Page 9 of Illicit

“What the fuck are you up to?” I shake my head and take a step back. “You know what? You can answer that when we get back to my place. I’m not having this conversation on the street in the middle of the French Quarter. Are you going to cooperate or not?”

She rolls her pink lips while glaring at me. “I’ll come as long as you don’t call my dad.”

It’s my turn to exhale as I drag a hand down my face. I turn but don’t let go of her. She has to double time it to keep up with my quick pace.

She squeezes my hand. “You’re not going to call him?”

I can’t look down at her. She should know by now I’d never do that.

But I do tell her the truth.

“So help me, Teagan, I don’t know what to do with you.”

2

PIPE DREAM

Teagan

Rocco Monroe has been a constant in my life for…

Well, forever.

Okay, maybe not forever, but he has been for more than half my life.

Twelve years is a long time since I’m only twenty-two.

I was eleven when my dad got a transfer to Miami and brought all his friends with him.

Plus one stray.

That’s what Sammie called Rocco back in the day.

My sister is bitchy by nature. She was then and she still is. I love her, but bitchy is bitchy. I doubt she’ll ever change.

But I never thought of Rocco as a stray.

Rocco’s personality is as wide and as broad and as strong as his shoulders. He lights up a room and makes everyone smile.

He even managed to win over Sammie.

Eventually.

So, no. Rocco Monroe is no stray.

He’s a bonus.

Once I was older, I realized Rocco started out as a project for the tight group of agents I’ve known most of my life. But he turned into so much more.

Brax and Micah still treat him like a younger brother. They didn’t have room for Rocco to live with them when everyone migrated to southern Florida, so he moved in with us. We went from a family of four to one of five overnight.

It didn’t matter that he was officially an adult at the young age of eighteen. My parents gave him a home and a family and a place he could always come back to on summer break, between semesters, or even for the weekend.

Rocco became the son my father never had.

The project my mom gets off on since she’s a teacher and loves the forgotten kids.

And an annoying older brother to Sammie.

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