Chapter Fourteen

Ursin Miller

Did I ever think I could be happy? Really happy? No. Who did? Especially in my line of work. I looked down at Anya, my Anya, who, after a week of consummating our relationship, made me feel I finally achieved the state that eluded me for much of my life, especially after my father was murdered.

Nothing could tear us apart. We'd agreed our relationship would be secret until summer-one session was over, which was in just a couple of weeks, then we'd wait a little longer, and then we'd tell the world. That was the plan.

Anya looked up at me from my bed, her naked body wrapped in my gray sheets. "Why did you want to be a lawyer?"

I frowned. God, what a long story. "I wanted to take down bad guys. Like my father did."

She dropped her gaze. "Oh."

A chill spread through me. Something about the way she said oh, left me unbalanced. "He spent his life getting criminals from a law enforcement standpoint. I wanted to serve the bad guys with the justice they deserved."

"Did you always want to be a DA?" She still didn't look at me.

What the hell was wrong?

"Yeah, you could say that." I ran my palm up her thigh. "I had a bone to pick with the cartel. So, I spend my life getting those bastards one by one."

The silence grew thick.

"Not all the good guys are good. I know you know that." She turned on her side, my hand falling off her leg. "That's why I want to be an investigative journalist. I want to expose the whole story."

I sat up. "Of course, I know even some good guys get tempted to the dark side, Anya."

"Mmm-hmm."

Frustration moved me, and I stood and slipped on my jeans that had been thrown on the floor. "What the fuck are you saying, Anya? Are you suggesting I'm just another crooked DA?"

Corrupt was the worst thing anyone could think of me. Especially her. I needed her to know I was on the good side, no matter my destructive nature. I was not like her father.

"No, Sin, I don't think that at all. I know you're working on the good side, just like I want to be once I graduate." She sat up, her eyes pleading with me.

"Okay…" I raked my hand through my sweat-slicked hair. "You haven't passed my class yet."

She frowned. "I will, though. Right?"

"That's up to you." I turned, frustrated with the conversation. I didn't like the tension, the unsaid things she kept. "Just because we're together doesn't mean I'm not going to give you the grade you deserve."

"Even after this course, I still have so much to learn from you."

I turned to her, meeting her gaze. God, she was so beautiful. I think I love her.

But I had to know why she questioned me about being a lawyer. Anya had a way of holding in the truth, the ugly kind, because she wanted everything to be peaches and cream. But life wasn't peaches and cream. It was mostly rotten bananas and sour milk.

"And I have much to learn from you." My words were steady, intentional.

She dropped her gaze. And there it was, the sign to prove I wasn't insane to think she hid something from me.

"No more bullshit, Anya." My voice trembled with the effort it took to contain myself. She had to have known I didn't play this game. I wasn't one to be trifled with, boyfriend or not. "What the hell are you keeping from me?"

She lifted her knees into her chest, protecting herself as if I'd actually hurt her. I lunged to the bed, gutted that she still thought I'd do anything but worship the ground she walked on. I pulled her by her knees and forced her to straddle my thighs and look at me.

Red-faced, she wanted to look away, I could see the struggle on her features, but she knew better than to deny me anything.

"I'm not going to say it again, Minx." My voice was low, growling. I reached my point of no return.

"We never talked about this, but I know what happened to your father." Sharp breaths lifted her chest. "I know what my father's goons did to him."

What?

Thoughts eluded me, as did words and feelings. But the rage that was my baseline broke through the barriers of survival. And I had to acknowledge that she, my girlfriend, my fucking Anya, knew her father murdered mine, and she never said a word about it.

Why? Fucking why didn't she?

"How do you know that, Anya?" My fingers gripped the tender flesh of her thighs until she winced. But I didn't stop. And she didn't ask me to either.

She parted her lips, the sigh of a breath blowing into the air. "My mom told me everything about you. She knew everything."

"Your informant mother?" Energy buzzed through me. I knew she'd lied under oath. She protected her husband to the very end, and still, she was free.

Anya nodded. "She forbade me from reading anything about the case in the news or the actual police reports. Everything I knew about the case was from her."

An ache ran through my chest. I didn't think I could take in another breath. "So, you knew everything about me and my family the moment you saw I would be your teacher?"

Anya nodded again, and it angered me. I needed her to say the words that would surely devastate me. I was halfway there.

"Are you telling me your mother lied about something?" My stomach roiled, and a dull ache of impending doom settled in my bones.

"She liked you, Ursin. She thought you were a good kid. Not like your father or mine."

Wait, what?

"What are you saying?" I couldn't take another second being in the dark. And that's where I've been all along.

"She knew something that was held back. No one knew, not even the agent working with your father."

My mind spun. None of her words made sense. "What, Anya? Speak fucking English, for fuck's sake."

She dropped her gaze to my fingers digging into her thighs. The skin was pinched and enflamed from my iron grip. But I didn't let go. Not now. I wouldn't until she told me the truth.

"Your dad, Agent Miller, he worked for my father." Her voice trailed off. "He was killed because he intercepted a major drug deal and took the money for himself."

The words didn't sink in yet, and I was flinging Anya off me. She flew back on the bed, and I stood up, needing my feet on the floor to get my balance and regain the stability that wasn't going to come. Not with what Anya just told me.

"That's a lie. A disgusting, fucking lie, Anya." I balled my fists, but the nearest wall was too far to punch. I let the burst of rage sizzle through me, carving out a trench of confliction I'd never felt before.

Anya grabbed the sheet, wrapping it around her naked body. "I wouldn't lie to you."

"Said the cartel boss's daughter."

She stepped back as if I punched her in the stomach. Tears welled in her eyes, but I didn't give a goddamn. Her mother was a dirty liar, and I knew it from the onset of the trial. She was just as guilty as Gomez. And like her parents, Anya was a Montelongo by blood—bad to the core. This was what I feared from the moment I knew who she was.

"You don't mean that, Ursin."

"I'm Mr. Miller to you now." I snatched the sheet, exposing her naked body, which she tried to cover with her hands.

"No," she whispered, the tears falling now. So many down her cheeks, on her bare chest. "Please."

I turned away from her sad, destroyed face. But I was destroyed inside too. Worse, I was in love and betrayed.

Before I reached the door, I said, "Get your clothes and get the fuck out of my house."