Hanna woke up before he did and she was grateful for that as she sat up and carefully pulled herself out of the bed, stark naked in the early morning. She padded across the tile floor to look out the window. The sun was only just now coming up between the buildings and cutting a solid shape of gold over the horizon. Roarke wouldn’t be up for a few hours at least. On a day when he got a normal amount of sleep he slept until noon, at least.
She slid her clothes back on, working to be as quiet as she possibly could. She needed to get ahold of James. She’d been relaxed in her job and she learned more than she’d been telling him and now was the time to stop holding out on all that information. She needed to find a way to get him this information. It was early; she could slip out quietly and get down to the station. But there was a high risk of Roarke waking up to pee, if nothing else, and noticing her and all her clothes gone. The phone she used to make safe calls to the station was also back at her apartment.
The dangers of becoming emotionally and physically attached to him were starting to rear in her head. It made her careless and now James needed to know what was going on, what they’d learned. He might be able to at least give them an idea of where this bar was or even any new information on other girls gone missing. She’d be playing blind if she didn’t somehow get this intel to him.
But she’d risk losing everything she gained if she slipped now and alerted Roarke. Not to mention, though she hated to admit it, she didn’t want to lose his trust, not now. Not after the night they had. She’d finally broken and got what she wanted and she wasn’t willing to destroy all of that.
It was a bad situation. She’d made several careless mistakes and now they were all coming to bite her right in the ass and she had no idea which one to handle first.
She shouldn’t be selfish. The missing girls were the most important priority, they deserved just and they needed to be found and returned safely to her families. She was risking them if she wanted to preserve her relationship with Roarke over getting all the information out to the right sources.
“Fuck,” she whispered as she began to pace.
It was so cliche. It would come after a night of great sex that she realized all the mistakes she made and the places she went wrong so far. Now she was trapped in this room with only until Roarke woke up to come up with a plan to get everything they learned to the police station. There had to be a way to do this where everyone could win. She knew that was the most wishful thinking in history but it couldn’t be completely wrong.
“You’ll wake up the whole building if you keep that up,” Roarke said in a gravely, early morning voice, half distorted by his pillow.
Her time was dwindling faster than she thought.
“Sorry, go back to sleep,” she said, hoping he obeyed. Of course he didn’t.
He stood up and began to stretch and she thanked whatever gods were out there that he didn’t have morning wood that she would need to fight the temptation to relieve him of. Small miracles were really something sometimes.
Seeing him there, calmly standing in front of her, entirely naked brought into perspective the other big issue as well: what the hell did they do now?
They’d had uncontrolled, passionate, completely amazing sex only hours ago and fell asleep next to each other stark naked. Now there was no shame between them as he went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water, every inch of him on display in the light coming through the window.
They had to deal with this too and she could tell from the way he was avoiding looking at her, and all the words he wasn’t saying that he was having the same mental dilemma. Not to mention the fact that he was up hours before he ever normally was.
“I think we should get this information to the police,” she blurted out. She was really zero for two in the decision department recently.
“What?”
“Not outright, obviously. But we can find ways to tip them off, lead them in the right direction,” she said.
“Why would we want to do that?” he asked. “This is a gang affair. We bring the police in and it’s only going to cause a lot more problems for everyone.”
“They have resources we don’t,” she said and she knew she was treading a dangerous line now.
“Yeah and they also have arrest warrants. We’ve done okay so far, we don’t need to bring the police into this,” he said.
“If the police start lighting a fire under Isabelle it might make her careless, though,” she said. “It’ll be easier to get her if she’s out in the open with no defenses. It’s like going at her from multiple directions, cornering her.”
She was losing her cool and she knew it was showing. She really couldn’t be blamed though. There was a lot going through her head that she was having trouble processing completely and every second Roarke didn’t cover himself up was wearing down on her ability to formulate sentences correctly.
“Why don’t you take a breather,” he said. “We’ll get some coffee, head down to the bar, and talk it out. I’m not making decisions without everyone else involved.”
Getting coffee sounded a little too much like the cliché morning-after routine, but she was happy to be in the company of people besides Roarke right now as she tried to figure what she was going to do with everything swirling around inside her head.
***
He’d had a restless sleep, highly aware of how close she was, sleeping next to him, touching him. He’d had strange dreams and couldn’t shake the feeling of anxiety. He’d done exactly what he had not intended to do, what he’d been actively fighting against. He didn’t really regret it, and that was the biggest problem he was facing. He’d love every second of it and would gladly do it again in a heartbeat.
But that didn’t make the consequences go away.
He heard her wake up. She was a morning person if there ever was one. She rose with the sun, it seemed. He tried to go back to sleep, or just pretend long enough for it to be true. But she started pacing around the floor and it was too much to ignore and he was up, tired, and far earlier than he ever woke up in his life.
She was going through the same mental gymnastics, he knew. But he didn’t want to talk about it, especially when she was spewing some crap about needing to go to the police with their information. Like fucking hell that was happening. He didn’t need them botching the investigation. The Caracals were smart, they were clever. As much as he hated to admit it they were good at running and hiding when they felt threatened and, so far, they had no idea how much the Pharaohs knew about what was going on and he intended to keep it that way as long as possible.
But, as he sipped his coffee and watched the steam rise into the air, pulling out his keys to unlock the bar, he couldn’t deny that Hanna did have a point as well. They needed a way to get Isabelle out in the open. So far she’d used others to do her work for her because she was smart. She wouldn't give up that perfect cover easy either. She’d at least played her hand when it came to that, they knew what to expect now, for the most part. He hoped that meant she couldn’t surprise them again.
He walked into the bar and Amber was already there, working on the opening duties.
“The world must be ending if you’re up this early,” she said.
“It feels like it is,” he groaned, rubbing his head.
He’d sent Hanna to go get some cigarettes from the gas station so they could stagger their entries into the bar. The last thing they needed was someone making a comment or focusing in on that little tidbit of information. Their night together would stay between them. They both silently decided that on the way from the coffee house and parted ways from there. It was better this way, as well.He wanted to talk with Amber without Hanna somehow getting in the way. She had a way of not agreeing with most of what came out of his mouth, even if it ended up being a good idea in the end. She was also a smooth talker, he wasn’t going to risk that either.
He took a breath and leaned over the bar to look his sister in the eye as best he could.
“We need a way to draw out Isabelle,” he said plainly when he walked up to the bar.
“Is that what has you up this early?” she asked.
“I’m serious. That’s our big weakness right now. She’s good at hiding and we need to get her somewhere a little more vulnerable,” he said.
“For what purpose?” she asked, setting down the glass she pretended to be engrossed in drying.
“I want to talk with her,” he sighed. “I know plenty of the guys would love to just gung ho and get in cuffs and tied to a chair but she’s our sister. We need to figure out what’s going on here.”
“They’ll say you’re going soft because she’s family.”
He knew by “they” she meant Rick. But he held some sway over the other members. He was big, he was tough, he didn’t take no for an answer. If Roarke made too many wrong moves then he could easily swoop in a take his spot. But Roarke wasn’t about to give that possibility any real merit or chance. He’d snuff that out if it came to it. Right now, he knew what he needed to do.
“What the fuck do I care what they say? They do what I tell them,” he said.
“And what do you want me to do with all this info.”
“She’s going to trust you more than me…”
“So I’m bait.”
It wasn’t the best plan he had. It might not even be a good one. But Amber was a lot more likely to draw Isabelle out to talk than he ever would be. They were both girls, the only girls in a house full of macho men trying to prove they could earn their spot in the gang. Isabelle may have secretly hated Roarke, but her feelings for her sister were genuine, he was sure of that.
He wished he had a better way of presenting it, or had talked it out a little more to try and convince her. But it was the best they had. And when she sighed, he knew he’d won that argument.