Page 85 of Of Desire And Deception

When Dante hung up, he sighed and tented his fingers on his desk. “Want to tell me what happened?”

“You called while I was with Remi. I locked her up and came straight over.” Thinking back, I groaned, knowing exactly where I’d slipped up. “I told her to put her ankle cuff on. It was a test to see if she’d hesitate. She didn’t. I even pulled on it, but she must not have closed it all the way. Oh, fuck me. This is all my fault again.”

“Cos.” Dante rapped his knuckles on his desk. “You can’t worry about what’s already done. You’ve got contingencies in place. Now it’s time to enact them.”

“Right.” I pulled my shoulders back and reached for my knife, flipping the blade open and running my thumb down it, letting the tip press in and the pain center my thoughts. “We’ll strip the dungeon. I’ve got the new stuff in storage down there. It can be done in hours with help.”

“You’ll have every man I can spare,” Dante vowed. “I’m not letting you go to prison.”

“The only evidence would be of Remi,” I told him. “I’ve always been thorough with clean-up. But by the time I finish, nobody will suspect it was a dungeon.”

“Good.” He nodded and drummed his fingers on his desk, then pinned me with a grave look. “Do you still love her?”

“I do,” I answered without hesitation. It was fucking weak to let a woman who had lied and betrayed me have a place in my heart, but I couldn’t get her out. Her voice was in my head still, and I hadn’t been lying when I told her I would never give her up.

He sighed again, and I felt guilty for being the person to cause him consternation. “You can’t be married to a fed, Cos. It’s too risky.”

“I understand.” My thoughts raced with possibilities. There was one thing I knew for sure. “After I’m done with her, Remington Black will be barred from the Bureau. Hell, she’ll be on a fucking watchlist.”

A shadow of a smile crossed my brother’s features. “I have no doubt you can make it happen.”

I was lucky he still had confidence in me after everything I’d done. Even now, I couldn’t give up on Remi. “I know she loves me, too.”

“I guess we’ll find out.” Dante cracked his knuckles. “We don’t know that she’ll go back to her superiors, but it’s likely her training will kick in when she’s not under your constant… care.”

“Maybe,” I admitted.

“You need to know I’m prepared to step in,” he intoned. “I have given you more leeway than I’d offer anybody else in the family.”

I looked away, focusing on the way my blade caught the light. “I know.”

“I won’t let her take you down,” Dante’s voice was hard with determination. “If necessary, I’ll take care of her to save you. She may be your wife, but you are my brother. You will always be my priority.”

Unease filled my stomach as he spoke, and I believed he would kill Remi—a woman—to ensure my safety. I would do the same for him if necessary. I cleared my throat and murmured our family motto, “La famiglia è tutto.”

Family is everything.

“La famiglia è tutto,” Dante repeated, pinning me with his stare. “Let’s get to Deception.”

I wasn’t sure if it was better or worse that he hadn’t yelled at me, but I had plenty of time to consider it on the drive back to the club. Dante and his men followed in one of his blacked-out SUVs, parking next to me in the back lot, where six other matching vehicles were already parked. The men had rallied quickly.

I led them down to the basement, and, finally, the dungeon—the place they all feared ending up. Then I helped them tear every bit of evidence from the room. Tools could be moved to another location or replaced. Suitcases went out the door, loaded into vehicles, and driven to the warehouse I sometimes used.

Everything Remi used was taken and burned out of town: clothes, bedding, mattress, toiletries, toys. Even the restraints were removed from the dungeon to be dumped in acid to ensure no DNA remained. When we’d scrubbed every inch of the room, I left the men to the construction and drove by Remi’s apartment. She wasn’t there, so I packed her suitcases and moved most of her belongings to my house.

It would no doubt piss her off, but she fucking deserved to suffer for leaving me again. I neatly hung her clothing in the closet beside mine and filled my bathroom with her toiletries. Using a bottle of her perfume, I sprayed one of the pillows on my bed, the extra towel, and random areas in the house where she might spend time. I even put her fucking throw pillows on my couch downstairs and left her laptop on the dining table. It pained me not to have everything put away perfectly, but a husband and wife would share a home.

After thoroughly setting the façade, I returned to Deception to ensure the transformation was complete. We were running on borrowed time if our informant was to be believed. Remi’s team had been called in, and there was plenty of activity in the office late into the night. They contacted a judge for an emergency warrant, but we ensured that the judge was conveniently unavailable until the following morning.

Remi didn’t return home that night. I monitored the cameras in her apartment since there was no way in hell I could sleep. Madden’s team ordered food to the office and worked until dawn. We managed to get one of our men to deliver the morning bagels, but he didn’t hear much.

So I returned to Deception as if nothing were amiss, working on inventory and taking my place in the corner booth when I finished. Intel said Remi’s boss Madden was an egotistical fuck who would want credit for taking down the Neretti crime organization. We were counting on that.

Sure enough, just before the evening news aired, the FBI burst through the front door, guns drawn.

“Federal agents!” Madden shouted, sweeping the area with his weapon. “Everybody down!”

My dancers screamed, and the men at the tables raised their hands. More agents poured in, and Madden’s attention moved to where I sat, arms raised.

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