Page 29 of Shadow Secrets
“Or was pushed across one.”
“Yeah.” Her voice was barely audible. “Or that.”
Sutton closed the sketchbook and set it on the nightstand. The room went quiet again as she turned off the lamp and crawled under the blanket. “Goodnight, Lynx.”
“Goodnight, Ink.”
A pause. “Ink?”
“All clients get a callsign, too.”
“Client?” Panic laced her voice. He heard the rustle of sheets as she sat straight up. “Oh, shit. How am I going to pay you?”
He smiled to himself in the dark. “There’s no bill, relax.”
“What? No, that’s not right. You and your team are protecting me. I’m a client, right? You have to get paid.”
He didn’t want to tell her he’d already covered the down payment required of all clients. That he planned to pay the bill out of his savings. What else did he have to spend it on? But she would balk at that and insist on paying him back. “We have a discretionary fund for certain cases,” he told her. In this case, it was his fund, but she didn’t need to know that. “The bill is covered.”
He felt her stare through the dark. “That’s…generous.”
“Vivi established from the beginning that we don’t turn anyone in need away, regardless of their ability to pay.” That was mostly true. “All you have to do is follow instructions and not put yourself in obvious danger.”
“Which I’ve already done by insisting on going to the apartment.” She heaved a sigh. “Shouldn’t that render this agreement null and void?”
He admired her ability to overthink like a champ. “Only if I say so.”
She snored. “You like that, don’t you?” Her voice held a teasing note. “Having a say over me and me having to follow your orders.”
He did. “Absolutely,” he teased back. “Bossing around a stubborn woman is a dream come true for me.”
She laughed—that little chuckle that made him want to see her face. Through the dark, he could make out the outline. His imagination did the rest.
And then that same imagination started going into dangerous territory, his memory supplying all the skin that her skimpy tank top and shorts revealed.
But then his phone buzzed, saving him from letting Sutton’s brown eyes and slender body undo him here in the dark.
He sat up, checked the screen. Garrett. He answered. “Go.”
“The Iron Rose was broken into. The parlor was ransacked—stations overturned, walls stripped, the flash art torn down. Every drawer was emptied. Every storage space searched. Whoever did it wasn’t subtle.”
Damn it. He rubbed his tired eyes. “Anyone hurt?”
“Dom Salazar. It was after hours and looks like he walked in and surprised whoever it was. He pulled a gun; they fought back.”
Sebastian closed his eyes. Fuck. “How bad?”
“Blunt force trauma to the head. He’s at the hospital. They put him on life support an hour ago.”
Sutton was up again, flicking on the light. “What is it? What happened?”
Sebastian ran a hand over his face. Dom had nothing to do with any of this except the bad luck of employing Sutton.
“I’ll inform her,” Sebastian said.
She launched out of the bed. “Inform me of what?”
“Copy.” Garrett paused. “Claire believes they were looking for anything tied to Penn, like the sketchbooks, not specifically hunting for Sutton. She thinks you might have interrupted their search at the apartment, and they tried the parlor on a whim.”
