Page 38 of Fatal Attraction

Spike blinked, and bit by bit his skin paled as his large brain slowly absorbed the information. He then turned to Harley and shakily asked, “What have you done?”

“What I had to,” she said sharply. “I’m sorry I didn’t mention it sooner, but I had to do something, Detectives. If Ben is as smart as I think he is, then expect all of us, Chief and Captain Burgess included, to meet in the chambers in a few hours. It'll be the judge’s call but if we’re lucky, Karl should be released within seventy-two hours. I’ll call as soon as I know something.”

Her explanation was completely unrelated to the new problem at hand, and as Spike opened his mouth to tell her she’d made a huge mistake, it was already too late. Harley was gone without so much as taking the initiative to stop and listen.

“Fuck!” Spike gripped his head and blew out a furious breath, his hands tremoring as he scoured them down his face. “She seriously has no idea what she’s done, does she?”

Spike was right. This was bad. Worse than fucking bad.

“We’ll need to put him under surveillance. Have officers inside and posted outside of his apartment for not only his protection, but Charlotte too.”

Again, Spike was right. Like fucking hell if our perp was going to just sit back and donothing, not after all of the time and planning he’d put in to remove Karl from the equation. Assuming Harley’s plan worked, then WITSEC was the way to go—at least until we could catch this son of a bitch—but there was no guarantee Karl would agree to it.

And now that he knew about our relationship with Charlotte…

Fuck.

There was no telling what Karl would do now.

“We’ll figure it out. Let’s just hope we can catch this bastard before Karl gets—if he gets released, I mean.”

Spike nodded, saying nothing as he walked out the room, grumbling he’d meet me out at the car.

All I could do was sigh and stare briefly through the window at Ben and Karl before I spun on my heel and followed my partner’s footsteps.

I needed a fucking drink.

Fine. I’ll help you.

I hit SEND on the text, hating that I’d ever gotten myself involved with this bullshit to begin with. It was necessary though. Speaking with Gibbs and Hammett hadn’t entirely been a bust, but there wasn’t much info they could give us aside from a man named Rio, the same man Peter put behind bars for Fiona McMann’s death. Supposedly, Rio was one of the Pines’ most deadliest drug dealers who had a client list larger than both of his forearms combined and immediate access to Rohypnol, and possibly to who harbored the shipments. Unfortunately for us, Rio was murdered in prison about a week after being incarcerated.

Which led us to where we were now.

If Crow had information about our perp, then fine, I’d play his stupid fucking game. It wasn’t like we really had much of a choice in the matter anymore.

“You good?” Spike asked from the passenger seat. We were parked outside The Flirty Sanctum, having arrived barely two minutes ago.

“Fuck no,” I spat, my grip tightening around the phone when Crow’s reply came in.

I knew you’d come around. Daggers. 7PM tomorrow. Don’t be late.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Spike groaned, his head falling back against the headrest. “We have to be at the club by nine. How the hell are we going to pull this off?”

“We’ll figure it out. And remember, this is just round one. We still have the shipment to worry about.”

“Have you told Charlotte about this?”

I darkened the display and dropped my phone in my lap. “I haven’t. She doesn’t need to know, so promise me this stays between us.”

I felt like the biggest piece of shit in the world. It destroyed me, fucking butchered me having to hide this from her. I loved Charlotte, and despite the promise I’d made for us to have a happy, honest relationship, here I was breaking that sacred promise and keeping secrets. But when it came down to Crow and his crew and knowing firsthand what they were capable of, I wasn’t taking any chances. I couldn’t. Crow trying to go legit didn’t mean a goddamn thing to me. For all I knew, he was lying and had much deeper, darker intentions for wanting to intercept this upcoming shipment. This was dangerous—far too fucking dangerous for someone so sweet and innocent like Charlotte to get tangled up in, and I said as much to Spike.

“I agree,” he finally approved, nodding more to himself than me. “But once we do this, we’redone, Phoenix.You’re done.And if Crow doesn’t uphold his end of the deal—”

“Then we’ll arrest him, Spike. We’ll arrest him.”

Even though my words were genuine, I could tell he didn’t fully believe me. That he was unsure if I’d really take it that far given my history with Crow and his sister, Kendall.

That was fine though.

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