Leo (Vigilance 3)

He smiled. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”

Fuck. If he didn’t want me, why was he so damn flirtatious?

Maybe he’s like that with everyone.

I’d seen him flirt with some of the clients, but something about the way he talked to me felt different than that. Or maybe I just wished it did.

“Have a good night,” Leo said.

“Thanks. You too.” I turned to go, but suddenly Leo grasped my arm. When I turned around, he was scowling, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking out the front window of the shop.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s someone out there watching us.”

I glanced toward the street. I only saw a few people, and they were walking with their heads down. Even if someone was looking this way, they might just be looking at the shop sign.

Leo let me go and unlocked a drawer in the desk. I gasped when he pulled out a gun.

“What are you—”

“Do not leave the shop. If I don’t come back, call this number.” He hastily scribbled digits on the notepad I used for taking messages.

I stared at the phone number, then at him. “Leo, I don’t understand, what—”

“Trust me.”

Before I could say anything else, he was gone. He slipped out the front door so quietly I wouldn’t have known he’d moved if I hadn’t watched him.

He crossed the street toward the now darkened café. After that, I lost track of him in the shadows. I waited, thinking he would come back at any moment. The fact that he thought he needed a weapon terrified me. I wasn’t scared of guns exactly. I’d done target shooting at camp and excelled at it, but I’d only chosen shooting because it didn’t require me to run or work with a team. The thought of shooting a person, though… I shivered and pushed that thought away.

Maybe Leo had been mistaken about what he’d seen. That wasn’t likely, though, was it? Leo had to have a military background or… a criminal one. Something that made him always watchful. What the hell was going on?

I stepped closer to the window even though I had a feeling Leo expected me to hide.

I saw the blur of a shape in the alley by the café, then I heard a shout.

I didn’t stop to think. I yanked the door open and ran. I had to help Leo.

8

Leo

I didn’t like leaving Ezra alone, but I needed to know who was out there. I’d barely been able to see the man who was watching the shop, but there was something about him that was familiar. It wasn’t Swain. This man was too tall, but I had no doubt it was someone sent by him.

Or it was someone contemplating a tattoo and deciding not to enter the shop.

No, I had better instincts than that.

Did I though? I’d been jumping at everything since I’d found out my own employee had betrayed me. If it hadn’t been for him passing along secrets, Swain would be dead along with the other men who’d been part of the human trafficking ring.

Swain was the only major player left, but he had connections everywhere and enough money and power to defend himself against accusations. We needed to put him in the ground, but when a man was as well-known as Swain, covering up his death got a lot trickier.

Fortunately, with my CIA training, tricky was my specialty. I’d already come up with numerous scenarios to make his death look like an accident, and, of course, we planned to release all the evidence against him to the media after his death.

First, we had to pin down his location. With Congress out of session and Swain aware of the stakes, that wasn’t going to be easy. Our best chance was to make him come to us. I’d thought I could do that, but Ezra was a complication I hadn’t planned on. I had to be sure he was protected before I could put myself on the line.

I slipped my gun into my coat pocket but kept a hand on it. Swain’s attacks on us had grown more aggressive. Giorgio was trying to convince Lane to go to a safe house until we finished this, and Niall and his boyfriend, Marco, were preparing defenses at home. X’s security was already top-of-the-line, and we hoped Swain hadn’t worked out his identity, though we figured it was only a matter of time before he did. That meant we needed to work quickly.

I should have taken X’s advice and sent Ezra back to the café, although if Swain knew Ezra was working for me, it was probably already too late to keep him off Swain’s radar.

I made my way across the street, moving at a normal pace. If the man was still out there, he would be watching me, so there was no reason to run. And if he was already gone, I was too late. I slipped into the alley beside the bookshop where I had seen him move back into the shadows. I eased my gun from my pocket, pressed myself against the wall, and moved deeper into the darkness.