Page 106 of Mr. Dangerous

I settled back in my seat, willing to drop it if Liam would. Although knowing Liam, he wouldn't drop itforlong.

Liam slouched down in his seat and closed his eyes. That was one way to avoid an argument. Where the hell had that come from, anyway? I thought Liam liked the Popadopolous girls. How could anyone not likeNaomi?

When Liam's breathing had dropped to a soft, even snore, I asked Joe, "What do you mean about mygrandmother?"

I couldn't stop thinking about the way I'd let Kate kiss me. The way I'd maybe kissed her back. And even though I knew I should see my own fault, even though I know I’d handled everything with Kate like a moron, I also wanted to know how Naomi hadfoundout.

"You know she referred a lot of people to the Papadop's over the years," Joe said. "Well, she un-referred them when she decided Naomi was making eyesatyou."

"That's ridiculous,"Isaid.

"Yep."

I thought of how I'd promised Naomi that I would get her some new clients, and I felt a wave of fresh guilt. "Ugh. I've made life about eight times harder for her inaweek."

"And you feelguilty?"

"Yeah, I feel guilty." I had sex with her, told her not to fall in love with me, and kissed someone else, all while my family single-handedly destroyed her familybusiness.

"Well, she doesn't need that," Joe said. "She just needs you to be the man she thoughtyouwere."

I stared out the window at the dark night. Maybe I could be someone else. After all, maybe even my father, the villain of my story, was a decent man at his core. That was something I’d have tofindout.

But even so, there was no reason for Naomi to give me another chance. I had blown things between us,bigtime.

An hour later, I got out of the Suburban and latched the door quietly shut. The night around us was deeplyquiet.

Rook, and one of her guys who she introduced as Victor, got out of the car parked behind us. We were on a side street in a dingy neighborhood in Worcester, Mass. Behind us was an elementary school with a low metal fence. Apartment buildings in rough condition and old Victorians, turned ramshackle, were crowdedtogether.

"You should let us handle this,"Rooksaid.

"This is what I do for a living,"Isaid.

"Not on U.S. soil, it isn't," Rook said. She stared me down, but I was unmoved. In the end, she shrugged. "Well, let's go talktohim."

The front door to the apartment building was broken. We filed into a long, dingy hallway and Rook led us up the stairs to the second floor, where there were six doors. At the end of the hall, Victor tinkered quietly with the lock. I thought of Naomi. She’d glanced up at me through a screen of her hair for a second as she picked the lock at that house to rescue the cat, and I felt a jolt of missing her.Already.

There was just one guy in here, asleep on a mattress in a back room, and I felt a sense of relief. It was hard when there were families around, innocents. It didn't matter what a guy had done, taking him down in front of his kids still felt evil. It was the stuff that kept me up at nightsometimes.

The guy woke up suddenly, sitting up and seeing us, scrambling for something on the bed. I tried to get around Rook in a hurry since she'd insisted on leading the way. Victor launched himself towards the mattress and had him pinned in a second. Rook held her drawn pistol on him, her handssteady.

I found myself directing a hard-eyed, appraising look at Victor, but there was no time to worry about who Victor was and where he had come from. I'd shelve that curiosity forlater.

Rook stepped forward, taking the gun from the bed with a gloved hand. She popped out the clip and then drew back the bolt. A shiny brass round flew out and rolled across the grittycarpet.

"Hey, friend," Victor said. His casual voice belayed his posture, kneeling almost on this man's throat. "We have a few questionsforyou."

“Who are you?” The guy under his knee looked near tears, and I glanced away, fighting a rise of revulsion that was as thick as nausea. This guy was one of the fools who had beaten my father, perhaps to death? This coward? The flow of violence on this planet staggered me sometimes, even though I dealt in violence as my trade myself. But never withouthonor.

Knowing that for once, I was on the verge of losing my temper, I wandered to the window and looked out at the pre-dawn light while Victor conducted a short interrogation. It took a while to get any clarity from him because he wouldn’t stop crying. Begging. The man eventually confessed that he had been the getaway driver for the team that went after my father. But they were supposed to bring my father with them if they didn’t find what they were sent to recover, and since they’d been scared off by the police, their team had been dropped from theoperation.

Blubbering, he held up a hand wrapped in a bloody bandage. Apparently, the price for failure had beensteep.

Rook met me at the window. She rested a hand on my forearm, speaking to me in a low voice, and she reminded me of my second-grade teacher for a minute even though she dealt in violence herself. Or maybe she reminded me of a mom. Her eyes were worried and kind on mine as she told me that he had all the signs of drugaddiction.

“I think he was on Slow S,” she said. “I’ve only seen pictures, I haven’t seen it in real life before. But there are broken blood vessels around his eyes, white nail beds. Physical symptoms associated withSlowS.”

“I don’t know what the hell is going on, Rook,” I said softly. It was those eyes of her that pulled out a confession I wouldn’t normally have. “I get that my dad had this connection with Slow S, that he could have made enemies. Butwhynow?”

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