“What about you? If they come for me, they’re going to try to take you out. Not me. Shouldn’t you be wearing this?”
He lifts the bottom edge of his T-shirt. With that one gesture, I can see how heavy the fabric is.
“Okay, you’ve got your own,” I say.
“Sure do. I fully anticipate a hit, Max. Don’t think I’m unprepared. I’m not. I’m ready. You told everyone you need to tell that you’re going? Three minutes until the car gets here. You got a little time.”
I glare at him. “You told me twenty minutes.”
His white teeth flash between his moustache and beard. “I always build in a window. Never gonna tell you how much, but always know there’s a cushion. I never work to the wire if I can help it.”
To be fair, neither do I. I totally understand his reasoning in doing both—building the cushion and not telling anyone how much leeway there is—it’s just irritating to have the tables turned on me.
“No, I’m good.”
He nods. “Heard what you said to your girl. Been together long?”
“None of your business.”
He nods again. “She like Emily?”
“Also, none of your business.”
He shrugs, apparently unoffended. He shoulders his bags and leads me out of my apartment. I lock up behind him and double-check the security settings on my phone before following him downstairs to the waiting car. The windows are all blackedout, which I’m sure is illegal in New York, so I can’t see the driver, and when we slide into the back seat, there’s a partition like in a taxicab, only solidly black.
“Who is driving?” I ask De Leon as he slides in next to me.
He arranges the bags on the seat across from us. They’re orderly, but there’s too much space between his bags and mine to be symmetrical. My OCD twitches.
“None of your business,” he responds, flashing me another smile. “Let’s just say it’s an old friend who knows where I keep my plane and won’t tell anyone even if they torture him.”
“Cool.”
De Leon settles himself in the comfortable seat. He doesn’t put on a seat belt; I understand why. If he needs to get out in a hurry, it saves critical seconds. But I know from the police report on Logan’s parents’ car crash that his father would still be alive if he’d been wearing a seat belt. Not that I’ve ever shared that with Logan. He took their deaths hard enough as it was. Still, I clip myself in.
“About two hours to my plane,” De Leon says. “Settle in. And tell me what’s so special about these girls.”
I play dumb. “Emily and Cynnie? There’s nothingspecialabout them. They’re both just very sweet girls.”
De Leon snorts. “You really think I’m that dumb? I’ve scoped out Logan’s club. Couldn’t get inside because Logan has that place locked up tighter than a fucking walnut, but I saw who was coming and going. The pizza place was easier. Barely any security there. The upstairs room gets turned into some kinda nursery?—”
“Fuck. Off.” I growl at him.
He sits back, rubbing his palms over his thighs. “There are those balls again.”
“You told me to be professional and I have been. Let’s keep it at that.”
He shrugs. “We’re going to be spending a lot of time together over the next however many days, Max. I know you don’t like me, so I figured I’d ask about something you care about. That’s all. You don’t want to talk about it, we won’t.”
“I don’t much want to talk at all,” I tell him, pulling my laptop out of my bag and firing it up.
He shifts slightly and looks out the window. “We can do that, too.”
twenty-one
He wears me down,the rat-fuck.
Hour by hour. On his surprisingly utilitarian plane which takes far too long to cross the Atlantic. Through the jetlag that absolutely levels me the first day we’re in the fucking swamp that is England. Why didn’t Logan ever mention how mossy and damp his home country is? It’s September. It should be dry. It should be hot. I end up wearing De Leon’s expensive hoodie not to protect me from a bullet or a knife but because it’s fucking freezing in this tiny, rainy country.
