Free Don't Let Go by Skye Warren Page B

among the Mr. Hydes of the world and somehow escaped to this domestic idyll.
    I stared at her with a growing sense of surrealism. We looked alike. Dark hair that shone in the light. Porcelain skin. The similarities ran deeper than that. We both had crazy, fucked up fathers. Only, mine had hurt other children. Hers had hurt her , so looking at her was like an alternate reality version of myself. This was what I’d be if things had been different.
    She was beautiful, with an air of contentedness, so it wasn’t a bad option, really. Except things hadn’t always been good for her. Bad things had happened in her past, with her father, on the streets, with Carlos, and I knew that from reading more than her file. All those blacked out lines, those top-secret words. And the past she couldn’t quite forget.
    Her eyes held shadows. Hollows in her eyes, empty spaces carved out from moments I could only guess at. Emotional scar tissue, and no amount of her husband’s love or protection could ever erase it completely.

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    By the time Mia and I returned to the front of the house, Lance was conversing seriously with Tyler Martinez. About Carlos, probably. It hadn’t really occurred to me that the ex-agent could have as much valuable insight as Carlos’s former girlfriend. That was smart of Lance. Capable, too, that he’d swayed someone initially hostile to talk to him.
    “Did he tell you anything?” I asked on the ride back, looking at his side profile.
    He shifted gears as the light turned green. “Not anything we can use. He warned me away. Said Carlos would do things on his own terms. Always has, always will.”
    “That’s about what Mia said,” I admitted.
    Depressing advice from two people who had been steamrolled by Carlos once upon time. And they’d managed to escape and build new lives for themselves, so they knew what they were talking about.
    If I were smart, I’d take their advice. I’d back off Carlos and find some smaller fish to fry. But this was my assignment, my career. This was my purpose , and I couldn’t leave it alone any sooner than Carlos could stop being a criminal. We were at cross purposes, he and I. One of us had to lose, and even knowing it would be me, I couldn’t stop trying.
    Lance was quiet for the rest of the drive, a thoughtful look on his face. He was young. Around the same age as me, but he felt young. He looked it, too, with angular features almost too big for his face and hair that tended to flop in his eyes by the end of the day. His body was gangly, though strong.
    I could see the building blocks of a handsome, well-built man, but he wasn’t fully formed yet. He needed more bulk and he needed more experience—at least, for my tastes. I’d always been attracted to older men. Even knowing it was due to daddy issues didn’t diminish it. The body wants what it wants. And the heart yearns for acceptance, something Lance’s innocence could never really provide.
    His mouth opened as if he wanted to say something, but he shook his head. “Just keep your eyes open.”
    My eyebrows rose. “Okay…that sounds like a threat.”
    He grimaced slightly. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence you’re on this case.”
    First Hennessey, now Lance. I was surrounded by conspiracy theorists. But that didn’t mean they were wrong.
    I bit my lip, thinking. “Did Martinez say something about it?”
    A pause. “He said you could be sisters. You and Mia, when you were coming back around the house. That you looked alike.”
    Jesus. There were a hundred reasons I was on this case. No, there was only one reason.
    If only I had someone to confide in. I wanted to spill my darkest secrets without facing condemnation. I needed to lay out all the pieces and have someone talk me through it. I had to believe the jagged pieces fit together, if I knew the proper order.
    My thoughts went to Hennessey. Could I trust him? At the very least, I should tell him about this visit to Mia. Then if he