Born in Death (In Death 23)

“The thing being?”

She braced inside, as she might before diving into a very cold pool. “There’s a concern at some levels regarding the sensitivity of the data on the files now in the possession of the NYPSD, and the primary—being me, who’s married to you.”

“There’s a question, on some levels, about your ability to handle sensitive data?” His voice was perfectly pleasant, even amiable. And had her antennae quivering.

“There’s a question, on some levels, about the ethics, I guess, of you having some close proximity to private financial information belonging to current or future business competitors. I want you to know that I—”

“So the assumption,” he interrupted smoothly, “is that I would use my wife, and her investigations into a double torture murder, to not only learn the financial situation of competitors—current or future—but would then use that information to my own gain? Do I have that right?”

“Nutshelling. Listen, Roarke—”

“I haven’t finished.” He whipped the words out, one quick lash. “Did it occur to any of these levels that I don’t need to use my wife or her investigation to beat bloody hell out of a competitor, in a business sense, should I choose to do so. And that I somehow managed to compete and succeed on my own before I met the primary on this case?”

She hated when he used my wife in that tone. Like she was one of his fancy wrist units. Temper bubbled into her throat and was a very hard swallow down. “I can’t speak to wh

at occurs or occurred there, but—”

“Goddamn it, Eve. Do you think I’d use you for fucking money?”

“Not for a single second. Look at me. Not for one single second.”

“Crawl over the bloody bodies, risk your reputation and my own, come to that, for an edge in some shagging deal?”

“I just said I didn’t—”

“I heard what you said,” he snapped back and his eyes were lethal. “But I see for some it’s ‘once a thief.’ I’ve worked side-by-side with the NYPSD, given it considerable time, taken considerable physical risks, and now they question my integrity over this? Over this? Well, fuck them. If they can’t and won’t trust you after all you’ve given them, or me, fuck them to hell and back. I want you to pass the case.”

“You want—whoa, wait.”

“I want you to pass it,” he repeated. “I’ll not have one byte of that bloody sensitive data in my home, or in my wife’s head, or anywhere I can be suspected of using it. Damned, goddamned if I’ll be accused somewhere down the line of using something like this over some deal I close over someone else. I bloody well won’t have it.”

“Okay, let’s just calm down a minute.” She had to take a breath, then another, before her head stopped whirling. “You can’t ask me to hand over the investigation.”

“That’s precisely what I’m asking. And if memory serves, I’ve asked for very little when it comes to your work. You aren’t the only qualified investigator. Pass it,” he demanded. “And do it now. I won’t be insulted this way. And bugger me if I’m going to tolerate having my wife be the one who has to bring the insult to me because your superiors don’t have the balls to do it themselves.”

She stood stunned and speechless as he turned on his heel and strode out.

8

HIS ANGER HAD TEETH AND WAS GNAWING AT his own throat as he stormed up to his office, closed the doors. And he knew if he hadn’t walked away that anger would have taken more than a bite of Eve.

Her goddamn job, he thought. Bloody, buggering cops. Why in hell had he ever deluded himself into believing they could accept who and what he was?

He was no innocent and never claimed to be one.

Had he stolen? Frequently. Had he cheated? Most certainly. Had he used wit, wiles, and whatever came to hand to fight and claw his way out of the alley to where he was now? Goddamn bloody well right he had, and would do it all again, without remorse or regret.

He didn’t ask to be considered pure and saintly. He’d been a Dublin street rat with certain skills and specific ambitions, and had used one to achieve the other. And why not?

He’d come from a man who’d murdered in cold blood, and yes, he’d done some of the same.

But he’d made himself into more, into better. Into other, in any case. And when he’d fallen in love with a cop, with a woman he’d respected on every possible level, he’d given up a great deal. Every one of his businesses was legitimate now. He could be considered a shark in the business world, but he was a bloody law-abiding one.

More, he’d actually worked with the cops, the very element that had once been the enemy. He’d offered his resources to the department countless times. The fact that doing so amused, intrigued, and satisfied him didn’t change the principle of the thing.

Infuriating, insulting, unacceptable.

With his hands jammed in his pockets, he stood at the window, glowering out at the sparkling lights of the city he’d made his home.