The Intelligence Unit Series

Xander walked into the lounge Tess had cleared for their group and bit back a curse. True to her word, Amour had told them exactly what her assailant had said as he'd wrapped his fingers around her throat. You've been running that filthy mouth of yours, haven't you, you little whore? Xander was helpless against the soundtrack in his head, the one that had played on an endless loop ever since Amour had set it into motion. "I told him I didn't know what he was talking about," she'd said. "But he just squeezed tighter."

You know exactly what I'm talking about. Either you shut your c**k-sucking mouth or I will find you. I will rip out your tongue so you can't scream, and I will cut off every one of your fingers so you can't fight back. I will violate you in every way possible, and it will hurt. But not as bad as when I cut up the rest of you once I'm done. Do you understand?

She'd said yes.

He'd pistol-whipped her on his way out the door anyway.

"Okay," Isabella said, breaking Xander's gut-clenching rewind. "I've gotten Sergeant Sinclair up to speed, but obviously, this is going to be a high-prioritycase."

Sinclair, who had arrived just as they'd been finishing up their interview with Amour, ran a hand over his gray-blond crew cut. "That may be understating it. Threatening an informant isn't exactly unexpected for someone in Sansone's situation, but it is serious. I've spoken with your boss"-he looked at Tara-"and he made it clear that he believes the threat is real."

Xander silently agreed. Amour's injuries were proof positive. What the guy who had delivered them had said as he'd done it? Even worse.

Tara raised a coppery brow, her expression pure are you kidding me? "Of course the threat is real. But"-she paused to bite her bottom lip in a move that Xander would have to be pulse-free not to notice-"Sansone clearly knows Amour is our Cl, and he very clearly wants her out of the picture so she won't testify. Why not just have her killed? It's not as if this guy didn't have the chance."

"It isn't one he can take," Isabella said. "If Amour ends up dead, he knows we'll come crawling up his a*s with a microscope, and he doesn't want that kind of heat. But if she decides not to testify..."

This time, Xander let his curse fly under his breath. "Then the case falls apart and he walks."

"I wouldn't put it past him to tie up loose ends after that happens, either. Sansone was a nasty SOB the first time we went after him," Garza said, and Sinclair nodded his agreement.

"Well, now he's nasty and smart. Whoever he got to do his dirty work tonight knew exactly what to say to make this case an uphill climb."

"More like what not to say," Tara muttered. "The man who assaulted Amour never said Sansone's name. Never mentioned the case, or anything even related to it. Sansone's attorney will argue that he has no idea what we're talking about. And I'd bet a Maserati that he's got an airtight alibi for tonight, with no less than ten witnesses who can put him across the city from Amour's house."

"We've broken cases open with less," Isabella said. "One good thing about riding a desk is that I have plenty of time to go over every inch of this case. Video surveillance, forensics from Amour's house, witness statements. Name it, and I'm in." "That's a good start," Sinclair said, and Xander had to agree. Isabella had some of the sharpest eyes he'd ever seen. "We'll have to do the obligatory meet-and-greet with Sansone and his attorney. Who's presiding over the case?"

Tara made a face. "Alana Waters. Look up Stickler in the dictionary, and her face will be right there, front and center."

"That bad?" Xander asked.

Tara snorted in time with the Intelligence detectives' nods. "She once corrected my grammar while I was arguing against a dismissal in her chambers."

Ouch. Still... "Okay, but no one can deny that Amour's life was threatened."

"It doesn't matter if we can't prove Sansone's the one behind it," Tara said. "The first step is getting on the record with Judge Waters, though. I'm going to have to figure out how to get Amour to agree to testify, but keeping her safe is a good place to start." Garza lifted his chin in agreement. "Capelli's already working on getting her into protective custody." At the mention of the Intelligence Unit's tech and surveillance guru, Tara's shoulders seemed to relax by a fraction. "But he's running into an issue finding agood place with immediate availability."

The RPD kept a handful of places on tap for protective custody, offsite surveillance and ops planning, and other various and sundry tasks that required the utmost secrecy, Xander knew. Apparently, they were all in use.

"What about an extended-stay motel?" Tara asked, but Sergeant Sinclair shook his head.

"That's six weeks' worth of variables we can't predict. Staff who could be pressured or bribed. It's too risky for a case this big."

"There's a vacant apartment on my floor," Xander said, only realizing he was going to put the thought to words after it had bolted past his lips. But now everyone in the room was staring at him, so great. Guess he was running with it. "The guy who lived down the hall from me moved out a couple days ago. The building is pretty nice. No doorman to worry about, but all residents need a keycard to get in and guests have to be buzzed through, so the security's pretty tight."

Isabella's brows lifted as she slid a look at Sinclair. "That's not a half-bad idea. I know the building-Gamble used to live there, right?"

Xander nodded. He'd taken over the lease at his brother-in-law's place when the guy had moved in with Xander's sister a couple years ago.

"It's over on Delancey, about fifteen minutes from the fire house," Isabella said for everyone else's benefit. "As good a location as any for something like this. And it would keep Amour close."

"Let's schedule a walk-through first thing in the morning," Sinclair said. "Amour's going to have to stay here overnight anyway. Dr. Riley runs a clean ship, but we'll put an officer outside her room, just in case. But if this apartment pans out, we'll have Capelli roll through it with all the bells and whistles so we can get Amour in there as soon as possible."

Tara put her hands on her hips, accentuating both her determination and her curves. "I'm staying with her until she's released. She's already rattled, and telling her she has to go into protective custody is only going to prove how much danger she's in. She needs an anchor."

"Lucky for her, she's getting two," Sinclair said, prompting a whole lot of WTF to cross Tara's features.

And that made two of them. "What?" Xander asked.

Sinclair turned to pin him into place with a steely gray stare. "Isabella told me you earned Amour's trust during her interview."

Shock twisted through Xander's rib cage, and he made every attempt to keep it far from his expression. "Yes, sir, but-"

"Nothing," Sinclair finished smoothly. "It worked. She asked for help from you, specifically. I'm not inclined to tell her no. Unless you feel like you're not up for working this case?"

Telling Sinclair no would be the most permanent sort of career suicide. Dade would probably murder him with her thumbs alone if he passed this up, and that was only if his sister didn't do it first. Plus, the whole reason he'd signed on to be a cop in the first place was to help people who needed it, just like he had two years ago.

So he opened his mouth and said, "Not at all, sir. I'm happy to be on the team."

So much for keeping his head down and his a*s far, far away from Tara Kingston.

***

"Alexander Trenton Matthews,get your ass to the back of this bar right this instant!"

Xander winced, swinging a gaze through The Crooked Angel's dining room as he made his way to the bar per his sister's demand. "A little louder, Ken. There are a few people in the next county who didn't quite catch my middle name."

His brother-in-law looked up from his usual spot at the end of the bar and shook his head. "I wouldn't f**k with her right now," Gamble murmured quietly, turning to give Xander a handshake and a slap on the shoulder.

"I can hear you, you know," Kennedy said, although Xander noticed her expression went way soft as she let her gaze flicker over her husband.

"I know, baby." One corner of Gamble's mouth kicked up into a smile. "But you love me and my smart mouth, remember?"

Annnnd welcome to the awkward portion of the evening. "I can hear you, you know," Xander offered up, and Kennedy leveled him with a glare.

"Don't think you're getting out of this, Xander. Why did I have to hear that you're working a high-profile case with the Intelligence Unit from my girlfriends five days after the fact, instead of getting that ginormous piece of information straight from the horse's mouth, hmm?"

Damn it. He should've figured both Isabella and Quinn would mention this case to his sister, at least tangentially. "Because I'm not supposed to talk about the details?" Thank God it was still early enough for the bar to be mostly empty.

Kennedy didn't budge by as much as a millimeter. "And I know better than to ask for them. Still, a little 'oh, by the way, I'm working a case with the most elite unit in the city' wouldn't have killed you, would it?"

"It is kind of a big deal, dude," Gamble chimed in. "Sinclair doesn't let just anybody run assists with that unit. You must have done something pretty badass to earn your way in. Even temporarily."

Yeah, it was time to knock this conversation down a peg or ten. "Honestly, I was just doing my job. Which is why I'm here, actually. Can I place an order for carry out?"

Amour might not be able to leave the one-bedroom apartment six doors down from his, but she could at least have a decent comfort meal. Xander had mostly been on surveillance and security detail this week, keeping her safe from a distance while she was in protective custody. The apartment-with the exception of the bathroom-was wired to the nines thanks to Capelli's handiwork, but Sinclair wasn't one to f**k around. Having Xander keep an eye on the block from various vantage points at different times of the day and night ensured that they had a handle on anyone suspicious lingering around.

So far, Xander's job had been chock-full of a whole lot of nothing-to-see-here. Which would be great...if the investigation wasn't also yielding the same brand of results.

Never one not to feed him, Kennedy sighed and wrote down his order. "So, you can't tell me any details. Which I guess I get," she added grudgingly. "But can you at least tell me how working with Tara Kingston is going? She's not giving you a hard time, is she?" More like a hard-on. Not that Xander was going to let that little nugget of truth fly, least of all to his sister. "Nope. I haven't really seen her much since we set this up." Specifically, he'd seen her three times for a total of seven minutes, and she'd looked gorgeous enough to knock the breath out of him each time.

Not that he was counting.

"So, you two didn't have a moment?" Kennedy pressed, and shit, he knew that look.

"I have no idea what that means," Xander said, but his sister had never once let him off the hook for something like this. Of course she wasn't going to choose today to go all new leaf.

"Isabella said that when she and Garza showed up to do an interview, you and Tara were standing toe to toe, looking all'intense"."

Ah, hell. Isabella had some of the keenest eyes in Remington. Of course she'd picked up on all the hot-and-heavy that had been snapping between him and Tara like an electrical current when she and Garza had arrived. But it had just been an off moment, fueled by an overage of adrenaline and emotion. Over and done.

"You've met Tara," Xander said carefully. "Intense is probably her middle name. But it wasn't a big deal."

Kennedy snapped abar towel from the half-apron around her waist and swiped it over the bar. "It had better not be."

Before Xander could voice the surprise pinging through his system, Gamble intervened. "Kingston came at you pretty hard a couple years ago. We just want to be sure that's all still in the rearview. Where it belongs."

The reminder stuck between Xander's ribs, but at least he could use this to his advantage.

He shrugged. "Oh, that. Yeah, everything between me and Tara is fine. We're both pretty focused on working this case, so, you know. Can't waste energy getting personal about business."

No matter how badly he still wanted to kiss her. Hard and fast and so f*****g deep, he could taste every inch of her smart, sassy mouth.

A flicker of something Xander couldn't readily identify moved through Gamble's stare. "You sure everything's okay between you and Kingston?" he asked.

"Absolutely," Xander said, dismissing all thoughts of Tara's mouth as he tugged on a smile. A woman like that, with her high-class law degree and fancy car, wasn't ever going to be for a guy like him. He needed to stop thinking about her, once and for all. "So, how have things been going here? Business good?"

"Oh, ah. Yep," Kennedy stammered, clearly thrown by the change in subject. "Business is, you know. Totally as usual. Absolutely nothing new."

She exchanged a look with Gamble, both of them pausing just long enough to make Xander's bullshit detector explode.

"You want to try again?" he asked, worry sinking into his chest. "What's going on?"

Kennedy looked at the ceiling, the slim platinum barbell in her eyebrow glinting in the bar lights. "I told you," she whispered to Gamble, and wait...were those tears in his sister's eyes? Hadn't she just been cranky with him? And worried? And-news flash-she never, ever cried.

Unless something was terribly, horribly wrong.

"Okay, you're starting to freak me out," Xander said, standing up so he could meet her gaze head-on. "Seriously. What's wrong?"

Gamble smiled, the sort of huge, ear-to-ear affair that Xander had seen on the guy maybe twice before in his life, and holy shit, this whole thing had officially gone Twilight Zone. "Babe, it's okay. Just tell him."

"We're not supposed to! Ugh, this whole thing is so stupid. They need to warn people it's going to be like this," Kennedy said, gesturing to the tears rolling down her face.

Xander took a deep breath and did his best not to use it to scream. "Will one of you please tell me what's going on? Are you sick or something?"

"No. No one is sick," Gamble said, looking at Kennedy, who finally put Xander out of his misery. "We're having a baby."

Xander stopped. Rewound. Processed her words once, then again, before-

"Oh, shit! Are you serious?" If anyone was cut out to be the world's best mom, it was Kennedy. And Gamble as a dad? Hell, yes. "This is great. Why didn't you want to tell me?"

"There are, like, millions of websites that say you're not supposed to tell anyone until after the first trimester," Kennedy said. "But that's a whole three weeks from now! My doctor said the baby looks healthy, and I am obviously a fountain of f*****g hormones over here"-she swiped at her face while Gamble nodded vigorously-"and you're my brother and I love you and yes. I s**k at keeping secrets from you. So, you're going to be an uncle."

"Can I hug you?" Xander asked, teasing her with his smile. "Or are there, like, millions of websites that say you shouldn't hug your brother after you share your happy news with him?"

"You're an asshole," Kennedy said, starting to cry again. "Now, yes. Get over here and hug me, because I need it."

"Man, you weren't kidding about the hormones, huh?" Xander asked from the side of his mouth, and Gamble shook his head.

"You have no idea."

It wasn't until after Kennedy had hugged him and filled him in on all the details that were fit to share about the baby, then handed over his carryout order and hugged him one more time goodbye, that Xander realized the look on Gamble's face when he'd said things were just business between him and Tara had been doubt.