20. Leo
LEO
“I want this motherfucking bastard’s head on a platter.” I eyed Viktor and Misha across the table, my elbows on the table and fingers steepled against my chin.
Viktor made a noise of agreement. “Three legitimate businesses hit in five days.”
Viktor ticked off each one on his fingers. “First, the restaurant on Kensington receives a health code violation that brings in a health inspection. The anonymous complaint was specific enough that it could only come from someone inside the kitchen.”
He raised another finger. “Then the import warehouse gets a licensing flag. Finally, two of our best managers at the hotel walk off from the same shift within an hour of each other and both are suddenly, inexplicably unavailable by phone.”
And every replacement we’d interviewed just so happened to have a link to Anton. Not close enough that it drew immediate suspicion, but after some digging, it all came to light.
“Someone is feeding him information.” Misha sat back in his chair, twirling a pen between his fingers.
Viktor closed his laptop and ground the heels of his hands against his eyes. I’d seen Peyton perform that same gesture, and the sight of that level of aggravation from my most analytical mind churned my stomach.
Voices trickled in from the back.
Peyton’s voice.
I tried very hard not to think about that. She would be saying goodnight to her friends and showing the last of our clients out. We had mere minutes alone.
Misha rubbed his thumb across his bruised knuckles.
He leaned forward slightly, his knuckles going to his cheek.
He’d been interrogating anyone and everyone he managed to track down for four days straight.
The rotating roster of men all had the same answers to our questioning. None of them knew anything.
They had no idea who fed information from our corporation to Anton.
Our leak was either very good at hiding or very good at pointing fingers at people who were not responsible. The problem was not knowing which was real.
A leak who was good at hiding meant we were chasing a ghost.
A leak good at misdirection meant we were doing Anton’s work for him, burning through our own people while the real traitor watched us tear ourselves apart from the inside.
Either way, Anton won.
The only difference was how long it took us to figure out which people were on our side and which ones needed another incentive to stay away.
People Misha had bruised and bloodied his knuckles torturing. His eyes had gone dark days ago, soulless. The only time the light returned was when he saw Peyton.
“How many did you fire this week?” I swung my attention to Viktor, unable to look at Misha lest my heart crack.
Viktor lifted his head. “Eleven.”
Eleven. He’d fired more people in a week than he’d ever fired before. Some of them had been with us for years. But he’d pulled access logs and cross-referenced them against the timeline of Anton’s moves. Every trail he followed went cold before it led us anywhere useful.
Viktor went quiet again.
Damn it.
I pushed back from the desk and walked to the window.
The cold, indifferent city spread out below me.
“Nothing we do has staunched the flow of information.” Misha cracked his knuckles, seemingly oblivious to the wounds spread across them.
The suspicion we’d all tried to tamp down reared up. Perhaps Peyton’s use of seduction was another well-timed scheme. It would be entirely too convenient. I kept an eye on Misha, gauging him for any shift or regret.
He was Misha, and I trusted his instincts. I had for years, and I would not stop. I could not stop. If I could not trust Misha, then I’d already lost him.
Everything inside me screamed to trust, just this once. Trust that Peyton was exactly who she claimed to be. I’d built my life on the principle that trust was a transaction.
I extended it carefully, in measured amounts, and only after the other party earned it through demonstrated loyalty.
Peyton had not had time to demonstrate anything except that she made Misha’s eyes come back to life and that she argued with Viktor without flinching.
She also submitted to him in the playroom without flinching, which meant more to him than he’d ever admit.
“We need to take another look at Peyton.” Viktor threw up a hand to stop Misha when he lunged. He grabbed the other man by the shoulder. “I am sorry, but we must.” He met my gaze. “You were thinking it. I’m merely saying it out loud. It seems impossible to find an alternative.”
“Misha is never wrong about people.” My words calmed Misha, and he returned to his seat. “But I’m not ready to throw away our relationship. If we act on our suspicion with no facts and she is innocent, we lose her.” A deep, throbbing ache swallowed my chest in immediate denial.
I resisted the urge to rub the painful feeling away.
Exposing her as an enemy meant we’d all lost our way, had all been pulled in by her. Losing her as the woman we cared for was unthinkable.
Viktor dipped his head. “I am not ready to dismiss it, but I will not tip our hand and allow us to lose our advantage. If she is guilty, we cannot let her know we suspect.”
Misha shoved away from the table and began to pace. “This is not right. She is innocent.” He slammed a closed fist onto the table. The impact put a dent in the hard wood and did nothing to him except annoy him.
“We all want that to be true.” I stood as well and rested my hands on the table, leaning toward him. “Which means we watch her.”
Viktor straightened. “We bring her inside. Tell her it’s protection, which is not a lie. Anton’s moved against our business, and she’s connected to us publicly enough that she could become a target. We move her into the house. One of us stays with her at all times.”
Misha picked up his pen and threw it at the wall, where it embedded next to the clock. “This is to keep her safe. I will not entertain any other idea.”
“I’ll talk to her.” I met and held Misha’s gaze. “Tonight before we go home.”
“Of course you will.” Viktor smiled and stood. “Come, Misha. We’ll send her in.” The two of them strode toward the door, leaving it open in their wake.
Minutes later, Peyton walked in, pulling a pen from behind her ear. Her hair was in one of those half-up/half-down things, the way it ended most days until we reached our house and removed any barrier between us and her glorious locks.
She wore the gray dress, the one that made Viktor forget what he was saying mid-sentence. The file tucked under her arm slipped a bit, and she pressed her elbow tight against her side, clamping it down.
“Close the door.” I motioned at the door behind her.
She closed it and turned, her eyebrows making a little V. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes, and no. There is nothing wrong with you, or your work.” I knew to get that out of the way first, and her shoulders relaxed, a light smile teasing loose. “Sit down.” I pulled out a chair for her, then sat to her left.
“Leo?”
“Sit.” I patted the seat. “This will take a few minutes.”
She sat, sliding the folder across the table. The way she looked at me threatened my morals and my decision.
I reminded myself that this was not lying. The threat was real. “We have enemies, Peyton. That is not news to you, and I will not insult your intelligence by pretending otherwise.”
“I noticed.” Her smile faltered. “Does this have anything to do with last week?”
“Yes, and no. Please just listen. These enemies have a pattern of going after the people closest to us when they want our attention.” I held her gaze and ran my fingertips up and down her forearm.
“You’ve become one of those people. Whether you asked for that or not, it’s true.
You’re connected to us, and anyone watching us knows it. ”
“But to anyone looking, I’m just your secretary.” She tapped her fingers on the folder. “Has that changed?”
“The last time these people came after us, they eliminated half our staff on a whim.” Another truth, but perhaps a bit too much. I wanted her to understand but not be terrified.
Silence ticked, my heartbeat keeping time as Peyton stared. She examined every line of my face. “You think I’m in danger.”
“I think the possibility is real enough that I’m not willing to ignore it.”
A please rested on the back of my tongue. I swallowed to keep it down. Bratva did not ask. I had already pushed that line by not demanding that she obey.
Peyton took her time thinking over my request. It was one of the things that made her so good at her job and difficult for others to read. “What are you asking, exactly?”
“We want you to move into the house.” I took the folder from her and scooted it to the side, out of the way.
“Temporarily, if that is your wish. At least until the situation is resolved. One of us would be with you whenever you weren’t inside the building.
Going to work. Coming home. Anywhere in between.
Essentially, you would have your very own bodyguard. ”
Another stretch of silence twisted tight.
Peyton sat back, her arms crossing loosely over her stomach. Her foot tapped a couple of times, then she shook her head. “No.”
“Peyton.”
“Think about it.” She sat forward. “If I’m suddenly arriving and leaving at the same time as the three of you, every single day, how long will it be before someone notices?
How long before your enemies notice? Right now, I’m just another employee.
Just another variable. If the goal is to keep me safe without drawing attention to how close we are, putting me in your back pocket accomplishes the opposite. ”
I hadn’t expected a tactical argument from her. Not because she was not brilliant but because I’d assumed that like most women, the threat to her life would immediately push her to agree.
I should have known better. “What do you suggest?”
“Not that.”
Good. She might still listen to me. “Fine. Alternative plan. One of us rides with you. Then we can stagger our entrances into the office.”
She bit her lip, uncertainty racing across her face. Her pulse jumped, and the drumming of her fingers on the table cranked up. She started to say something, then stopped.
My heart did one of those nosedives that I cranked back with all my might to keep it from meaning anything.
“But…” She cut herself off with a shake of her head.
Oh, I did not like this. What other objection could she have and remain innocent? Coming up with excuses only made her more suspicious. My stomach twisted. Did she want to keep her freedom because all our fears were coming true and she really was a spy for Anton?
I studied her face, hating that I couldn’t read it the way I needed to.
She’d always been transparent with us, or appeared to be, but I sat across from her and had no idea what she was thinking.
The fact that I couldn’t read her innocence or her guilt twisted my gut and suggested exactly how far I’d already fallen for this woman.