Sitting in her SUV, looking down at her badge and ID, she tried to catch her breath and remember who in the hell she was and what her true mission was all about. The name, Agent Sarah Henson, and a badge number superimposed over the symbol for the justice department, stared back at her. Only she wasn’t FBI, was she? She was a Homeland Security agent, secretly embedded with the FBI in order to track down human traffickers. Shaking her head, she thought about the absurdity of untrusting government agencies pitted against each other.

She’d given up a promising career in the military to get batted and forth between government agencies that were as charlie foxtrot as she’d ever seen. The whole situation was totally FUBAR and she was trapped in the middle of a clearly no win scenario.

She’d been trained as a sniper in the army and didn’t even know how many head shots she’d squeezed off during her time in Afghanistan. Too many to count. She was always calm, cool, and collected. Being the only woman in her unit and a fairly attractive one, she’d had to deal with her fair share of meatheads. Her history of being selective ended the moment she set eyes on that sexy mobster. Even before her informant had explained who he was, she found herself drawn to him.

Staring at her own trembling hands, she couldn’t figure out what her problem was. What she’d seen in the club was nothing she hadn’t seen before. On leave, she’d seen pretty much every man in her unit get serviced at some point. Drunken soldiers did it with pride, totally zulu foxtrot about who saw their naked asses. Keeping quiet and melting into the background, she’d barely found it noteworthy at the time. Somehow, seeing the lonely gangster like that had twisted something inside her gut.

Something about that craven man drew her in like no other. Seeing the heat in his eyes when they’d first met juxta-positioned against the emptiness and stark loneliness in his eyes when he was with the whores had been shocking. He’d looked so torn down, she’d instinctively offered him alcohol to soothe him. What seemed compassionate at the time, just seemed absurd in retrospect.

Leaning back in the car seat, she shoved her badge back into her coat pocket. The freaking sexy mobster was the only person, who was remotely honest in his own screwed up way, and he couldn’t really be trusted at all.

Her life was total shit and she was no closer to finding her twin sister than she’d ever been. Hooking up with this high stakes mobster was supposed to be her big break. The plan was to seduce him, string him along, and find out what he knew about the Russians who took her sister. Instead, she’d blown her one and only chance by acting like a stupid bitch for absolutely no reason she could figure.

Her contact reported the abducted women were moved out of the country, kept in cages, raped, and even starved. That’s what her sister was going through, while she ran around playing cops and robbers with a bunch of men who could care less about either of them. She slammed her head back against the headrest hard enough to feel it. As she sat with her eyes closed, she heard sirens. It was her back-up riding to the rescue a day late and dollar short, just like always.

Something heavy slammed against the window. Turning her head, she saw her partner, who for some godforsaken reason had the nerve to look angry. She reached over, hitting the automatic door unlock and he hauled the door open. She stepped out, just as her other agents pulled in.

“Took you long enough to get out of the nightclub. Let me guess, you had to fuck a filthy mobster to escape. You women are all…”

Without thought or restraint, she punched him in the face with her fist. The more she hit him, the better she felt, so she didn’t stop even when she had him on the ground sitting on top of him. She pounded on his face until they literally pulled her kicking and screaming off of him. Even as she was dropped to her feet nearby, she noted with satisfaction that he wasn’t moving. Kicking gravel in his direction, she actually thought about spitting on him.

An authoritative voice rang out in the chill evening air. “Enough, Agent Henson. He was out of line insinuating what he did, but you’ve got to control your damn self. Get him the hell out of here. He’s on administrative leave as of now.”

She watched a couple of agents pick him up, then turned her attention to her supervisor as she addressed her. “We know your cover got blown. Did you get anything?”

Besides the free peep show? Ha, best not admit to that. Realizing she was having some sort of surreal moment, she pulled herself together. “The Mafia Don’s son is pretty upset. I don’t think they are going to let us anywhere near them again.”

“Look, do you still have in with them or not?”

“Maybe.”

“Get it done. We need a win on this one.”

Nodding, she got into her vehicle and slammed the door. Starting the car, she almost laughed. It truly felt like the world was raining idiots today. As she drove to the covert meeting with her real supervisor at Homeland Security, she thought back on kicking Agent Thomas' sorry ass. She hadn’t been ticked off because he thought she’d fucked a mobster. Agents did all sorts of shit when they were undercover. What had pissed her off was that he’d dared to judge at all. In his world women were whores or virgins, all mobsters were dirt bags, and he got to sit in judgement of them all. Well, what in the hell made him so special?

After sitting in the FBI van, listening in on her contact spending time with her mobster, Sarah had realized real quick that they were just men. Men making really poor choices at times, but men nonetheless.

Johnny was a nasty piece of work. She’d pulled his file long ago. He’d been raised by a fifth generation mafia don, barely managed to finish high school, and had been playing with guns since he could walk. Being raised in the mob had clearly skewed his thinking. If not for that deep sadness she’d seen in his eyes in that conference room, she might have easily written him off as irredeemable.

But he’d bared his soul to her in a breathtaking display of emotional fragility, almost. She’d gotten a glimpse of the damage done to his character, the horrible scars to his self-esteem, and the sad hopelessness of ever being truly loved. She saw it all and in that moment and she knew, he was her true ally. He’d shown himself and now it was on her to reciprocate.

She had one advantage. Regardless of the lies coming out of his mouth, she could read his emotions more clearly than any man she’d ever met. There was some strange pull between the two of them. Something tangible and so real that she could almost touch it; for sure she craved it.

Pulling into the coffee house, she went directly to the back booth and sat with an older female.

“I heard your cover was blown.”

“The mobster might still be workable.”

“I’d strongly advise against trying to work with a mobster who thinks you’re an FBI agent. That’s the kind of crazy that could get a good agent killed.”

“Isn’t this interesting? My FBI supervisor didn’t give a shit about how dangerous it was. He told me that we needed a win and to get the job done.”

“Fucking jackass.” The older woman’s polished finger tips gleamed in the low lighting as she snubbed out a cigarette. This was one of the few places in the city that didn’t bother enforcing the no smoking ordinances.

“It doesn’t matter. I think the mobster might work with us to catch the Russians. They sent a bunch of their thugs all the way to Russia a while back and cleaned house themselves. They’d have to feel pretty strongly about the issue to do our goddamn job for us.”

“Why are you so adamant about tracking the Russians?”

Refusing to divulge information about her sister, she lied. “It’s my job. I don’t have a lot going on my life, just work. I take this shit very seriously.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed slightly. She wasn’t buying it, but neither was she willing to call Sarah a liar outright. “What’s your plan?”

“Turn the mobster into an informant. It’s the only card I have left to play.”

“Better walk softly and carry a big stick.”

“Or shake my ass and sleep with a gun.”

“That’ll work too. Keep us informed.”

“You got it, boss.”

Leaving the coffee shop without the benefit of java, she headed to Johnny’s apartment.