Page 88 of Cruel Kiss

"I'm here."

"You did that right. All of it. You hear me? That was exactly right."

"My kids are upstairs," I whisper. Which isn't an answer to anything. It's just the only thought that will hold still long enough for me to say it.

"They're fine. You're safe. My people will be there soon."

But Ronan beats them to me. I don't know if it was the missed calls from me or something from his men that alerted him, but he comes screeching up a few minutes later. He charges through the door and drops down onto his knees on the hardwood in front of me in his good gray suit.

"I'm okay," I promise before he can ask. "I'm okay. The kids never came down. They don't know anything happened."

Then his arms come around me. I let myself fall into them, and he holds me together on the floor of my own front hall.

In a trembling voice, I explain what happened. "They were at the door," I tell his collar. "They had this whole sheet, this beautiful order, it looked so real, they wanted the code, and I almost—" I stop. "But the badge was wrong. The number. It was formatted wrong."

His arms tighten. "I'm sorry I didn't answer."

"It's okay," I promise. "But I panicked, so I… I called Mercer."

He cringes, but he nods. "That's better than letting them take you. It's okay, Cali. Everything's okay."

I pull back enough to look at him. "Ronan, they didn't even seem that bothered. More just… irked. It was like getting caught was just inconvenient."

"You did everything right," he says again. "Do you understand me? Everything. You saw it, you stalled them, you called the one person who could confirm it, and you got them off your steps without opening the door. You did that. Not me. Not my men, who I am going to have a very long conversation with.You."

"I was so scared."

"Good." He tips his forehead against mine. "Fear's the correct response. You said the correct thing, and then you were smart anyway. That's the part that keeps you alive."

When she arrives, Mercer takes the folder into evidence in a clear plastic bag, holding it by the corner like it might bite.

She stands in my kitchen while a technician I don't know dusts my doorframe. She looks at the fake order for a long time, frowning in a new way. In every previous conversation, she's had this glossy, unbothered nonchalance, the jaded detective who's always got more information than you and enjoys knowing it.

That's gone now.

"This is good work," she scowls, and she doesn't mean it as a compliment. "Case number's live. It maps to a real matter. Judge's signature's a decent forgery. Letterhead's ours." She turns it over. "Somebody had access to real filings to build this. Real formats. They just got one thing wrong."

"The badge number," I say.

She looks up at me. "The badge number. How the hell did you catch that?"

"I stared at your card for a month straight." I shrug. "I don't like not understanding things."

Realization dawns on her face. For the first time, I think she sees me as more than an irritant.

"You told me once you thought there were two investigations," she says slowly. "Real feds and fake ones. Todd's people building a story about how he met Akov. And me, building one about the tool." She sets the bag down on my island. "I thought you were being paranoid."

"And now?"

Mercer looks at the fake order. Then she looks at me. And she drops the mask—not all the way, just an inch, but enough to feel the alliances shifting.

"Now, I'm inclined to agree," she reluctantly admits. "Somebody sent two men to your door with Bureau letterhead and a story about my investigation to walk out of here with the one piece of software that ties this whole thing together. They usedmeto do it." Her jaw grinds. "That just made this personal."

We stand there, the two of us, on either side of a plastic bag with a beautiful lie inside it.

One more receipt for the pile.

I don't trust her. This hasn't changed that. I've trusted people who felt true before and been wrong in ways that put a bloodstain on my stairs. Everything about Mercer feels true, and everything about Ronan felt true, too, and I've learned my lesson aboutfeels.