Miah (Lane Brothers #2) (10 page)

Miah

I feel like shit and not just because I’m exhausted by all the double-dealing and running around, but because I hate lying to Clari as I try to supervise intelligence gathering and spying on the Lanes while Jared helps Roman infiltrate the freaking militia.

After being called out last night, and the way she’d understood my exhaustion and let me sleep, I feel better than I have in a long time.

Well I would if not for the fact that she woke up beside me full of purpose with her mouth set in a determined line that makes me nervous. If she’s planning to leave me, she can just forget about that, and that’s final.

I know I’ve gone back on my word about quitting altogether, and I feel like an ass for thinking that I could just drop everything and be okay with staying at home with the family.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy spending time with them. It’s just weird going from working all those jobs at the same time, to waking up and not knowing what I’ll do when my job with the force comes to an end.

For that reason, I’d finally buckled and let it slip that I was quitting IA due to a lack of evidence. I didn’t want Dobson getting too suspicious, so I kept my shit together and gave him as much hell as I always have.

Seems to be working, because they invited me and Roman to a poker game last night and we ended up dropping enough hints about our trust funds just not cutting it and the cost of keeping up the lifestyle without our family money.

Chief Dobson seemed open to us after that, and I know it’s just a matter of time before they start trying to bring us in. Time is the problem, though, because this is just dragging on too long for me.

And then there are those damned assholes who want revenge on my family. Jared managed to plant a few bugs in Veronica’s house after posing as the capable guy and finally meeting his long-lost love, Paulette.

I swear the guy has absolutely no game for someone who seems to get as much tail as a male stripper. But that aside, I get to hear about how much they despise us all and how they’ll get revenge for those assholes Lynn and Bolton.

Part of me would love to walk right up to them and tell them that they’re not dead but rotting away in places they’ll never be found.

But I won’t do that to Pop, not after having seen him mourn his sister this past year and coming to grips with her betrayal. A man can dream, though.

I snap out of it when Clari comes striding back into the room and plants herself beside the sofa with her hands on her hips.

“We need to talk.”

Here we go.

“No. We have nothing to hash out, so you can get that right out of your head, Clari.”

Her eyes narrow and I instantly regret wanting her to pick up some of Ma and Ellie’s attitude. Things were easier when she didn’t enjoy arguing so much.

“Yes, we do,” she says with a stamp of her sneaker-clad foot. “I took the freaking day off work for this, so you can just sit there and listen, Miah Lane. Now, I get that you think that you’re some sort of superman or something, and I find that part of you totally hot, I do, but I’m tired of never seeing you while you kill yourself trying to piece everything together.”

“Clari—”

“No, Miah! I get that you think that everything will be just fine, but the truth is that you’ll still be exactly where you are now in a few months. The cops will only be ready to show their hands when they’re ready. The family stuff, well you can only wait for them to either lose interest or do something about it. As for the militia they’re funding, that’s the government’s problem and you know it.”

Dammit, why does she have to be so right? Jared said the same thing, backed by Roman, Jace, and Wyatt. They’re all telling me that rushing stuff will only get us hurt or killed, and I fought them all, not wanting to hear it.

With Clari saying it now and basically begging me to just relax and let things fall as they may, I feel a weight lift from my shoulders. With her saying that I don’t have to have results right now, and that my lack of progress in finding the ones who wanted to hurt her isn’t upsetting her, I feel like I can breathe again.

This is why I tried so hard to avoid her. I knew that my shit would affect her and our life together.

“I wanted to fix it all now that you’re here and Josh and just…I can’t stand the thought of something bad happening to you or any of the family, Clari.”

She plops down into my lap and kisses me once before taking my face in her hands and looking deep into my eyes.

“You’re enough, Miah, and you’re doing more than enough not to have to kill yourself trying to be this robot. I don’t want you roaming the streets at night following some fat asshole who’s smuggling drugs, or whatever it is they do. You do what you can and come home to us, Miah, and leave the rest up to someone else. Jared wants to help more, and Jace was so pissed off last night when your phone went to voice mail. Please, just slow down.”

She’s begging me to just be me when I’ve been trying to be more than that for weeks now. It humbles me so much that for once I’ve chosen someone who doesn’t want Miah Lane, the super soldier, or the badass who’s just into a good time and sex.

Clari just seems to want me, and from now on, that’s who I will be. She’s right about me killing myself, that I’ve been doing it because I’ve been feeling like less ever since I walked into the station and saw her sitting there afraid and alone.

I’ll never know how Wyatt lives with the shit that happened to Ellie without going nuts.

“I will, babe. I will if you promise to take it easy and not fight me so much about work and the security.”

That makes her blush, and I grin when she bites her lip and nods.

“Fine. I won’t complain about them shadowing me if you promise not to go all Rambo on me again. I miss you. A lot.”

“I miss you, too. Now come here, woman. I started kissing you last night and failed epically when I couldn’t follow through.”

She giggles and starts squirming on my lap, and I know that I am right where I need to be right now.

Veronica and her cohorts can go to hell for one day, as can Dobson and that ex of hers. Right here and now I have everything I need and want, and I’ll keep my promise to her even if it kills me to share responsibilities with the others and watch from the sidelines.

***

“Your woman spoke to you, huh?”

“Jace, I swear, if you get all smug and shit and start giving me the ‘I told you so’ speech, I’ll knock your ass right the hell out and leave you here for the militia to find.”

We’re hiding in the woods bordering the swamp, of all places, as a truck that Jace has been tracking for two days slowly makes its way to a rickety little hut tucked away at the edge of the water.

I know exactly what this is. I’ve seen many exchanges over the years, and this is one of the sloppiest I’ve ever seen. Either Dobson is getting slack, or whoever is driving that truck doesn’t care all that much about being spotted and caught hauling a few hundred kilos of meth, coke, and marijuana.

Jace starts chuckling when the door opens, and I’m groaning before the fool hops out of the truck and starts clapping hands with the filth that piles out of the hut.

“That cocky little bastard.”

“Aw c’mon, bro, you know you love how sneaky Roman can be. Besides, look at the way he’s making pals with the enemy. Isn’t this what you were hoping for all along?”

“Yeah.”

But I never thought that I’d be left holding my own dick while my brothers start taking over my freaking job. I recall Clari’s words and sigh heavily. Christ, I really am turning into a family man when I start smiling about her reprimanding me for working too hard while my fool cousin saunters into a den of drug runners and traitors as if he were born to do it.

We cool our heels in the woods, taking photos with our night-vision cams and waiting on Roman, when I hear another vehicle coming down the road at a speed that does not bode well.

“Is that Dobson?”

The car screeches to a halt and the fat asshole jumps out, followed by one of his crooked pals, and starts yelling at one of the men who come running out.

My sixth sense starts tingling like hell when I hear a gunshot and see the others dragging Roman out behind them.

“Christ!”

“Wait, bro,” Jace mutters, pulling me back down when I would have run from cover.

Dobson starts slapping Roman and turns to punching the guy when he regains consciousness, and it’s then that he raises his voice enough for us to hear.

“Are you IA, Lane?! Jesus Christ, Tommy vouched for you, asshole.”

The hitting escalates to kicking, and I’m about ready to start shooting to kill when I hear another car screeching down the road. It’s a pink Beetle that sends the dust flying when it stops.

“Daddy, no! What are you doing?”

“Is that Melissa Dobson? What the fuck is going on here, Jace?” I demand, watching Roman lift his bloody face with effort and smile at Melissa.

“She’s his cover and one of his sources, bro. Roman started talking to her when she came into the department one day, and they’ve been buddy-buddy ever since. She’s helping him collect info and proof on Dobson, and she’s his ticket into this mess. Just watch.”

I turn back to see the girl yelling her head off at Dobson and slapping at the men holding him down. My idiot of a cousin just grins and lumbers to his feet before picking the girl up and kissing her, bloody mouth and all.

What I see has me shaking my head and grinning in disbelief. That clever asshole. He’s in all right, and not just with the drug running that’s going on here, but pretty soon Dobson will lead him right to the main players in this cell.

Soon Melissa starts dragging Roman along behind her on her way back to her car.

“Melly, honey, I’m sorry!”

“Fuck you, Dad! You had your hired goons beat up the father of my unborn child?!”

Oookay. I’ll ask later.

“Now, Melly, you got to understand. Daddy thought he was a spying traitor like that cousin of his. The only reason I haven’t killed that bastard yet is because his daddy would rain down hell on the operation.”

That gets her to turn around and I watch her stalk right on back and drill a finger into her father’s chest.

“You won’t do any such thing, Dad! Roman is my family now, and that makes Miah my family, too. You’re going to keep your shit together and run your business properly while keeping my new family safe, or I swear to God I’m calling Uncle Jim down here to see just what a nasty piece of work you really are.”

Roman looks fit to bust a gut when the little brunette turns on her heel and stalks back to the car with a frustrated shriek that sets the nightlife abuzz.

“Honey bear—”

“Not another word! You either trust my man or you don’t, and that’s final. Now shut up and leave us be for the rest of the night. I have to get Roman to the emergency room before he bleeds to fucking death. I swear to fuck, all men are Goddamned brainless!”

Roman salutes the chief and gets into the car, its headlights disappearing after a minute or two.

“That’s it? Old Dobson is afraid of his brother, the senator, and Melissa gets Roman into the inner sanctum by blackmailing her father?”

“Something like that. He made a deal with the girl, and she’ll collect after this is all done.” Jace shrugs, turning away to start the long trek back the way we came and to the car we hid down the road.

The walk is silent while I think it all through, and I’m not too sure I like this one bit by the time I get to the car. Too much can go wrong. Roman has involved an innocent woman in this mess, and knowing him, if he’s not banging her yet, he will be soon enough.

I can’t have him ruining shit by falling for Dobson’s princess.

“Can we trust her, Jace?” I ask, getting into his car and leaning back with a sigh.

“Beats me, bro, but Roman seems to think we can, so I gotta trust him, ya know? Long and short of it is that we don’t have any other choice right now. We have the cops on the corruption but nothing on that militia yet, and that’s the main mission here. He needs to get in with those guys before we move on Dobson.”

“Yeah, but what if Melissa Dobson turns out to be one of them?”

“All we can do is keep an eye out for the guy and hope this goes down good, man, you know that. This op is no different from any of the others we’ve pulled over the years. We go in and do what we can and hope an informant isn’t a plant.”

Yeah, but working an op with guys who aren’t my blood makes things so much easier. Having one of my own in the line of fire makes things complicated, and I find that I don’t like it one bit.

“Stop overthinking things and trust the guy, Miah. He’s good for this. We, on the other hand, have to turn our focus to Ronny and her little band of not-so-merry idiots.”

“What’s she up to now?”

Jace scratches his chin and smiles at me in the darkened interior of the car.

“She just booked a flight to good old Paris, bro. You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Impossible.”

“Nope. Jared got Paulie to hack her computer and download her travel itinerary, and take a guess where she’s headed.”