Chapter Twenty-Two

Kade hadn’t wanted Laia to find out—ever—if he could help it. Then again, if there was any chance of them winding up together, their relationship couldn’t be based on secrets or lies. Sooner or later, the crap would have flowed over the bowl, but he hadn’t wanted it to go down this way.

“Laia, I—” What? What could he really say? Sorry didn’t come remotely close to cutting it.

Wordlessly, she glared up at him with her chest heaving and her hands clenched into tight fists.

Regret and self-loathing pounded him from all sides. The pain etched in her features was his doing, not his brother’s. He’d made a serious tactical error, and now he’d never have the chance to tell her the truth in his own way and at a time of his own choosing. The only question now was how bad the fallout would be.

Kade set the mugs of coffee on a table in the corridor and held his hand out. “Let’s talk about this in private.” Before every agent in the office got a ringside seat to Kade’s guts getting splayed out on the floor.

She looked at his hand but didn’t take it. “Fine.”

Without needing to be told, Smoke followed them down the corridor until Kade found an empty office with a door that he could close. A desk took up most of the office, along with two small upholstered armchairs.

Laia’s complexion had paled considerably. He indicated she should sit. When she didn’t, he thought she might clock him in the kisser with one of her clenched fists. He’d deserve it. And so much more.

“How could you?” Her words had come out through clenched teeth. “Josh died in prison because you put him there. He wouldn’t have been there in the first place if you hadn’t arrested him!”

“Laia—”

She lifted her hand. “I’m not done! Rosa didn’t deserve to have her father die. And my marriage might have been in shambles by then, but Rosa and I didn’t deserve to have our lives turned upside down. Neither of us deserves to be on the run, but we are because my husband was arrested—and murdered—before Colon could get his filthy hands on that goddamn ledger. You did that.”

She was killing him. But everything she’d just thrown in his face was true. Balls-on accurate.

Laia’s chest heaved and her knuckles had turned white from fisting her hands harder. Seeing her pain, her rage, and her suffering…he wished he could absorb it from her body and take it into his own.

What he’d done to Josh that day had set something in motion that he’d always known would come back to haunt him. Hell, it already had. For two years, he’d been drowning in guilt. That was the real reason he’d stayed away, not because he’d secretly lusted after his sister-in-law. In his own way, he was just as guilty as Josh had been.

Finally, she sat, her shoulders slumping. Smoke whimpered, then circled three times and lay down on the floor at her feet.

“Why?” she asked, looking up at him with shimmering eyes. “Why did you do it?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and paced a full circuit of the tiny office before leaning back against the edge of the desk. How to begin? He honestly didn’t know.

Finding the right tactical approach had always come as easily and naturally to him as breathing. Knowing the appropriate thing to say to the men he’d served with had never been an issue. Right now, he couldn’t put together a single coherent sentence, and his tongue felt like rubber. But there was no putting this off any longer.

He cleared his throat and dove in. “I was requested to participate in the raid at the Colon compound,” he began. “There had to be fifty agents and cops there that day. We went in on initial entry to help clear the main building and subdue anyone who tried to run. We had arrest warrants for some and were told to cuff anyone else and hold them until they were identified and questioned. As soon as the main building was cleared, we went outside to assist with the outbuildings.”

Unable to look into Laia’s face, Kade stared at Smoke, recalling with vivid clarity every single godforsaken thing that had happened next.

“Tango, my K-9 at the time, led me to an outbuilding, one of the cabanas by the swimming pool. I opened the door and—”

He swallowed. What he was about to say would hurt Laia all over again, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.

“Tell me,” she whispered, as if inherently knowing what he’d been about to describe would be ugly and hurtful.

Picking up on her distress, Smoke rose and sat close enough for her to pet his ears.

He took a deep breath, wishing there was another way. “I opened the door, and the cabana was empty.” Or so he’d thought. “There was a mirrored table with lines of coke and two straws. Tango picked up on something else and led me to the closet door. I pulled my gun, aimed in, and opened it.”

To this day, what he remembered most about that moment was the shock. On both their faces.

Kade dragged a hand down his face, feeling as if he’d aged twenty years, not two since that god-awful day. “Josh was hiding in the closet.” The drugs were bad enough. He really, really didn’t want to tell her the rest of it.

“You said there were two straws.” Her fingers on Smoke’s ears stilled. “Was there someone else there with him?”

Damn.

“A woman. They were both naked. She was a prostitute.”

When Laia hung her head and sighed, Kade fought his instinctive urge to haul her into his arms. He had a feeling that wouldn’t go over big right about now.

“You know,” she began, her eyes glistening with sadness, as he’d expected, “after Rosa was born, I thought she would bring Josh and me closer. As a family, I suppose she did. The three of us went everywhere together, and he seemed to be embracing fatherhood. But as a couple…as husband and wife…”

Did he really want to hear this? Yes. And no.

“Not too long after we brought Rosa home,” she continued, “the business trips started. At first, Josh would only be gone for a couple of days during the week. Then a couple of days turned into full weeks at a time and occasionally weekends, too. At some point, I knew. Then it was as if we both realized marrying had been a mistake, and we both stopped trying.”

Again she sighed, heavier this time, and she averted her eyes and began stroking Smoke’s ears faster. “We were civil enough to each other, privately and in front of company, but we hadn’t had sex for a very long time before he died, so I can’t really blame him for seeking it elsewhere.”

A selfish part of him had always wanted to hear something like that, but there was no joy in finally hearing it now.

She lifted her head, pinning him with her beautiful, almond-shaped eyes. “What happened next?”

The worst moment of my life. That’s what happened next.

Suck it up and tell her. She deserves to hear it. All of it.

“I told them to get dressed, then handed the woman over to a uniform to cuff her.”

“And Josh?”

Kade shook his head, his eyes glued to Laia’s fingers on Smoke’s head. As he began reliving every horrible second in his mind, his guts twisted in agony.

“Well?” Josh had said from the wicker sofa Kade had directed his brother to sit in. His brother’s eyes had been filled with a mix of fear and rage. “What are you going to do?”

Christ, he didn’t know. There was no protocol for catching your brother naked, with a hooker, snorting coke in a drug lord’s compound.

“What are you doing here?” he’d asked, then realized the stupidity of his question.

“I think that’s pretty obvious,” Josh answered, then pursed his lips.

He gripped Tango’s leash tighter. “I mean, what are you doing here? In Fernando Colon’s compound?”

Wisely, Josh didn’t answer the question. Even if he did, anything he said would be inadmissible. Any half-assed lawyer a day out of law school would successfully be able to argue that Josh was in custody and hadn’t been read his Constitutional rights.

No, this was a conversation between brother and brother, and they both knew it. But somehow, the personal and professional lines had crossed, and for the first time in his life, Kade was utterly and completely frozen into immobility.

Josh stood, then grabbed his slacks from a chair and began dressing. “I’m in deep shit here, aren’t I?”

“You’re damned right you are. The place is swarming with police and federal agents. If you didn’t have your head so full of coke and your dick so far up—” He drew in what was meant to be a calming breath. “How could you do this to Laia and Rosa? They’ll be devastated.”

Josh grimaced and began massaging his temples. “You’re right. I have to leave.” He snagged his shirt from the floor, then made a move for the door.

Kade grabbed his arm. “You can’t just walk out of here.” Much as he would have liked to allow it. For a split second, he nearly did and loosened his hold on his brother’s arm.

“Sure I can. Watch me.” Josh shrugged from Kade’s grasp and took another step toward the door, but Kade blocked him. Tango backed him up, lowering his head and uttering a low growl. Josh’s face twisted with disbelief. “Seriously?”

“I’m a federal agent, Josh, and you’re sitting right in the middle of a major takedown operation. Everyone on the premises is getting arrested and questioned. I can’t just let you go. You know that.”

They’d both been raised in a military family and both attended West Point. His brother, of all people, should understand the requirements that came with duty.

“You’re my brother, for God’s sake,” Josh countered, getting in Kade’s face. “Are you really going to arrest me?”

His brain struggled for the answer, but all he could think was: This can’t be happening. Of all the weird, twisted things he’d expected to find when he’d opened the door to the cabana, this wasn’t it. Worse, he couldn’t believe what he was about to do. What he had to do.

He dropped Tango’s leash and drew a set of handcuffs from his belt. “Turn around.”

Josh scoffed. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.” He clenched his jaw, still finding the entire situation surreal, as if he were watching the scene go down but it wasn’t really him about to cuff his own brother. “I’ll do everything I can to help you. I’ll talk to the AUSA. I’ll make them understand. I’ll find the best criminal defense attorney in the state and get you out of this.”

“Kade—”

With his heart pumping so hard it felt like it would leap straight from his chest into the swimming pool not fifteen feet away, he took his brother’s arm and spun him. He snapped on the cuffs before Josh could utter another word.

He loved his brother, but how could he possibly have compromised everything he’d been led to believe his entire life…everything he’d lived and fought for?

A hundred years cannot repair one moment’s loss of honor.

Over his shoulder, Josh speared him with a pained look of shock so fierce he might as well have stabbed him in the heart.

That was the last time he’d seen his brother alive.

Tears leaked from Laia’s eyes, and he’d put them there. “I’m sorry,” he said. “At the time, I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing.” Had he known the devastation that would rain down on Laia’s head in the aftermath of his decision, would he have done things differently? “I should have told you sooner. I just—” Was a coward. A chicken-shit of immeasurable proportions.

Instead of railing at him some more, she stared up at him with sympathetic eyes. “You were just doing your job. He was my husband, but he was also a criminal, and I have to accept that. I did accept it, a long time ago. Hearing the details now… It’s a lot. I’m going to need some time to process it. Now there’s a certain reality to it that I didn’t comprehend before. I can’t begin to understand how hard that must have been for you.”

He didn’t deserve the kindness she was showing him. He didn’t deserve anything at all from her. One of the many reasons he’d stayed away all these years. The guilt. The grief. He’d been consumed with it and in many ways still was. Looking back, he owed his brother and would never be able to fix it.

Laia stood, and when she palmed the side of his face, his heart squeezed and he nearly lost it.

In a shaky voice, she said, “You’re not to blame.”

“Aren’t I?” he croaked. How in the world could he make her understand?

“You had an obligation, a duty. To let Josh go would have compromised everything that you are.”

Well, hell. She did understand, but it didn’t change anything, and it didn’t make him feel a whit better. In fact, it made him feel worse, guiltier, and more like he was the very last man on the planet she should wind up with because he didn’t deserve her.

When Laia dropped her hand, he tried clasping it to his chest, but she pulled away. “I just need time to…process all this. Would you take me back to the shack, please?”

“Of course.”

He and Smoke followed her from the room, down the long corridor, and outside to his SUV. The sorrow he’d felt moments ago worsened, becoming an agonizing pain dead center in his chest.

She’d said she understood, but that didn’t stop him from worrying that whatever foundation had existed between them was on the verge of cracking down the center.