Page 35 of Exposed

“This is insane.”

“This is very fucking real. If you trust me, you won’t ever have to run from anyone again. No more premature midlife crisis, and you won’t have to collect cats.”

I mull that over as a familiar voice from earlier cuts through our space. “Ah … how’s it going in there?”

King reaches to the side and presses a button. “I haven’t been pepper sprayed.”

My teeth find my bottom lip as I think about the spectacle I put on while he stood there with a gun holstered to his hip.

“Yet,” King belatedly adds.

The voice chuckles, and I realize it’s the tattooed dirty blond who interrogated me before my visit to the DEA went completely south. “Sounds like my kind of party.”

King presses the intercom button once more. “We’ll be up in a minute.”

The voice crackles one last time. “I can’t wait.”

King pushes two more buttons, and we move, but this time we’re going up when all I wanted to do was run away from this place just minutes ago.

When a tone sounds, King holds an arm out to hold the doors open for me.

I don’t move, but I do lay out my own conditions even if they are lame. “If I do this, I’m going to need a snack and a cup of coffee.”

King Jennings levels the most serious look on me I’ve seen sofar. “Goldie, if you do what I want you to do, I’ll feed you and serve you coffee for eternity.”

I move from the elevator and sense him fall into pace close behind me. “Lucky for you I’m used to people not keeping their promises.”

“That sounds like a challenge, Ms. Carter. If there’s one thing I like, it’s a challenge.”

A funny feeling settles low in my stomach, but it doesn’t feel like hunger.

I push it away.

I can’t count on anyone.

Especially a strange DEA agent who lied to me about his identity and tricked me into getting him into the one place I swore I’d never return to.

8

PRETEND

King

“Ididn’t have to make my way into anything,” Goldie admits. “Half of The Pink is mine.”

There it is.

She finally comes clean.

Wrappers litter the table between us, and she’s on her second cup of coffee. I raided the vending machine for her—and she wasn’t shy. I kept feeding it money, and she kept jabbing at buttons. She’s eaten a protein bar, a bag of chips, and she’s making her way through trail mix as she pushes raisins to the side.

As if I needed another reason to like the woman sitting across from me. Raisins are disgusting.

“Explain that,” I demand. We thought that was the case, but her father’s trust papers are sealed. “How is The Pink half yours?”

She finishes chewing and swallows. “You said it yourself—my father owned it since the eighties. Everything he had was tied to The Pink. He lived there. He did business there.He was a jerk to my mom and I had nothing to do with him growing up. I had no clue I had a half-brother, especially one who’s a cartel leader.”

Goldie and I are alone in the interrogation room. When we stalked back where we came from, Brax and Micah eyed us like we were a rare exhibit at the zoo. Goldie’s face was tear stained, and her eyes were bloodshot.

---