Daddy's Adorable Assassin (Daddy's Little Deviants)

I leaned against the door. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb with me. I’ve worked with you for over a month, and I know how intelligent you are. One minute he’s thrown in jail, and the next morning, the governor called me that he would be pardoned, and then he winds up in the hospital after being assaulted? You’re telling me you have no idea what all this is about?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re going on about. What do you mean, the governor pardoned him?”

“It turns out your boy had more information than he’d shared with you.”

“What information?”

“He’s been withholding a list of names who hired Virgil to kill for them. Said he found it on Virgil’s computer. Apparently, the man kept excellent records, as you already know by what we found at the farmhouse. His lawyer, the one you hired, made the deal for him—the list for the witness protection program.”

“He’s going into WITSEC?”

“That was the offer. When he hands over that list, everyone who knows we have it and how we got our hands on it will try to get to him.”

Shit. This whole situation just got worse. “Yeah, WITSEC is definitely the best choice for him.”

“He turned it down. Sort of.”

“What?”

“He begged to be released in the care of one Detective Hunter Neely instead.”

“What?”

“Cut the bullshit, Hunter. I see the way you look at him. You can’t be shocked that he chose you.”

“No, you must be mistaken. Why would he choose me? I couldn’t even protect him from the horrors of jail. What makes him think I can keep him safe when he has a bounty on his head?”

“That’s what he chose.” Knight moved closer to me until his breath warmed my face. “I want to believe you, Hunter. You seem like a decent cop. Are you saying you had nothing to do with this?”

“I swear. Nothing.”

He nodded. “I believe you, but it doesn’t change the fact that his request has been granted. He’s played a huge part in finding our serial killer and now handed us a list of more than twenty people who are behind the murders. The governor has agreed those are good enough reasons to drop the charges against him.”

I swallowed, my heart slowly thumping in my chest. Cosmo was free. Some kind of freedom when he was about to become a target for anyone whose name was on that list. It wasn’t just about arresting these men either. He would have to face them in court. The trial would be difficult and could last for years. How the hell was I going to protect him for that long?

“I can’t protect him on my own, Knight.”

“You won’t have to. Since this is a federal case and we need him to make these charges stick, it’s in our best interest to keep him safe. The FBI will offer reasonable protection the whole way.”

I sucked in a deep breath, my mouth dry. “I didn’t sign up for this.”

“You didn’t?” He raised his eyebrows. “Because it seems you’ve put yourself in the thick of things.”

“I didn’t want this. You all begged me to pretend to be his—his…” I couldn’t even say the word.

“But you got caught up in it, didn’t you? Started believing it. Wanting to protect him. Be careful, Hunter. That savior complex can be a real bitch.”

“I don’t have a savior complex.”

“Don’t you? Almost from the beginning, I sensed when things changed for you, when it was no longer acting, but I thought it amusing. I never thought you would let personal stuff impede your professional duty.”

I straightened my shoulders and glared at him. “I have done nothing to that boy.”

“Yet. Like I said, be careful, and you have my number if you need anything.”

He bumped past me and reached to open the door, but I knocked his hand away.