CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Evelyn leaned against the hallway and hugged Luke’s jacket closer to her as Longineu was pulled into the elevator in handcuffs. She shook her head at the scene as Luke approached with some coffee. It was normally too late for caffeine, but she was going to the hospital after this to get a barrage of tests and x-rays, so she needed all the help she could get to make it through the night.
“Thanks,” she muttered as he handed her the cup. “So are you going to spill your secrets?”
He leaned against the wall next to her. “I’m a man of many secrets. You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Brian Longineu. You must’ve scared the hell out of him, and since you didn’t tell me, I’m assuming I wouldn’t approve.”
“I found out the secret that started it all. What Joslyn discovered to hold over his head and what he almost killed Emma over to cover up.”
“I thought she had something on Thirteen Stars.”
“That’s what he told them, but it was his personal secrets this time. His family is old money, but his father’s will had a morality clause in it. He had to destroy all the evidence of a crime to avoid the possibility of charges and losing his inheritance.”
“Destroy the evidence?”
“In this case, the evidence was a child conceived between him and a fifteen-year-old he was with.”
Evelyn’s eyes widened as her mouth dropped. “You’re not serious.”
“Completely serious. This dude is the scum of the earth. He probably thought he was lucky when the mother died of an overdose shortly after giving birth, but all they need is a DNA test and the mom’s birth certificate to put him away. So he took the baby.”
“That’s horrible. Joslyn found out and threatened him?”
“Yep. And I found the evidence she pretended to have.”
“What part of all this caused him to turn himself in, though?”
“I told him I wouldn’t turn over my evidence to the FBI or any other government authority if he turned over everything he knew about the Thirteen Stars and a full confession to all the white-collar stuff.”
Evelyn pushed away from the door and stared at him in shock. “You can’t be serious! After everything that man has done, you can’t let that poor child—”
“Relax.” He set a hand on each of her arms. “I lied. Everything is being emailed to you right now. All you have to do is hold off on pressing charges for a few days while the other arrests are made.”
She let out a sigh of relief.
“You don’t really think I’m that evil, right? I mean, you probably did at first. But I’d like to think we moved past that.”
“You should’ve told me,” she said.
“I didn’t use completely legal methods to get this information. I figured the less you knew the better.”
“You’re wrong, you know. I did think of you as a partner. At least I wanted to.”
“Until you go to Texas, right?”
“There is no Texas in my future,” she said, admitting it for the first time out loud.
Luke frowned. “Was it, um, why did you decide to stay?”
Evelyn knew he wanted her to say it was him. That she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him. And on some level, that was true. She didn’t want to leave him. But she wanted to be honest too. “Apparently I’m on the cartel’s shit list, and people on their shit list don’t have a high survival rate down there.”
He nodded. “It’s good to stay safe.”
Evelyn reached up to thread his tie through her fingers, not pulling him closer, but not letting go either. “I was less broken up about the news than I thought I’d be.”
“Is that right?” Luke set his hands on her hips. “I thought you hated the city.”
“I do,” she blurted out. “I did. I don’t know. There are a few things in it that I’m rather partial to.”
“A little bird told me there are a few things in it that you love.”
She bit her lip and looked up at him. He stared at her as though she were the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, which was much funnier when she thought about how black and blue her face was probably turning. “That did slip out, didn’t it?”
“It did. Was it an accident, or did you mean it?”
Of course she found the one guy in Manhattan who wanted to talk about his feelings. Just her luck. “Well, I’ve never been one to half-ass things. I tend to dive straight in.”
“I’ve noticed. But you didn’t answer my question.”
He was really going to make her do this, wasn’t he? “I know I probably freaked you out back there, and I was upset and emotional and really pissed off, but I’m not taking it back.”