“Bullshit,” I spat with as much venom as I could muster.
Nik let out a loud laugh and leaned back in his seat. “No? Then turn this car around and let’s leave. You’re the new brigadier, and you haven’t been to the club yet. That’s your turf. That’s your responsibility, not having impossible dreams about fucking the doctor.”
“Not that I’m interested, but who says it’s impossible? I get my fair share of partners anytime I want.”
“But this is one piece of ass that won’t be settling in your bed, so get it off your mind. For fuck’s sake, we’re responsible for his husband’s death.” Nik pointed in the direction of the hospital, and as if somehow summoned, Leo walked through the doors, pushing a rolling briefcase. “Hetalked to Archie about how Bradley really died.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Are you listening to yourself?” Nik was all but screechingin my ear while I tracked Leo’s every movement to his car. “Archie tried to enlist his help to kill Wren in the hospital. Why do you think Archie was confident Leo would help him? He obviously told Leo Maxim forced Bradley to jump off the rooftop.”
My mouth went dry, and I swallowed hard. Nik wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t already mulled over. But if you knew someone was responsible for your husband’s death, you would say something, wouldn’t you?
Leo never mentioned how Bradley died. Not while he helped Maxim get Wren airlifted to another, more secure hospital. Not while he helped us to keep up the pretense that Wren was dead so we could expose Archie. Not all this time I’d had him under surveillance.
“Do you want to call Darius to come get you?” I said.
Nik let out an exasperated sigh. “That won’t do. I’myourbodyguard. You keep forgetting you’re in a different position now. You need someone to watch your back, and I already fucked up once with Wren. I’m not giving Maxim another reason to fire me.”
“Then shut up and let me do what I have to.”
“You’re fucking impossible.” He took out his phone, and I was saved from listening to any more of his truths.
“Hey, you better not say anything about this to Darius.”
“I’m texting Jess.”
“You can’t tell her either. You know she’s a blabber. She tells Wren everything, and then it’ll go back to Maxim.”
“The fuck, you just called my girl a blabber?”
“You saying she isn’t?”
“Okay, maybe a little, but you don’t ever tell her I agreed with you on that.”
Nik huffed and went quiet, thumbs moving across his phone screen while the glow reflected faintly on his face. For a few blessed seconds, the truck filled with silence again,broken only by the low hum of the engine and the distant whoosh of a passing car, driving way too fast.
Leo’s BMW came into view at the exit, lingering for a few seconds as he turned on his blinker and allowed a motorcycle to get ahead of him before rolling out onto the street.
“He’s on the move,” I said under my breath.
Nik glanced up from his phone. “Who? The man who’s going to break your heart?”
I ignored him and counted to five before I merged into traffic two cars behind him. His brake lights flared briefly as he stopped at the intersection, then he turned onto the main road leading out of the hospital district.
Nik leaned his elbow on the window and squinted ahead at Leo’s taillights. “So, let me get this straight. We’re following a grieving widower home after he’s worked what—another fourteen-hour day? You really think the guy has the energy left to hold some secret strategy meeting about taking Maxim down?”
“Shut up,” I gritted out.
“I’m serious,” he said. “If the man so much as drops his keys, are you planning to leap out and catch them for him? Maybe tuck him into bed? Because that’s the only place he’s going after this.”
Leo’s sedan slowed at a light ahead of us. I kept him in focus and tried to drown out Nik’s rant.
“Do you even know what the hours are like for doctors in those hospitals?” he asked.
Of course I did. I knew everything there was to know about Leo. He was an internal medicine attending physician officially scheduled for twelve-hour hospital shifts, seven days straight before he rotated off service. Most physicians left when their shift ended, but Leo didn’t.
He arrived before rounds started and stayed long after the residents signed out. In the last two weeks, he averagedfourteen to fifteen hours a day and had taken exactly two days off—the day of Bradley’s funeral and the one after.
