Talon stepped closer, not fast enough to trigger a defensive reaction, but with the inexorable patience of a glacier. He crowded the space between them until Delgado had to tilt his head back slightly to maintain eye contact. Talon pressed forward until he was sure the older man could smell the gun oil on his tactical gear.
"Here's what's going to happen," Talon said, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper. It was the kind of volume that forced listeners to strain forward. "You're going to tell me who told you to keep an eye on her. You're going to tell me what they wanted you to do if she got too close to somethingshe shouldn't see. And then you're going to disappear."
He paused, letting the weight of those words settle into the close air between them.
"You won't come near her again. You won't contact anyone to warn them about this conversation. You won't so much as breathe her name in casual conversation. Because if you do, if you give me even the slightest reason to think you're still a threat to her safety, I'll know about it.And I will find you."
Talon's hand moved almost casually to rest on the grip of his sidearm. He didn’t draw it, Hell, he didn’t even threaten to draw it. He just made a subtle reminder of the resources at his disposal.
"And next time, we won't be having any conversation."
Delgado's face had gone from pale to gray, resembling the color of old concrete. A visible tremor ran through his hands as he processed the implications of what he was hearing. This wasn't just intimidation. Nope, this was a professional operator laying out the terms of his continued existence with the matter-of-fact precision of a contract negotiation.
"I …" Delgado's voice cracked completely, forcing him to clear his throat and try again. "I was just told to watch. To keep track of what she was looking at, where she went, and who she talked to. If she got too close to the shipping records or started asking the wrong questions, I was supposed to discourage her. Make sure she backed off."
"How?" The single word carried the weight of a loaded weapon.
Delgado's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard, trying to find moisture in a mouth that had gone desert-dry. "Nothing violent. Just … be visible. Let her know she was being watched. Make her uncomfortable enough to focus on other areas of the operation."
"And today? The forklift?"
The question hung in the air like smoke from a discharged weapon. Delgado closed his eyes, and for a moment, Talon thought he might actually refuse to answer. Then the man's shoulders sagged even further, as if he were physically collapsing under the weight of his own guilt.
"Rodriguez, the operator, owed me money. Gambling debts. I told him the restraints needed maintenance, that they were getting loose. Said if he happened to be working near the inspection area when the safety lady was doing her rounds,and if the load happened to shift while she was there …"
He opened his eyes, meeting Talon's gaze with the desperate honesty of a man who’d run out of lies to tell.
"I didn't think she'd get hurt. Not really hurt. I thought maybe she'd get scared, maybe decide the storage yard was too dangerous for regular inspections. I never meant for it to go that far."
Talon absorbed this confession with the same emotional neutrality he'd once brought to reading casualty reports. The methodology was irrelevant. What mattered now was the chain of command.
Talon held the man’s stare and narrowed his eyes. "Who told you to watch her?"
As Delgado hesitated, Talon could see the calculation happening behind his eyes. The man was weighing his fear of retaliation from above against his terror of the man standing in his living room.
Fear of immediate consequences won.
"Vincent Harrow," Delgado whispered. "Senior VP of logistics back in the States. He said the girl was asking too many questions about overseas shipments, getting too close to operational details that weren't her concern. Said the company needed to know if she was going to be a problem."
Talon filed the name away in the mental database he'd been building. Vincent Harrow—another thread in the web, another name to investigate. But not tonight. Tonight was about cutting off the immediate threat to Riley's safety.
"Good," he said, stepping back half an inch. He was still close enough to strike but no longer actively crowding Delgado's personal space. The small retreat would feel like a massive relief to the terrified man. Talon could see some of the tension leave his shoulders.
"Now comes the important part," Talon continued, his tone shifting to something that might have been almost businesslike if not for the underlying menace in his voice. "You're going to vanish. Tonight. You're going to pack whatever you can carry in a single suitcase, get in your vehicle, and drive away from here. No goodbye parties, no farewell drinks, no stopping by the office to clean out your desk."
He paused, making sure Delgado understood every word.
"You're going to find somewhere else to be. I mean, another country, another job, and another life. And you're going to stay there." Talon's voice dropped to that whisper-quiet tone again, the onethat somehow carried more menace than shouting ever could. "Because if you reach out to Vincent Harrow or anyone else about this conversation, if you try to warn them that their surveillance operation has been compromised, or if you do anything other than disappear completely and permanently … you're dead."
Delgado's face was slick with sweat, and Talon could hear the rapid, shallow breathing of a man confronting his own mortality.
"Do you understand me, Mauro?"
"Yes." The word came out as barely more than a breath. "Yes, I understand."
"Good." Talon stepped back another inch, giving Delgado room to move without making it feel like permission to flee. "Jug, would you mind opening the door for Mr. Delgado? I think he has some packing to do."
Jug moved to the door with the same fluid grace he'd shown throughout the operation, his massive frame somehow managing to seem both protective and threatening as he held the portal to the bedroom wide.
