Knowing any chance of rest would elude him after that rude awakening, Nathan got out of bed, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and headed into the living room so he didn’t disturb Nicole by tossing and turning for the rest of the night.
Standing at the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the bright lights of the Strip, he splayed his hand on the cool pane of glass and exhaled a soul-deep sigh that did nothing to ease his guilt. The pain of the past still sliced deep, and with the pressure of getting Angela out of Sloane’s estate this weekend messing with his psyche, was it any wonder the nightmares had returned?
He curled his hand into a fist and cursed Caleb for giving him this case, for forcing him to relive his past and the mistakes he’d made that had cost a young girl her life. Yet despite Caleb’s tough-love approach, Nathan was committed to doing the job, and this time making damn sure no one got hurt in the process. There was no way he’d be able to face Angela’s father if anything happened to her. He was determined to reunite Angela with her family, and give her back her life. Give her a future.
“Nathan? What’s going on?”
Nicole’s soft, caring voice drifted from behind him, and when her fingertips lightly touched his tense back he instinctively flinched away. He immediately regretted the harsh reaction, and when he turned around to face her he hated that he’d been the one to put that hurt look in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly, and noticed that she’d put on one of his gray T-shirts, which looked exceptionally good on her. “I just have a lot on my mind.”
“Like what?” she persisted.
He shook his head. “Nothing you need to worry about.”
She pursed her lips in annoyance, his dismissive words seemingly making her more determined to discover what had driven him from their bed in the middle of the night. “I can’t just go back to sleep when I know something’s wrong,” she said, searching his gaze for answers.
He looked away. “Just leave it alone,” he said, even though he knew the inquisitive reporter in her wouldn’t drop the subject so easily. She sensed a story, and uncovering it was second nature to her.
And he knew she was damn good at her job.
“It’s this case, isn’t it?” she asked, her voice firm with conviction as she managed to home in on what was weighing so heavily on his mind. “It’s personal for you, just as it is for me. I’ve sensed that from the very beginning. What I’d like to know is how and why?”
“It’s ugly,” he said, as if that could scare her into backing off.
She crossed her arms over her chest and held her ground. “Everything about this case is ugly and repulsive and horrifying. But right now we’re partners, and I’m not some fragile woman who can’t handle the truth. There’s nothing you could tell me that would shock me, or make me think any differently of the man you are.”
He wasn’t so sure. Hadn’t one woman turned her back on him when he’d needed her support the most? Then again, he knew deep in his gut that Nicole was the complete opposite of Jill, in every way that mattered. Her strength. Her fortitude. Her ability to be vulnerable, yet courageous enough to stand up for what she believed in.
She settled on the cushion next to his. “Why is this case so important to you?” she asked, her tone much softer now.
He could have denied everything, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie to her. She deserved to know the truth about him, and if he was honest with himself, he no longer wanted to carry the burden of his past alone. And trusting Nicole came easily, because he knew she’d never betray his confidence.
He looked at her. The living room was dark, but the glow from the lights of the city gave him just enough illumination to see the caring in her expression, the need to understand what drove him, and a tenderness that affirmed the undeniable connection between them.
“This is my chance to right a wrong,” he said, his voice filled with so much pain it hurt to speak. “During my last undercover assignment as a vice cop, I was sent in with a few other guys in my department to infiltrate a prostitution ring. We were to gather enough evidence to bring down the leader, Paulo Rodriguez, and break up the organization. It took months to work my way in, and what I saw during that time turned my stomach. The young girls, the drugs and abuse, the sex trafficking. It was beyond anything I could have imagined.”
He dragged a hand down the side of his face and along the taut set of his jaw before continuing. “A lot of the victims were runaways, but others had been either lured in with promises of modeling careers and money, or just abducted right off the streets.”
Nicole pressed her fingers to her lips, her eyes wide as she listened to the shocking reality of what he’d witnessed.
He skipped over the more gruesome details of his assignment, because it wasn’t something Nicole needed to hear, and it wasn’t something he wanted to relive, either, even in his mind. “While I was undercover, I came in contact with a seventeen-year-old girl named Katie who’d been given to me by Paulo. Katie never could understand why we just talked whenever we were together, but after a while she came to trust me. I learned that she’d once been one of Sloane’s girls, until he decided she was too old for him and turned her out on the street. That’s when Paulo picked her up. Because Katie didn’t think she had anywhere else to go, and she was too ashamed to contact her family for help, she got sucked into a much harsher life of street prostitution.”
“Oh, God,” Nicole breathed. Tears shimmered in her eyes, and she looked completely devastated by Katie’s troubled circumstances, along with the fact that Sloane had been the one to set Katie’s tragic future into motion.
“Over time, she supplied me with a lot of information that helped to take down Rodriguez and his organization,” he went on. “When vice finally had enough evidence to arrest him, they raided his place just outside Vegas and busted him for prostitution, pandering, sex trafficking, and other drug-related charges. They took the underage girls into custody and released them back to their parents, but the DA needed Katie’s testimony to ensure that the charges against Rodriguez held and he was given a maximum sentence.”
He dragged in a deep breath, the air burning his lungs like acid. He didn’t want to go on, didn’t want to revive those awful memories, but now he realized it was a matter of purging himself of years of guilt and grief. He needed the poison out of his system so hopefully he could move on and heal.
He stared at the hands he’d clasped between his widespread thighs, remembering the details all too well. “Katie was so beat up physically, and so scared of Rodriguez, that she initially refused to testify. She kept saying that Paulo would kill her, even though he was behind bars. After promising her that she would be kept safe and secure before the court date, and would go into witness protection afterward, she finally agreed to be a witness for the prosecution.”
“What happened?” Nicole asked, and Nathan heard the reluctance in her voice, as if she knew his story didn’t have a happy ending, but needed to hear it anyway.
“She was kept at a safe house. The day she was scheduled to testify she was escorted to the courthouse by uniformed policemen,” he said, feeling his throat close up with a wealth of emotion he couldn’t hold back, no matter how hard he tried. “Just as she reached the doors, Paulo’s brother, José, shot her in the head. He killed her so she couldn’t testify against Rodriguez. The officers returned fire and killed José, but the bastard died for his brother and sent a pretty strong message to anyone else who might have thought about testifying.”
He shoved both hands through his hair, the renewed fury rushing through his veins so strongly he wanted to punch something to relieve his rage.
But then Nicole touched him, her fingers gently curling around his forearm in a show of tenderness and support, calming him. “You couldn’t have known what would happen.”