“And I’m going to get you one.”
4
EIAN
“How?” I demand, itching to get out of this room and be done with this conversation. It’s bad enough that I had to leave for a drive after I caught him before. I don’t disagree with the things Duffy was telling him, but the protectiveness I felt when I saw him sway was enough to let me know I needed to walk away before I came back to talk to him.
The way Colby squares his jaw and tries to sit up straight in his bed would make me want to mock any other person, but not him. Nothing happens the way it should with him.
I felt it from the moment I cut him loose from that damned metal chair, and despite staying away for days, despite filling those days with important work that needed to be done, I haven’t been able to get him out of my head for longer than a few minutes at a time.
I’m not here talking to him because I want to.
I need to.
For inexplicable reasons and for other, very rational ones.
“Don’t go silent on me now, Colby.” I take a threatening step forward. I don’t need to like it, I just need to make it very fucking clear to him that there’s nowhere he can run from me. “You like to talk, don’t you? That’s what you did. Talked about everything wrong in the world for a decade until you got yourself kidnapped.” I have to pause and chuckle at the way his eyes open comically wide. “Oh yeah, I know all about that. I also know the SEALs rescued you. That experience must’ve been very educational considering you look more than fine today. I know you came home and took the job your old network offered you as a news broadcaster. But you couldn’t stop, could you? You just had to keep digging and digging.”
It pays to have powerful friends, and I can see in his eyes he understands what I’m trying to tell him. I can’t stop there, though.
“Now you’re gonna have to live in hiding because even after you left your life behind, sold everything you had to your name, even that cushy three-bedroom apartment in the city, you still couldn’t... fucking... stop... digging.”
This time when I stop talking, there’s fear on top of the understanding from before.
Yeah, I know everything about you, Colby.
I’m still not sure why Duffy was so worried about me leaving money for Colby when he clearly has more than enough, but that’s not something I need to know, it’s just interesting.
That annoying respect for him comes back to life inside me when he straightens as much as he can on the bed and looks me right in the eyes. He’s fucking brave, I’ll give him that.
“No one in your... family has a better set of skills for this than I do.” The way he hesitates to say that word tells me how hard he’s trying to appear like this is his world. It’s not. His father was also a news broadcaster, and he grew up in Manhattan with enough privilege to have never encountered the mob before.
But now he wants to insert himself right in the middle of a very volatile situation.
Why?
I doubt I’m going to figure that out without asking him point blank, so I better pay attention to everything he says. He might slip up.
“You obviously know who I am. Youknowthis is what I do. And by the way, I didn’t take my wallet with me when Tony One and Two got one over on me, so I doubt they know who I am.”
The fucking balls on this guy . . .
Instead of asking him who Tony One and Two are—I’m pretty sure I know anyway—I ignore the humor bubbling in my chest, and focus on the important part of what he just said.
“They know what youlooklike,” I growl at him, taking a step forward once more.
“In any case...” He waves a hand carelessly, as if that’s just an insignificant detail. It’s really, really not. “You’re gonna make sure they don’t kidnap me again, because like Ijustsaid, this is what I do. I investigate, I do the research, I get to the bottom of things, and I find out the truth.”
“That’s right, and now I’m in the tough position of feeling like the Di Leos have one over me, and I don’t fucking like that, not one bit.”
But I still need to protect him and Maggie. I always protect the innocent. He’s clearly too fucking nosy for his own good, just like Duffy said last week, but heisan innocent—as is his daughter—so that’s why I’m acting so... weird.
Yeah, weird works.
I’m not gonna tell him I was already planning on offering them protection from the Di Leos, because now...
“Are you really trying to make a deal with me? Do you think you have a choice?”
