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Perry waited for me in a booth with two cups of coffee steaming on the table. He was a tall guy with Asian features and an athletic build. He raised his cup in my direction, nodding gravely. He had on casual street clothes, but like most feds, something about his aura just screamed “government.”
I sat down, ignoring the coffee. “Is this really necessary?”
“One precaution,” Perry said, motioning for me to stand again. He ran a little wand over my boddy that made vague, electronic humming noises. It chirped over the phone in my pocket but didn’t react anywhere else. He was embarrassingly thorough, and just about everyone in the shop was giving us weird looks when he was finished.
I sat down. “Satisfied?”
Perry sat, then dug something from his briefcase. He slid a picture across the table toward me. It was a grainy shot of Luco getting into a black car. “Is this the guy you were about to ask me about over the phone?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Then yes, this is all necessary. Off the books, I can tell you that we’re watching Luco as we speak. He’s a dangerous man. Very dangerous.”
I took a deep breath. Fuck you, Luco, I thought. I quickly summarized the conversation I’d just had, including the part where Adrian jumpstarted this back in Colorado.
“You just made a very good call, Christian,” Perry said once I’d finished. “We’ve got a guy in close with Luco right now feeding us information. We heard about his plans to extort you. If you’d gone along with Luco’s plans we would’ve found out, and you would’ve been in some deep shit.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. What a fucking mess. “Alright, so what’s stopping you guys? You know he’s trying to set this shit up, so you can bring him in, right?”
“Not exactly. We need more on him. He’s good about delegating the real dirty work, and if we bring down his lackeys he’ll simply bring in new ones. If you help us, we can help you.”
“Explain,” I said. I wasn’t in the mood for small talk. All this shit was giving me a thumping headache and making me wish I could just shut my eyes and pretend it wasn’t real. I’d go back to my apartment, crawl into bed with Lola, and pull her close to me until all I had was her scent and the warmth of her skin on mine.
“According to our guy, Luco has your place bugged with listening devices. It’s kind of his thing. He has all the latest tech. Information is his favorite weapon, and you can bet your ass he’s got your office back in Fairhope wired up and under watch, too. If he didn’t already, he’ll have tried to do it before you get back in town. It’s likely he has one or more people working for him in your office, too. You can’t even assume phone calls are private anymore. That’s very important.”
“Can’t you fix that? You’re the fucking F.B.I. Just clean my phone and sweep my apartment. Get his shit out of there.”
“Actually, I think the best move is to let him listen. I’m guessing you’ve got some people you want to keep safe through this, correct?”
My stomach sank. I could see where Perry was leading. “You want me to let him listen and pretend I don’t know. That way, I can feed him any lie we want, like the fact that I’ve broken things off with Lola and cut ties with Max.”
“Lies may be your best weapon right now, Christian. Lies to protect the ones you care about while we find a way to get Luco behind bars. Lies to help us lead him into a trap of our making. But make no mistake. If Luco isn’t behind bars, you’re always going to be looking over your shoulder. The only way to really protect the ones you care about is to hurt them for now.”
“So then I warn Lola and Max someplace safe and away from his ears that I’m just going to put on a show. I tell them to lay low while we work on things and pretend it was all real. There’s no need to–”
Perry held up his hand. “It needs to be real, Christian. If Luco even suspects it’s bullshit, this all falls apart. And you can bet your ass those two girls of yours will be the first people he uses to hurt you.”
“Fuck,” I whispered. Maybe I knew deep down that what was happening between Lola and I wasn’t going to last forever. I even knew Max wouldn’t be mine to take care of forever, and that was probably why I’d kept her at an emotional arm’s length, too. But I wasn’t ready for it to end. And not like this. But I could sense the truth in what Perry said. It needed to feel real. Hell, maybe it needed to actually be real. Even if we got Luco behind bars, who was to say his people wouldn’t go out looking for revenge after all this was over?
