Page 8 of His Sweet Torment
“You wouldn’t be. I’m saying…I don’t want my life curtailed by Freddy Ingles – and it is him who would come after you as well as me – he’s a sadist. Without him at the helm, the rest of them would crumble. They just want to be comfortable, gets as much money as they can without being bothered by scandal.”
Padme chewed this over. “I wouldn’t hesitate to put the asshole down. God, killing a pregnant woman?”
“And they knew it, too.”
“Cocksuckers,” she spat. “Just let me get a whiff of Ingles, and I’ll end him myself.”
Enver’s expression was hard. “I don’t want you within a million miles of that psycho.”
She gave him a lop-sided grin. “It’s kind of my job, Enver.”
He nodded, his expression concerned. “What made you go into the F.B.I. anyway?”
“I wanted to help people,” she said simply, “It was either this or the Military for me.”
“Did you go to college?”
She nodded. “A degree then a Master’s in Political Science. When Cosima…wait, do you know Cosima and Arlo Forrester?”
He nodded. “I do, a little.”
“Well, Cosima was shot and seriously injured a few years ago by her F.B.I. handler. We didn’t know if she was going to make it, but because of it, the restrictions on protecting foreign nationals were tightened up. I decided to join up to make sure they were – and now look where I am.”
“Isn’t that what you call irony?” Enver grinned at her, but she shook her head.
“More like…heartbreak. God, what am I doing?” Padme closed her eyes. “I’ve worked so hard to get where I am, Enver, you don’t know the half of it. Orphanage kid, mixed race, female…I had to overcome discrimination to get here. If something happened to you, not just on my watch, but at all…I don’t think I could survive it.”
Enver stroked her face. “I feel the same. And I don’t want to compromise your career, either, that’s not the kind of man I am.”
Padme gazed at him. “You would be easy to fall in love with, Enver Toscano, but I can’t risk it while your life is in danger.”
“Cara mia,” he said softly, “I’m already there.”
Padme felt tears well up, and she shook her head. “Don’t say it, please. Not yet. Not like this.”
Enver pressed his lips to hers. “Alright…but you know, right?”
She nodded, kissing him back. “I do. Me too, Enver, me too.”
The trial started on a Monday morning, three weeks after Enver had been transferred to the safe house. Padme flew with Enver in the helicopter, while Dale and some other F.B.I. Agents organized the decoy vehicles. Padme’s boss, Henry, had insisted on coming with them, which Padme was grateful for. She tried to put aside her terror that something would happen, someone would get close enough to Enver to hurt him, but she couldn’t help feeling sick the whole journey to the courthouse.
Only when they stepped inside its heavily guarded confines, did she allow her shoulders to un-bunch. She regarded every person she didn’t know as a suspect – even some of the newly recruited agents. Henry smiled at her. “That’s my girl,” he said to her, quietly, “always watching.”
She nodded back at him. “Do we have any intelligence of a specific threat, today?”
Henry shook his head. “We have eyes on Ingles and his associates.” He nodded at Enver who stood a little way away, talking to Brian Dedalus. “How’s it going with the protectee?”
Apart from wanting his cock inside me all day, every day, you mean?Padme swallowed a sudden giggle. “Good, he’s a smart guy, does what we want him to do.” God that didn’t even cover it.
“Big thing he’s doing, taking them on, all on his own. Brave guy.”
Padme smiled. “Yes.”
She walked over to Enver then, nodding at Brian. “Court says you’re first up, Enver.”
He smiled at her. “So maybe this will all be over soon?”
“Doubtful,” Brian butted in, “Your testimony could take days, even weeks.” He looked at Padme, his eyes cold. “Wouldn’t it be better to allow my client to live in a hotel adjacent to the court, rather than risk anything happening on the journey back and forth?”
