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“You fucking lied to a client.”
The slam of Dain’s locker door as he flung it open told Elliot even more about his mood than his words did. Guess she was lucky he’d waited till the rest of the team left for Deacon Walsh’s house before confronting her.
She tossed the duffel she’d been filling onto the bench and turned to face her boss. “And you fucking let me, Dain.”
Dain squared off too, body tense, arms tight over his chest. “Of course I did; I’ve got your back, always. I wasn’t about to contradict you in front of everyone.”
“So it was just about allowing me to save face; is that it?” She snorted, hiding her hurt behind the usual sarcasm. “I’ve never given a rat’s ass what anyone thought about me and you know it.”
“I know that’s what you tell yourself.” Abandoning his locker, he crossed to tower over her from the opposite side of the bench. “It’s what you’ve always told yourself, and it’s a damn lie, because if it were true, I wouldn’t be the only one in this building who knows you’re Martin Diako’s daughter.”
“That’s not why.”
“Then explain it to me, Elliot.”
I can’t handle anyone seeing who I really am, even you. Dain had gotten her drunk and gotten the facts, but even he couldn’t release her emotions. Sometimes she wondered if they were well and truly dead, except if they were, she wouldn’t be afraid of them.
She turned to rummage in her locker for a T-shirt. The silence behind her became heavy with Dain’s disappointment the longer it stretched, and when she turned back to him, her gaze refused to lift off the floor. “Knowing who I am won’t help this case. It sure as hell won’t help us protect Sydney Walsh.”
“That’s not your decision to make,” Dain argued. When Elliot leaned back against the lockers, arms crossed over her ribs, a growl erupted from his lips. “Would you look at me, damn it?”
You’re not two; you’re a grown woman with a right to decide who knows about your past.
She met Dain’s gaze. Barely.
He ignored her defiance. “Deacon’s daughter is at risk. He has a right to know anything and everything related to his case. Period.”
“This is my personal history, Dain, not a fact of this case. Certainly not something that will hinder it. If anything, you’re lucky to have me on the team. I’m the only expert on Mansa that exists, whether anyone else knows it or not. I’ve studied his every move, his personality, the people he surrounds himself with and the people he eliminates—and why. You need that. You need me. Because Sydney will never be safe until I take Mansa out.”
“Until we take him out, Elliot.”
“Not we!” she shouted, the words shaking as hard as her body. “Never we. You’re the one who pulled me into this fucking family, Dain. You’re the one who made me put down roots, made me care, damn it! And now you want me to risk you? Risk being able to protect you?” She stepped over the bench and into his space. “One person is far more agile and able to infiltrate than a team; you know that. And if you think I’ll let that fucker take one more person that I love from me, you can go to hell.”
Dain’s big hands wrapped around her biceps—to comfort her or keep her from attacking, she wasn’t sure. It worked either way. His warmth seeped into her, slowing the shaking, breaking down her anger until she could see the compassion in his expression without wanting to kick him. Or kill something with her bare hands.
Damn the man.
“We have to tell him,” he finally said.
“I can’t.” And that was the truth. In the end, the argument didn’t matter because she would never be able to get the words past her lips.
“Then I will.”
Something far too close to fear fluttered in her belly. “No. Dain...please.”
“I have to.” His hands settled on her shoulders, their weight reinforcing his authority. Elliot fought the urge to shake him off. “I’m responsible—for your life and theirs. We operate together; that’s the only way this works. We need all our information on the table. We don’t keep secrets from each other, Elliot, not when lives are at stake.”
“You already have the information, Dain. That won’t change by keeping my...parentage...a secret. But it just might if Deacon and Jack find out who I am. I’d become a security risk. They’d yank me off this case so fast your head would spin.”
“No, they wouldn’t.”
“Can you guarantee that?”
Dain’s lips tightened into a thin line. Point taken.
Elliot pushed a little harder. “Too many people knowing about my relationship with Mansa means too many possibilities of a leak. It would put more people in danger and turn this into a full-blown FUBAR. We’re safer—Sydney is safer—if no one knows.” Her father had long ago given up searching for her, at least she thought so. As far as she knew, he thought she’d died with her mother, which was all the better.
Dain shook his head. “No one on our team would leak this information.”
“Not intentionally.”
The pain that washed over Dain’s expression, the loss of his hands on her shoulders felt like a blow, almost as hard as the one she’d delivered. Dain believed she didn’t trust them; he couldn’t see the truth, that she could protect them better if they trusted her. That trust would disappear, intentionally or not, once they knew Mansa was her father.
But even if she walked away, he’d still tell them—she could see it in his eyes. What other options did she have?
This feeling started up in her chest, fluttery, almost...panicked. If she didn’t know better, she’d say it was fear. “Give me time.”
“Elliot.” His sigh sounded as if it came from his toes. “I can’t risk my integrity or the integrity of this team.”
“Then tell me to go,” she said quietly. “Tell me I’m done, that it’s over.” Because she didn’t have the strength to walk away on her own.
The words shook them both; she felt it down deep where she hid all the things she didn’t want to see, but even worse, she saw it in Dain’s face. Had she felt this way as she watched her mother die? When her world had exploded in a rush of fire? It had been so long she couldn’t remember. Dain and King and Saint were her whole world; could she live through their loss like she had her family’s?
Dain was silent so long she wasn’t sure what he would say. When his hand lifted to cup her cheek, she went rigid, waiting for the blow, the pain. She should’ve known better.
“Whether you leave or not has always been up to you, little Otter.” The tenderness in her call sign was almost more than she could stand. “Stay, walk away—your choice. I hope you’ll stay and fight with us, but I won’t force you.” The tension in his frame eased the slightest bit as his hand dropped back to his side. “We need you. You know we do.”
He didn’t argue further; he didn’t have to. His searing focus argued for him: Trust me. Believe in me. Live what I’ve taught you, not what the past beat into you. It will work out all right. She was letting him down, being a coward, and she knew it. His narrowed eyes watched her like a hawk, reading every nuance of expression that she couldn’t hide, right down to the burn of fucking tears at the backs of her eyes. What the hell was wrong with her? First her reaction to Deacon, and now this. It had to be her damn hormones; nothing else would ever make her cry.
She couldn’t trust her voice not to wobble like a little girl’s, so she nodded instead.
Dain didn’t rub in the victory. “You might have a point about Jack removing you from the case. We can’t chance that—we need the information you can give us about your father.”
The hated title caused her breath to catch.
“But I do think we can compromise. What about you?”
“How?”
“I’ll give you five days. That’s all,” he warned. “Five days to earn Deacon Walsh’s trust. Five days to tell him on your own, or I’ll do it for you. In the meantime, anything you see or have insight on that involves Mansa, you come to me immediately, got it?”
She hesitated. Nodded.
“I won’t tolerate you holding out on me, Elliot. I care about you. We all care about you. But that won’t keep us from doing the right thing.”
“What happens if I trust these people and they don’t keep my secret? What happens if the information leaks?” She’d have to leave then. Maybe she was merely delaying the inevitable.
“It’s not gonna happen. I promise you, Elliot—and I keep my promises.”
“I know.” He did. If she knew one thing about him, it was that. And she knew she trusted him as far as she could trust anyone, so his promise would have to do. “I know you’re trying to do the right thing, Dain.” She was too, but he’d never see it that way. She wanted to protect the people she cared about. Why put everyone at risk when they could put only her at risk? But she knew from Dain’s face that this was as far as he’d concede.
His body relaxed even more as he ran a rough hand through the Mohawk lining his head. “You drive me absolutely insane. You know that, right?”
The words shouldn’t hurt; half the time that was her primary objective. But she didn’t think either one of them was joking right now.
With a negligent shrug, she grabbed her duffel bag and headed for the locker room door.
“Elliot.”
She didn’t really look back, more like at the floor just over her shoulder. Dain was having none of that; he walked right up until she couldn’t help but see him—from the chest down, at least.
“Look at me, little Otter.”
That fucking tenderness again. Funny how she could name it now; when they’d first met, her a fighter on the underground circuit, him a respectable “soldier” who shouldn’t want anything to do with her, tenderness had been as foreign as normal. And yet he’d still managed to convince her to join him, to work for him. To become something far closer to normal than she’d been her entire life. And bastard that he was, he wasn’t above using it to his advantage.
And damn it, hurt or not, she didn’t want to leave her team. They needed her.
She turned to meet Dain’s dark stare without flinching.
“Don’t wait,” he said earnestly. “Don’t put me in that position. I don’t want to betray your confidence, but even more”—he reached out to trace the line of her jaw, the look he gave her softer than she’d ever seen on his hard face—“I want you to come to terms with your past and realize it no longer has power over you, Elliot, except the power you give it.”
“My past doesn’t have any power, Dain.”
“Yes, it does. That’s why you can’t say aloud that Martin Diako is your bastard of a father, that he killed your mother because she escaped, that he tried to kill you, that he ruined your life. You’ve built a whole new you out of the ashes of the torture he inflicted; don’t let him steal that from you as well. You’re strong. You can face this.”
“Can I?”
“You have to. Because if you don’t, it will eventually destroy you.”