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I raised my head. “All right then. Let’s get started with Sheeran’s closest associates—and we’ll keep an eye out for the perfect opportunity to put the squeeze on the big dog himself.”
And hopefully Haggard wouldn’t throw any new wrenches into the works before we’d dealt with this one.
SEVENTEEN
Niko
As I sippedmy beer at the bar counter, the jumble of voices and raucous laughter around me had my nerves buzzing. I tugged at the hood of my new leather jacket, chosen specifically to help me blend into this crowd in a shadier neighborhood of Boston.
This was my third visit to The Hook and Tankard, a bar Rafael had determined was managed by one of Sheeran’s main associates: Louis Elwort. The guy usually arrived in the mid-afternoon and left in the late evening.
If the skinny man with a receding hairline who looked more like a high school principal than a gangster could be a thug, then maybe my impersonating one wasn’t such a stretch. I squared my shoulders, a little thrill passing through me at the sense that I was tapping into an inner tough side I hadn’t been totally sure I had.
In any case, I’d managed to fit in with the regular clientele enough that no one had hassled me. My hood hid the telltale streak in my hair, although I doubted any of the patrons around me would have been familiar with my work on the ice.
They were all occupied with a different sort of skating: a hockey game broadcast on the widescreen TVs poised around the room. I studied the whirlwind of movement as the men around me let out a shout at a goal.
The hockey players surged across the ice, all sweat and muscular force. I’d bet they had the strength to pull off at least some of the moves I loved, but in their element, they showed none of the grace and precision I admired in a skater.
Imagining them spinning and leaping after the puck like one of my trainees made my lips twitch with amusement. No, they were simply doing what their job called for.
Still, there was something fascinating about the visceral aggression of the sport. Maybe sometime I could draw on it for inspiration for a particularly provocative routine.
At the edge of my vision, I noticed Elwort emerging from his office behind the bar. He’d left earlier than this the first night I’d come by but later the second night, so I couldn’t read too much into his appearance.
Except that my instincts, honed by years of paying attention to the exact angles of a hand or a pointed toe, the tiny indications that a takeoff had come with enough momentum or a lift with the right height, caught a couple of telling gestures. Elwort tapped his hip pocket, where I’d determined he kept his keys. Then he shot a quick look in the mirror beneath the shelves of expensive liquor and flicked his fingers over his thinning hair.
He’d gone through those motions both times before, just as he was leaving. My pulse thumped faster.
I could take advantage of my observations. This time I might actually fulfill my mission here.
Leaving ahead of him would make me look much less suspicious. I drained the last of my beer and sauntered toward the doorway at what I felt was an appropriately macho gait.
The growl of Elwort’s voice reached my ears as I passed him where he’d stepped close to the bartender. The chilling hostility in his tone dispelled the school-principal impression in an instant.
“If I catch you skimmin’ tips, Larry, I’ll have you more’n just fired. You won’t be hard to replace.”
The bell over the door jangled with my exit. In the cool evening air outside, I picked up my pace. The last two times, Elwort had headed east for a couple of blocks and then veered south.
The first time, I’d trailed a couple of blocks behind him all the way to a mundane apartment building that hadn’t offered up any clues. The second time, he’d taken a turn and vanished from view by the time I’d reached the intersection.
I had to stay on his trail this time. Lou was counting on me.
And if I kept failing, Rafael was going to think he was right that Jasper and I couldn’t hold our own when it came to protecting her.
Around the first bend, I ducked into an alley I’d noted before. The stink of the garbage cans farther down it had me wrinkling my nose, but the shadowed space made for an ideal hiding spot.
It was only a few minutes before the brisk thud of Elwort’s footsteps approached. I pressed myself against the alley wall where the shadows were thickest and watched his slim form stride by.
After waiting for several seconds, I slipped out and started ambling down the street after him with an air I hoped looked reasonably casual. I kept my head low and my hands stuffed in my pockets as if I were lost in thought and paying no attention to anyone around me, least of all the man up ahead.
I’d never attempted anything like this before. My nerves jittered as I debated exactly how closely to follow the gangster.
Lou and Rafael had stressed how dangerous these people could be. I didn’t think the knife Lou had ordered me to carry in my jacket pocket would do me all that much good if my target realized what I was up to.
But I was more than just her coach. I wanted to be a man she could turn to, a man she could count on foreverythingshe needed. Lou deserved that from all of us, or how did I deserve to stand with her and call her mine?
I hadn’t focused enough on other people’s needs before, and that had led to the greatest mistake of my life.
