Leo jumped in her car when they left and now regarded her with caution. She’d been told something she wasn’t sharing. He could tell by the rapid blinking of her eyes and the way her smile didn’t fall on her lips as easily as it had just a few hours before.
Only once they were gathered did Olivia reveal what she’d learned.
“Leo was the target,” she told them. “I mentioned both Mykonos and Navi as the ones who bankrolled the hit. Friedrich didn’t confirm or deny. When he saw us together, he made the decision to take me down.”
“Why would he do that?” Leo asked.
“Combination of things. Shock of seeing me. Realized if he shot you, I’d come after him. When Amelia was killed, I did everything in my power to take out Pohl.”
Neil stood by the door, arms crossed over his chest. “Schmidt knew you’d retaliate.”
“Yes.”
“Why not make sure you were dead?” Jax asked.
“He’d researched your people.” Olivia pointed between Neil and Jax. “Sasha had some serious clout at Richter. Her records weren’t easily broken, and even if they were, her name was revered. Friedrich knows she’s part of your team. He didn’t want her as his enemy.”
“So there’s a price on my head?” Leo felt his stomach reject that idea.
Olivia shook her head. “Friedrich suggested that was lifted once the trial was over. They wanted to make an example of you.”
A look around the room confirmed he wasn’t alone in his confusion.
“And that’s it? You take the bullet so Friedrich doesn’t gather enemies. Leo is no longer worth more dead than alive, and everyone goes along like nothing happened?” Jax asked with a shake of her head. “I don’t buy it.”
“That’s what he told me,” Olivia reported.
“If Schmidt is Navi and Mykonos’s henchman—”
“It didn’t sound like Friedrich’s loyalties were in any corner.”
“A mercenary,” Neil suggested.
“That’s worse,” Sven added.
Olivia shrugged her shoulders. “He didn’t kill me. He could have.”
“A mercenary with a conscience?” Leo asked. If that was the case, they had something to work with.
“Or at least a past that he was fond enough of to let me go.”
Leo sighed. Her memories were Mr. Wet and Sloppy . . . What were his?
“So Navi and Mykonos know nothing of who you really are?” Neil asked.
She shook her head. “I feel like Friedrich would have told me otherwise if they did.”
“So that’s it? The man shoots you and gets away with it?” Sven asked.
“Considering how many people I’ve put holes in, I’ll count myself lucky.” Olivia looked beyond them as if remembering all those faces.
Leo glanced at Neil. They both watched her.
Neil pushed away from the wall he was leaning against. “Let’s break this location down and move out.”
“Are you having Friedrich followed?” she asked before he had a chance to leave the room.
“Of course.”
Leo walked Neil out of the hotel room they were in, leaving Olivia and Jax to strip out of their costumes.
“There’s something she’s leaving out,” Leo accused the moment they were alone.
“Agreed.”
“What is the likelihood of a hit man leaving the target standing and still getting paid?”
“Slim to none. But if you were still a target . . . she’d tell us. She wouldn’t risk you.”
“If not me . . . then who?”
“The one who ultimately put Mykonos in jail.”
The two of them stared at each other. “Marie.”
“Logical conclusion.”
“She’s deep in the system because of the hit on her,” Leo said.
“But we know who has been hired to kill her.”
“Keep an eye on him and we can intervene.”
“And if Olivia knows this, she will think the same.” Neil sighed.
“What’s it going to take for her to trust us?” Leo asked.
Neil shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Spindly fingers held her against the stacks.
His long, wet, forked tongue attempted to enter her mouth. The spiked ends stung as it passed over her lips.
“You really don’t know how to do this . . . do you?” Friedrich asked.
She opened her eyes, saw the blackness of his.
Behind him, the faces of those who were gone because of them loomed.
“I never wanted this,” she told him.
“Too late to turn back now.”
His tongue lapped up one side of her face.
“I can make it right.” She struggled against his grip, found her arms forced together in iron chains.
“You’re going to lead me to her.”
“I’ll kill you first.”
Friedrich started to laugh, and suddenly the weight of the world dropped from below her feet, and her stomach launched into her throat.
Olivia’s eyes sprung open, her hands reaching out to grip the