Page 69 of Tapped

“Fuck,” the guy mutters.

“Yeah, this sucks for you. My friends found us first,” I grit, holding him tight to the metal.

The Miami PD marked car pulls up behind Brax, and they all run to us. Brax nudges the gun to the side with his foot and picks up my radio as the PD officers take over, cuff the guy, and read him his rights.

He’s not done being Mirandized when they flip him around and I get a good look at him face-to-face for the first time. “What the hell am I being arrested for?”

I let the officer finish and add, “Money laundering. Possession of illegal narcotics. Distribution. The list is long.”

“You can’t prove shit.” he yells.

“Then I guess it’ll be your word against the video. Good luck with that.” What I don’t tell him is that we’re going to have a conversation when he gets to the station about a certain hitman. But I’m saving that as a bargaining tool. I barely get a look at his shocked expression as the PD officers turn him back to their car. “Thanks, guys. We’ll catch up with you at the station. Appreciate the last-minute backup.”

“It’s always an experience with you two,” one of them says.

“They dropped this guy and took off,” Brax says as the officers walk off. “Another unit stopped the car on the way out of the cargo lot. An ambulance is on the way to tend to the gun-shot victim, and the rest are being taken into custody. We can let them be processed and question the rest Monday morning, but we want to talk to that one tonight.”

I touch my cheek with the back of my hand when I feel blood drip from my face. “It’s been a day, and it’s about to get longer.”

“Did he bitch-slap you?” Brax hands me my radio, and we head back to his car.

I wipe the blood on my jeans. “He headbutted me. I need to clean it out.”

“My medical kit is in the back of the car.” He beeps the locks and grins at me as he opens the back hatch. “Nothing a doctor can’t handle.”

I glare at him.

“Looks like you picked the right target’s wife to sleep with.”

“Fuck you,” I mutter as I climb into the passenger seat to dig through the med kit for alcohol wipes. I flip the visor mirror open and inspect my face. “I need to talk to that guy. If anyone knows Adder’s contacts it’ll be him. I need some good news to deliver to Evie.”

He backs up. “I guess we both have wives to get back to. Only yours is someone else’s wife.”

“Kiss my ass, Cruz.”

“If that’s what it takes to get you to come over tomorrow. Landyn wants everyone there, and I want Landyn happy. You’d better not ruin the vibe just because I learned your dirty little secret.”

“You’re not exactly making me want to be around you.”

“Bring the doctor.”

My cheek pulls when I widen my eyes to glare at him. “You want me to bring Dr. Litchfield, Jeff Michael’s wife, to your house for dinner? Won’t Tim be there?”

“I’ll fill him in. You know … pave the way.”

“I don’t need anyone to pave the way for me. You pretty much paved the way when you fake married your wife. It’s going to be pretty hard for me to stoop lower than that.”

“Hey, nothing was ever fake about Landyn and me.” Brax pulls onto the interstate toward the office. “The doctor will be sick of being stuck in the house all weekend. I’ll let Landyn know you’re bringing a plus one.”

“I’ve known Evie for approximately three minutes,” I say as I throw everything back into the kit and toss it in his backseat. I refuse to tell him about taking Evie to a funeral, or that I told her about Hannah, or the fact that the more time I spend with her, the more she consumes my thoughts. “She might want to wait for us to find the killer who’s after her before she ventures out to Sunday dinners with strangers.”

“She’ll be safer at my house with a team of agents and Rocco than she would in that mansion she calls a house.”

He’s not wrong.

I change the subject. “You’re going to name your daughter after her Godfather, right?”

Brax doesn’t look away from the road. “Landyn might not hate you anymore, but that’s never going to happen.”

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