They listened in silence, both of them processing information, probably already planning cleanup or countermeasures or damage control or whatever came next in situations like this.
Standard operating procedure for men who'd lived this life too long.
I grabbed a beer from the fridge, twisting off the cap with more force than necessary and taking a long drink. Half the bottle disappeared in one pull, cold and bitter and not nearly strong enough for what I was feeling. Not nearly strong enough to drown out the questions multiplying in my head.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I pulled it out reflexively.
Ella's text lit up the screen.
Tomorrow, you're not allowed to be late. Dangerous men should at least be punctual.
And something shifted in my chest.
Tightened like a fist closing around my lungs.
Because I'd been so focused on St. Paul's, on the immediate threat, on getting out of that building alive, on surviving the next five minutes?—
I hadn't thought about the larger implications.
Hadn't thought past my own survival.
How could I have been so fucking stupid?
Ella.
If they'd been watching me, tracking me, following me through Paris before making contact?—
If they knew where I'd been tonight, where I'd fought, where I'd gotten stitched up?—
They knew about her.
Or they would soon.
The apartment building in the Marais. The café where we'd had coffee. The clinic where we'd met.
All of it documented. Photographed. Added to some file somewhere with her face and name and address.
Fuck.
"How vast are our resources?" I asked abruptly, cutting through whatever Connor had been about to say.
Connor looked at me, expression shifting slightly. Curiosity mixed with tactical caution, trying to understand where I was going with this.
Ellsworth's eyebrow went up fractionally, like he was thinking,Now we're getting somewhere. Finally asking the right questions about what we do here.
I burst that bubble immediately.
"There's a girl. I think she might be in trouble, too. Because of me."
The room temperature seemed to drop a few degrees.
The mood shifted from strategic planning to something more personal and therefore more complicated.
Connor's eyes narrowed, reading me with the precision of someone who'd known me for years. "Why? Who is she?"
"It's my fault," I said, the words tasting like ash and failure. "We just met. Pure coincidence. Wrong place, wrong time. But I've been with her multiple times today. The clinic. A café. Her sister's apartment. If they were watching me?—"
