Page 31 of Honor ’N’ Duty

The zipper over his crotch protested at the sudden pressure. Yeah, bad idea.

He turned back to the tortillas, sprinkling shredded cheese and cut-up vegetables he’d sautéed over one tortilla, then topping it with another.

“You really can cook.” A hint of a smile curved Laia’s lips, the first smile she’d graced him with since he’d shown up at her place yesterday.

“Told ya.” His head was playing major games with him. Seeing her smile turned his insides to mush. Soft, squishy mush. Which only exacerbated his dilemma.

She was still the same woman he’d been crazy-attracted to in that elevator. Now he was seeing that she was also a caring, sensitive woman who loved her daughter—Josh’s child—to distraction.

With superhuman effort, he refocused on the quesadillas. It didn’t matter that his brother was gone. Laia had chosen Josh over him, and he had to remember that.

“How long do you think that tracker has been under my car?” she asked, then set down the knife she’d been using to slice cherry tomatoes.

Kade leaned back against the counter, grateful for the distraction. The skin over the bridge of her nose was wrinkled in concern. She was worried, and she had every right to be. “There’s no way to know that. The battery wouldn’t have lasted for more than five days. Your Escape is parked in your driveway at night, so they could have been replacing it every time the battery died. Do you know anything about Colon’s background?” She shook her head. “He thinks like a cop. His father was a cop, one of the best undercover officers the New Jersey State Police ever had.”

Her brows shot up. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.” He shook his head. “He grew up in a police family and learned all the tricks from stories his father told him. Including knowing everything about a target, in this case you. He knows who I am and what I do for a living. He’d know that if I had the ledger, I’d turn it over to the U.S. Attorney’s Office so they could indict him all over again.”

“I can’t believe his father was a cop. That must have been difficult to live with, knowing his son had become a drug dealer.” She turned to open one of the overhead cupboards, then stood on her tiptoes to try and grab one of the large bowls.

“I’ll get that.” He reached over her shoulder for the bowl, and in the process, his chest and arm grazed her shoulder, and he felt her body tensing. As he set the bowl on the counter, she averted her eyes but not before he caught her cheeks pinking.

Maybe she’s not immune to me after all.

He sure wasn’t immune to her. Being in the same room with her made him hot. Touching her—even inadvertently—made his skin flame like the inside of a volcano.

He set the bowl on the counter in front of her, then returned to his side of the kitchen. “I’m sure it would have been hard on Colon’s father if he’d lived. He committed suicide when Colon was just a teenager. How such a good cop could have spawned a monster like Colon, we’ll never know.”

Laia began chopping lettuce. “What about his mother?”

Kade remembered Cecilia Colon from court. Her son showed absolutely no remorse for his crimes, while his mother sat weeping silently in the back of the courtroom. “I don’t think she ever condoned what he did. She was a cop’s wife and from what I heard was active in the police community for a long time after her husband died.”

“Watching her child get sent to prison couldn’t have been easy on her.” Laia looked into the living room where Rosa had climbed off the sofa and was settling against Smoke’s body, using him for a pillow.

“You’re a good mother,” he said, thinking she was looking at her daughter for reassurance.

Laia stiffened. “How would you know? You’ve only seen us together for less than two whole days.” She turned her back to him and resumed cutting tomatoes like she wanted to kill them. Or maybe she was imagining his neck on the cutting board.

Rather than respond, he clamped his mouth shut because she was right. He’d made damn sure to stay out of her life, and he deserved her irritation when he reminded her of the fact.

Kade’s phone blared from the kitchen table. Manny Dominguez’s name lit the screen. “I have to take this. Manny, how’d it go?” he said after answering.

“Jesus Montoya confirmed it,” Manny said. “He didn’t participate in the burglary and doesn’t know who did, but he was ordered to put a tracker under your sister-in-law’s car and to follow her around and see where she goes.”

“Did he confirm they’re looking for the ledger?” He glanced up when Laia moved closer.

“Yeah,” Manny said, “but that’s not all they’re looking for. Get this…they’re searching for a large amount of cash Josh stole from Colon.”

Now it was Kade’s turn to frown. Before he was murdered, Josh had already admitted to the AUSA that his cut was 3 percent of any amount he laundered, which was enough that the government had seized most of his and Laia’s property and holdings. “How much are we talking about?” Because if Colon was looking for it two years after the fact, it had to be a ton of cash that he only now discovered was missing.

“Somewhere around two million. I cut Montoya loose and sent him back out there to get more information in exchange for not locking his ass up.”

“Thanks, Manny. Keep me posted, and I’ll do the same.”

“Well?” Laia asked when he’d ended the call.

“The man you ID’d—Jesus Montoya—said Josh stole two million dollars from Colon.”