In Too Deep, Book 3, Part 9

 [image: VitalikRadko]

Happy Tuesday! We're close. So very close. These were difficult chapters to write, as there is so much ground to cover. These characters have been through so much, and I wanted to make sure that they did them justice, and properly set up the conclusion. Enjoy.

Also, in case you missed my post in the Community, I won't be able to post a new chapter Friday. I want to stick the landing on this one, so need the space to do that. I also REALLY need to go through Castaway Wife and get that published. My apologies to all of you amazing people. I really mean that. It'll be worth the wait, though, I promise. And I'm going to make it as short as I possibly can.

Chapter 32: No Plan Survives

“So you’re the husband,” Hirsch said. 

We weren’t sitting in the LA field office downtown like I was expecting. Rather, Hirsch met me down at the San Pedro docks, in the overflow lot for the fish market—exactly the kind of place where people go to do clandestine things, like exchange information or commit murder. Not that Bradley Hirsch would murder me. According to everything that I’d read, he was too by the book to do something like that.

I wanted to tell him that I was so much more than just “the husband”. I wanted to be offended by the minimization, like I was just one piece of many that he was moving around the board. But I also didn’t have the guts. “Yes, I’m the husband.”

We were both outside of our cars. He was leaning on the hood of his—a glossy black Mercedes EQE SUV—wearing a gray suit and a tie. It was overcast today, and his aviators were pushed up into his graying hair to reveal a pair of pale blue eyes that seemed to see all my darkest secrets.

“Why did you want to speak to me, sir?” Sir? I couldn’t remember the last time that I’d called anyone ‘sir’, and yet it seemed fitting for Hirsch.

“I need an outsider’s perspective,” he said.

“Okay, sure,” I agreed. 

He didn’t immediately follow-up with a question, though, and for a second, I wondered if I’d missed something. I started to sweat, searching for something to say to fill the void when he finally asked, “Speaking broadly, how do you think the investigation was handled?”

“Honestly? Not well.” I winced as Hirsch narrowed his eyes.

“Don’t sugarcoat this, David. That only leads to cavities. Speak plainly. I have a suspicion about something, but need…”

“An outsider’s perspective,” I finished for him. I took a deep breath. Here goes. “I think some of the people on your team are compromised.” I licked my lips. I thought I could do this, but now that I was in front of this man, my levels of apprehension were screaming in the red. If I were a machine, alerts would be bleating danger, danger.

What was worse, Hirsch didn’t prod or coax. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even ask who. He remained quiet, waiting for me to continue.

“Amanda is pretty sure that Julia is at the heart of it. Also, two other agents. Moore and… Aguilar? Something like that.”

Finally, I got a reaction from Hirsch—a slight flicker in his eyes and intake of breath at the names. “That’s… troubling.”

“You don’t seem surprised.”

At first, I wasn’t sure if Hirsch would even say anything. Then he said, “This confirms what I’ve suspected for a while, but I thought it might be limited to just Agent Monroe.” Julia. “Has she tried to turn your wife?”

“Wait a second. You suspected one of the primary agents running this case, and didn’t do anything about it?”

Hirsch’s lips formed a tight line before he said, “Sometimes the best traps aren’t the ones that come spring loaded. A mouse who brings the poisoned cheese back to its nest is more effective than the one with a broken neck.”

“So this whole thing has been some kind of… what? Sting operation? What about jazz and Kozlov and all that?”

“Also important things to root out,” Hirsch said. “But you didn’t answer me earlier. Has Julia tried to turn your wife?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Then how did you come upon this information?”

This conversation was getting easier, although I was still freaking the fuck out. “Too many alarm bells going off for Amanda to ignore. The operation was too unconventional.” I sighed. “Can you pull her from the case? I’m… I’m worried about her.”

Hirsch studied me like an animal trainer studies a new performing seal that was just brought in. We weren’t equals. “That’s fair. And I’m working to try and get her extracted.”

“She said that she’s meeting with Julia today,” I offered.

“Interesting.” The way he said it, I wasn’t sure if he knew about the meeting or not. “Has Kozlov tried to reach out to Amanda?”

This was the question that I’d been dreading. “What? Uh, no. Why would he?”

Good one, David. Really smooth.

Hirsch stared me down with that unrelenting gaze. I understood why he was so good at his job. He’d perfected the art of interrogation. “I need to know what I’m dealing with here if you want me to get her out safely.”

“She’s worried that Julia, or whoever, is trying to kill him,” I blurted. “To cover up some bigger conspiracy.”

“I see. So she knows where he is right now.”

“Yes.”

“And do you?”

“If I tell you, you can’t raid it. Not right now. Not until tomorrow night. There’s… there’s something happening.”

Hirsch weighed my plea. He didn’t look like a man who appreciated anything out of his control, so this whole situation must have been bothering the hell out of him. “I’ll consider it, but David, this has gone on for too long.”

“Just one more day. Give us until Sunday morning.”

“What is happening tomorrow night?” he asked.

“There’s a… gathering. Kozlov is inviting some… people, I guess. From his network. It’s some kind of truce. A negotiation.”

“A gathering.”

“Amanda doesn’t know much about it, other than that he’ll be there, and potentially, so will all the people behind the jazz trade. All in one place for the first time.”

“All in one place,” Hirsch said, more to himself than to me. “Yes, I can see the merits of that. But she should have told me about this.”

“She didn’t know who to trust. She couldn’t trust anyone.”

Hirsch nodded, seeing the obvious wisdom in that.

“She was going to call it in, but only at the last second. Broadcast on all channels. The idea was that not everyone was dirty, so everyone would have to be on their best behavior. Or something. I don’t really know.”

“Sloppy, but effective. Okay, David, this is good. This is all very good, despite the means.” He pulled out a notebook. “Now tell me, where is this party going to happen?”

***

“I nearly threw up. Right on his wing-tipped shoes. That dude is fucking intense.”

“Look at you, casually dropping the F-bomb,” Ty said. “We’ll make a man out of you yet.”

“Mostly, I’d rather have my life back.”

We were chatting on burner phones. I was back at work, tucked away in yet another conference room by myself. Amanda wasn’t answering her phone, but I needed to get that conversation off my chest with someone.

“So you told him what was going on?”

“I did.”

Ty was munching on something on the other end of the phone. I could hear the crunching over the line. He said, “Okay, good. In a couple days, you’ll either get some version of your life back, or you’ll possibly be dead.”

“You know that’s not reassuring, right?”

“Didn’t intend it to be. Just laying out the stakes.”

“Does Hirsch change anything?” I asked, moving beyond my friend’s complete lack of empathy.

“He doesn’t. You go aboard the yacht tomorrow night with Amanda. I’ll be outside with the cavalry, waiting for your signal. You delay as long as possible, until all the players are aboard the ship. We rush in, extract you two, and get all the bad guys.”

“Simple as that.” My sarcasm bled through the phone. “What could possibly go wrong?”

As if in response to the question, my phone buzzed. I was beginning to hate incoming texts. This one was on the burner, which gave it a particularly heady charge.

Timeline’s moved up. Party’s tonight.

It was Amanda, and the text was to both me and Ty.

Can’t talk now. At the boat.

Flexing arm.

“You see that?” Ty asked.

“Yeah.”

“No plan survives—”

“First contact with the enemy,” I finished. “We took that class together, remember? I just wasn’t expecting it to fall apart this quickly.”

“I’m surprised it lasted this long,” he said. I could almost hear the shrug in his response. “Okay, David, I need to jump off. Need to get hustling in order to be your backup.”

“Get going, but remember to stay on standby. Wait for the signal. Not before.”

“Copy that. You can count on me not to prematurely ejaculate all over your big operation.”

I groaned. “Thanks for that image.”

“Anytime. And if you end up riding on the sidelines, you can hang out with Mia and me.”

“Just try to stay focused,” I warned.

“You just told me not to prematurely—”

“I definitely didn’t tell you anything that begins with that sentence. Now go. I need to take care of a few things, too.”

I hung up, opened my laptop, and sent a message off to Javier. Deletion needs to happen late tonight.

I sat back, waiting for his response as I tried to sort through all the things that were going on—all our schemes, all of Kozlov’s schemes. There was Julia to consider. Now there was Hirsch. At one point, Saturday had felt like a lifetime away—a lifetime to sort, a lifetime to get my act together. Now it was here, a day early.

Javier’s message came through.

[Javier]: Sure thing, jefe. Oh, and I got that vid you wanted. Inc.

It wasn’t a link, which I’d learned was dangerous, but a full on mp3.

[Me]: This safe? I responded.

[Javier]: Untraceable. Download it and watch.

[Me]: Did you?

[Javier]: Out of respect to you, I didn’t. I saw the meta-data, too.

[Me]: Take care. Be safe. I’ll be in touch when this is all over.

It was a hopeful thing to say, and I needed a little hope.

Looking at my watch, it was already nearly quitting time. The end game was measured in hours now. Soon, it would be minutes. I didn’t have time to watch this video. I needed to get ready.

But come on, how could I resist?

Chapter 33: The First Video

The perspective was elevated, something hidden high in the recesses of Kozlov’s office. I recognized the room from the first video that I’d ever watched—the maroon walls, the antique furniture, the Old World Soviet vibe. Only the angle was new. It was fixed.

Kozlov sat behind a large, dark wooden desk. He wore a blue shirt with one too many buttons undone, and a tailored sport coat. This was back when his hair was still long and full, loose curls of gray twisting around behind his ears. This was back when the world served him.

But the person sitting opposite him wasn’t Amanda, as I was expecting. It was a younger guy that I didn’t recognize. He was built like a boxer, with a thick neck and nose that looked shaped by another man’s fist rather than nature. Despite that, he appeared to be Kozlov’s equal, rather than an underling. Something in the way he carried himself, in the way the two spoke, in the way he leaned forward and tapped Kozlov’s desk with an index finger the size of my thumb.

They were arguing in a language that I didn’t recognize, but thought it was Russian. Definitely something Slavic, by the sound of it. Kozlov didn’t look happy, and the man speaking with him seemed to have the upper hand. I scrubbed forward, stopping only as the man got up. He tugged at the lapels of his own expensive suit jacket. I heard Kozlov refer to the man as Ilyas, and then heard him say in English, “Enjoy the girls. They are at your disposal.”

Ilyas didn’t even bother to say goodbye. He strolled out of the office like it was his. Maybe it was. I still wasn’t clear who really owned and operated The Gold Club, although clearly there were many threads that connected Kozlov to a greater network.

Once the door had shut, Kozlov made a fist and started to slam it onto his desk, stopping himself just short of the wood. He gnashed his teeth and muttered something in Russian before reaching into his desk. There, he slid out a round, mirrored plate and a baggie of now familiar white powder. I bet that Ilyas either didn’t know about Kozlov’s problem, or he did and was using it as leverage. Kozlov glared at the door, made a rude gesture towards it, then started to cut up his lines.

A knock came just as he was snorting his first line. “Come,” he said without bothering to hide the drugs.

That’s when Amanda slipped inside. My breath caught, seeing her, despite the distance and the time. Her dress was transparent white lace that did nothing to cover the warm blue push-up bra or the matching thong.

She quickly glanced at the coke, then back at Kozlov, and said, “You wanted to see me, sir?”

“Come in, come in,” he said, rubbing his nose and shaking his head as the chemical buzz hit him. The agitation he’d shown just a few minutes before sleuthed away, although the air still felt charged as I watched. “You are Raven, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“And do you know who I am?”

“You’re the boss.”

That seemed to please Kozlov. This was their first meeting, I realized. “That is right. But please, call me Nick.” He stood up, circling the desk until he was on her side of it. “You are very popular, Raven. I can see why.”

He took a slow accounting of her scantily clad body before finishing on her face. “I just love the dark hair and blue eyes look.”

“Thank you.”

“You are being shy,” he said. “This is not what I have heard about you.”

Amanda actually blushed. I didn’t know how she was able to do that so convincingly. “What have you heard about me?”

“That you are ambitious,” he said, slowly approaching her. “That you are a fantastic dancer.” Amanda didn’t shy away as he moved up beside her. “That you know what it takes to get ahead.”

The demure persona melted away. She reached out and ran a finger along his shirt, toying with the top button. “Is that my reputation?” 

“You would like to dance VIP, yes?”

Her eyes were wide and vivid blue as she stared at him. “I would.”

“It must be earned.”

Watching it all, my heart raced. I knew what came next, and yet I was still on the edge of my chair with anticipation.

“I’m a hard worker,” Amanda whispered, her voice breathy. She ran a hand down Kozlov’s body, over the crotch of his pants. Her lips curled up into a smile. “Looks like you’re also a hard worker.”

Kozlov chuckled. He ran his hand up her back and into her long, silky hair. “Now that is more like it,” he said. “Shy is not what I want. Shy is not what I need.” He tightened his fist in her hair and yanked her head back. Amanda hissed, but didn’t recoil. “Shy is boring.”

“I’m not shy,” she said. Her voice was strained as Kozlov kept pulling her hair. “Promise.”

“Oh, I know.” At last, he released her hair. When he did, she nearly stumbled forward. Kozlov turned, stalking back to his desk, where he threw himself into his leather chair. “You’ve been turning tricks with some of the clientele here. You know we run a respectable establishment here.”

Amanda sauntered over to the desk, perching on the edge of it, opposite Kozlov. She glanced at the coke and raised a brow. “Respectable, huh? This a bakery and that’s the flour?”

Kozlov grinned at her. He picked up the short straw and spun it in his fingers before holding it out to her. “See for yourself.”

“I’m still on my shift,” Amanda said.

Kozlov continued to hold the straw out. “So?”

I could feel the hesitation, and if I could feel it, so could Kozlov. He’d lose interest. She’d lose her in. I saw the calculations she was making. I saw this final decision made, the line being crossed. This was the moment. Not the sex before. Not the lies that she told herself. It was this moment, right here, when she went too far, too deep. This was when she lost herself.

“You’re the boss,” she said, taking the straw from him.

Kozlov sat back in this chair, watching as Amanda carefully pulled her long, dark hair back so that he could watch her. I thought about how she’d told me that she’d done her best to minimize her exposure, to hide herself with her hair. There was no hiding here.

“I must confess,” Kozlov said as Amanda lowered her face to the mirror and pushed the straw into her nostril. “I love beautiful women doing very bad things.”

Amanda snorted the line of coke quickly, lifting her head up and away, her eyes closed as she touches her nose. It’s an image that she would never be able to escape—FBI agent very clearly indulging in narcotics. They have her, if they want her. They have her when they need her.

Kozlov had his cock out before the drug even hit her. “Do another,” he ordered, starting to stroke his erection. I could just hear Amanda gasp and whisper, “Uh, fuck…”

“It’s good, yes?” His cock seemed to grow as he watched the corruption. “Now do another.”

Amanda glanced at his dick and how he so unabashedly played with himself. “I can be your bad girl,” she said. “I can be your fuck toy.” She smirked, lowering back down to the coke. “I can be whoever you want me to be.”

She snorted up the second line a little slower this time, letting Kozlov witness the moment.

“Well,” he said, “you are not a narc.”

“Maybe I’m a dirty one,” Amanda responded. 

Kozlov reached into his desk drawer and removed a pair of handcuffs. “Then you must be restrained.”

“Kinky,” Amanda said. Even with her back to the hidden camera, I knew she was smiling.

“Take off your clothes.”

Kozlov continued to play with himself as Amanda shimmied out of the transparent dress. The bra went next, placed on the desk. When she doffed the thong, she bent at the waist as she pushed it down her long, shapely legs. I could see her smooth pussy peek out from between her thighs before she straightened.

He said something in Russian that I took to mean something like, “Exquisite.” Then he held up the cuffs, and beckoned her over. She traipsed forward and turned her back to him, giving me an unobstructed view of her full-frontal beauty. 

Kozlov rose behind her, and the cuffs went on with a loud ratchet. He pulled her hair to the side so he could kiss her neck, his hands reaching around to grope her from behind. Amanda sighed at his touch—not out of disgust, but out of desire.

He was gentle at first, palming her full tits in his hands, running his thumbs along her hardening nipples. Then he pinched them, twisting sharply. Amanda hissed in pain, but as before, remained standing in place.

“This is hard for you, yes?” he said. “You do not seem like someone who likes to be restrained.”

“You hardly know me,” Amanda said, glancing over her shoulder at him.

“You see? That is the kind of thing someone who does not like to be restrained would say.” He trained his right hand down her flat stomach, teasing her mound. “You have never done cocaine before.”

The non-sequitur threw her for a moment—but only a moment. “You don’t know that. You don’t know anything about me.”

“This is true, I do not know you. But I know users. I can always tell someone’s first time.” He pressed his fingers to her clit, and she gasped. “There’s nothing like the first time.”

Amanda started to squirm. This had begun as a seduction, just like she’d done with the manager, Mark. She made it seem like her target was in control, but she never relinquished it. For the first time, watching her with Nikolai Kozlov, I saw the power dynamics shift.

“Feels good, yes? Your heart is racing. Everything around you feels more… alive. More vivid.” He pressed a finger inside of her. Amanda gasped, shutting her eyes and pulling against the cuffs. “Feel the hard metal of the handcuffs. Feel my hard cock press against your back.”

Kozlov bent her over his desk, and without her hands to brace herself, she nearly collapsed, face-first.

I knew that this was in the past. I knew that so much had changed since this transgressive moment. Yet even still, my stomach knotted in jealousy. I felt bile rise. And, as always, those sensations were swiftly followed by shameful, white hot arousal.

“You want me to fuck you?”

“Yes,” she hissed.

“You expect me to fuck you, yes?”

“Yes—”

He swatted her ass. “I think that you are a woman who is just now understanding how hot you are.” He caressed the red mark where he’d spanked her. “I can tell this, too. It’s all over your body language.”

He touched her ass, tracing the raven tattoo on her lower back. Then he reached into his drawer again and removed a condom.

“Tear this open with your teeth,” he said, holding the packet in front of her. She did as she was told. “Smell it. The latex. The spermicide. The promise of pleasure.”

Amanda shuddered as she did it.

“Do you know why shy is boring?”

Amanda shook her head.

Kozlov rolled the condom down his length. “Too easy to break. Too easy to mold. And where’s the fun in that, for either of us?”

As he pressed his cock into her, I swear that I saw something change in her eyes. This wasn’t just a means to an end. This was a profound moment for her. This was her giving in to a journey that she hadn’t known she was embarking on. It was a through line, right up to the present. She might not be Kozlov’s cokewhore anymore, but she wasn’t the same Amanda who had taken this IC assignment, either.

“You and I are going to have so much fun.”

I sat there watching the rest of the video in a trance. There wasn’t much more. Kozlov fucked her over his desk, finished in the condom. He then dismissed her with a casual cruelty that was most certainly intentional.

Afterward, alone in his office once more, he just sat at his desk and smiled to himself. His encounter with Ilyas was forgotten.

Or so I thought. The video kept rolling. I would have stopped it, but I was too busy: half-stunned, half-reflecting on Amanda’s transformation.

There couldn’t be any question that Amanda was, indeed, no longer the all-business, straight arrow, by-the-book agent she had been when she took this damned assignment. And whoever she had been in the weeks when she lost herself completely as “Raven,” diving head-first into the role, into the debauchery it called for, she was clearly no longer living that “role,” either.

And that was just it: “Raven” once again seemed to be a role Amanda played. One she excelled at. One she clearly enjoyed. But just that: a role. An aspect of her emerging self, not the foundation.

If anything those lost weeks seemed to have proven to be a chrysalis stage: transitional, chaotic, wherein “Old Amanda”—the parts of her that she had outgrown, were burned away, sloughed off, and transcended. And yet, “Raven,” once arrived at, had been a stopping place, not a destination.

Thoughts of me, of our marriage, of our life together, even of Amanda’s bedrock values, could be avoided, ignored under the roaring onslaught of transgressive overload, but only for a while.

Eventually, the core Amanda had emerged—no longer the person who followed rules for their own sake, nor the transgressive whore who gloried in public depravity for its own sake. Newborn and yet not so new. Changed and yet at her very center, not at all changed.

The Core Amanda.

Equal parts protector of the weak and exhibitionist sex goddess. Both my loving, devoted wife and a rampaging hedonist who loved showing off, especially for me. No longer the Old Amanda. No longer “Raven.”

But now, and forever, irrevocably and unbreakably, still all mine.

Just as I remained every bit hers.

After all, my wife might have begun this journey of self-discovery alone, but she had readily made room for me, and together we had come so far—

The slam of a door jerked me out of my reverie. On the screen, Ilyas was back in the room, wagging a big finger at Kozlov. He pointed at the coke. He waved all about the room. I leaned in, turning the volume up as I listened to the men start to argue. I caught snippets—they mentioned jazz, they mentioned cocaine, they mentioned LA.

Unlike before, Kozlov was no longer agitated. He was more in control. He smirked at Ilyas and reached for the coke straw again, knowing it would set the man off. It did. The big man swept the mirror from the desk, sending a cloud of powder everywhere. The glass shattered. At last, Kozlov looked angry.

He said something I didn’t understand. Ilyas responded, pointing his finger right at Kozlov, then moving it to his neck in the universal gesture of, You are a dead man.

Then, with cool and fluid precision, Kozlov pulled a pistol out of his drawer and pointed it at Ilyas’s head.

“You wouldn—”

He didn’t even finish the sentence. The gun’s muzzle flashed and Ilyas was falling backwards, his face an unrecognizable mess.

Kozlov stood up, rounded the desk, and prodded the big man with his foot. He didn’t move. Then, as if remembering his own security footage, he glanced right at me. I knew he wasn’t look at me, of course, but seeing those cold eyes was frightening. This man had just murdered someone, and didn’t seem scared or guilty. He was all business.

A moment later, he reached up behind the camera, and the video finally came to an end.

Chapter 34: A Lifetime in Minutes

She wore a short, denim jacket and a pair of tight jeans the first time she walked into Torts class. She surveyed the lecture hall, and when her eyes passed over me, my heart beat just a little faster. Her hair was shorter back then, dark and curling around her ears, just reaching her chin, but it was those bright, blue eyes that froze me. She was cool. I wanted to know more about her.

“Dibs,” Ty said beside me.

No, she’s too good for you, I thought to myself.

The brunette settled into the front of the class, alone, and pulled her laptop out of her bag.

“Good luck,” I said instead.

Ty just laughed and patted my shoulder. “When did I ever need that?”

He got up and approached her. I envied that he could just do that.

***

“Defense rests,” Amanda said. Her gaze drifted over to me, full of challenge and competition. It was just a mock trial. It didn’t mean anything. But I knew that I’d lost. Not just lost, but been completely humiliated. She’d anticipated every argument that I’d prepared, dismantling each one with references to case numbers and law.

Our professor turned to me and shrugged. He didn’t even have to announce who’d won. I just laughed to myself, looked back across at Amanda, and nodded.

I had already fallen hard for her.

***

“Are you asking me out?”

“If I was, would you say yes?”

“I’d give you a chance, sure.”

It felt like stepping into sunshine for the first time in my life.

***

I emerged from the bathroom, pushing through the crowded bar, searching for Amanda. We’d just moved into our apartment in Northern Virginia, and we’re still enjoying exploring the local bars and restaurants.

Amanda was still at the bar where I’d left her, but she wasn’t alone anymore. The guy looked like a modern Viking—blond top knot, hair shaved on either side, beard. He was like Thor from that movie, and he was hitting on Amanda.

It wasn’t the first time that I’d seen men hit on her. It had happened all the time before we’d started dating, and a few times since, when guys didn’t think that we were together.

My chest tightened, just as it always did. Insecurity and jealousy rose up through me like wood smoke from my own funeral pyre.

And then she looked at me, sensing me out there. Turning, Amanda found me across the room and smiled. The guy continued trying to chat her up, but she wasn’t listening. She picked up her beer—and mine—and left him there at the bar, mid-sentence. She was smiling at me the whole way.

***

“We don’t have to talk about it anymore—” I began, but Amanda pulled back and stopped me.

She was smiling. Her tears weren’t ones of sadness or regret. “Yes,” she said.

“What?”

“Yes, I’ll marry you.”

It was like hearing a choir of angels. I went from the depths of despair to being lifted up to the heavens. Tears sprang to my own eyes. “Really?”

Amanda had gotten herself under control. She wiped her tears away and fixed her eyes on me. “Really, if you’re really sure.”

“I will always support you, Amanda. I will always be there for you.”

“You know what?” She sniffled and laughed all at once. “I believe you. That’s what scares me.”

“Don’t be scared.” I smiled, kissing her lips. “Like I said, you can be happy…”

***

“They want me to go undercover.” Amanda looked nervous. Really nervous. Nervous like she was going to be sick. Here was a woman who’d been through some hard times and had seen her share of horrors. She wasn’t easily shaken.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. A new assignment that came up here, in L.A. And it’s… it’s for a while.” She rarely spoke like this. Rarely spoke in halted, stilted sentences. I was worried.

“What’s a while mean?”

“Three months. Maybe. Could be less.”

My heart fell. That would be the longest time we’d been apart since we got together. But she wouldn’t be bringing this up if it wasn’t important. “You want to do it.”

She nodded. “I can’t let Miami happen again. Or…”

Her mother. She didn’t need to say it, and rarely brought it up. “You need to follow it all the way through.”

Amanda winced. I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but even in hindsight, after all that I knew, I would have said the same thing.

“Then do it. I’ll always be here for you.”

*** 

Amanda reached out and traced the line of my collarbone. When I didn’t instantly dissolve under her touch, but rather, leaned into it, she began running her hands along my body, like she was still expecting me to vanish. 

“Guess that’s the thing about dreams—we can’t control them, as much as we try. You know I never wanted to get married?” Amanda touched me as she spoke, a reminder that I was still there. 

We were in her apartment—Raven’s apartment. I was spinning.

“Ouch. What a thing to say—”

“I never wanted to get married until I met you. You didn’t figure into my plans.” She laughed at herself. “And I’m so glad that I decided to take that detour.”

“So is that what this is? A detour?” I asked.

“Yes.” She rose over me, straddling my body. I wasn’t hard, but I wasn’t soft, either, and her smooth mound felt wonderful against my cock. “I will come back to you. And I cannot wait to tell you all the naughty things I’ve been up to with Raven.”

“You’ll tell me everything?”

“Everything.”

“Do what you need to do. Fuck who you need to fuck. ust remember that I’m here, I’m your partner.”

She bounced on my cock.

“And you don’t need to do any of this alone. Okay?”

When the heat of the moment passed, Amanda was still there, snuggling close. “I cannot predict the future, and this whole assignment, like dreams, cannot always be controlled. But remember this moment, whenever you're having doubts. Okay?”

“Okay.”

***

I stood before the mirror and barely recognized myself. My hair was still tightly cropped, and my scruff had grown into something thicker. I’d never had a beard, and while it itched like hell, it definitely fit my tough guy look. So did the tight, black t-shirt and black jeans.

I had to admit that all the time I’d spent in the gym these last few months, killing time and trying not to think about whatever Amanda was doing undercover, had paid off. My arms were larger than they’d ever been, stretching the short sleeves of my shirt, and my pecs filled out my chest.

I could almost imagine Amanda coming up behind me, running her hands up under my shirt and teasing my pecs. Can I keep you? I imagined her saying.

Always. Always.

But Amanda wasn’t here. She was on that coked-out, murdering psychopath’s yacht. And there, she was Raven.

“Time to go,” I said to myself. “Time to finish this.”

Next part (the final part?) will hopefully be out next week. It's going to be epic.