get in when he saw me standing in the doorway and paused. I heard him curse under his breath and then he was striding toward me.
I spread my legs in an attack stance in case he’d decided to try to take me in, too, but he shoved his hands deep in his coat pockets and ducked his head a little. “Be careful, Trish,” he said quietly. “Spalding’s gunning for Nicky big-time after what happened. I don’t want you getting caught in the middle.”
“Gee, McCain,” I spat, “I didn’t know you cared.”
He gave me an apologetic look. “I do care,” he muttered. “A lot. I’m sorry things had to go down this way.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Me, too.”
He heaved a sigh. “Just be careful. That’s all I’m saying.”
The guy looked genuinely sorry for what he’d been sent to do, but that did little to help dampen the anger that was boiling up inside me. Without a word, I slammed the door in his face and made my way upstairs to get dressed, my mind churning with the facts that I knew.
Spalding had it out for Nicky because of me, and Al had rolled over to take it up the ass from the Agency. I couldn’t believe that he’d give up one of his own with so little resistance, but if he thought I wasn’t going to have a thing to say about it, he could think again. I had so much to say, in fact, I hoped I still had a job when I was done.
Chapter Fourteen
“This is bullshit!”
Al Addin looked up from the paperwork on his desk and regarded me calmly. “I remember the days when you used to knock.”
“I remember the days when you used to have a pair,” I shot back.
His eyes flashed with mild anger, but he gestured toward the chair across from him. “Have a seat, Trish.”
I slammed the door and stormed over to the chair but didn’t sit. Instead, I crossed my arms over my chest and glared down at him. “Nicky didn’t do anything wrong. Spalding’s just pissed because Nicky cleaned his clock in front of his men.”
“Yes, he is,” Al agreed. “And if it’d been you who’d done it, we’d be having a very different conversation. But Nicky Blue is a known crime lord. I can’t protect him the same way I can protect you.”
“Protect him?” I echoed, incredulous. “You call sending eight men barging into Nicky’s house to rough him up and bring him in protecting him?”
“Roughing him up wasn’t part of the plan,” Al assured me, leaning back in his chair and giving me that look of his that made me a little jumpy. He only used it when he was righteously pissed off—and it was generally the only indication that he was. “I’m afraid things weren’t fully explained before one of the Enforcers decided to act. I believe he’s still recovering from the broken jaw Nicky Blue gave him, but the doctors tell me he’ll be fine.”
“So, what was supposed to happen?” I demanded.
Al steepled his fingers. “We were supposed to be taking Mr. Blue into protective custody under the ruse of charging him for the assault on Agent Spalding.”
I frowned in confusion and dropped into the chair Al had offered earlier. “Protective custody? Why?”
“The Agency wants Nicky’s head on a platter,” Al said on a sigh. He picked up a manila folder and tossed it to the edge of his desk. “Apparently, they don’t take kindly to Tales interfering with their investigations.”
I tentatively opened the folder. My eyes widened when I saw the photographs inside. There was one of Nicky fighting in the alley the night he’d rescued me. One of him carrying me to the Escalade after I’d been attacked at Halloran’s. Another of us walking into Happy Endings. Another one of him crouching along the roof of the building as he pursued the vampires that night. And another of us as we stood together, his arm inside my coat. It captured the moment when he was slipping a gun into my waistband, but it looked far more
intimate—and the look being exchanged between us, although it brought a smile to my lips, was so intense it didn’t do much to illustrate the truth of what had been happening. But the last photograph was the most infuriating. It was of me, pressed against the alley wall, a dark, formless mist pressing into me, my eyes wide with terror.
One of the Agency goons had been there, watching the whole time, and hadn’t come to my aid. I had to wonder, if Drac had decided to rip my throat out, would the goon have just watched me bleed out through his camera lens?
“How long have they been following us?” I asked, my mouth dry, wondering what else they might have pictures of but just hadn’t shared.
Al shook his head. “No clue. And I’m not entirely sure which of you was the initial target of their surveillance. But until we sort this out and smooth things over, I need to ask you to stay away from Nicky Blue.”
My head snapped up. “Pardon me?”
“I can’t have one of my employees consorting with someone like Nicky,” he explained.
“That’s a load of horseshit,” I snapped. “Red was with Nicky on and off for years back in the day.”
“That was different.”
“Why?” I countered. “Because it was Tess?”
“I’m not playing favorites,” Al insisted, his voice getting louder. “I’ve never been able to control Red.”
“Oh, but you can control me?” I yelled, launching to my feet. “Fuck this.”
“Trish!” Al shouted, bringing me to an abrupt halt. “I am saying this for your own good. Nicky Blue is trouble. I don’t want you getting caught up in it.”
I turned back to face him, my heart aching. “Al, you have been my friend and mentor since I came over. When I was lost and afraid, you took me under your wing and showed me that I could have a purpose here, that I didn’t have to be a victim of my past and the darkness that haunted me, that I could use my experience to help others. I’ve looked up to you and loved you and have done everything I can for you. But I can’t give you this.”
Al came around his desk and took my face in his hands. “I’m not asking, Trish. I’m ordering.”
I met his gaze and held it, something I’d never done before. And, to my surprise, I saw something there I’d never seen. Had never even guessed. “Are you sure this is just about the Agency’s complaint?” I whispered. “Or is there something else behind your order?”
His thumb smoothed my cheek and his gaze dropped briefly to my mouth before he squeezed his eyes shut, forcing away the impulse that had apparently weighed heavily on his heart for a long time. “You work for me, Trish.”
I sighed as his hands fell away, hating that I had seen the secrets of his heart when he had worked so diligently to deny them, to remain professional and never hint at how he felt about me. Then I stood on my toes and pressed a lingering kiss to his cheek, a parting gift before I said, “Not anymore, Al.”
His eyes snapped open. “What?”
“I quit.”
I trudged down the corridor to Mary “Contrary” Smith’s office, hoping to catch our prosecutor at her desk to plead with her to release Nicky to my custody before word spread that I’d quit. If I was lucky, Al had been too rattled to call her right away and I still had a little time before all my credentials were revoked.
I hated to have to do that to the guy, but it was clear that his lack of support for my burgeoning relationship with Nicky was partially motivated by his secret feelings for me. Granted, he was pissed about having to get into a power struggle with the Agency over what was going on with the vampires and Nicky’s vigilantism and was genuinely worried about me getting in the middle of all that, but he also was furious that I’d take up with someone the FMA had been watching very closely since the nineteen-twenties without being able to make any charges stick.
When I told him I quit, the look of pain and sorrow on his face was almost more than I could take, and I nearly retracted my resignation. But I held my ground in spite of Al’s attempts to persuade me to stay. Now I just had to get Nicky the hell out of there before he was beyond my reach.
