Page 115 of Forged By Sacrifice

She pulled me onto the deck, and the wind hit us. We both shivered. She was in her black slip dress still. I was in the T-shirt and shorts I’d changed into once Dani had fallen asleep.

I pulled her to me. “Tell me,” I said. “What happened?”

“One of the agencies took Raisa and me tonight. They found a brick of cocaine in my purse.”

“What the fuck?” I couldn’t filter my words. I didn’t have it in me after everything I’d already been through that night, and I knew it was a mistake as soon as it was out, because she stiffened in my arms.

“It was Malik’s.”

“What the hell was it doing in your purse?”

She pulled away from me, and even though I tried to stop her, she kept pulling until I had to let go. She stood away from me, looking down at me, tears pouring down her face.

“I told Raisa to put it there when we saw the cops coming.”

I stared at her. Was she telling me she was a drug dealer? That she sold drugs for her stepdad? It didn’t make any sense. I was too punchy to keep up.

“It’s not mine. It wasn’t Raisa’s either. It was Malik’s.”

“Then why didn’t Malik have it?”

She looked away. “He left when he saw the cops coming. He left knowing it was in Raisa’s bag.”

“Fucker.” I turned toward the door, unable to deal with another shitty male tonight. Georgie caught me, pulling my arm and tugging me back toward her. “Stop.”

“Why? Why should I stop? He let you take the fall for him.”

“There was no fall. They can’t even press charges.”

I stilled and just stared at her.

“Fourth Amendment. Illegal search and seizure. They didn’t have a warrant or cause to search my bag, and I specifically told them I didn’t consent to a search.”

“That just makes you look guilty.”

“Yes,” she said and glanced away as if it was too hard to look at me. “But it also makes anything they find pretty much inadmissible in court.”

I looked at the beautiful, smart woman in front of me and saw her pain as well as her courage. But the truth was, taking it for her sister had been the worst thing she could have done for herself. And then it hit me. She knew all that, and yet, she’d done it anyway. She’d sacrificed herself for her sister. She’d sacrificed her entire future for her family.

Dani and Georgie had both been braver than I’d ever had to be. They’d handled, with grace and fortitude, the shitty hands that had been handed to them by stupid-ass males. The disappointment in my species curled through my body, even as I knew we weren’t all to be lumped together. There were good men. Men I grew up with. Men I served with.

It took me quite a few moments to gather myself, and when I looked down again, Georgie’s expression was pained. As if my disappointment in my male gender was disappointment in her. I wasn’t disappointed in her at all. I was in awe of what she had done. But I was still angry that it could ruin her. I didn’t want anything to come between her and the future she wanted.

This just made me furious with Malik all over again. But what I said continued to come out all wrong. “But now they think you’re a drug dealer.”

“Possibly. I think they know it was Malik’s.”

“Who are they?”

“They never gave me their agency credentials. I’d guess NSA or CIA.”

“Not on U.S. soil. FBI maybe.”

“Does it matter?”

I stood there, staring at her. “Why are we out here?”

“They’ll bug everything, Mac—the apartment, my school, everything. My phone is already bugged, I’m sure. It was in their possession.”

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