Page 41 of A Breath of Life (Shadowy Solutions #4)

I waved for the pen. I assume they’re listening, too? Why else were we communicating like this?

Diem pressed his lips together, brows knitting. I’m not sure. I don’t think so, but I can’t risk it. You aren’t meant to know any of this. My phone could have been tapped. They took it while I was being held. Maybe the card does both. Either way, if they discover I told you anything…

His hand stilled, pen hovering over the paper. He seemed unable to finish the sentence, but I had a feeling I understood.

They threatened to hurt me if you didn’t do as they said , I wrote.

For the second time in five minutes, Diem looked on the verge of throwing up.

When he took the pen, it trembled in his oversized hand.

Not just you. Nana too. It’s no joke, Tallus.

They’re serious. You saw what they did to Clarence in the alley.

He was meant to die. They showed me Nana.

They planted a camera at the home. They have eyes everywhere. If they hurt her …

Again, he stalled.

It was my turn to pale. Who the fuck threatened a ninety-year-old woman? A woman in the advanced stages of dementia. It was beyond cruel, and it would utterly destroy Diem. She was all the family he had.

I wrote again. Tell me everything.

It took over an hour since our communication was limited to writing, but Diem broke down his entire encounter from the night he was kidnapped, how he was overcome in a parking garage, and woke up in a strange room.

He explained about the live video feed at the nursing home and how he wasn’t allowed to make contact with Evergreen Estates in any way, shape, or form.

He described the multiple photographs of me taken as I’d searched for Diem on the night he went missing.

He explained the frustrating little he remembered about where he’d been held and how he’d been trying to narrow down a location, figuring it was somewhere in Old Toronto.

After we’d gone through everything, he circled back to the beginning and my initial remark. You ran into the Bishop?

It sounds like the same guy. I told him about the encounter, and then I explained about Mr. Hi Glitter Converse from the previous night. Diem cursed out loud, throwing the pen across the room before getting up and pacing like a trapped animal.

“That motherfucker.” He slapped a wall, making Echo whine and approach him. Without the use of pen or paper, he turned on me and growled, “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

Echo bumped his leg, and Diem dropped a hand on her head, tangling his fingers in her fur.

I wasn’t sure whether I should speak aloud or write. Pressing my lips together in a firm line, I tried to convey with my eyes that he hadn’t given me a choice. His cagey behavior had forced me into a box and made me suspicious .

Whether he understood or not, Diem retrieved the pen and sat. Echo laid her head on his lap, and he continued to pet her. He visibly calmed down with her presence.

For a long time, he stared at the page full of communication we had shared before his troubled gaze met mine. So much torment. The ever-present storm stirred and brewed inside his gray eyes. The man looked utterly exhausted. Had he slept at all since arriving home? I didn’t think so. Not well.

I got up and rounded the desk. “I’ve got this, girl.” I encouraged Echo to give me space. “My turn.”

Diem didn’t object when I removed the pen from his hand and tossed it aside. I wedged my knees in the tight gaps beside his thighs and sat on his lap. His hands automatically landed on my hips before he folded me in his arms, crushing me to his body in a hug.

Relief poured off him in waves. He trembled and clawed at my shirt like he couldn’t get close enough. Keeping this monumental secret had clearly taken a toll on him.

I brought my mouth to his ear and whispered, “I don’t think they’re listening, Guns.

” If they were, my opening statement would have been enough to trigger a problem.

I’d basically announced that I knew everything by tossing my theory on the table without a single fuck to give, but nothing had happened.

“I don’t trust them.” Diem’s voice was so low I could barely hear him. “What about Nana? Please, Tallus. Be careful.”

“I will. I know nothing.”

He buried his face in the crook of my neck, and if I didn’t know him better, I would have said he whimpered. “If anything happened to you.”

“It won’t.”

“But if it did.” He squeezed me tightly and it almost hurt. I didn’t make a sound, enduring, knowing he would hate himself for using strength enough to cause pain.

When he relaxed, I drew his battered face up, cradling it between my palms. “I can help, Diem.”

His agony was protest enough, but I was fierce and determined, and fuck these people for doing this to him. He might fear for my safety, but I feared for his the same. Diem’s mental health was fragile on a good day. He didn’t need this.

My words were barely a whisper as I said, “You aren’t doing this alone. Not anymore.”

I kissed him hard and possessively. Diem was born a lone wolf.

He grew up fighting against a world that he didn’t think wanted him.

He endured, but he did not thrive. Since we started dating, I’d seen him learn to relax, to exhale when all he’d ever known how to do was inhale.

We were a team, and teams shared burdens.

Now that I had a clearer picture of what we were up against, we could deal with the obstacles together.

“Tallus,” he said against my mouth, half a whimper, half a heartrending plea. “If they hurt you, I could never—”

“They won’t.”

“I would die.”

“They won’t. You can’t get rid of me that easily, Guns. I plan to pester and annoy you until we’re old and gray. We’ll find Clarence.” Quieter, I added, “We’ll find these pieces of shit. No one hurts what is mine.”

He chuckled, but it was almost a wet sob. “Christ, Tallus. This is not an invitation for you to go in guns blazing on a mission of revenge.”

“Fucking right it is. They hurt you. ”

“Shh. Not so loud.” He kissed me, his fervor amplified. “I still don’t trust that they can’t hear us.”

“Percentage of uncertainty?”

He rested his forehead against mine, closing his eyes as he considered. “I’m about eighty percent sure they can’t. Not through the card, at least. My phone? I don’t know.”

I considered the filing cabinet. We’d been chatting in whispers, but I understood why I’d caught him on the verge of tearing the device apart. “Will you let me examine it?”

He gave me a skeptical look. “You? Since when do you know anything about electronics and deconstructing phones?”

I scoffed. “Since my business partner and lover taught me that you can find anything your heart desires on YouTube… except pornography. Stupid Terms of Service. If YouTube fails me, I’ll text my cousin for advice. Deal? You can focus on Clarence.”

Diem glanced at the laptop. A divot appeared between his brows. It was the task he needed to focus on, but he had set his sights elsewhere. On uncovering his kidnappers’ identities and their base of operations. On revenge.

With a gentle touch on his chin, I redirected his focus to me.

“We’ll get them, but Clarence is our priority.

” I gave him a pointed look, conveying that Clarence was not the end of our mission but the beginning.

We would find the culprits responsible, whoever they were, and we would expose them.

Their underground syndicate, or whatever it was, would not survive.

Diem was hard-pressed to let me go. He clung, brushing his nose gently against my neck and kissing my shoulder, not in a fashion meant to arouse but in a fashion meant to claim. He located the hickey and kissed it delicately.

“Mine,” he rasped .

“Yours, D. Always.”

I scratched carefully, soothingly, over his scalp, avoiding the tender lump left behind by the assholes who had taken him.

Scalp massages helped Diem relax. It was a pleasure I’d discovered he enjoyed early on in our relationship.

It calmed his nerves when they were especially high.

Some nights, when stress consumed him, he rested his head on my chest simply to feel my fingers tangled in his hair and caressing his head.

To ground himself. To calm the chaos that ripped him apart from the inside out daily.

Eventually, reluctantly, Diem released me, and we got back to work.

He pushed aside his notes about where he’d been held and hacked into Clarence’s bank accounts and email to see if we could follow a spending trail and discover where the man might be hiding.

Now that I realized the extent of the threat, I understood it would be no easy task.

Considering the resources at these people’s disposal, I wasn’t sure what more we could do when it came to locating Clarence.

After recovering our phones and the card from the filing cabinet, I pulled up YouTube on the laptop.

I watched a few videos with the captions on and the volume off until I understood enough to make an attempt.

Using the tools Diem had shoved inside a drawer earlier, I got his phone apart easily enough, but once inside, I didn’t know what to look for and was afraid of fucking up the innards and breaking it.

A search on Google proved too vast, so I texted my cousin. If I was looking for a potentially planted listening device inside a phone, what might that look like?

Seeing as it was midday on a weekday, I wasn’t shocked when I got an immediate response. What the fuck are you doing?

Duh. Super-secret PI stuff. Obviously.

My cousin worked for the police department in the capacity of IT specialist. Diem had impressive computer skills, but Costa Ruiz put him to shame.

Costa’s intelligence was frightening. It was a good thing he’d decided to use his talents for good and not evil because he could have been dangerous otherwise.

As it stood, I borrowed his stunning brain from time to time when it suited my needs.

I didn’t think he minded. Not since we’d repaired our relationship.

In fact, I was convinced he enjoyed being a deviant from time to time, and my tendency to get into trouble fed his hunger.

A good PI wouldn’t have to ask , he replied. A second text came through before I could tell him where to stick that comment. Physical device or a program?

“Shit.” I hadn’t thought of that. Both? Physical first. I have the phone in pieces.

It would be fairly obvious , he replied. Snap me a picture, and I’ll tell you if I see anything.

I did as he asked and sent the image.

Two minutes passed before another text came through. You’re good. Is there a reason you suspect someone planted a listening device inside your phone?

Diem’s phone. Yes, but it’s a long story, and I can’t tell you atm. Too risky. If my cousin knew all the details, he would flip his shit. How about programs? I asked to steer clear of a potential lecture.

Do you know how to check for spyware? Phones can be set up to relay your positioning to a third party. They can share your texts, emails, passwords, and everything. Some programs clone your device or listen to you.

“Fuckity fuck.”

Diem glanced up with a look of concern, but I waved him off, texting Costa back. No clue how to do that. Can you walk me through checking and help me disable anything we find ?

It took my cousin almost twenty minutes to guide me through a thorough strip of Diem’s device.

By the time we finished, he assured me the phone was safe.

Again, he queried if I was in danger, but I brushed it off.

Just another day in the PI business. I added a winky face to ensure a lighter tone. I wasn’t sure he bought it.

Don’t get yourself killed.

I rolled my eyes. And deprive you of seeing my lovely face all the time? As if.

Costa didn’t reply.

I slid Diem’s phone across the desk. “Clean as a whistle.”

“Yeah?”

“I had help. Costa is freakishly smart. I envy his brain.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing, and he knows better than to pry.”

Diem seemed grateful yet troubled. His mind was a roaring maelstrom, and I wasn’t sure he would be able to relax until this ordeal was over.

I nodded at the laptop, consciously aware that there was still a minor possibility of the card listening to us. “Anything on Clarence?”

Diem’s eyes darkened and jaw ticked as he turned the laptop screen toward me.

“What am I looking at?”

He glanced at the card, seemed to consider it, then spoke aloud. “Our buddy Clarence made a significant monetary donation to a St. Michael five days before his wife was killed.”

“What?” I glanced at where Diem pointed. Significant was an understatement. Clarence had donated ten thousand dollars, utterly draining his bank account.