“Youz tell me your secrets some day?”
I swallow hard. “Some of my secrets are very ugly.”
“Mine, too.” She lowers her eyes to the pavement again and we walk for a minute without speaking. “I think I still like you after I know your secrets. Not sure if youz like me after you know mine.”
“Bumble baby.” I reel her in tightly against my side. “No matter what secrets you have, I already know you’re a very good person. I promise you that I’ll like you—more than like you, Cynnie—no matter what you tell me.”
The deep eyes lift to mine again. “No matter what?”
I kiss the tip of her nose. “No matter what.”
More than her lips smile. This smile beams from her whole body, and I know I’ve gotten it right with my little again.
When I get back from walking Cynnie to the train the next morning, I find De Leon sitting on my couch.
I growl at him.
“Text me before you breach my security.”
De Leon grins as he holds out a steaming cup of coffee.
“First, your meat security ain’t bad. Took me nearly the entire time you were walking your girl to the underground to break in without tripping your alarm. Get a dog and no one’ll touch you.”
“No pets in the building,” I tell him.
Yes, I own the building and could flout the rules, but I like to lead by example. And replacing the carpets between every tenant in case the next one has allergies is a pain in my ass, so no pets.
“Second, look at you, finding your balls.”
I glare at him over the rim of my coffee cup. “I thought I wasn’t going to see you until tomorrow.”
De Leon lifts one shoulder. “I like to be unpredictable. Throws the fuckers off. I trailed you all day yesterday. Did you see me?”
“No, but I thought I felt eyes on me walking down East Nineth.”
“Good instincts. Listen to them. You feel like you got eyes on you, tell me. You shed me when you got fro-yo or whatever the fuck you were eating. Did you do that on purpose, waiting in the shop long enough to spot a tail?”
I shake my head.
“You’re a natural, then. Probably all those years in the field. You feel like you got a tail, duck into somewhere with a window and watch the street for twenty minutes. You did it just right. I couldn’t stay where I was without you noticing me. By the time I circled back, you were gone. That’s just the way to do it. But I picked you up again walking back. Vary your route.”
I grit my teeth but nod. He’s the expert. I’d be a fool to ignore his advice. “Got it. Anything else.”
“Mmm.” De Leon picks up a black bag at his feet. “Let’s try this on.”
“Body armour?”
“Yep. Your stalkers use armour-piercing rounds?”
“Not on American soil.”
Not after Georgios ended up in a Californian jail for using presumed “cop killing” rounds.
“Good,” De Leon says. He takes what looks like a sweatshirt out of the bag. When he hands it to me, it’s heavy but not so heavy I’d immediately guess it was armoured.
I shrug it on and zip up the front.
“Try it with the hood up.”
