Fire & Ice | Soulmate AU 1 |

chapter eight

The train ride to the Rivera area is just over thirty minutes so I'm not exactly thrilled to be dragging myself there once again. I manage to find a seat for the ride and forcefully ignore my anxiety, though, because this is my job. I could have declined Scofield's request to put me undercover, but here I am instead. The ability to compartmentalize is important in undercover work which is luckily something I have a great deal of experience with. Agent Moore looked mildly pleased when I told her that. Max just kind of looked sick to his stomach.

I stand out on the porch of the Rivera house wondering whether I should knock or just walk in for a few minutes. Is it normal to knock on the door of what is basically a drug house? I decide against it and hope I don't offend someone as I open the door.

Chris is sitting on the couch watching what looks like Law & Order on the flat screen which is ironic in so many ways. I look a bit farther to the left and catch sight of Rowan sitting at the kitchen table across from another man I've never seen before. I decided that it's best to not wear my counterpart necklace when I'm working on this operation anymore so seeing Rowan so suddenly is a bit of a shock.

Chris looks entirely unbothered by my presence.

"Lakey, boy," he calls from the couch to my right. "You do your magical selling thing again? It's hardly been a week."

"Yeah, well, the semester just ended. Finals week makes people antsy and the summer is three months, so a bunch stocked up," I ramble with practiced indifference. I've always been quite good at masking my true emotions and this mission is slowly improving those skills.

"Might as well give it straight to the boss, then," Chris suggests, shrugging and pointing in the direction of the kitchen table.

I look back to my left. The man at the table is eyeing me curiously and this time I pick up on the resemblance between him and Rowan. They have the same brown hair and upper lip. Their noses are carbon copies. Rowan is Alexander Rivera's son.

Jesus christ. I thought the "Rowan situation" was bad enough as it is. The tiny possibility that Rowan would forgive me after all of this has just disintegrated into dust. He'll never be able to look past me being the reason he and his family are in prison.

"How much?" Alexander drawls, holding out an open palm.

I sling my backpack around to my chest by one strap to fish out the white envelope all the way at the bottom.

"Fifteen and three quarters," I say quietly as I place the envelope gingerly in the man's waiting palm.

The man gives an impressed hum as he sits back in his seat and opens the envelope. I swallow thickly and put my arm back through the other strap of my bag. He dumps the cash out onto the table before him and I jam my hands into the front pockets of my jeans to keep them from wringing together with anxiety. I didn't think I'd meet Alexander so early on in this operation so I was in no way prepared to see him today.

"We have you at ten percent?" he asks.

"Yeah."

"Hm," he hums again. "Chris, we're gonna bump him up to fifteen." He fans out the stack of bills and starts counting out what must be my new cut of the deal. He hands me around twenty-three grand which I shove loosely into my backpack like a total idiot.

"You're doing great, kid," he says before tucking the remaining money into his jacket. It's kind of strange that he's wearing a jacket in May, but I'm not about to question a drug lord. Besides, the air conditioning in here is actually pretty good for what looks like such a rundown from the outside.