Secret Agent Surrender

“Carlton,” Brenna said, her voice shaky. “I was just trying to—”

“You’d die for this man?” Carlton boomed, making her flinch. “After just a one-night stand?” His eyes narrowed, and he glanced from her to Marcos and back again, but too fast for her to lift her own weapon.

He suspected she and Marcos had a deeper connection than the lie she’d given about picking him up at a bar. And Carlton was right. But she and Marcos had only known each other for a few months. A few months of the worst pain in her life. A pain that had brought her here.

Resolution overtook her fear. She’d come this far. She wasn’t going to die without a fight.

And with Carlton, she knew her best weapon wasn’t her fists or the gun clutched in her hand. Tossing the pistol away from her, she lifted her hands in the air and got slowly to her feet, stepping slightly away from the bodyguard moaning on the ground.

Her hair was a disaster; pieces of it stuck to her lipstick, more of it was in her eyes. Her knees were skinned and bloody, her dress hiked up way too high. She ignored all of it, locking her gaze on Carlton and tipping her chin up. “You read my file, right? You know about the fire?”

She sensed Marcos tense, but she couldn’t dare glance at him as Carlton gave a brief nod.

“Then you must know the rest of it, too.” Her voice hitched, remembering the things that had come after that fire, when she’d been sent to other foster homes. Places without smiling boys with dimples to greet her and hold her hand, but older boys with a scary gleam in their eyes.

Carlton’s eyes narrowed even more, but she could tell he was listening. Maybe he even cared.

“If you really looked, then you know this isn’t about Marcos. Marco,” she corrected herself. “It’s about me. I’m here because I want a different life from the one I grew up with. I want security. I want to feel safe.” She let the truth of those words ring through in her voice. “So, I’ll work with you, but you don’t own me. If that’s what you want, I’m not interested.”

A smirk twisted his lips, then faded, and she wasn’t sure if she’d just signed her death warrant or gotten through to him.

Beside her, the bodyguard she’d knocked to the ground pulled himself to his knees, snarling at her. For a second, she thought he was going to jump up and tackle her, when Carlton fired his gun, making her jump.

His bodyguard slumped back down, dead.

She stared at Carlton, speechless, and he shrugged. “He failed me. Kind of like you, Brenna.”

She hadn’t gotten through to him. Brenna took a breath and closed her eyes.

“This is supposed to be a business arrangement, right?” Marcos spoke up.

Brenna opened her eyes again, glancing at him, wondering if it was smart of him to remind Carlton of his presence.

“Because I’ve got to tell you,” Marcos continued, getting to his feet, too, and leaving behind the bodyguard’s weapon, which had been at arm’s length away, “this is how my family did business. All these feuds. It’s derailing their business. Why do you think I want to branch out on my own?”

His family? Brenna frowned, wondering what game he was playing. Some of the kids in the foster homes she’d been to had family out there, either people they’d been taken from because of neglect or abuse, or people who’d given them up. But not Marcos. She knew he’d grown up in the system from the time he was an infant, that they’d never been able to find any extended family. Had that changed? Had he found blood relatives after the fire?

“Let me ask you something, Marco,” Carlton replied. “Or is it Marcos?” His gaze snuck to Brenna, then returned. “You’ve met Brenna once? She was that unforgettable?”

Marcos frowned, and a sick feeling formed in her stomach at the way the drug lord’s eyes wandered over her, way more blatantly than he’d ever done before. As if she was his, whether she liked it or not.

Carlton Wayne White was a killer. A man who’d use kids with no one to help them as disposable pawns in his business. Why should it surprise her if he was also a rapist?

She’d been clear with him that she didn’t want to sleep with him. She’d thought he actually respected that; she’d believed he saw her as a better business partner because of it. But maybe she’d been fooling herself. Maybe he’d never cared because he hadn’t planned to ask.

Before Marcos could answer Carlton’s question, he continued, “Or you just have a problem with loyalty? Is that why you’re dealing with me instead of sticking with family? I looked into you, Costrales. You’re the black sheep, aren’t you?”

Marcos shrugged, spitting blood onto the ground. “You say black sheep. I say visionary.”

Carlton snorted. “You’re awfully confident for a man I still might kill.”

“My family and I may not always see eye to eye, but they’re pretty good at blood feuds.”

Carlton nodded slowly and lowered his weapon. “So they are.” He gave a slight smile. “I suppose I don’t want to have to deal with your entire family coming after me. Too messy for me to clean up.” He nodded at Brenna. “I guess this means you’re vouching for her?”

Marcos paused a long moment and Brenna held her breath, not sure what to hope for. Whoever Marcos’s family was—if his story was even true—they had sway. But if Marcos vouched for her too quickly, would Carlton really buy that they didn’t know one another well? Or would he think the two of them were playing some kind of scam on him, maybe trying to steal away his business?

“I don’t really know her,” Marcos said, not even glancing her way. “And I don’t know what kind of business arrangement you two have. So I’m not sure I can do that. But I’ll tell you this much. I betray you? Fine, kill me. I’d do the same. But playing some sort of ownership game with a woman who’s not interested and shooting anyone who gets in your way? That’s not how I work. So, I tell you what. You leave her alone and so will I.”

Carlton tucked his gun back into his waistband and Brenna let out a breath, tugging down her dress and yanking the hair out of her face.

“Well, hasn’t the mob gotten progressive?” Carlton asked. “All right. We’ve got a deal.” He glanced at Brenna. “I guess this means our time together is over.”

He turned and walked inside, and Brenna stood rooted in place. That was it? All the months of work and she’d let a foolish attraction to a man she hadn’t seen in almost two decades ruin everything?

She blinked back tears as Marcos sent her a brief, unreadable glance and followed Carlton, leaving her all alone in the drug lord’s driveway.

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.