Force smiled then, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Oh, he was probably good-looking to most women, and most men, but Raider knew a predator on the edge when he saw one. And the former FBI profiler definitely rode a razor these days. “Raider?” Force asked softly. Way too softly. “I can send Wolfe in with her and fire your ass.”

As a threat, it was spot on. Force hadn’t been the best for nothing.

Raider shifted gears and strategies in a nanosecond. “How long have you known?”

Force snorted. “I’m a profiler. Jesus. I knew from day one you shouldn’t be in the HDD’s secret and embarrassing unit.” He gestured around the room, encompassing the old yellowed tiles on the floor and dented panel walls. “Is the story even true?”

Raider thought about forcing a blanch but figured Force would see through it. So he went with the truth instead. “That I slept with a superior’s wife and got my balls busted? Yeah. That’s true.” Of course, he hadn’t known the woman he’d picked up in a bar that night was married to his boss’s boss. But still. He’d never been a guy to pick up a one-night stand, and he deserved a slap-down for doing that, because a government agent, one at his level, had too much to lose. But he’d just lost his partner, and he’d been out drinking, and things had gone from bad to worse. The sex hadn’t even been that good. “But it was just an excuse to get transferred.”

“So you have friends high enough to get you exactly what you want,” Force said, no judgment in his tone.

“Not friends,” Raider returned. He could count his friends on one hand, and most of those had grown up with him in foster care. This team, well now. He was starting to count them, too, and he didn’t need that distraction. Keeping his distance should be second nature to him, especially since he was a much colder bastard now than he’d ever been—and he hadn’t exactly started out warm and fuzzy. “People who want the Coonan family taken down as badly as I do. We saw the opportunity with Brigid and your Deep Ops unit, and we took it. I took it.” This was on him. Nobody else.

Force yanked out a chair and dropped into it. “I read the report. You were a good handler, and it wasn’t your fault Treeson died.”

Mel Treeson had been a thirty-year-old smartass with a heart of gold, and nobody deserved to die the way he had at the hands of the Coonans. “I was his handler,” Raider repeated. Mel’s death was on him. Life was simple and true. Shitty but simple.

Force sighed. “How long had you worked together?”