A/N: Sorry for the delay; my muse has been very unco-operative. Thanks to everyone who is reading and reviewing; it means a lot to me.

The Dark Knight

Chapter Ten

I fished out a prawn and a couple of noodles from my take out container, popped them in my mouth and chewed thoughtfully as I tried to work up the courage to push Ric for more information on his past. So far since dinner had arrived he'd said nothing except comment on my choice of beverage – water. I'd decided that getting drunk was actually a very bad idea as I'd lost count of the number of beers that I'd consumed since I got here. Was it three or four? Too many, that was for sure.

He set his empty container down on the coffee table, shoved a pile of paperwork to one side, propped his feet up and lounged back on the couch. His hair was down, his eyes were closed and the aura of menace that usually surrounded him had dissipated. He actually looked like a normal guy, albeit a very sexy one, but still normal, well normal-ish.

His bottle of beer dangled loosely in one hand and he opened his eyes and looked at me. "Guess I should just get on with it, huh?"

I nodded. "If you want to; I'm not going to push, but I would like to know."

"Okay, so by the time I was twenty, my crew and I had pretty much taken over the south side of Newark; nothing moved on those streets without me knowing about it. Tank was my right hand man, watched my back and did most of the dirty work while I ran the whole operation. Janie was his little sister; nineteen to his twenty one. She was a beautiful young woman – my woman and everything was fine, until she got hooked on smack. I tried everything I could think of to get her clean; tried to keep her dirty secret away from Tank too, as I knew it would kill him if he found out. Not that it mattered, she overdosed just days before her twentieth birthday; I found her dead in my living room with a needle in her arm."

What could I say to that? "I'm sorry," I finally replied.

Ric shrugged. "It's okay; can't change the past."

"So what happened then?"

"Tank hit the fucking roof; blamed me for her death. I tried to tell him that I'd been trying to get her off the damn stuff, but he wouldn't listen. He said that it was probably me that stuck the needle in her arm. He knew it wasn't true – none of us would have touched that shit, but Tank's grief turned him against me and he set out to bring me down."

"Ouch, that's nasty," I said as I looked at him. He seemed sad, vulnerable and maybe a little older, and my heart went out to him just a little.

"He was simply doing what he thought was the best way to redeem his sister; I can't blame him for that. He succeeded too – totally shafted my entire operation. Somehow he managed to make a deal with someone so he walked away in the clear, and then he signed up and joined the army. The rest of my crew, well most of the guys went down, but I managed to make a deal of my own to take the heat off myself, Les and Bobby."

"What sort of deal?" I asked cautiously.

Ric shot me a grim smile. "I sold my soul to the ATF, the FBI and a shit load of other alphabet agencies."

I frowned. "I'm not sure that I understand."

He drained his beer and set the empty down on the coffee table. "I work for the government, not that anyone other than Toni or yourself knows that, got that?"

Somehow, I wasn't all that surprised. Guess he really was a good guy. "Sure. But what do you actually do?"

"I do what I've always done, just that now I pass on a fuck of a lot of information to the government to assist with drugs and arms busts; I'm just a little fish in a very big pond."

"I don't get it; I mean you're what, a double agent?"

"That's about right."

"But why didn't they get someone else to do that and lock you up instead? Why let you go?"

"Because, babe," he said with a sly smile, "Who would suspect a man with my reputation? I was simply too good of an opportunity for the government to pass up."

"So all this," I said as I waved my hand around the room, "Everything is a scam?"

"Maybe," he responded cryptically.

Oh. What had Toni said earlier, something about some deals somewhere? Was it Argentina, Columbia maybe? "You still deal on the side, don't you?"

"Maybe," he replied again as his lips curved up slightly.

I stood up and paced across the front of the couch and then back again as I tried to connect all the dots. "Tell me how you met Toni."

Ric shrugged. "She just turned up in Trenton, got it on with Les and that's about it."

"But she's a spy…"

"Yeah, but she was chasing after a deal with myself and the IRA that was legally sanctioned by the US government. There was no dirt for her to find on that job, well only what the U.S government should have told the British government, that is."

"Right, but Ric, she's still here."

He shrugged. "She got a hunch and called me out. I told her the truth and for some crazy reason that I suspect to be my cousin, she stuck around. She feeds useful intel to MI6 that our government should maybe have told them. I guess they figure that seeing as the info she passes on is of serious interest, she can do what she pleases. If my operation seems to be a little on the dodgy side then I've so far got away with it; I don't think that the British spook squad could give a shit. Why should they care about some guy who runs guns for the US government? They're more interested in what the U.S security services are up to, not me."

I tried to process all the information in my beer fuddled little brain and after a couple of minute's silence I was pretty sure that I'd got everything in order. "So Toni is spying on our government and Tank still thinks that you are a bad guy, right?

"Yeah, and I am a bad guy, babe."

"You work for the government, Ric."

He coughed. "Amongst others."

"Jeez," I muttered as I shook my head. "I can't believe that you're double crossing the government."

"Why?"

"I just – I don't know. Just seems like a very stupid thing to do."

Ric let out a bark of laughter. "I now have more money and resources that I'd ever thought possible. The government job has actually made it easier for me to pull off some of the lucrative side deals I've made over the last few years. What would you do?"

What would I do? Never have gotten in the situation in the first place. "And yet I hear a but, despite what you've just told me."

"Maybe. Some days I'm just so fucking sick of this life. If it's not Tank trying to take a piece of me, it's some other fucker. If the shit hit the fan, the government would just deny my existence. My only safety net is fear and the three main people in my life I trust to watch my back. The only way out of this for me is in a box; this is a job for life, and sometimes I wonder just how much longer this job is going to last."

I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times as I attempted to put some words into some semblance of order. "You could walk away; fake your death, something."

The smile he gave me this time was a sad one. "Toni and I put a couple of plans into place, but both of us know that the chances of them panning out are slim. She wants out of this cluster fuck as much as I do, but I know that she won't leave us; I guess it's amazing what people will do for love."

"Love conquers all," I suggested.

"I once believed that. I'd have married Janie, had kids with her, but I can't do that now. My life is one long nightmare and I guess that I have no one but myself to blame," Ric gritted out.

I sat down next to him on the sofa and put a hand on his arm. "Nothing is ever as bad as it seems."

He snorted. "No? So those dead whores all died of natural causes and someone isn't trying to frame me or piss on my territory?"

"We'll figure it out."

"That a promise, babe?"

I rubbed my hands over my face wearily and looked over at him. "Yeah Ric, it's a promise.

"How?"

I pondered his question. "Get dessert and then I'll explain."

He got up and rummaged around in the fridge, glassware chinked, and after a couple of minutes he brought over a couple of bowls of strawberries and cream, and then went back for a bottle of Champaign and some very expensive looking glasses. I eyed the bottle with suspicion – more alcohol was not on my menu tonight.

Ric caught my look and he smiled. "What, you think I'm trying to get you drunk so I can have my wicked way with you?" he teased.

"With you I'm never quite sure," I shot back, wincing as it came out slightly harsher than expected.

Something dark flashed in his eyes and I flinched. He set the bottle down and slowly ran his fingers down my cheek. "Don't ever doubt that I want you in my bed babe, but I'm not going to force you."

"What about the twelve hours you demanded?"

"I never said that I wanted sex with you, I merely asked for twelve hours of your time. If you got the impression that I was going to spend every minute of it making love to you, then that was something your own imagination conjured up."

I flushed. I mean come on, what else would he have wanted from me? Twelve hours of my scintillating conversation? No, I didn't think so.

"Besides," he continued. "Twenty-four hours would have been better."

"Twenty-four?"

"Yeah," he breathed as he picked up a cream coated strawberry and held it to my lips. "I might have just about run out of energy by then."

Holy Cow! I took the offered fruit and chewed on it thoughtfully all the while trying to reign in my hormones. Despite his suave moves, I was not up for being another piece of ass "I'm sorry, but I don't do casual sex."

"Who said it was casual?" he breathed as he ran another strawberry over my lower lip, smearing it with cream.

I licked my lips clean and scowled. "You think I'm stupid, that I won't be anything more than another notch upon your bedpost?"

Ric jerked back, almost as if I'd slapped him. "You think I bring women around here all the time, that I have a different floozy in my bed every night?"

I nodded. "Pretty much."

"Wrong," he hissed out. "I do not do that; too many people want me dead and death is not always some gang banger in a dark alley; it could be some piece of ass that I picked up in a bar and the first thing I would know about it is the bullet to my brain while I was in her bed."

"Sucks to be you, right?" I shot back.

"You have no fucking idea, little Miss Burg!" he yelled. The empty glass in his hand sailed through the air and connected with the far wall. "You think I want to live like this?"

I shook my head as I stood up. "I have no idea, and if it's all the same, I think I'll be going now. I have skips to catch, murderers to chase…"

Ric's hand shot out and latched onto my wrist. "Sit."

I tried to pull my hand free, but he wouldn't budge. "Look, asshole," I spat out. "We've done this routine before; I am not your dog, or your property, so take your fucking hands off me!"

His hand dropped away like I'd burned him and he stalked away into the kitchen. "Fine!" he yelled back at me. "And I am not the bastard that you think I am, Stephanie. I'm simply a man and for once in my fucking life I want something good, something pure in it. Is that too much to ask, babe?"