Page 94 of His Forbidden Alliance

She frowned. “You thought I wouldn’t want to check on you?”

“I wasn’t sure you could. After what happened, I didn’t know if you needed to look like you’d cut all ties with me. Since I’d gone rogue, I thought you might have to shut me out.”

“No, I managed to make you look like at least a little bit of a hero, but there’s a downside to that.”

My head was swimming. Had I heard her right? There was no way she could make me look good from this, was there?

She smiled. “Don’t think about it too hard. I know you’ve got a concussion. Rafe testified as a witness, saying you killed Ivanov in self-defense. Your excessive use of force was clearly due to the fact that you’d been abused in captivity after the strain of an intense undercover investigation.”

“But that’s not⁠—”

Maria shook her head. “That’s the story. It’s in a report. It’s been turned in. But to move that through channels and not have anyone ask more questions, you’re going to need to resign.”

“I was already going to.”

She sighed. “I kind of thought that might be the case.”

“I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be bound by these rules and…”

“In love with Rafe?”

My pulse sped up. “How do you know that?”

“I don’t think anything else would’ve pushed you as far as you went.”

“How did you find me?”

She frowned. “I was hoping to avoid that confession.”

“Confession of what?”

“The day you met me at that stupid dive bar, I put a tracker in your shoe.”

I stared at her. “What? How?”

“I haven’t lost my sleight of hand despite the number of years I’ve been in the office instead of the field.”

“You… I can’t believe I didn’t notice.”

Maria smiled. “Honestly, neither can I, but I’m really glad you didn’t.”

“But how did Rafe know?”

“Because I told him.”

“What? Either this concussion is even worse than I thought, or you’re not making any sense.”

“Rafe went to look for you. He found your phone. He saw blood. He put the pieces together and realized you’d been taken. He called Xavier. Xavier called me, and I explained about the tracker.”

“Wait. You’re working with Xavier?” How had I missed all of this?

“Yes.”

“How? Why?”

She shrugged. “We both want to see evil people like Ivanov brought down.”

“But he’s also working with the Theriots.”