He was undercover? How long had he been pulling this off? It looked as though he was pretty well-situated in the gang Arnold ran, and he must have put that together over months, maybe even years of practice.
It also meant he knew who I was. Which meant he knew what I was like, what I had done in my past - I knew the cops were aware of me, but most of the people I targeted were too humiliated that they had been scammed to follow up with any charges, so I got away with it. But it was different with a cop sitting right there in front of me, a cop who I was sure would have to make sure I got everything coming to me. I had no idea what he intended for me, if anything at all, and frankly, I didn’t much like the idea of finding out.
“Are you here to arrest me?” I asked. My mind spun back to our encounters together, being in bed with him; he must have been seriously deep undercover if he was willing to go that far, or maybe there had been something real between us, something he didn’t want to admit to, even as part of this game of his.
He shook his head.
“I’m not here for you,” he assured me, and a weight lifted from my chest. That was something, at least, and it explained why he had been so willing to work with me – like me, he was an outsider looking in, trying to find a way into this world without getting exposed or spotted.
“I’m here for them,” he explained. “But I need you to do exactly as I say.”
“And what if I don’t want to?” I asked, lifting my chin and looking him in the eye. I knew defiance wasn’t going to get me far right now, but I needed to pretend I had some form of control left here, even if it seemed as though it was all spinning out of my hands. I didn’t know how to pull it back, I didn’t know how to make any of this make sense.
“Then, as soon as this is over, I’m taking you into the station in handcuffs,” he told me firmly. I sighed and rubbed a hand over my face – I should never have gotten close to this guy. The fact that I had allowed myself to get drawn into his web was a mistake, and I needed to put it right, even if I had no idea how I was going to be able to do that. I wanted to argue with him, but I could tell he had already made up his mind, and nothing was going to throw him off.
“So I just have to sit here and wait for that fucking creep to come back?” I exclaimed, shaking my head. If he thought I was just going to allow Arnold to do whatever he wanted to me, in the name of not blowing his cover, he had another thing coming. I was so far from into that, so far from accepting it. It was easy for him to sit there and act like it wasn’t a problem at all, because he wasn’t the one who’d have to deal with Arnold sweating away on top of him. No – no. I wasn’t going to go through with it. I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at Dean. I still couldn’t believe I had fallen for his schtick, how I hadn’t been able to spot a cop when I’d seen one.
Because I had been too distracted, that was why. Too focused on other things to think about who he might really have been and what he might really have been doing here. I was so into him, I had allowed it to get the better of my smarts, and I only had myself to blame for it. I hated how stupid I had been, hated how easy it had been for him to get me right where he wanted me, and I swore I wasn’t going to let it happen again.
“I won’t let him touch you,” he told me, and there was a sincerity to his voice, a blazing sureness that told me he really meant it, but I didn’t trust my gut anymore. I eyed him for a moment, trying to work out if this was something he meant, or something he was feeding me in the hopes of getting me to do anything he wanted.
“You mean it?”
“That’s not part of my mission,” he assured me.
“And I doubt going to bed with me was part of it either,” I muttered. He didn’t reply to that – I supposed there wasn’t much he could say that would make him look good. I knew, in some distant way, how this undercover stuff worked, and I was sure he would do anything he could to ensure he kept his reputation intact. Which meant making sure nobody ever found out what he had been up to with me.
“I’m telling you to do what I say,” he told me firmly, leaving no room for argument. “Or, when this is all over, I’ll be taking you away in handcuffs. Do you understand?”
I paused for a moment, still wanting to argue with him – wanted to tell him he had no idea who I was or what I was capable of, and that he had best hope he never had to find out – but I didn’t. I swallowed it back, leaned away from him in my seat, and crossed my arms over my chest.
“I understand,” I muttered. And I wondered if anyone in this place was who they said they were.
And just how the version of myself I had created fit into the mess of the unknown people around me.