Page 93 of Last Man Standing

“So if he finds out you’re looking for him, he might disappear instead?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. The account appears legit, so if he wanted to stick to the party line of ‘this was business and I’m a genuine businessman’ then he could, and there’s not much I can do about it. But I wanna get eyes on him before I let him know I’m looking. “

“Alright, well…” I draw a shaky breath. “Where does he live?”

“Right here.” Exhaling an unhappy sigh, Linc’s voice grows darker. More dangerous. “Denver, Colorado. Might be a coincidence…”

And it might not be. “If he worked for Aster, and he lives where I live, it’s entirely possible he knows about Roy.” Dread sits like a slicked anvil in my stomach as I lower my voice and murmur, “You worked for Richard a long time ago, right? And he didn’t want you to leave. Then the Roy stuff happened, and suddenly Richard had new material to bring you back into his business. Maybe Greene heard about the Roy thing and fed that to Richard, or maybe Richard heard about it and kept Greene nearby to watch me.”

“If he loses his leverage against me⁠—”

“Me,” I gulp. “I was the leverage.”

“Right. If he lost you, or if you died or handed yourself in or whatever, then he’d lose control over me. It’s possible Greene’s assignment was to monitor you, so when the time came that Richard needed my services again, he’d have someone already in place who could apply a little pressure.”

I exhale a shuddering breath and loathe the goosebumps sprouting all over my skin. “If that’s true, then that means he’s been watching me… for years,” I groan. “Gross.”

“Maybe. But don’t get caught up in the details yet. Until we know, we don’t know shit, and if we don’t know, there’s no point stressing about it. I’m gonna reach out to Tank shortly and see if he knows the guy, and in the meantime, I’ll gently massage Greene’s name into the next conversation I have with Mills. See if anything pops.”

“But without being obvious.” I stop by the bedroom door and press my forehead to the solid wood. Am I running a fever, or simply running for my life… constantly? “If you’re too obvious about it, Mills might get suspicious. A suspicious cop might realize his little buddy⁠—”

“You.”

I roll my forehead against the cool surface of the door and stop myself from wheezing. Barely. “Yeah, me. Let’s not trip his trigger too much. I don’t wanna go to jail.”

“You are not going to jail, Scarlett.”

“I don’t wanna break his heart, either.” I jump when Sebastion’s broad hands wrap around my hips, then clamp my lips shut when his chest warms my back. No more yelping. No more screaming or crying or any of the other ridiculous emotional bullshit my nervous system insists on. “Okay, well…” I twist away from the door and escape Sebastion’s hands a second time. “When do you expect to contact Greene? Is it safe?”

“I’m still waiting for more information from a friend, then I’ll get a little closer and take a peek. Depending on how that goes, I’ll attempt contact and see how he responds.”

“If he hides, we can assume he might be our letter dropper.” I pretend not to notice Sebastion’s suspicious glare following me across the room. Instead, I move to the window and glance out at a dozen men lying on their bellies while they point high-powered weapons at targets a hundred feet away. “If Richard was paying him to watch me, but then Richard died⁠—”

“Then Greene may be a little perturbed by his loss of income. In which case, he might figure you owe him. Or, well, me…” He decides gruffly. “I was Richard’s soldier. You were just the leverage. Greene, or whoever left the letter, did it to spook you. You hopped on a plane and ran straight to me. My location wasn’t widely publicized over the last few months, so perhaps he needed a way to get my attention.”

“And I played into his hand exactly like he hoped,” I groan. “Jesus. Can I be more stupid?”

“Don’t do that.” He shakes his head violently enough that I hear the scuff of his stubble on the phone. “Don’t punish yourself for the things you didn’t know better about. And don’t feel guilty for coming to me, especially when I’ve spent the last ten years demanding you do exactly that.”

“Linc—”

“Not coming to me meant the Roy situation escalated more than it had to. Because you were afraid to tell the truth. You were afraid to be vulnerable.”

“But—”

“I’m your safe space, Scar. And none of this is your fault. Richard didn’t give a single fuck about your part in what we did to Roy. He didn’t magically develop a hunger for justice when he threatened to drop that information on a Fed’s desk. It was purely about leverage, nothing more. He used you to get what he wanted.”

I lean against the window frame and tilt my head toward the cold glass.

“Scarlett…?”

I inhale a shuddering breath and blink annoying tears from the backs of my eyes. “I wish none of this ever happened.”

He sighs. “I know. Me too.”

“I wish you could just be a normal guy working a normal job with a normal girlfriend who doesn’t have an abnormally large security guard who sometimes wants to kill her.”

He chokes out an emotional laugh. “Same.”