Page 54 of Shadow Secrets
She didn’t look up. “You are absolutely not.”
“Excuse me?”
She leaned on the broom. “You’ll scare away every single one of my new clients. Have you seen your face? You glower at people for fun. People getting their first tattoo are already terrified. They do not need a six-foot-two former Secret Service agent in a tactical stare-down with them while they’re trying not to cry from the needle.”
“I don’t glower.”
“You are glowering right now.”
“I’m making a face.”
“The face. The glower.” She pointed at him. “That one.”
“I’m going to be here. I’ll stand in the back, behind a curtain, if you need me to. But I’m not letting some Reddit troll walk into your parlor and say something ugly to your face without my being within arm’s reach.”
“Once,” she said. “You can do it once a month. And you have to smile at least twice per shift or you’re out.”
“I don’t smile on command.”
“You’re smiling right now.”
He was. The muscles of his face had built it without asking permission. He’d stopped trying to suppress it. Vivi had called it letting the dashboard lights do their job, and every time he thought about it, he wanted to roll his eyes and also thank her.
He crossed the room and caught Sutton by the waist. A soft sound escaped her mouth, and he pulled her in and kissed her. She laughed into it, her hand coming up to curl around the nape of his neck, the broom clattering against the counter behind her.
When he pulled back, her eyes were bright. “We’re going to be okay,” she said.
“Yeah. We are.”
They worked for another hour. He bagged the worst of the debris. She triaged what could be saved. Around noon, the pile of flattened cardboard boxes and contractor bags had accumulated by the back door in quantities that weren’t going to fit through it in one trip.
“I’ll take these out to the dumpster,” he said, and gathered an armload. “You should take a break.”
“Don’t forget the box with the broken frames. I don’t want glass anywhere near Dom when he comes back.”
“Copy that.”
He bumped the back door open with his back. The early October sun was sharp in the alley, the dumpster ten feet to his left, the narrow walkway between the parlor and the check-cashing place running straight to the street. He registered it all automatically. Everything looked the way it should.
He walked to the dumpster, tossed the cardboard in, and hoisted the contractor bag with his free hand. Behind him, he heard Sutton scream.
The sound hit him like a physical blow—short, cut off. He dropped the bag and sprinted back to the door.
It was locked. He yanked at the handle. The deadbolt had been engaged. His own goddamn operational instincts had caught him in a trap. He’d convinced Dom to let him install a new lock before he and Sutton started cleanup. He’d given Sutton the key and told her to never leave it unsecured while they worked, and now his own protocol was locking him out.
Sebastian ran to the window that looked into the back room—the tall, narrow one next to the back utility sink. It was frosted on the bottom half but clear on top. He pressed his face to the glass.
A man stood between the back door and the main room. He was of medium height, wiry, and dressed in dark jeans and a tan work jacket. A black pistol in his right hand was pointed at Sutton’s chest.
Sutton was backing up against her tattoo station, her hands raised, her face white.
Sebastian didn’t recognize the guy. Was he a wacko from the media blitz? Someone who got pissed she’d blocked their comment?
How had he gotten in? Both doors had been locked.
He had to have been inside the parlor when they arrived—hiding, somewhere they hadn’t checked. When Sebastian took out the trash, he was alone with Sutton.
Shit. He saw the man’s mouth moving and Sutton responding. She kept both hands up as if they might be a shield from a bullet.
