“If I’m not here, then I don’t have to worry about that, do I?”

“Probably not,” Allie said. “You can disappear again, for a while. But you know they’re going to look for you. And who do you think they’re going to ask first?”

Heat scorched through Mica’s chest. There was a reason she didn’t get close to people. Caring about people made you vulnerable, because they could be used against you. She’d spent years under Hector’s thumb, under his goddamn hot, sweaty, cruel body to keep herself and her family alive. He’d promised that her little sister would not get passed around when she came of age and La Mara recruited her, and he’d sworn that her little brother would not have to kill or risk being killed by MS-13. She’d sacrificed more than her pride and her body and her conscience to assure he kept his word. She’d shut herself off from caring about anyone. When you didn’t care, you couldn’t be hurt.

And now there was Flynn. Flynn, who refused to be frightened when she should be. Flynn, who thought her faith and her crazy-ass ideas of right and wrong were enough to make a difference. And maybe they were. Maybe they were for most people, but not for her. Not in her world. Faith, trust, love, and loyalty weren’t part of her world. Letting Flynn get to her had made her forget the lessons she carried in her scars, inside and out. She was probably going to pay in blood for that mistake, but Flynn didn’t have to.

“Let’s go,” Mica said, gesturing to the SUV.

Allie quickly covered her surprise with a brisk nod and opened the back door. “Bri—you drive.”

Mica was almost inside when Flynn called, “Wait. I’m coming.”

Mica slid into the back as Flynn crossed the street.

Allie blocked the door. “I’m sorry, Flynn, but you can’t come.”

Flynn leaned around Allie and peered into the backseat. “Mica? Are you all right?”

Mica ignored her and stared at the back of Parker’s head. Flynn didn’t move even when the cop told her to. Flynn never gave up. And she’d just get herself in deeper if Mica didn’t find a way to shut her out. She had to drive Flynn off. She thought of Flynn’s story of the girl she couldn’t save. Flynn had been wrong to feel guilty, to feel responsible, but she’d probably never believe it. Flynn only knew how to care.

Mica turned on the seat and looked out at Flynn. “You think you know what’s best for people, when you don’t really see them at all. You think the collar you’re still wearing, even if you pretend not to be, gives you the right to interfere in other people’s lives. Your arrogance blinds you. I don’t want to be the next one to get killed.” She grabbed the door and pulled it closed. The heavy thud echoed the heaviness in her heart at the flash of pain and sorrow in Flynn’s eyes.

Flynn jerked back from the SUV, pain lancing through her chest. The next one to get killed. Your arrogance…Your arrogance…

“Sorry about that,” Allie said.

“No,” Flynn said. “She’s right.”

“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Allie said, “but I know she’s wrong.” She gripped Flynn’s arm. “Look, I need to go. And you need to let her go, Flynn.”

“Take care of her, Allie.”

“Damn you,” Allie muttered. “Damn you for asking that.” She stalked around the front of the vehicle. “I will if I can.”

Flynn stood in the street as the SUV rolled away.

You need to let her go, Flynn.

Allie was right. Mica didn’t trust her. Mica didn’t want her. She had made the same mistake with Mica she’d made with Debbie—she’d fooled herself into believing her reality was theirs. Her blindness had cost Debbie her life. Mica was right. They were all right. She needed to let her go.

Chapter Twenty-six

The sheriff’s department was a lot cozier than the lockups Mica was accustomed to. When they brought her through a side door into a short hallway, she smelled pizza and cleaning solution. Not the usual piss and vomit stench that always seemed to hover in the Philly station. The windowless interrogation room, what they called the interview room, was just like the others she’d been in. Gunmetal gray table bolted to the floor in the center of a bare-walled room, plain metal chairs, big O-rings welded to the table for handcuffs. She wasn’t wearing handcuffs, but she might as well have been. When Allie’d said, “Have a seat. I’ll be back in a minute,” and walked out, the snap of the lock slamming shut on the interrogation room door was as sharp as the clang of the steel bars on a jail cell driving home. There was no door handle on the inside. No way out.

Mica glanced up at the surveillance camera in the corner, smiled, and sat back in her chair. Folding her arms over her chest, she stretched out her legs and tilted her head back against the hard metal chair. The ceiling had water stains on it that looked kind of like clouds if she squinted. She tried to let her mind go blank, but she kept seeing Flynn’s face—the hurt and sad acceptance. Like Flynn believed what she had said. Mica flinched inside at the idea of hurting Flynn, who had to be one of the only people in her life who’d stood up for her. Stood by her. But she’d had to hurt her to keep her safe. All the same, she hated herself a little for putting that wounded look in Flynn’s eyes.

Maybe someday, if she got out of this alive, she’d say she was sorry. Right now she had to get her head in the game and try to piece together what they might have on her. Unlike so many of the other La Mara crew, male and female alike, she hadn’t wanted to make her name by pulling some big job, or to gain a reputation by being arrested and doing the time without giving anyone up. As Hector’s old lady, she didn’t have to participate in anything she didn’t want to—unless Hector wanted her with him. Then she couldn’t avoid getting pulled into his action.

Thinking back to what they could put on her, she only came up with the night she’d been with Hector after some of his crew had hijacked a truckload of electronics on an exit ramp off the New Jersey Turnpike. She hadn’t been in on the heist and didn’t know many of the details, only that he’d gone out in the Hummer to oversee the transfer and had picked her up on the way back. He always wanted sex after he’d made a big score. Liked to recount the events while she blew him and, if she didn’t get him off right away, while he fucked her. Of course, he wanted sex most of the time—when he was feeling good, when he was feeling frustrated, when he was angry, when he needed to demonstrate his authority. He especially liked having sex with his crew around, so they could watch him dominate her.

That night the police had pulled them over right after he’d picked her up, and took them in for questioning. She didn’t know anything except what she’d overheard when Hector was deploying his lieutenants, and that hadn’t been much. Hector didn’t talk about his business with her, and when he tried, she changed the subject. She didn’t want to know. She wasn’t naïve, she knew what he did. She knew evil when in its presence, but she was smart enough to know that what she knew could one day get her killed or put her in jail. She hadn’t told the cops anything and after twelve hours, they’d let her go.

Now she balanced on the razor’s edge between death and being put away. If Hector found out she was talking to the law, or even suspected she had, he would kill her. If she didn’t go back to him, he would kill her. And if she talked about what he’d done and the knowledge implicated her, she could go to jail. If she tried for a plea bargain, Hector would kill her before she ever had a chance to testify against him. The only way out was to deny everything. If she didn’t cooperate, if she gave them nothing and could keep running until she disappeared, she might live. She’d be living in the shadows, a shadow herself, and might not have much of a life, but breathing was always better than not. Maybe.

A lot of maybes.

So she waited. She figured they’d take at least an hour, maybe two to soften her up, wait until she was anxious, hungry, and thirsty. Maybe wait until her nerves had her bladder on edge and then force her to talk while she was worried she might disgrace herself.

A sharp knock came on the door and Allie walked back in with someone new. Another rangy, dark-haired stud, this one tougher around the edges than the one Allie had been with before—carved cheekbones, blocky jawline, intense sea-blue eyes. Cop’s eyes. Harder, more experienced than the ones she’d been looking into recently.

“This is Detective Mitchell,” Allie said. “She’s got a story for you.”

Mitchell pulled out a chair opposite Mica, and Allie took up a post by the door.

So they hadn’t made her wait, and now this new one was going to take the lead. Huh. She would’ve figured Allie to be the one in charge. Maybe this was her boss.

“I’m from Philadelphia,” Mitchell said. “I wanted to talk to you about Hector.”

“Hector who? Lots of dudes named Hector.”

Mitchell smiled. “I guess that’s true. But I think we both know who we’re talking about. And since I’m not here to run any games on you, I’ll lay it out.”

And she did. Mitchell told her how they’d been watching Hector and his crew and her. She showed her a picture of her with Hector and a couple of his lieutenants. Mitchell said they knew about Hector’s jobs, and they knew she was Hector’s girl, and Hector’s girl had to know what Hector was doing. They didn’t want her, Mitchell said, they wanted Hector. They wanted her to help them get him.

“If you know so much,” Mica said, staring at a stain on the ceiling over Mitchell’s head that looked a little like roadkill, “why don’t you just go get him.”

“I think you know the answer, but I’ll tell you anyway. Like I said, no games. We know these things, but we don’t have the evidence. What we need is someone like you, and a couple of others, to talk.”

“To turn, you mean.” Mica snorted and shook her head. “What you want is to get a couple of us killed. If you know so much, you know what happens when someone talks about MS-13. Sooner or later, a week, a month, five years, they end up dead.”

“We know. We know that’s why you’re running. You want out. We can help you.”

“Oh yeah? And how do you plan to do that?”

“You help us with information on Hector—how the gang is structured, who his lieutenants are, who his contacts in other organizations are, who might be willing to talk if the money is right. You do that and we’ll get you a new identity.”

“A new identity?”

“WITSEC—the witness protection program. We’ll relocate you, get you a job, get you twenty-four-hour protection for the rest of your life.”

“And where do you plan to put me? Kansas? Someplace where I’ll live in a box wondering when he’ll track me down, answering to some cop instead of Hector? How is that any different? At least with La Mara, I’m free.”

Allie said softly, “Are you? Then why are you here?”

“I’m here because I choose to be here.”

“You’re here because you’re running for your life,” Allie said. “Let us help you.”

“You’ll help me right into the ground. No deal.” Mica shook her head. She’d never live to make it into WITSEC, and if she did, she’d never see Flynn again. Never be able to set things right, if Flynn would even talk to her.

“We will get the evidence on Hector,” Mitchell said, “and when we do, you’ll go down with him. We’ll charge you as an accessory. You don’t want that to happen. I don’t think you’re guilty.”

“If you wanted to arrest me, you would’ve done it already.” Mica called their bluff, but she believed the detective. Hector had a world of hurt coming his way and didn’t know it yet.

“Look,” Mitchell said, “there may be a way to work this so you don’t have to testify. So Hector doesn’t know where the information is coming from.”

“How?”

“Help us get the guy who’s after you. If we arrest him, with enough evidence to put him away, he’s going to be in the same situation you are. He’ll know if he goes to jail he’s a liability and Hector will kill him. My guess is he’ll turn if we offer him protection. And if he’s one of Hector’s lieutenants, he’s got to know what we need to know.”

“And what do I get out of this?”

Mitchell looked her right in the eye. “You get freedom. You walk away.”

“And if you don’t get Hector, he’ll know it was me.”

“How is that any different than where you are now?” Allie said. “At least this way, you have a shot at getting Hector out of the picture. With him gone and someone else in his place, you’re not going to be so important anymore. At least you won’t be at the top of their list.”

Mica thought about it. She’d been gone too long now. Even if she wanted to go back, Hector wouldn’t be able to let her, not and still save face. He was going to kill her; there was no going back. What they offered was a slim possibility, but it was more than she had right now. “How would it work?”