she might say, and she hesitated. It was in her file in the foster system, because back then, she’d been stupid enough to think that if she could just get out of that house, the next one would be okay. Maybe it would be like the one with Marcos. Maybe they’d even move her wherever they’d sent Marcos. But they hadn’t. And she’d learned to take care of herself.

She was going to shake her head, but when she glanced at him, she realized if she didn’t tell him, he’d think the worst. And somehow, even after believing she’d purposely set fire to their house and almost killed him, he still cared what had happened to her.

“The place I was sent to next, there were two older boys who lived there. One was in foster care, like me. The other was the foster parents’ son. The first night I was there, they came into my room, and they told me they owned me now.”

Marcos didn’t say anything, but his jaw tightened. “You were eleven.”

“Yeah. Not all foster homes were like the one we were in.” As she said it, she realized the irony. In his mind, she’d been the one to destroy that.

But all he said was, “I know.”

“It was bad.” She glossed through the rest of it. “They came after me, and I got lucky. And after that, I learned how to fight. That’s what you saw today.”

A shiver went through her at the memory. Those boys had been fifteen and sixteen, and much bigger than her. They’d come toward her, and she’d screamed her head off. One of them had tried to smother her with a pillow while the other yanked at her clothes. She’d expected her new foster parents to come running into the room, because she knew they were home, but they hadn’t. Luck had been on her side, though, because police officers happened to be on a traffic stop down the street and heard her screaming.

She’d told the cops what had happened, she’d told the foster care workers what had happened, and instead of looking as horrified as she’d felt, they’d looked resigned. They’d moved her to a new foster home, and the first thing she’d done was to steal a steak knife and hide it under her pillow. That year, she’d stolen money from those foster parents to pay off some older kids at school to teach her to fight.

“And now?” he asked. “You didn’t find family growing up, but what about afterward? You must have a circle of friends, a boyfriend?”

She shrugged. “Sure. Not a boyfriend,” she added quickly, though it would probably be better for both of them if he thought she did. “But friends, sure.” Sort of. She only let them get so close, though. Foster care had taught her how quickly people came and went, and it was usually easier to keep them at a distance.

“Are you sure this is the direction you want to go? Working with Carlton? There’s still time to back out.”

She shook her head. “No, there’s not. He and I have a deal. And I might not be totally convinced he won’t turn on me anyway, but I know one thing for sure. If I back out now, he will kill me.”

Chapter Six

Brenna looked around the garden. It was late November, and what had apparently been a flower garden was now bare vines and plants. Around them, fir trees rose a hundred feet in the air, mixed with trees in various stages of losing their leaves. Everything was orange and red, and it reminded her of fire.

It reminded her of the fire. She wanted desperately to tell Marcos the truth, but that would blow her cover. And even though she couldn’t reconcile the sweet boy with the huge dimples with the mob-connected man jumping into the drug business, she needed to remember he was a criminal. But how had he ended up with a mafia family?

“I thought you were Greek,” she blurted.

“Yeah, well, apparently I got renamed when I entered the system,” Marcos said as he pulled his hand free and stood. “My biological family tracked me down later. I went to live with my mom, and then my dad came into the picture, got me connected.”

It made sense, and she knew it happened—people who’d lost their kids to the system reconnecting years later. So why did she feel like he was making up this story on the fly? Surely Carlton would know if he wasn’t part of a Mafia family.

But he was backing away from her slowly, and she knew whatever his story, asking about it was driving him away. And he might be her best bet for information right now.

“Have you met any of Carlton’s other business partners?” It wasn’t her best segue, but he stopped moving.

“Not really. Just his nephew. That’s how I got invited.”

“His nephew.” Brenna nodded, disappointed. She knew Jesse, too, and she felt sorry for the kid. Fact was, she felt a bit of a kinship with him. His family died, and he got thrown in with Carlton. What choice had the kid really had? Probably fall in line with Carlton or get tossed into the cold—or worse.

Anger heated her, the reminder of why she was here. It wasn’t about Marcos Costa. It was about Simon Mellor, the eighteen-year-old boy who’d died in her arms.

“So you haven’t seen Carlton with kids?”

“Kids?” Marcos frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Eighteen, nineteen. Kids who work for him?” The words poured out, even though she knew she was stepping in dangerous territory. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to sound like a cop interrogating a suspect. Her heart rate picked up as he continued to stare at her, those gorgeous blue-gray eyes narrowed.

“I’ve never met Carlton before yesterday,” Marcos said slowly.

She held in a curse. She should have realized this was a first meeting. She’d just assumed they’d had others and that this weekend was a final test.

“Why do you want to know about kids who work for Carlton? And what exactly do you think they do for him?”

She tried to look nonchalant, even though her blood pressure had to be going crazy right now. “I’m just trying to figure out how his business works, what I’m getting into here.”

He wasn’t buying it. He didn’t have to say a word for her to know she’d made him suspicious.

“What are you getting into, Brenna? You never did tell me exactly what kind of access you could offer Carlton.”

In this moment, all the years they hadn’t seen each other didn’t matter. The fact that he was an aspiring drug lord with mob connections didn’t matter. Because she knew without a doubt that if he figured out what she was pretending to do, he’d hate her. And he’d do whatever he could to stop her from working with Carlton.

He’d been in the system since he was an infant. And even at twelve years old, he’d talked to her about the plans he and his brothers had—plans to look out for one another when they left the system. He’d known there was no net for foster care kids. And the fact that she was pretending to take advantage of that would be a worse sin than anything he was doing.

“You work in the foster care system,” he said before she could come up with a believable lie. “You said you wanted to start a program to help kids make the transition to the real world.” He shook his head, looking disgusted. “What does that mean, really? Carlton sets up front businesses and you populate them with foster kids to do his dirty work?”

“I...” She faltered, trying to figure out how to smooth this over without risking him hearing the truth from Carlton anyway.

Then his eyes narrowed, and he took a step closer until she was forced to lean back to look at him. “What aren’t you telling me, Brenna? Why are you really here?”

* * *

“YOU’RE A COP, aren’t you?”

It made total sense, Marcos realized, instantly relieved. Except if a police department was running an operation on Carlton, the DEA would know about it. Anything to do with drug operations by any organization went into a system the DEA could access. And they’d made very sure before he came here. There was nothing.

She stared at him, her lips parted like she wanted to say something but couldn’t figure out what, silently shaking her head. There was panic in her eyes.

But was it because he’d uncovered the truth? Or because she was afraid he’d peg her as a cop when she wasn’t and Carlton would kill her for it?

As much as he wanted to believe she was here with noble intentions, the truth was that his judgment was compromised when it came to Brenna. His feelings for her were all tangled up in the past, in the first girl who’d ever made his heart beat faster. In the fantasies he’d had growing up, of one day seeing her again. The fact was, he’d never really given up on those dreams.

“No.” She’d finally found her voice. “Why would you think that? Anyway, you really think a police department would hire someone who’d set a house on fire?”

“Probably depends on the department and the circumstances of that fire,” he replied evenly, still studying her. She was flushed, nervous. If she was a cop, she had limited experience undercover—and what police department would send a rookie into an operation like Carlton Wayne White’s? Still, his instincts were buzzing, telling him something here wasn’t as it seemed. “That record just got unsealed. Why?”

“You saw it.”

It wasn’t a question, but it probably should have been, because there weren’t a lot of reasons a criminal would have been able to access that record. He silently cursed himself. If he wasn’t careful, Brenna’s mere presence was going to make him blow his own cover.

“Yeah, I saw it.” And it hadn’t occurred to him before—why was it unsealed all of a sudden? “It was a trap,” he realized. “A way to backstop you as a foster care worker with the right motivations to work with him, but that easily fit into your actual identity. Someone who had criminal actions in her past. And you must be new, if there’s no easy way to track you as a cop. So, what department do you work for?”

“Stop saying that!” She jumped up, jammed her hands on her hips and got in his face, despite being a solid five inches shorter than he was. “If I’m a cop, then you’re—” She went pale and swayed, then whispered, “No way. You’re...what? DEA?”

He smirked at her, though inside his brain was screaming at him. “Don’t try to turn this around on me.”

Brenna took a few steps backward, still staring at him contemplatively. What she was trying to decide was written all over her face: could she trust him?

And that told him everything he needed to know.

He swore, harshly enough that she flinched in surprise. “You’re going to get yourself killed,” he snapped at her. “How many undercover operations have you run? You shouldn’t even play poker!”

“Hey!” she snapped back. “Don’t be a jerk! I’m not a cop, and I don’t know what you’re trying to—”

“You’re right,” he told her, breaking every rule in undercover work. “The mob story was backstopping, okay? I’m DEA.”

Her lips parted and relief flashed in her eyes, followed by uncertainty. “Is this some kind of—”

“I’m not trying to trick you. You think I’d risk my life for that?”

“And it’s perfectly safe to tell a criminal that you’re an undercover agent?”

Marcos smiled. “It is when the criminal I’m telling is really a cop. Let’s work together. We’re after Carlton for pretty obvious reasons—he’s got control of a big chunk of the heroin supply. What about you? Because if it was drugs, it should have been put in the system so exactly this didn’t happen.”

He held his breath as she stayed silent, clearly torn. He was pretty sure he was right, but if not...

“Yes, I’m a police officer. Out of West Virginia. And you’re right, it’s not in your system because this isn’t about drugs. I’m after him for murder.”

There was a long silence as they stared at each other. She looked as relieved as he felt, but he couldn’t say exactly why. Probably because she had some form of backup now. His relief should have been the same, but the truth was, he was used to going into meets with drug dealers by himself. Maybe not for so long or this far from help, but it was a normal part of the job. And besides, it was clear she was a rookie, at least when it came to undercover work. No, his relief was all about Brenna the woman.

The fact that she wasn’t using the foster care system to lure newly released kids to Carlton meant he didn’t need to feel guilty that the attraction he’d felt for her as a kid wasn’t gone. Not even close. Because even when he’d believed she was here for no good, he’d been drawn to her.

But maybe that guilt was a good thing, because now keeping his distance was going to be a real challenge.

“Just remember Carlton will kill you.”

“What?” Brenna squeaked.

“Sorry.” He couldn’t believe he’d said that out loud. He’d meant it as an internal warning to himself. Maybe the hits to his head really had impacted his judgment. “Just be careful,” he amended.

She sank back to the bench. “So what now?”

“Well, you know pretty much all there is to know about why the DEA is after Carlton—we have been for years, and it’s straightforward. He’s a drug dealer, and we want him gone. I want your story.”

She glanced around, reminding him that despite being several hundred feet from the house, with no good way to sneak up without being seen, they were still on Carlton’s property.

“You’re right about me being a rookie, and you’re right that it’s the reason I’m using my real name. They scrubbed me from the police records anyway, but there wasn’t much, and my department isn’t big on putting our faces on a website, thank goodness. So it worked out when I brought them this plan to come in and play to Carlton’s weakness.”

“What’s that? Beautiful women?”

Her cheeks went deep red. “Thanks, but no.” She locked her hands together. “Six months ago, I was on foot patrol when a kid died in my arms. He was eighteen, barely out of foster care. And he was running drugs for Carlton.”

Marcos nodded slowly. He understood that sort of motivation for pushing an undercover op, but her superiors were doing her a disservice by letting her follow through, with what had to be minimal training and experience. “So, you’re here trying to prove Carlton ordered the hit? Because he’s careful. I don’t think—”