Page 183 of Little Sunshine

“Trust me, man,” Cole said, reading my disbelief. “She’s just worried about you. I’m pretty sure she’s up in Maximo and Juliet’s penthouse, baking you a cake with a file in it.”

I would feel a lot better once I saw her for myself. But before I could do that, we had to attend to a time-sensitive matter.

Cole and I headed up to Maximo’s office to find the three of them already waiting.

When I’d threatened Veronica, the only people who should’ve been able to hear were Mila and Veronica herself. Since she was dead, that kind of crossed her off the list. My woman would never turn on me, so that left the next closest person.

“I had an interesting afternoon, Elliot.”

To his credit, he didn’t play dumb. Standing tall like he had the day before, he waited for his punishment.

Only that time, Mila wasn’t there to help the FBI rat.

“I need to explain,” he said.

“I’m all ears.”

“The first day I watched Mila, there was already an FBI agent here watching you. They saw her run away from you. When I got off shift, two agents were waiting at my house. They said they were investigating a big case involving kidnapping, false imprisonment, and other awful crimes. They thought Mila was underage, but even once they cleared that up, they believed she was here against her will. Since I’d been guarding her, they asked me to be an informant.”

“And you jumped at the chance to do your civic duty?”

“No, I said no. But they kept pushing. They threatened to make my life harder. They said if there was nothing bad happening, then it didn’t matter that I was informing. But if there was something bad, and one of you committed a crime, I would be charged, too. I still didn’t tell them anything because there was nothing to tell.”

“Except about The Basement.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Except that. Agent Nash kept pushing me to get incriminating information, and I slipped and mentioned anything bad would probably be down there. He wouldn’t let it go.”

Not the brightest…

If it was up to me, Elliot would be leaving with a broken nose at a minimum because Mila was going to be so disappointed in his betrayal. But with his FBI BFFs, it wasn’t a good idea.

The Basement would be out of order for a while, too.

At least for the major stuff.

My gaze moved to Maximo, and he lifted his chin, giving the okay.

“You’re fired, Elliot,” I said. “Once it gets out that you’re a rat, no one else will hire you. And it will get out because I’m going to spread that message far and wide.”

He nodded. “Please tell Mila that I’m sorry.”

“Wait.” I thought back to what the agent had said. “What do you know about Eternal Sun?”

“Nothing. I don’t even know what that is.”

I studied him for a moment before giving a single nod.

“Let’s go.” Marco glared daggers that Elliot pretended not to see.

Once they were gone, I quickly filled Cole and Maximo in on the entire day, including the bad feeling Eternal Sun left in my gut.

“They didn’t mention who the employee with the connection is?” Maximo asked.

“No. I assumed it was Elliot.”

Cole looked anxious to park his ass in front of his computers. “I’ll dig in.”

We talked for a few minutes more before I couldn’t take it any longer. I needed to get my woman.

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