Page 7 of Sawyer
Sawyer checked his anger at the question. “Yes, I have a fucking plan. I’m going to get close to her. Get her to trust me. And when she does, I’ll be able to get the truth out of her.”
Reid nodded. “That could work. What if you’re right? What if she confesses?”
“I already have the cameras in place, remember? We’ll have her admissions on tape. Once we have that, we can pressure her to confess to the authorities.”
“What if you’re wrong? What if she didn’t lie?”
“Are you saying you think Jaxon is guilty?” Sawyer demanded.
Reid scowled. “Of course not. I know Jaxon would never traffic drugs, especially to children. But what if she isn’t the one who lied? What if she believed what she was saying was the truth?”
“Are you kidding me?”
Reid turned his attention back to the girl. “Look at her, man. She’s a fucking Pollyanna. She’s the type that sees the good in everything and everyone. That makes her easy to manipulate, easy to use.”
Sawyer wanted to ignore Reid’s words, but the man read people better than anyone he knew. “If that’s the case, and I’m not saying it is, butifit is, we’ll find out who used her and go after them.”
Reid nodded but continued to stare at Lele. “If you work your way in close enough to get that information, you’ll ruin any chance you have to keep her.”
Sawyer reared back in his seat. What the fuck?
“Who said anything about keeping her? She’s the mark. The only one I care about is Jaxon.”
That earned him Reid’s eyes. “Bullshit. We’ve worked together for seven years. I’ve never seen a woman get under your skin like this one has. And you haven’t even talked with her yet. If you lie to her and she lets you in, when she figures out the truth, you won’t be able to keep her. I know that’s a price you think you’ll be willing to pay, but I’m not sure that’s true.”
It was Sawyer’s turn to focus.. Lele wasn’t someone he could have. It was that simple. Whether she knew it or not, she was a Little. She needed a Daddy. One like Deke or Hutch. A softer Daddy who would cuddle and coo with her. Sawyer didn’t cuddle, and he sure as fuck didn’t coo.
Maybe at one point in his life, he could have been some Little girl’s Daddy. But that was before he’d seen everything he’d seen overseas. Before he’d done everything he’d done with the CIA.He’d made it out alive. The Daddy inside him hadn’t been that lucky.
Still, Lele had that bounce in her step everywhere she went. He should know, because he had followed her. Four days. In the grocery store. At the coffee shop. Hell, when she walked around her house, she kept her curtains open for anyone to see exactly what she was doing.
If he were able to have a Little and she were his, she wouldn't sit down for a month. Especially not in the neighborhood where she lived.
But maybe he was wrong. Maybe she wasn't Little. She damn sure wasn't his. From what his files said about her, he didn’t want her to be. If life had taught him nothing else, it had taught him that loyalty was everything. Jaxson had to come first.
Giving his attention back to Reid, Sawyer laid it out. “The only thing I know is that Jaxon is rotting in a prison for something he didn’t do. Getting him out is our top priority. And if that means this girl gets her feelings hurt, so be it.”
Reid held his gaze for a long time before nodding. “I’ll fill the guys in and wait to hear from you. I hope you feel the same way if that sacrifice is actually needed.”
Reid shoved back his chair and strode out of the bar without looking back. Sawyer watched him go, trying to shove Reid’s words out of his head.
CHAPTER 3
Most people feared the monsters under their beds. Not Lele. No, under the bed was her safe haven, especially now, when the true monster in her life was pounding on the door at two a.m.
The nightmare had held her in its grip. In it, she’d been paralyzed with fear the monster would get her. She tried to run through the house in her dream, trying to escape. But no matter how fast she moved her feet, she never moved from the spot where she stood. And the monster was getting closer.
She turned to watch it approach. It was a giant monster, but she couldn’t make out the face. When she opened her mouth to scream, no sound would come from her throat.
The monster was going to get her. Just as he grabbed her arm, she woke. Grabbing her blanket and Lucky, she crawled under the bed.
The dust under her bed was off the charts, which meant she hadn’t needed her safe space in a while, so that was an improvement. The bad news was now her nose itched. She pinched hernose to stifle the sneeze and made a mental note to deal with it later. You never knew when you’d need to hide in your safe space.
“Don’t let me forget, Lucky,” she whispered to her stuffed animal. She couldn’t remember why she’d named her black cat Lucky, but it fit. Well, as much as the name could fit a black cat with stars in her eyes. Her father had won Lucky for her at the Tennessee State Fair when she was seven, and she’d loved the stuffed kitten on sight.
Not that Lucky could keep her safe from the monster. The monster would get her one day. Someone said if you dreamed you fell off a ladder in your sleep and hit the ground in your dream, it would really kill you. Was the same thing true when the monster caught you?
When had the nightmare started? When she was younger was all she could remember. Her father had taken her to talk to a counselor about it once. The counselor said something about her having gone through a lot with the loss of her mother, and then her father remarrying a year later, giving her a whole new family.
