Page 44 of Cosmo

After his entire body had frozen like he’d been pushed through a hole in the ice, he thawed enough to spin on his heel and begin walking away from Taran. Well, it would not be that easy.

“Wait! Please, Liam, don’t run off!”

Liam stopped, his hands curling into fists as his old temper tried to push through the maturity he’d thought he’d accomplished as he’d aged out of being that stupid kid he once was.

“I need to go. If I stay here, I’m going to hurt you,” he warned through teeth that gritted harshly enough to begin a headache that sprang from his jaw.

“Like you did to Martin Cambridge?”

With his eyelids sliding slowly shut after hearing that name, Liam loosened his hands.

“You’ve grown up from that kid, Liam. You…You’re my first assignment and I’m going to get fired and likely thrown in prison, but I can’t lie to you another minute. I can’t. Can we just go somewhere private and talk? I swear, I will not blackmail you, bust you, anything.”

There was little else to do but follow him. For one thing, he had to know what the feds knew about Murphy and the crew. If they were close to being busted, they may need those passports sooner than later.

Taran’s car was a plain, new model Corolla, dark gray, exactly what a fed would drive. He got into the passenger side and the second Taran opened his mouth, Liam lifted his hand in the air, palm right in the man’s face. “I’m not saying a fucking word in here.”

“I don’t have a mic on me, Liam. I’d take off my shirt to show you, but not here.”

“Oh, right, like feds need to tape a wire to their chest nowadays. Just fucking drive.”

They pulled away from the curb and headed east. Liam’s eyes were firmly pointed away from Taran.

“I get it. I wouldn’t trust me either. I never thought being undercover would be like this. If I had, I’d let myself be stuck in some sad field office where nothing ever happens.”

“Like I said, you’re not getting me to say a fucking word.”

They drove through the streets of the city, but Liam barely saw a thing. His mind was throwing too many pictures at him for him to see past those. Jail again, Abs in prison orange, guys trying constantly to attack him and Mims, all while beating Goldie for trying to protect them.

No music for Hippy, and art would be a memory for Haze. Not to mention, those two little kids growing up without Murphy, maybe without both dads.

“I’ve been watching you, Liam. I saw what you did for that bum.”

“You mean that homeless man?”

“Sorry. Yeah. And the cat too. You don’t deserve more time inside, but neither do Murphy and the others. I’ve read the files on all of them. You all came back from pasts that would have crippled most. I…law shouldn’t be like this. There are a million people in this country worse than you all.”

“Then why?”

“Because you’re thieves!”

Liam finally looked at him after he screamed and watched him driving with fists so tightly holding the wheel, his knuckles were white.

“I’m not anything anymore but a fucking bartender. We’re fucking bartenders.”

“I already said there’s no wire here. This is my personal car. No one in the Bureau knew I was meeting you today.”

The first thing that came to his mind came out of his mouth as well. “You purposely bought a car that looks like a fed is driving it? Good job on the undercover thing.”

Taran’s jaw dropped, but he kept his eyes on the road. “What…?”

Liam laughed a little tightly. “Yeah, you’re really cut out for this.”

It wasn’t like it hadn’t crossed his mind that it could be a tactic the feds used, pretending to be on the criminal’s side, giving up their undercover ruse to get close to their targets. Then a whoosh of laughter came from Taran, and suddenly Liam knew he was telling the truth. How exactly, he knew that was a mystery, though, so he kept his guard in place.

“Good point, yeah. Well, it’s all I ever wanted to be.”

“Out of all the things in the world you could be, and you wanted to be a federal agent? No firefighter or astronaut?”

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