Dante sighed as if he was processing it all, and then he chuckled. “I’ll admit, it was a shitty thing for her to do. But in her defense, she’s been working on this case for years.”
I shook my head. “I’m not leaving. So you’d better inform me of what’s going.”
He cracked his neck both ways before he continued. “If it was anyone else, Lilah, I’d drug them and put them on a plane back home.”
He said it with so much honesty, like it was a normal thing to do. It should have shocked me, but I was just sad that this was his life. That the sweet guy I knew as a kid had been subjected to all this. It felt like a movie, like something out of a nightmare.
I cleared my throat. “Well, I guess I’m lucky to be me right now, then.”
He sniffed and glanced out the window before he continued. “Your sister is undercover. She got out of juvie and was running in the right crowds for it. She was struggling and I gave her something to strive for. I like to think it kept her clean and focused.”
“What? A job as an undercover agent where she was around drugs all the time, Dante?” I wanted to hit him.
“She’s always liked a challenge.” He shrugged. “Maybe it was the wrong move, but we were both green. I’d been honorably discharged from Delta Force, was given an opportunity for contract work, and recruited her under me. She’s been clean ever since, so something worked. Now she’s at a point where she’s been working her way up the ranks within a drug smuggling operation so we could get intel on larger shipments. It brought her here for the weekend.”
“So, her visiting me wasn’t even real.” She’d called a week before saying she needed a break from it all, and I’d been so happy to hear from her that I’d agreed. Sure, I couldn’t get off work and she’d just have to hang out, but I would still get to see her. “She lied about everything. And me going back home—”
“I’d like to think that was probably your family wanting you home and her thinking she could handle it. You can talk to her about that later. Right now, she’ll do time behind bars, make connections, and get out when your parents or the dealers get her out. She can maybe pull off getting a shipment location and we’re done. We got enough to arrest the main players and bring down the operation. This hopefully won’t jeopardize anything.”
“If I’ve been here the whole time, the only thing that would jeopardize it is if I leave now and don’t come back,” I pointed out. “You bailing me out of jail and forcing me home is what would call attention to your undercover work.”
“Lilah.” He shook his head because I think he knew I was right. “We’ll figure something else out. It’s not safe for you to stay. Izzy and I never wanted you to be a part of this.”
“Dante, please shut up,” I said, the vile taste in my mouth real at this point. We were nearing my hotel. “I need to get my bearings. How long will it take? Can you speed her bail process along?”
“No.” He rolled his eyes like I was an imbecile.
“I’m asking questions to make sure I’m on the same page as you. Don’t get irritated with me.”
“There’s no page for you, Delilah. You have to go home, where it’s safe.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want safe!”
How could I tell him that my mental health had been in the gutter, that maintaining a 4.0 in college was exhausting, and even when I tried to make friends, that fell flat? That I’d never quite found myself because I was too tired and sad to do anything other than get through each day. That when I’d date, I could not find one man who’d live up to the expectations I’d set for them, or maybe the ones Dante had set for me.
That last one was the absolute worst.
“You don’t understand anything,” I whispered and pointed to a side street. Then I motioned to the building. Just as he parked alongside it, I opened the car door and puked into the gutter.
“Oh, damn,” I heard him grumble, and then he was out of the car and around to my side instantly, like he cared. Cared about a sister that could be used as a tool, I guess.
I wondered if Izzy had thrown the idea of me as cover out to him before. Had he turned it down and they’d laughed over my clean image? Or had Izzy thought this all up on her own?
I couldn’t stand how mad I was at her and how relieved at the same time. Relieved that she wasn’t using, but mad that she hadn’t told me.