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I never stayed. I always ran the next morning. Sometimes I went home with people, but as soon as we were done, I made an excuse to bail. I had to leave. I never wanted to sleep with and hold someone until, first, Nate, my ex, and now, suddenly, a man I hadn’t expected.

Sharing a bed with Aaron Sutter was something I couldn’t get out of my head. After a week, the desire was getting the better of me. I was dying to see him.

“Here we go,” Angelo Perez, special agent with the DEA, said in my earpiece.

Jolted back to the task at hand, I watched as two men walked into the club. The second one was familiar, but I couldn’t instantly place him.

“Visual confirmed. Everyone, move.”

I watched Evanston weave his way through the crowd at the dance club and stop in front of Joaquin Hierra’s table.

“Wait, wait! New player, new player! All units, hold.”

As soon as I saw the third man pushing to get through the throng, I recognized him immediately. Once I did, everything fell into place, and it was a mess. I had to make a quick decision, and I hated those. I was much more of a weigh out the pros and cons guy. But the thing was, there was now a deputy US marshal in the mix, and there was no covering up that.

Goddamn it!

Moving fast, I was behind Joaquin and leaned down to whisper in his ear before I had time to apprise anyone of my intentions.

“This guy with your boy is hot, boss,” I said softly. “He’s got a federal marshal right there on his ass.”

He stiffened, grabbed the lapel of my suit jacket, and held tight as he took in the sight of Evanston, his boy, and Dr. Kevin Dwyer—or more accurately, Christian Salcedo, the man I’d thought looked familiar. He’d been a plant by the cartel years ago, and he was now shadowing Evanston for whatever reason. I had no idea how they knew one another.

“You’re sure?”

“Yep. Right there behind him—you see?”

Joaquin leaned close, looked around Evanston to Salcedo and then beyond both. He watched as Sam Kage barged his way by people in the teeming club, dressed as he always was at work—in a suit with a top coat over it, silver star on his belt, and a holstered gun on the opposite side.

“Can you get me out of here?”

“I’ll create a diversion. You go out the back with Benny and Andre.”

He fisted his hand in my dress shirt. “Is it Evanston? Is he dirty?”

I had a second to decide if I was going to be the guy. Was I going to be the one wired for sound, or would I pass the baton to someone else?

It had been so simple: I was undercover to wait for Evanston to show up, and when I got the intel of when and where he would meet my fake boss, we would pick him up. It was supposed to be so easy.

Evanston was an enforcer for the Delgado cartel and had been sent to Chicago to clean up two loose ends. Unfortunately, Jared Gibson, fifteen, got caught in the crossfire. I promised his mother, when we figured out how her son had died, I would bring the man to justice. She was counting on me.

Riley Evanston had been dispatched by Esau Modella, who was in charge of security and enforcement for the crime family. I followed Evanston to New York because it was my priority—to bring him in so he could stand trial. It was my department’s chief concern.

In New York, where our fugitive had run to, the police were following Arjun Ruiz and the egregious amount of drugs he moved in the city. New York Vice was out to bust one of the largest drug suppliers in the city of New York. We were after a killer. I understood our goals did not connect, but my captain, Lorena Gaines, had been sure Chicago Homicide and New York Vice could find common ground. But it was not to be.

Because no interdepartmental cooperation happened in this instance, the FBI and DEA stepped in to coordinate a task force that would supposedly let us all reach our goals. Since I was already in place—shadowing Joaquin, working as his muscle, waiting for the appearance of Evanston—I was tasked with staying, along with others I didn’t know. It was strange to think some of the men I had met were undercover, just like I was.

I had been hired by Joaquin, an underling of Ruiz’s, based on a fake background, and several incarcerated criminals vouched for me in exchange for new privileges and other concessions. It had been easy to pull off, and even though I was on the fringe, working for Joaquin—the man himself a pawn on the vast chessboard that was the Delgado crime family—it gave me access to Evanston, as Joaquin had work for him to do now that he was back from Chicago. With Evanston in my sights, I could break cover and bust him. And that had seemed like the plan until right that second.

It would take months to get another guy close to Joaquin, and I was already there—right there—ready to show my loyalty in a huge way, poised to become his most trusted man or simply disappear at the end of the bust.

I could go home, or I could stay and work with the FBI and DEA in New York. If I saved Joaquin from a federal marshal, I was in, and he would want me permanently on the payroll. Because, yes, getting close to Joaquin Hierra had netted us Riley Evanston, but if I got in deep with Joaquin, we could get access, eventually, to the whole operation, the big fish, the top tier of the Delgado drug cartel. Right now, I was low level, but I could be in, just because he thought I was saving him from federal custody. Maybe Sam Kage showing up was not such a bad thing.

And maybe it was the worst. I had only seconds to decide.

“I think Evanston’s dirty,” I said flatly, staring back at the man with unwavering regard. “He led the marshals here, and he’s got Christian Salcedo with him, who we know was busted earlier this year. What’s he doin’ out of police custody?”

“How do you know?”