Lucan shook his head. “I am so sorry. Rio. That’s terrible—”
“But the destruction didn’t stop there. My mother started drinking after he passed. Hard. She collapsed from liver failure two years ago, got on dialysis, and died six months later. Not that we were close or anything. On my father’s end, he left town pretty soon after my brother’s funeral. Just took off. I have no idea where he is, and after all these years, it’s going to stay that way even if I find him, you know what I mean?”
“Wait . . . he just deserted his mate—wife, I mean? And you?”
“There was debt he couldn’t cover, he said. Money that was owed to people who were dangerous. Either he left or they were going to come and hurt me and Mom.” She glanced over with a hard expression. “But no one ever came looking for him, so maybe it was just a lie—something he told my mother to make himself feel better. I don’t know.”
After a moment, she covered her face with her hands, and he touched her knee. “So you have no bloodline, either.”
“It’s true, I’m alone. But it’s okay.”
“You’re not alone anymore.”
Lowering her arms, she stared across at him. “You don’t want me, Luke. You really don’t.”
He had to laugh at that. “The hell I don’t.”
Rio blushed in a way that made him fall for her even harder. “I don’t mean like that.”
“I’m not your brother, Rio. You don’t have to take care of me and you do not have to save me.”
“This isn’t about him.”
“I think it is. I think you’re trying to save all kinds of people, in all kinds of ways, because you couldn’t do it for him.” He shook his head again. “I just don’t know why you didn’t get out of this life altogether. I don’t get the logic. If drugs killed your brother, why are you doing this?”
Her eyes went back to the ceiling. “Like I said, it’s complicated.”
All Lucan could do was nod. He sensed that there were things she was holding back, but considering the encyclopedia’s worth of shit he was keeping to himself? He wasn’t going to fault her for not filling him in on everything.
“I don’t want to talk anymore,” she said as she sat back up.
“I’m not judging you, Rio. Just know that. All the details don’t matter to me, and neither do your choices. They’re your own to make peace with, and God knows that life can put us in situations where there are nothing but rocks and hard places.”
She frowned and seemed to inspect her fingernails, as if she had a manicure even though she didn’t.
“You said that your family is making you do this,” she murmured. “Are you involved in the mob? I mean, given this operation’s size, I’m figuring it can’t be an isolated thing, you know? So many people, so many moving parts.”
“Call it whatever you will,” he hedged. If it was a truth that made sense to her as a human? She might as well believe it.
God, he hated all the lies he had going on.
But if she ever found out that he wasn’t one of her kind? Yeah, no. He wasn’t interested in seeing the horror in those eyes of hers.
“Who is it?” she prompted. “Who’s your family?”
As Rio tossed the question out there, she knew Luke wasn’t going to answer it. If he were a made man—and considering how comfortable he was around the dead bodies that had been in this room, and the shooting down in Caldwell, and all the other crap, she had to believe he was—he would never tell her.
She also knew she was in danger of blowing her cover. If she were actually involved in the drug trade at the level she supposedly was, she would never make that kind of inquiry. That was something a cop would do.
Surprise.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “That’s totally inappropriate. I’m not thinking straight.”
“It doesn’t matter who I’m affiliated with.”
“That’s right. All I care about is . . .”
Between one blink and the next, she was back on the floor of that filthy apartment, trussed like a deer, about to be really seriously hurt. And then that dog had come. And then Luke had magically appeared.
“Sure as if I summoned you.”
“I’m sorry?” he asked.
“Back at that trap house.” She didn’t bother to hide the fact that revisiting those memories made her shudder. “It was like I called your name and you came running.”
“It was a lucky break for the both of us.”
“All because you were there to see Mickie.”
As she made some kind of affirming noise in the back of her throat, she hated the fact that she was lying to him, that only she knew they were on opposite sides of things, and not in a way he would ever suspect. They weren’t supplier and dealer, staring across the proverbial negotiating table. They were cop and criminal—and the end result was going to be him behind bars, along with everyone else in here who was in charge. He was certainly facing decades for the dealing itself, as well as the money laundering that was inevitably going to be part of an enterprise this size. And then there was the human trafficking that she knew in her gut was going on.
Unless she’d thought all those cubicles, all those workstations, had been for something other than unpaid, coerced labor?
“What are you thinking about now?” he asked.
Nothing good. “Nothing, really.”
As she looked over, she stared into his eyes, his incredibly beautiful, yellow eyes. “Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Anything.”
“You really wouldn’t have chosen this life?”
It was a moment before he answered. And his expression became so grave, and his voice so deep, that she felt as though he were sharing some part of himself that he did not expect to get back.
“I hate it here.” His voice became hoarse. “I hate everything about this place. It’s cruel. It’s inhumane. This is not an existence anybody would ever want. The things I’ve seen . . . the things I’ve done . . . I was half dead when I was put in here—and I didn’t know how much further I’d sunk until I saw you standing under that fire escape.”