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His answer is slow, and for a few beats I think he won’t answer at all. “You have to become the character you’re playing,” he says softly, but adds nothing more.
I decide not to push him, not now, and instead, change the subject. “Obviously Waters’ people were watching us and we didn’t know it. Is that a concern? Maybe they already know where your team is holing up.”
“I suspect Deleon had a man watching you,” he says, “just in case he had to target you, which probably means the coffee shop, which led to me. I knew approaching you was a risk, but they didn’t have any real recon, or we’d know.” He slides his arm around me. “I promise. The team is in control.”
I trust his team, I do, but this is all unsettling, and how can it not be? People are dead, murdered for crossing Waters and we have both crossed Waters. For now, though, we approach my front door, and I focus on what’s in front of me. “Is this really a good idea?” I ask. “I mean can’t Deleon just show up now?”
“Savage and Jacob are already inside,” he says, and I remember overhearing him and Adam talking about this while my head was still in that room with Waters. “Adam will join them after dark,” he adds. “Dexter is still with Ed. Once we leave, anyone watching will still see them moving about the house. At nightfall, we’ll leave.”
I glance at my watch. “Somehow it’s six-thirty already now. That’s not going to be long.”
“Just enough time for you to pack and for us to order food. Go through the motions and punch in your code.”
“Right,” I say, doing as instructed and punching in my code.
Adrian opens the door and I enter, turning to face him, the sound of Savage’s voice lifting from the kitchen. “Your team being here is comforting,” I say, setting my purse down. “But what’s not,” I add, “is the way they can enter at will despite my security system.”
“Technology can be deceivingly comforting,” Adrian says, locking up again and setting my briefcase next to my purse. “But you have to remember the average criminal can’t do what Lucifer can.” He steps close, big and warm and hard, all things I find extremely wonderful right now.
“You’re so calm,” I comment, “like we didn’t just invite a killer to come after us.”
“We won’t be here when they come,” he says. “We’re safe right now. I promise. You need to pack, though, so we’re ready to leave when the guys give the heads up.”
“Pack for how long?”
“Possibly until the trial but we need to stay light, a small duffle on top of your purse and briefcase is all we can risk right now. We’re going over your fence in the dark. If we have to stay in hiding we’ll go shopping. Back to food. Pizza is easy. You want to just get pizza again?”
I’m still digesting the part where we’re going over the fence but manage a nod. “Yes. Good.” I grab my purse again, really needing my gun nearby when I walk through the house, despite all the Walker men present. “I’ll hurry.”
I twist out of his reach and hurry down the hallway. My heart is racing and my hand is in my purse, on my weapon, when I flip on my bedroom light, relieved when there’s no monster waiting on me. I follow the same process in the bathroom and closet. When all is clear, I change into jeans, a T-shirt, and boots before filling a small bag. I don’t end up with much and I don’t even care. Suddenly, the reality of what we did today hits me like a ten-ton truck and I sink onto my vanity chair, hands on my face, willing my mind to calm.
There’s a shift in the air and I swear I feel Adrian even before he appears, and then he’s on his knee in front of me. “You okay?”
I drop my hands and cover his with mine. “I am. I just—I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I want to do good, but this is insanity. The level of corruption, the politics, the danger.”
“Waters is a once in a lifetime kind of case, Pri.”
“But he lets me see the layers of corruption. He lets me see that people aren’t always what they seem. I think I thought that working for the prosecution insulated me from such things.” I study him a moment, this complicated man, I’ve only just met, but who I believe understands me more than people I’ve known most of my life. “I know I want to make a difference in the world,” I say, “but I don’t know if this is how I want to do it. I mean, look at you. You left the Feds after Waters. You had to have felt the same kind of internal conflict.”
