Wicked and True (Wicked & Devoted 4)

“Yep. All the way down to the location of her bedroom.”

What the absolute fuck? It was one thing for Tessa to sell him out and put his fellow operators at risk. But to take a buck for the location of a woman running for her life from the very man who had threatened her, knowing it would probably mean the end of the woman’s life and the murder of a little boy’s mommy? That made him fucking furious and sick. Zy would have sworn that Tessa would never stoop that low. But if this Gmail account belonged to her, this was irrefutable proof, in binary form, all stored in backup, that he’d been dead wrong.

The woman he’d fallen in love with? There was a good chance she was a myth, and he’d never known her at all. The single mom scraping by to do her best by her daughter and taking care of those around her with a warm smile? A facade coated in a whole bunch of bullshit. For weeks, he’d stubbornly refused to believe that Tessa could be guilty of anything more than an inadvertent parking violation. Now that he’d seemingly exposed the schemer who could betray anyone if it suited her purposes? He would happily serve as her judge, jury, and executioner.

“Anything else? Did she divulge the location of Valeria’s safe house in Orlando, too? And who would she be talking to now that Emilo is dead?”

“I can’t tell.” Trees clicked a few more times, then scowled. “I don’t see specific communications this month, but she might have realized someone was on to her and switched up her mode of talk. I won’t know until I get my hands on her computer. You gotta get it for me, man. Now.”

Yeah, he did. Whatever it took.

That meant he had to go back to Tessa’s place. And after their ugly parting, what excuse could he possibly give her to let him back in? If she acquiesced, if she welcomed him in any way, how would he keep his hands off of her? His lips from her lush mouth? His body from invading hers?

“I know this is going to fuck you up for a while,” Trees said. “I hate that like hell for you, but without her computer, I can’t prove what Tessa is up to or how she’s doing it. And if I can’t do that, more people may die.” Trees looked down the hall, at the light from Laila’s room shining this way. “People who deserve to finally live.”

Zy stood. Trees was right, and he had to stop thinking like a sap with a broken heart and start thinking like a fucking operator, trained to do whatever he must. “I’m on it.”

Zy felt the wintery wind zip through him as he headed down Trees’s country road back to town. It was late. So late almost no one was out. He encountered a total of two cars in thirty minutes and didn’t hit a single red light. Part of him wished he had. It would take longer to reach Tessa’s place that way.

Fuck, what was he going to do if the mysterious Gmail account belonged to her? If he could prove that she was guilty of both not caring whether he lived or died and selling out the bosses, too?

He tried not to dwell on that. He had objectives: Get into Tessa’s house. Locate her computer, usually in her bedroom. Find a hidden corner to pry it open. Depending on what he found, he’d plan accordingly. If the Gmail didn’t belong to her, he’d still have to deal with her other lies. But if it did…

Heaven help her because all kinds of hell would rain down.

His phone rang as he pulled to the curb. A normal person would wonder if Trees had a sixth sense, but Zy knew his buddy had calculated exactly how long the trip should take this time of night and had set himself a reminder.

“Right on time, you uncanny bastard.”

“You made it?”

“Yeah. Heading up her walk now.”

“On standby here.”

“Hooking up my earbuds…” Zy pushed the attachment into the port, then fitted the piece in his ear. “Ready. Going in with the key now.”

“Roger that,” Trees said, then fell silent. “Tell me when you find her machine.”

With his heart hammering, Zy focused on using the light from his phone in one hand to illuminate the lock so he could slip the key into it with the other. It snicked inside on the first try and turned with almost no discernible sound. He knew the door didn’t creak and Tessa didn’t have an alarm system. So once he was inside, the only thing he had to worry about was either waking her up or somehow fucking up.

Zy knew the layout of her unit well, but he was surprised when he didn’t walk into a darkened living room. Instead, the little light over her stove a dozen feet away glowed softly. A glance around—which he hadn’t taken earlier tonight—told him that Tessa hadn’t picked up much lately. Her shoes looked as if they lay exactly where she’d kicked them off when she got home from the office. She’d doffed her work clothes and draped them over the arm of the sofa, forgotten. Her keys sat on the end table, half hanging out of her purse. A collection of empty water bottles and soda cans littered the coffee table.