When He's Bad (Walker Security Adrian’s Trilogy #2) - Lisa Renee Jones Page 0,31
times. Every client he’s ever taken care of has heard this joke.”
I ignore him and keep going. “The baby tomato falls behind and the mama is angry. She hurries to the rear and confronts her baby. ‘Ketchup!’”
Pri laughs, a sweet, almost luxurious laugh. “That’s cute.”
Blake snorts. “Cute. See, Adrian? You’re all kinds of fucking cute.”
“The joke, asshole,” I say.
“I’m pretty sure she meant you,” Adam agrees. “Cutie pie.”
Pri laughs. “I’m just going to eat my sandwich, though you’re all pretty cute.”
Savage wiggles his eyebrows. “I am, aren’t I?”
The conversation stays light, but as the food disappears, Blake turns the conversation to business. Because that’s how we work. Eat. Laugh. Work. Repeat. “Pri,” he begins. “My brother Royce’s wife, Lauren, is an ex-ADA. She’s in private practice now. She’s offered her services to you free of charge. She’s eager to meet you when you get to New York.”
And there it is.
The breaking of the ice that will soon become a bomb.
Pri throws her wrapper in a bag. “Thank you and her, Blake,” she says primly, the prim is the part that tells me the explosion is imminent. “That’s generous,” she adds. “and I have no doubt your resources outperform most others. And I know you all want me to be safe.” She looks at me. “I get why, too, I do, and part of me welcomes the idea of safety, which I also have no doubt, I’d have there.”
“But?” I say, inviting her to say her piece, which is a new strategy. The old dragging her to safety if needed didn’t go over well.
“But,” she adds, “if Deleon isn’t coming for me and you, he’s coming for someone else, anyone that might disrupt the trial. And I have you and you have all these resources.”
“I know what you think is going to happen,” I say, and she turns to look at me. “You want to lure Deleon out again.”
“What is wrong with that?”
“If last night proved anything, it’s that Deleon is not stupid. He will always be a step ahead of us if we give him the chance.” I lean in closer to her. “I hurt him badly, Pri. He’ll burrow underground, he’ll heal. He’ll send soldiers, Devil soldiers, one after another, to kill us.”
“Who will go after my staff and the people I love. I can’t ask all of them to stand in bullseye formation while I hide.”
“You’re right,” I say. “They will, but not if I’m present and standing in bullseye formation.”
“You need me,” she says.
I ignore the audience and answer her honestly. “I think I’ve made that pretty clear. Which is why I need you to go to New York.”
“Logan called me.” She glances over her shoulder at Blake. “I’m sure you heard.”
“I did,” he says. “And for the record, he’s shady as shit.”
“I know,” Pri agrees, glancing at me. “The nightmare. I remembered something. The last company Christmas party I attended, Logan and I were still together. He was fighting with my father, which didn’t happen. He’s the golden child, the son my father never had. Then Logan got a call. His mood shifted. He said, ‘you really are a devil’ before he hung up. And then he made amends with my father.”
“You think Logan has a more direct connection to Waters,” Adam assumes.
“Yes,” Pri agrees, and then she looks at me. “I’m worried he has one with my father.”
“I haven’t found one,” Blake interjects.
“No,” Lucifer agrees. “I’ve been working heavily on a link between Logan and Waters, looking for a pipeline. There isn’t one.”
“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” Pri says. “Throwaway phones. Right? Secret emails. Messengers.” She glances at me. “Cabins in names that aren’t your own.”
Blake’s gaze meets mine. “If this were true, how will Waters use this against her?”
I don’t have to think about my answer. I know Waters too well. “It depends on how well her father protected himself,” I say. “If he has leverage to control Waters, a secret for instance he protects, Waters might consider him off-limits. It might even offer Pri a level of protection she might not otherwise have.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Pri asks.
“Again, it depends. If your father is deeply seeded with a fair number of his allies, people he needs to protect, he still might hesitate to take him down. However, if it comes to D-day, and that’s what it takes to delay the trial to discredit you by connection to your father, he’ll do it.”