Page 17 of Bulletproof

“I saved you,” I told him, “twice. You owe me an explanation.”

Heavy sigh as he shoved his hands down in the pockets of his dress pants and looked at me. “Okay, so I’m Eddie Liron, and Cristo Liron, he’s my brother.”

I waited.

“You never heard of Cristo Liron?”

I shrugged.

“Okay, so we have a construction business—well, my brother has a construction business. And he’s already in business with Peretti—that’s his place downstairs—and Adrian Miller.”

I had no idea who any of those people were.

“What does any of that have to do with the police raid downstairs?”

“They may think that Peretti and Miller and my brother are running guns and drugs.”

“Are they?” I asked him.

He grimaced.

“Are they?” I pressed him.

“Maybe.”

“Crap,” I groaned.

He gave me a hard two-fingered poke in the collarbone. “You tell anybody I said that, and you’re dead—you hear me?”

I arched an eyebrow at him.

“Sorry.” He deflated, and I realized how young he was. “Really.”

“Who the hell am I gonna tell?”

He shrugged before looking up and down the hall. “So, now what?”

“Now we go down the elevator to the first floor and walk out.”

“Just like that?”

“Yeah. Why would anybody want you?”

“I dunno.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-two. Why?”

I groaned and headed for the elevator. He fell into step beside me, matching my quick stride, his hand finding its way to my shoulder.

“I’m thinking Peretti and Miller are screwed.”

“Maybe,” I agreed as we got in the elevator. “But it’s lucky your brother wasn’t there.”

He nodded quickly. “Yeah, that is lucky.”

On the street five minutes later, we got into separate cabs after he hugged me so hard that I thought my ribs were going to crack. I was glad to be headed home. It had been a really weird night.