Page 5 of Beyond the Badge: Crew

When she tried to pull her hand from his, he held it for a few seconds longer before finally releasing it. “Crew works. You? Camila or Cabrera?”

She shrugged. “No one calls me Camila except my grandparents. I respond to Cam, Cami or Cabrera. Or even C.C. That’s what my daddy calls me.”

“Good to know,” he practically wheezed, having a hard time breathing after hearing that last part.

Not only did her last name sound familiar, so did the nickname C.C. Even so, his brain was having trouble placing her.

“Well, I look forward to working with you and your team,” she said, a sparkle dancing in her dark eyes.

Jesus fuck, she was going to be trouble. She was going to overturn the fucking apple cart. He just knew it.

He opened his mouth to tell Williams that he wanted someone else to take Butler’s place. Anyone but the woman in front of him.

But just as the words were starting to form, Cabrera turned to the supervising special agent to ask, “When do I start?”

“Today.”

Today?He didn’t even get a fucking minute to come to terms with this whole thing? To prepare his team?

“All right, I have another meeting in five minutes. I just wanted to introduce you two.” He glanced at Cabrera. “Come to me with any problems.”

Go to him with any problems? What the fuck did that mean?

“Will do, sir,” was her answer. She turned to Crew. “Walk me out?”

Hell no.His eyes met Williams’ and he swallowed that answer. “Sure.” He waved a hand toward the open office door, and she stepped through it.

He followed her to the elevator. They said nothing while waiting for the car to arrive and once inside, both stared at the closed doors for the time it took them to reach the ground floor.

They said nothing as they stepped outside into the bright sunlight. Wincing, he pulled the sunglasses from where he had them hooked in his shirt’s neckline and slipped them over his eyes.

If there was a reason she wanted him to walk her out, she sure was keeping it close to the vest.

“Well…” he started, ready to get the fuck out of there.

“I bet you know my father. You seem to be about his age.”

There was no fucking way he was her father’s age. Unless she was conceived when her father wasn’t a man yet but still a boy.

He snapped his gaping mouth shut. “Who’s your father?”

“Williams didn’t tell you?”

Like earlier, he didn’t like the direction of this conversation, either. Not a fucking bit. “Should he have?”

“I figured that’s why you don’t look very happy about me joining your task force. Not because of our earlier run-in.”

“I—”didn’t have a choice, that’s why I’m not happy.Crew shook his head. Telling her that he was forced to accept her as a team member wouldn’t make things any easier for either of them. He didn’t have any choice but to accept the inevitable. “No, apparently he didn’t feel the need to share that information with me. Do you want to share it, instead?”

“My father knows you.”

“He does?” He rubbed his forehead as if that would jumpstart his memory. “Is his last name Cabrera?”

“It is. Normally I’d use my mother’s last name, but we decided to follow the American tradition of using my father’s last name, instead.”

He had plenty of questions about that little tidbit of info but right now he was more interested in who her father was, not why she was using his last name, a normal tradition for people living in the U.S.

For fuck’s sake, should he even care why?

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