The incessant banging was the first thing I noticed.

Rubbing my eyes, I lifted my head off the pillow and blinked at the alarm clock. It was seven o’clock in the morning, and whoever was outside the door sounded like they were about to take it down.

I rolled in Mateo’s arms and tucked my head under his chin. “One of your Carrera men is here.”

He threw his heavy thigh over mine, drawing me closer and all but crushing me against his chest. “I didn’t send for any men,” he rasped, his voice scratchy.

We stilled, both our eyes widening as his admission registered. We stared at each other in a rare moment of silence before the storm erupted.

I slapped a hand over my mouth and rolled away from him as he flung himself across the mattress, gathering his clothes from the floor.

“Fuck! Get dressed.” Shoving his muscular legs into his jeans, he jerked his T-shirt over his head and grabbed his gun from the nightstand. “Stay here,” he demanded as I buttoned my shorts.

I stared after him as he flung the bedroom door open and stomped down the hallway. When I told him last night I was tired of reacting, those weren’t just frivolous words. I was done being anyone’s victim and being trapped in his bedroom alone while he faced whoever was about to break down the door wasn’t happening.

Following after him, I stopped beside the end table next to the couch and eyed the decorative ceramic lamp sitting in the middle of it. Backhanding the shade, I grabbed the thinnest part of the lamp just below the lightbulb and swung it over my shoulder like a baseball bat.

Mateo froze, turning around and throwing his head back with a hiss. “Can’t you do one fucking thing I ask you to?”

I tightened my grip on the lamp. “No.”

“Mateo Cortes,” a voice boomed from the other side of the door, “this is the Houston Police Department. Open up.”

My mouth dropped open. In another life, the police would’ve been a welcome presence, but the last nine days opened my eyes to a world I didn’t know existed. One where the men who swore to serve and protect wore self-serving duplicitous masks while the ones condemned as the faces of evil righted wrongs written off by the straight and narrow.

“I’m going to need to see a warrant first.” Standing just to the left of the door, Mateo held his gun in position, every muscle in his body tensed.

There was a quiet lull at first, with no response to his challenge and no further banging on the door. Confused, I let out the breath I’d been holding, the lamp slipping from my hands and resting on my shoulder.

Then it came. The voice I never expected to hear—gruff and almost hoarse sounding with a harsh coating that rattled my eardrums. Like a chair being scraped across a dingy floor.

“Leighton, are you in there?”

I lost all sense of what was happening as the lamp slipped from my sweaty hands and crashed to the floor. “Alex!” I gasped. “Mateo, open the door! He knows where Stella is.”

Still gripping his gun, Mateo squeezed his eyes shut, pacing a few steps before turning back and dropping his hands in defeat. Shaking his head, he unlocked the door, barely having a second to step back before four armed police officers stormed in, knocking him into the wall and taking his gun.

One man pinned him with a forearm against his chest. “Mateo Cortes?”

“Yeah.”

Digging his fingers into Mateo’s shoulder, he spun him around, slamming his cheek against the wall. I watched in horror as the officer pulled out a set of metal handcuffs and locked his arms behind his back. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Hector Diaz. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...”

The rest of his words were drowned out by Mateo’s shouts. Still in shock, I didn’t understand what was happening until one of the other officers headed straight for me. Instinctively, I backed up, stumbling as my feet tangled in the shards of broken ceramic littering the floor. His hands reached for me, and before I crashed into the wall, his much larger body pressed against mine.

“Get your fucking hands off her!” Mateo roared, fighting furiously as they shoved him face down on the kitchen table.

As if in slow motion, I detached from the horror unfolding around me. Taking a figurative step to the side, I watched everything happening as if I were an invisible spectator in the destruction of my life. I heard Mateo plead for them to let me go, but nothing emotional registered. I saw the officers click the handcuffs around my wrists and pull me away from the wall but felt nothing. It wasn’t until a looming shadow stood over me that everything vibrated, igniting life back into me.

I stared up at him. His salt and pepper hair was extra messy today, as if he’d spent all night pulling his stubby fingers through it.

“Why are you doing this?” I whispered.

“He’s a murderer, Leighton.” Alex shook his head and let out a disappointed breath. “I thought I warned you to stay away from him?”

Murderer? What the hell was he talking about? A week’s worth of conversations raced through my mind as I tried to come up with any reason Alex would have to pull something like this. I wasn’t blind to who he was, but all his indiscretions were concealed cartel dealings.

Except the one he disclosed to me.

“Did you say Hector is dead?”

“You sound shocked.”

“Why wouldn’t I be? I didn’t know anything about the man, much less that he was dead.”

“Someone’s cleaning up behind you, Leighton. Well, except for Hector, I had to take care of that particular mess.”

“No,” I yelled, launching myself toward him while two guards pulled me back. “You can’t arrest someone without a body!”

Mateo jerked his head off the table, his eyes widening. “Leighton, don’t say anything else.”

“No, I’m curious, Leighton,” Alex probed, his forehead crinkling. “Why can’t we arrest Cortes? Have we got something wrong?”

Hell yes, you do.

“They got rid of the body. You can’t arrest him if there’s no body.”

The entire townhouse went silent, and out of the corner of my eye, I watched Mateo close his eyes and collapse against the table.

A slow smirk crawled across Alex’s face. “Thank you, Leighton. That’s all I needed.”

Closing the door to the interrogation room behind him, Alex placed a paper cup of water in front of me before taking a seat across the table. Staring at it out of the corner of my eye, I backhanded it, sending the cup flying.

“Now that was rude,” Alex noted, staring over my shoulder.

He’d kept me waiting in this room for over three hours while I went stir-crazy worrying what was happening down the hall. I didn’t give a shit what he thought.

“Why are you doing this to Mateo?”

“Why not?” He shrugged casually. “I asked you to get me shit on the Carreras and instead of sharing information with me, you decided to share your bed with them. Can you blame me for taking matters into my own hands?”

“How did you know about Hector Diaz?”

He smiled again. Pulling a stack of papers from his lap, he spread them out in front of me. Giving them passing glance, I recognized them as crime scene photos.

“Oh, Leighton,” he said, amusement and pity in his voice. “You told me.”

“What? I did not—”

Memories of a rain-soaked day sharpened to a crystal-clear dagger to the heart.

“Hector Diaz is dead. I think he might be connected to the man who was in Luis’s apartment that night. I think the Carreras are involved.”

My heart sank. Despite all my efforts to protect everyone, I ruined the one protecting me.

I lowered my head, nauseated to see my Caliente uniform staring back at me. “You’ve been using me this whole time.”

“I prefer to think of it as using each other.”

I’d deal with Alex’s deception later. Right now, one thought dominated my mind. “Why won’t my grandparents answer my calls?”

“What part of protective custody don’t you understand?” His smirk faded, and if I didn’t know any better, I would’ve sworn he looked offended. “I may be an asshole, Leighton. I may want things you couldn’t possibly understand, but I wouldn’t put an innocent child’s life at risk.”

“Only mine, right?” I snapped, my voice full of loathing.

“You’re not innocent.”

Jumping to my feet, I slapped my palms onto the table. “Emilio threatened Stella! I want her out. Get my daughter out of protective custody and bring her to me.”

“You’re not in charge here!” he yelled, kicking his chair back and slamming his own hands onto the table. “Now sit down and shut up. Unless you’ve got what Cortes stole, I don’t want to hear shit out of you.”

“Stole?” This was the first I’d heard about anything being stolen, and the shock buckled my knees, lowering me back into my chair. “Mateo didn’t steal anything.”

Alex snapped his fingers in my face. “Wake the fuck up, Leighton. In case you haven’t figured it out, everyone has an agenda and you plug right into the middle. Draw a line, connect the dots—hell, sit down and think about shit for a minute instead of spreading your legs and maybe you won’t feel so fucking stupid when the lightbulb goes off.” Pushing off the table, he gathered the papers in his hands and stalked toward the door.

He could spew all the insults he wanted, but it wouldn’t faze me. However, if he wanted lines drawn, I was more than happy to oblige.

“You want me to connect the dots?” I seethed, gripping the edge of the table with both hands. “Fine, let’s talk about my father. Did you do this to him too?”

Coming to a dead stop, he turned his head and glared at me.

“You banked on my ignorance, didn’t you?” I taunted, not sure how far I could push him before he exploded. “I know you were on the same task force, so I have a question of my own.” Turning my chair around, I sat up straight and faced him head on. “Where were you when my father died? Did he connect the dots, too, Detective Atwood?”

My only warning came as a low rumble in his throat before he lunged, and I found myself flying backward as he shoved my chair across the room. My back hit the wall, knocking the wind out of me, and I let out a grunt as he leaned down.

“Your father’s death was unfortunate, but I’d be careful where I pointed fingers. You may not like what you find.”

“Is that a threat?”

“We all make our own beds.” As if a wave of reality washed over him, he stood and reached into his jacket pocket. Pulling out a single piece of paper, he dropped it in my lap. “Either you agree to testify against Mateo Cortes, or I’m charging you as an accessory to murder.”

“You said you wouldn’t hurt Stella!” I screamed as he jerked the door open.

His face remained stone cold. “She has her grandparents. She’ll be fine.”