Page 28

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“We live with the scars we choose.”

~ Shannon L. Alder

Em

Our relationship shifted. Sure, the sex certainly gave it a push, but sitting there in that room with him, sharing in his vulnerability, was altering. I fell in love with Saros Tancredi right then and there.

The house was organized chaos. Saros had certain rooms cordoned off for children and teens. The theater room was running movies nonstop. One of the living rooms—because there were two, apparently—was for the smaller kids and had more toys than I’d ever seen. The game room was for the teens. He was being nice, wanting them to be entertained, but mostly he needed them out of the way.

Absolutely nobody was allowed off the property unless Saros okayed it and never without escorts. He wasn’t messing around.

I helped wherever I was needed. Sometimes it was assisting Martha with food schedules because between babies, kids, and teens, and the constant rotation of Saros’s people, everyone ate at different times.

There was very little I could do to help Saros. I didn’t know how to fire a gun, I wasn’t knowledgeable in hand-to-hand combat, and unless they needed to know where something was in Eastbury or how to get from one place to another in this town unseen, I wasn’t going to be very helpful.

“Em!” Benny shouted, and I handed the brownies off to Martha to see what he wanted.

“Did you need something?”

“Yeah, come with me.”

I followed Benny into Saros’s study. It was full of people—not all of his guys, but a lot. Benny guided me through the crowd to Saros. I hadn’t seen him in a few hours, and I realized how much I missed him as soon as his blue eyes were on me.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked as he wrapped me in his big arms.

“Helping.”

“Of course you were. Well, now I need your help.”

That surprised me because I wasn’t sure what I could do. “Sure, I’ll do my best.”

“When I was trying to find you after what went down at The Sky, we couldn’t. We tracked you, but then it was like you disappeared.”

I nodded. “Because I didn’t want you to find me.”

He honest-to-God booped my nose. “And that’s why I need you.”

“You lost me.”

He laughed. “It was actually you losing me that made me realize you’ll be more helpful than anyone.” He clicked a button on a remote. “The penthouse in Lincoln. Frazee is there and likely with Ramsey; that much I was able to find out. Problem is, we see them enter but never leave.”

“Okay, weird. I mean if you were going to leave undetected, why not arrive that way too?”

He shrugged. “No idea, but the goal here is to get one or both of them as they leave. Once they’re in the building, it’s harder to grab them.”

“I still don’t know how I can help you.”

“Ramsey had you running everywhere for pickups, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“In Lincoln too?”

I don’t know why it was taking me so long to catch on, but I finally did. “Lincoln too.”

He beamed. “So, if you were trying to not be seen leaving this building, how would you do it?”

I took the tablet he offered. “Click these to decide the best angle. It’s got 3-D and 4-D settings here.” Mike gave me a quick overview and the tablet, and I took it to the couch and played with it.

He’d marked where all the street cameras were, as well as any building and storefront security cameras, which was insanely helpful.

The first thing I needed to figure out was where they were leaving from. There was a garage—which, sure, they could use, but the car would be seen entering and leaving, and from what I could tell from the twenty videos Saros had on the television, they were entering through the main entrance.

That didn’t mean they weren’t leaving from the garage, though. I pressed a few buttons and laughed when there was an X-ray graphic of the garage.

“Very cool,” I whispered.

“Right?” Mike winked. He was sitting on the couch too, watching something else. I hadn’t heard him join me.

I looked briefly at what he was doing, then back to my screen… Wait a second . “That’s it.” I pointed to Mike’s tablet.

“Huh?”

I grabbed his tablet and mine and went over to Saros. “This is why you only see him coming home but not leaving.”

He stared at both tablets, blinked, and then looked at me. “Please explain.”

“Oh, right. So, it’s extremely impractical, which is why there aren’t a lot of them, but there’s a subway system a block from the building.” I tapped my screen. “The garage has a door that leads through the back, but it’s not typically used. You can tell by the brush build up. If you cut through this way, it leads to a subway entrance. No cameras either, because it’s not used a lot.”

“Okay…but why doesn’t he return that way if it’s so secretive?” I knew Saros would ask that.

“Because, like I said, it’s impractical, and I’m actually surprised they haven’t decommissioned it. This subway is only a one-way. It takes you into Eastbury, and farther, sure. The return subway brings them here.” I clicked Mike’s tablet. “This coffee shop has an entrance right by it. No cameras there either, so when you do see them, it’s in front of the building.”

“And the coffee shop is so close to the building and out in public, grabbing them unseen would be difficult.” Saros nodded.

“They could conceivably take the train they return on to leave too, right?” Benny asked.

“Yes, they could, but they don’t want to be seen leaving. Returning he doesn’t care about.” I tapped my tablet. “If you wait for them in the woods between the complex and the subway, you’ll catch them unseen.”

Saros grabbed my face in his hands and kissed me, turning my legs to jelly. “You’re fucking brilliant.” He smiled.

“I’m glad I could help.”

I was about to leave, but he grabbed me and brought me over to his desk chair, where I was pulled onto his lap. “I think we’ll be needing that big brain of yours some more.”

I didn’t argue. I wasn’t sure what else I could do, but I liked being with Saros and loved how he didn’t want me away from him. So I sat and listened intently to everyone and everything.

Saros was planning on grabbing either Ramsey, Frazee, or both. I didn’t ask why he’d take them and not just kill them, but I imagined Saros needed information and he was going to get it.

“Benny, I want a team of eight in those woods tonight. We’ll switch out in the morning, always eight people, until we’ve grabbed someone. Got it?”

“Got it, I’ll arrange it now.” Benny left to get that organized.

“Best to park on the east side of the woods. Judging by Mike’s visuals, the streetlamps don’t work—which is great for at night, but also, the abandoned convenience store’s cameras are shattered, so no one will record you taking them,” I said, earning me another kiss.

“Cos, can you tell Benny that?”

“On it, Boss.” Cosmo smiled at me and left the study.

“See? You’re fucking brilliant,” Saros whispered in my ear before answering a call.

For the first time in my life, my cheeks hurt from grinning.