“This is my fight. I started this. I need to be the one to finish it.”
“Liv—”
She pulled from his touch. “The chamber gala is tomorrow night.”
“What about it?” he asked, dread making sweat pool under his arms.
“I’m going to do it. I’m going to get him on tape.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“It isn’t a bad plan, Mack.”
Liv, Noah, Hop, Derek, Malcolm, and the Russian sat at the island in Mack’s kitchen the next morning. Noah winced as he said the words, as if anticipating Mack’s response.
“It’s a horrible plan! She can’t face him alone.”
“I won’t be alone,” Liv protested. “You guys can listen in—”
“No.”
“And Derek will be in the room with me. Royce won’t connect us.”
Mack clenched his hands into fists. “No. There has to be another way to get a confession.”
“How?” Liv countered.
“I don’t know,” Mack growled.
Noah coughed quietly. “I can get her wired up—”
Mack’s had nearly blew off. “Wired up? Do you hear yourself right now?”
Liv tried to calm him down. “We’re talking about Royce here. It’s not like he’s a kidnapper or a murderer.”
“You never know what people are capable of when pushed, Liv.” He shoved his hands through his hair. “This is a bad idea.”
“Do you have a better one?” Liv fired back.
Mack threw up his hands. “Yes, how about anything that doesn’t involve you directly confronting Royce? What if he finds out you’re recording him?”
“He won’t,” Noah said.
“How do you know?”
Noah’s face went blank, but, like, in a stop asking questions way. “Because I know how to do it.”
Mack paced for several minutes.
“You have to trust me,” Liv said.
“I do trust you. It’s Royce I don’t trust.”
“Then trust that I can handle him. I worked for him for a year. I know what he’s like, how to talk to him.”
Mack stopped pacing. “I should be going with you.”
“No. It’d be way too suspicious.”
Mack felt the sour sting of desperation in the back of his throat. “There are too many things that could go wrong.”
“I’ll be in a public place. What could he possibly do?”
“He could drug your food,” Mack said, suddenly scowling.
She laughed. “I won’t eat.”
“He could stab you under table with syringe full of radiation poison that kills you slowly, said the Russian.”
Everyone stared at the Russian. He made a what gesture with his hands. “Happens all the time in Russia.”
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Mack said. “We send two guys ahead of you—”
“No. I have to go alone.”
“Two guys he doesn’t know and can’t connect to you,” Mack said. “They can grab a table before you get there and keep an eye on things. If anything bad goes down, they can save you.”
“Save me?”
Across the room, Hop dragged his hands down his face and muttered something that sounded like, here we go.
“It’s just a word, Liv.”
“I can take care of myself, Mack.”
“We should come up with a signal, just in case,” Derek said.
“Knock over the salt shaker,” Malcolm offered.
The guys all started to nod enthusiastically.
“Was that in one of your books?” Liv asked.
They nodded again.
Mack’s scowl deepened.
“Everything is going to be fine,” Liv said. “Royce won’t do anything in public that could end up on Instagram.”
“But what about after? What if he follows you out?”
The Russian cracked his knuckles. “Then I will break his balls.”
The shower was running in Liv’s apartment when Mack arrived just before five that afternoon. Noah would pick them all up at six. Except for Liv. She would drive herself. Mack had spent a good half hour protesting that part of the plan, but he’d lost.
They hadn’t had a single moment alone to talk since last night, and he had things he needed to say before she left. Because something about tonight felt ominous, and he couldn’t let her walk out without him making sure she understood a few things. There would be time later for him to tell her the full truth, and he would. But right now, he just needed to—
The shower shut off. Mack cleared his throat. “I’m here,” he called out.
“Okay. I’ll be out in a second.”
She emerged in nothing but a towel. See Mack drool. “Liv,” he croaked.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine.”
She gave him an amused look and walked past him into her tiny kitchen. “I need coffee,” she said.
Mack watched her go through the motions of filling the coffeepot. Urgency drove his feet to where she stood. He slipped an arm around her waist and tugged her firmly against him until she was molded against his chest. “Do you feel that?”