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  Maia Brighton—because god knew she couldn’t be bothered to change her name after the divorce—was one of the Dallas District Attorney’s Office’s hottest lawyers. In more ways than one. She was damn fine at her job and from what Derek could tell, she’d also slept with most of her bosses. And she was just the type to give up his kinks and those of his friends if she thought it would take her an extra step up the ladder.

  Hill nodded shortly. “Harris came up with the idea of bringing in subject experts on this case, Detective. I asked the DA’s office if they knew of any and they were happy to oblige.”

  Derek’s boss, Captain Joe Harrigan, leaned forward in his seat. “Derek, the Rangers here have promised to be discreet. As far as anyone knows, you’re going to be working this case because you’ve worked more homicides than anyone else in the division.”

  “I’m not going to get my ass kicked for my private life?” He wouldn’t be the first cop to find himself shoved off the force for not toeing the very narrow line.

  Joe snorted a little, as did Alex McKay as he slid into his seat after settling Eve into hers. “You’re not the only one with kinks, man,” the captain said. “The chief belongs to a club himself.”

  Derek relaxed a little. If the chief had said something to his captain, then everything was cool. He was a good cop. He’d always done his best and had been told he was in line for promotions. Maybe the department wasn’t so rigid. “So you’re looking for BDSM experts because you think the killer is prowling BDSM clubs?”

  “All of the women he’s killed have been known submissives in the community. Including the latest.” Hill’s whole face went grave and he glanced at Joe, who nodded. There was a heavy tension permeating the air.

  Oh, fuck. They were holding back on him. He looked between the two men, searching their faces as they held a silent conversation between them that ended with Joe sighing heavily and placing his hand on the folder he’d brought in.

  Derek’s stomach took a nose dive.

  “Who?” There was only one reason for him to touch that folder like he didn’t want to release it, like there was something sacred in it and the information would change things.

  “He killed again, early this morning. It’s why we brought you in so suddenly,” Joe explained.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He stared at the folder like it was a snake that would bite him if he moved even an inch. Very slowly, as though time had turned into a mud pit he had to slog through, Joe slid that folder his way.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this way, Brighton. The latest victim is someone you know,” Hill explained, his deep voice grim. “It’s someone you all know. Apparently she was a regular at that club your brother owns, Sean. Sanctum?”

  Sean had gone a little white, his eyes on the folder, too. “Yes.”

  “Oh, my god.” Eve reached for her husband, tears already in her eyes.

  “Fuck me,” O’Donnell said, running a hand through his hair. “It’s not Jill or Ashley. I just left them.”

  All around him they were chattering, but it seemed to come from a distance because his hand was on that folder and his stomach was somewhere in his throat. He was a cop who’d seen the absolute worst things humanity could do both in war and in the civilian sector. He could handle just about anything, but he was going to make a fool of himself if he turned that folder over and saw her in a photograph, her gorgeous blue eyes dead and that skin of hers cold.

  Not Karina. Not Karina. Not Karina.

  He suddenly wondered who it would be okay to see in that picture and he realized a brutal and nasty truth. Anyone but her. He could handle it being anyone except her. He was friends with the subs at Sanctum. He’d slept with some of them, and he suddenly knew he would toss them all to the wolves if it meant Karina was still breathing. It was perverse because he wasn’t even friends with her. He was never going to be close to her, but he couldn’t stand the thought of never seeing her again.

  Not Karina. Not Karina. Not Karina.

  He turned over the folder and a golden-haired blonde with blue eyes was staring up at him. He’d seen those blue eyes before, but now there was nothing lighting them. They were flat and empty in death.

  “Holy shite,” O’Donnell breathed as he looked over Derek’s shoulder. “I didn’t like the girl, but damn me if I want that to happen to anyone.”

  Amanda. Guilt swamped in and yet he couldn’t help but feel a massive wave of relief. Not Karina. Amanda. She’d been a junior officer, a first-class bitch, and he’d had a hand in ousting her from Sanctum. Now she was dead, a victim. She was a cop and all he could think about was Karina. He was a pathetic waste. He should feel more for a woman he’d worked with. He’d topped Amanda on many occasions, but deep down it had just been an exchange of need. There hadn’t been a single emotion for her beyond anger when she’d threatened to bring down the club.

  Shouldn’t it mean more?

  “Officer King was found dead in an alley behind a club in Deep Ellum early this morning,” Joe said in a monotone that let Derek know he was in full-on cop mode. Nothing would touch him until he’d gotten the job done.

  That cold professionalism was nothing less than what he owed to his fallen officer.

  Derek adopted the same and tried his damnedest to not feel the relief in his gut that Karina was still walking the earth in her atrocious shoes.

  Because it didn’t matter. She wasn’t his type and she was kind of a righteous bitch who had it in for him, which was why he wished she would stop looking at him with her doe eyes and stop walking around the club with her big, gorgeous tits hanging out, and wished she would disappear so he could fucking sleep with someone else because he damn straight wasn’t going to sleep with her.

  No way. No fucking how.

  Professional. He had to stay cool and calm because there was a killer working and he’d come straight into Derek’s world.

  “Amanda was no longer a member of Sanctum. We have very strict rules on how submissives enter and leave the club. She would never have been allowed to walk to her vehicle alone. She would have been walked to her car and she would have been asked to call another member of the club when she got safely home. If she hadn’t made the call, someone would have gone looking for her,” Alex McKay explained as Derek ran through the details that made up the end of Amanda’s life.

  Strangled with jute rope. He stared at the pictures, recognizing the tortoise-shaped pattern of ropes that crossed her naked flesh. A rope dress. The bastard had used an intricate pattern to truss her up.

  “Yes, we think she was in one of the larger clubs, a not so private one. There are two we’ve identified in the DFW area and that’s where we need your help,” Hill explained.

  “You want us to go undercover,” Sean surmised.

  “Eve isn’t going anywhere,” McKay said immediately. “She can profile the fucker for you, but if he’s killing subs, you can’t expect me to send her in.”

  Watts stepped up. “Look, we don’t need a sub. We’ve got a good line on a sub to send in. I haven’t talked to her myself, but we’ve identified her as a potential victim. We found her name on a grain of rice the unsub left on Officer King.”

  “We?” Harris said, his eyes wide.

  Clayton pointed a finger Harris’s way. “Just explain the findings. We don’t need a ton of attitude.”

  Harris straightened his tie and smirked for all he was worth. “They didn’t even realize it was there. I didn’t work the first couple of cases. The other guy is an idiot. I found it this morning. It was very small, a little trace. He’s looking to lead us down a rabbit hole and no one had found the way yet.”

  Oh, Derek was so glad he didn’t have to work with this asshole on a regular basis. “Are you going to explain or just give us a lot of literary references?”

  “But they’re good references. You have to admit I have style.” He sighed a little. “Fine. Besides the obvious bondage, I found something odd in her hair. I’ve got a very specific routine. I check
every inch of the victim. I don’t miss a damn thing. I found something weird in her hair. A grain of rice. A lesser tech would have missed it or thought it was a coincidence. Maybe she’d been cooking earlier. But it didn’t get past me. That was a clue and I had a feeling about it.”

  Hill huffed a little. “I want to murder him myself half the time, but he’s got uncanny instincts.”

  “What does rice have to do with this?” Liam asked.

  Harris rubbed his hands together in obvious delight. “So much. It’s the little things that truly make a crime a work of art. I bagged that grain of rice and it was the first thing I studied. I knew it was meaningful. I got it under my scope and that was when I found it. A name was written right fucking there. We’ve gone back through the other victims and in each case there was a single grain of rice with the next victim’s name on it. Who the flying fuck does that?”

  Alex frowned. “How the hell did he get it on there?”

  It was the kind of thing he’d seen at amusement parks and festivals. Your Name on a Grain of Rice. He’d seen booths offering the keepsake a couple of times. He’d never heard of it being left on a victim.

  “You know the name of the submissive you think is going to be the unsub’s next victim?” Eve asked. “I would love to talk to her. I know a bit about Amanda. If you would give me information on the other victims and let me talk to this woman, it would help me with a profile. I assume that’s why I’m here.”

  Hill nodded. “I need you, Eve. You’ve done amazing work for us in the past. I’ve been given the go-ahead to pay your usual rate and double if you have to work overtime.”

  She shook her head. “No. This is pro bono, Clay.”

  Alex agreed. “McKay-Taggart is at your service. This is personal. Just tell us what you need.”

  “I think he needs one of us to act as the next victim’s Dom,” Sean said.

  Hill nodded. “We need one of you to make contact with the potential victim. We’re bringing her in to talk, but we thought a friendly face might help to sway her to work with us. She should be here in a few hours. I’m going to brief you and then you can help explain it all to her. We need her. If she decides to run, we might lose him and he’ll kill another girl.”

  A cold feeling hit his stomach. He’d always had an uncanny sense of when the shit was about to hit the fan, and it threatened to take him over now. Someone he knew?

  “What’s her name?” The question was tight, forced from his throat.

  “Karina. Karina Mills. She’s a private detective from what I understand. I was told you know her quite well. It’s why I actually think we might have caught a break. She should be good undercover, right?”

  She wasn’t working undercover. They wanted bait. Pretty, sweet bait with spectacular tits and an ass he’d been dying to spank.

  “I’ll do it. I’ll be her Dom.” He was startled to hear the words coming out of his mouth, but he wouldn’t take them back.

  “Damn straight you will,” Alex said. “You’re the only one of us who can, Derek. Simon and Jesse are in England. Tag will kick our asses if Karina gets murdered. She’s practically on the payroll.”

  One of us. That was what McKay was talking about. Amanda might have gone to Sanctum, but Karina was truly one of them. Karina was a fixture at both Sanctum and McKay-Taggart. She was also a pain in his ass.

  And this is your shot to get your hands on her, dickhead. Don’t fucking blow it. You’ll have to be with her, sleep close to her, protect her. You can fuck her and get her out of your system and then you won’t have this ache in your gut every time she walks in a room. You can be free of her. You’ll see it wouldn’t ever work. You’ll know.

  “I’ll take care of her. This is my case.” He needed to use the words his old Army buddies would recognize and respect. “My op.”

  His op. His way. His charge.

  Fuck. Karina Mills was going to be in his care, his responsibility.

  One way or another, he would save her. Whether she liked it or not.

  * * * *

  Karina Mills looked out the window of the conference room and wondered exactly what the hell she’d done to piss the DPD off. She had to admit, it was the first time in a long time she’d had her ass hauled to jail.

  Hey, Kevin, at least this time I wasn’t in cuffs.

  It was so hard to stand in a police department and not think of him. Years had passed and she could still remember how he looked sitting at his desk in Brooklyn, the one across from his partner. It was always neat as a pin, perfectly organized. Perfect. Like Kevin himself. Her smiling protector.

  Unlike that asshole Derek Brighton, who always frowned her way. Always made her feel like she was dirt underneath his shoe. The one and only time they’d played together had been beyond awkward because they’d been in the middle of a case that ended with him accusing her of impeding an investigation and her siccing IA on his ass in revenge.

  She shouldn’t have done it, but she wasn’t sure how to apologize. And it was likely for the best because they didn’t fit.

  So why was she so damn attracted to him? Why did she sit around and wonder why he smiled at all the other subs but never had one for her? Why did he and he alone have the capacity to make her remember who she really was?

  She could clean herself up. She could do good. She could fly right, but underneath all of it, she was still a junkie.

  Once an addict, always an addict. She was one misstep away from sticking a needle in her arm, and the minute she forgot it, she would fall off the very sturdy wagon she’d built for herself.

  Thank god for sealed records or she wouldn’t have a job at all. She seriously doubted McKay-Taggart would pay her intensely high fees if Big Tag knew she’d been a high school drug addict and minor criminal. Li O’Donnell likely wouldn’t play cards with her, and he certainly wouldn’t let her anywhere near his precious Avery.

  She would lose all her friends. Ashley and Jill would probably back away. It was just what people did when they realized how badly she’d fucked up in the past.

  Need rose, hard and fast. The need to get out of herself for a while, to not think about anything, to shut her never-ending thoughts up. She very calmly took a long drink of coffee. Bitter. Not a hint of sweet. Just like she liked it. She stared out and thought about hitting a meeting. She would find the nearest one the minute she got out of here.

  Hiding who she was—it was a no no in the book of sobriety and yet she couldn’t make herself talk about it to her new friends. Couldn’t put herself out there to be judged and found wanting.

  She didn’t even want to think about what Lieutenant Brighton would do if he found out about her past. He would likely give her his trademark hot-guy smirk and tell her he’d always known there was something wrong with her.

  Or worse, he would look at her with pity.

  She took a deep breath and for the millionth time wished Kevin hadn’t died. Wished he’d been less of a hero. Wished her Dom, her husband, was still with her, easing her way through life, teaching her control and the beauty of submission and trust.

  If anything ever happens to me, you be brave, Karina. You be the woman I know you can be. You don’t have to accept who you were. Be the you you want to be. My beautiful wife. My strong sub.

  Guilt gnawed at her gut because as much as she’d loved Kevin Mills, she’d never felt the shock of lust she got the minute Derek Brighton walked into a room. It was perverse. It was wrong.

  Sometimes it was all she thought about. Years and years had gone by without sex and she was all right with it for the most part. Only Derek had sparked the need in her.

  The door opened and Karina turned, frowning as a whole line of people she knew very well walked in.

  Eve and Alex McKay were followed by Sean Taggart and Liam O’Donnell, and that gorgeous bastard Brighton. She looked at him freely because he so rarely glanced her way. She was free to study him since he avoided her eyes. He was roughly six two with a pelt of brown and gold hair he
kept in a cut that would have made his old CO proud. There was just the hint of a five o’clock shadow on his jaw, though it was barely one o’clock in the afternoon. He probably shaved twice a day, as though his masculinity was always trying to make itself known. She’d thought often about kissing that rigid jawline of his until it softened.

  Not that he would ever soften for her.

  She could stare at him for hours and it was all right because he avoided her.

  Except this time his eyes came up. Brown eyes that always seemed so cold now heated as he stopped and stared at her, his eyes going from hers to her breasts and hips in a bold assessment and then right back to lock stares with her.

  A challenge. She felt a little huff of breath leave her and then she averted her eyes out of habit. He was staring at her the way a Dom would when sizing up a sub, and she’d been trained on how to act. She caught the hint of a smirk hit his face and then turned from him.

  She didn’t have to take that from him. He wasn’t her Dom and he never would be.

  “Hey, guys. What’s up?” She asked the question casually, but suspicion was creeping into her brain. Why had she been brought to the police station if Big Tag wanted a meeting? He typically just called her private cell and told her to get her ass to a place of his choosing and then he bitched that she overcharged him and asked when she was going to implement a coupon program.

  Would he send in Alex McKay to let her know he wouldn’t do business with her anymore? Tag always seemed like a man who would do his own dirty work.

  Eve walked straight up to her and threw her arms around her, hugging her tight.

  Karina understood the value of a hug. She immediately opened her arms, not questioning her friend. Eve was tense, her whole body shaking slightly. Karina’s heart opened. She put a soothing hand in Eve’s perfect hair. “It’s all right, honey.” Eve was good people. “Whatever happened, I’ll help you. I promise.”

  Alex came up, his green eyes kind. “Amanda King was murdered last night.”

  Karina was the one holding on to Eve now. Amanda had been a sub at Sanctum. She’d been the troublesome one, attempting to be a Queen Bee. She’d had a hard outer shell Karina had never been able to crack, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel the loss. She’d known the woman.