He wasn’t sure Brackett bought the story, and got a truckload of shit and five days to get his ass back to work.
Fitz had looked at him and said, “I hope she’s worth it.”
“You think you will?” Jax asked.
He really couldn’t read that one.
She tipped her glass back. “Like I said, Neil knows everyone.”
Olivia was leaving for Budapest the next morning. And because she wouldn’t hook up to any form of internet when she was in Hungary, she had her laptop open with Leo dialed in. She needed to see him before she left.
With the outcome unclear, there needed to be one more something to hold her over.
One more something.
When her computer pinged, she dropped the pen in her hand and scrambled to get in front of it.
Leo’s face came into focus.
The scruff of beard on his face was killing her. She knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was growing that for her.
Because of her.
He clicked around on his computer, completely blind to the fact that she was watching him.
She indulged. Something Olivia would never have done preamnesia. It was surprising what a brush with death and finding someone who cared about you did.
She stared at her monitor for what felt like hours. It was only ten minutes . . . but she’d stay there as long as he did . . .
Except . . .
She turned to the window of the hotel room.
When she looked back at the computer, she wasn’t observing Leo.
Her chest rose and fell . . . rose and fell.
Pushing off the chair, she moved to the window and opened the blinds wide.
It was the middle of the night in LA. This time of year . . . it was dark everywhere in the United States.
She fell in the chair and pulled the computer closer.
Leo wasn’t home.
Olivia looked over her shoulder. The generic art on the wall, the small space.
Leo walked away from his computer and pulled his jacket off his shoulders.
She clicked into his audio.
He disappeared from view, and the sound of a television filled her feed.
Someone was trying to sell cars . . . in German. A tilt of her head and she closed her eyes.
Pulling herself from the chair, she found the unused remote control on the bedside table and turned on the TV.
She shifted through the channels, slowly . . . turned up the volume on her computer.
Then it was stereo.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Son of an ever-loving bitch!”
Leo was not only in Germany . . . he was in Berlin. Or close enough to it to have the local news on his set.
Olivia swiped at the space under her eyes, rubbed her temples, and then pounded both fists on the desk. One deep breath later and she was typing.
You’re going to get yourself killed.
Leo scurried into view, relief in his expression. He took a moment, a deep breath.
One keystroke and Olivia unscrambled the signals to find his exact location.
Call me.
He’d been coached.
One fortifying breath later, You’ve wasted your time.
He smiled as he wrote his reply. Go ahead . . . tell me how much you don’t care what happens to me.
You son of a bitch . . . I don’t!
He was smiling now. The kind of smile he sent her when she was teasing the hell out of him, his sexy I have your number smile.
Then you won’t care when I do this.
Leo’s image disappeared the second he removed the power from his computer.
“Goddamn it!”
Olivia swung out of her chair and paced. “I don’t care.”
I don’t care!
Back at her computer, she found the hotel where Leo was staying.
“A Hilton? Really?”
He had so much to learn if he was ever going to stay alive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Leo had laid traps many times in his career, most of them on paper, or during questioning.
But this one was so much sweeter.
She was close.
He felt her.
They left the hotel and rented a car.
Apparently, he was destined to be in the passenger seat while a woman drove.
Jax knew the roads, knew what the signs were saying without looking them up on a translation app.
Leo was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the people he’d been in contact with so far spoke English.
“Do you think she’s still in Germany?” he asked Jax.
“If she’s not, she’s likely on her way back. You had the TV on in the room, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then she knows you’re in Germany. Which is why she said you were going to get yourself killed.”