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Quin, however, answered.
“Landers took a bullet. Eccelson was fired when one of Cortez’s men got in her apartment while he was taking a call. She went back to DA to drop out of the case. But…”
“Cortez is a real motherfucker, and kept coming on principle.”
“Exactly.”
“And Heiro?”
“Cortez got in through the fire escape outside my bathroom window while I was in the shower,” Sloane supplied.
“Show him,” Quin demanded, voice brooking no argument.
To that, even though it seemed completely impossible, her body went even more rigid as she slowly got to her feet, placing her purse back on the chair, turning toward me, reaching down, snagging the hem of her soft-looking shirt, and lifting it up.
At first, all I saw was the smooth flat skin. Until her shirt was up over her navel.
Then there it was.
A three-inch-long, nasty, stitched wound.
“Missed your liver by an inch,” I observed. “When was this?” I asked as she dropped her shirt back down, turned, picked up her bag, and carefully sat back down, back ramrod straight.
“Last night,” she supplied. “Mr. Heiro himself came to the hospital with me where he told me that this case was beyond their scope. That with a charge of first-degree murder on the table, Cortez was going to keep coming at me with everything he has. Even if I dropped my testimony. They were still looking at him.”
“He pointed you in our direction,” I concluded.
“Yes.”
“You know what I do, duchess?”
“You ‘ghost’ people,” she supplied. “Mr. Baird said it is like ‘witness protection on steroids.'”
“Something like that,” I agreed. “It means all your ties, everything you have in your life, everyone you love or even just tolerate… they are dead to you now,” I told her, not one to sugarcoat it. What I did was harsh and permanent. Her life would never be the same again.
“I understand the process,” she said, but was telling Quin, not me.
“You’re going to be working with me, Miss Blythe-Meuller,” I said, tone maybe a bit sarcastic. “This might go better if you can at least look at me.” Clearly prideful, not willing to be talked down to, her head swiveled to me; those unique eyes of hers went to mine. “Did Quin explain to you how this process would go?”
“I thought I’d leave that to you,” Quin said, waving a hand.
“Alright,” I said, giving her the same eye-contact she was giving me, knowing mine was unnerving, so it said something that she could hold it. “Tonight, you will stay here. Upstairs. We have rooms for clients. While you do that, I will draw up a plan. You get no say in where you end up. Kick, scream, bite, scratch, but it won’t change dick. Your life is in my hands until you’re settled. Then you are on your own. But, if you sign the papers that Jules is no doubt drawing up right now, get ready to never get your own way again.”
“If something happened,” she said, tone still so damn composed. Especially considering she’d just been stabbed half a day ago. “Down the line. In the future. If he finds me…”
“He won’t.” They never did. I was good. Case closed.
“If he does,” she tried again. “Can I still come to you for help?”
“Of course,” Quin answered, drawing her attention back to him. “If, by some insane chance, he finds you. You can call us. We will send someone – whoever is closest to you from our team at any given time – right over to pick you up. Then the process begins all over again.”
“How many times has that had to happen?”
“None,” I answered, tone final.
“Out of how many cases?” she pressed, clearly having trust issues about it. And, well, if three of the best private security firms in the city failed you, I guess I could see that.
“Sixty-three. Since I’ve worked here. More on my own.”
“And no one has ever been found.”
“No one has ever been found,” I confirmed.
“Okay,” she agreed, giving Quin a nod.
He reached for the button to Jules’s desk, and not a minute later, in she walked with the papers, hanging back to wait for them to be signed.
“Jules, can you show Miss Blythe-Meuller to one of the rooms upstairs? Gunner and I need to discuss some things,” he added as Sloane jumped up out of her chair, clearly eager to get away. And, it seemed, mostly from me.
Which was unfortunate for her.
She was about to have a whole fuckuva lot of me in her life.
“Try to play nice,” Quin told me when we were alone.
“With Miss Blythe-Meuller?” I shot back, smirking.
And while he was the boss, and wore that professional persona well, once we were alone, he let out a laugh at that as well.
“Yes, with Miss Blythe-Meuller. Give her a break. She’s had a rough go of it. You could try to be less of a dick.”
