Page 27 of Shadows of Justice

I clear my throat. “A design?”

“Yes, a prototype for a magnesium bomb. It’s called MG-T12. It burns hotter than their current phosphorus bombs, but is more controllable than straight thermite.” He straightens, and I crane my neck to look at him. “I finished the concept last month, and had been setting up plans for delivery by the end of this week—all anonymously, of course.”

“Of course,” I say distantly, and accidentally wobble on my feet. Leo grabs one of the kitchen table chairs and fluidly slides it behind me. He eases me into it, seemingly unbothered by my intoxication.

“I thought you made heroin,” I blurt, the tequila removing all sense of pretense from my brain.

“What a waste of my talents,” he muses, with a crooked smile. “Synthetic THC, DMT, or MDMA, if I wanted to indulge or perhaps expand my mind for an afternoon—sure. But, it’s not really my thing, and I’d never do it to sell it. Now, please, do your best to focus Genevieve.”

I shut my mouth, realizing that it’s hanging open in surprise.

My thoughts are spinning. Is he telling the truth? I’ve read the file at the station on Leo backwards and forwards. Even checked the ones in sister districts, ones larger than PPD.

We weren’t even fucking close.

“Last week, my contact within the US military went dark,” he explains, looking down at me intensely. “I didn’t know why at the time, but I figured it out tonight. I looked deeper into my own personal account that we’d been communicating through and someone had sent an encrypted message to the contact pretending to be me, stating that the deal was off, and that I’d found a higher bidder. Of course, because I know my way around code, I looked into who could have hacked my system.”

“Of course,” I murmur again, and wet my dry lips.

Leo turns and confidently reaches into the cupboard and locates the cups on the first try. He picks up a mug—pink with yellow flowers—fills it with water from the fridge, and hands it to me. Watching him at ease in my apartment is odd but also unmistakably alluring. I picture him at sunrise, shirtless and sweatpants hanging low on his hips, gliding around my kitchen to make us breakfast after a night of passionate fucking.

Not cubicle, expensively-moisturized, normal-couple fucking.

Leo fucking.

My lecherous mind is also wondering how the hell he knew where the cups were kept. Maybe it was a lucky first try?

I’m never drinking tequila again.

I gulp the water, grateful as hell, and try to focus as he speaks again.

“He was an elusive son-of-a-bitch, but I found him.” He leans against the counter and crosses his arms, one ankle over the other, completely at ease. “It was TresAce, the intel grunt for the Valley Dogs.”

I’m stunned, the name of the prevalent San Fernando based gang recalled perfectly in my head. They’re high-profile—like FBI watchlist level—some of the most violent and sickening practices organized crime groups can commit happening within their ranks.

I swallow an overabundance of saliva, my roiling stomach’s contents officially deciding to make an appearance.

I release a sound of distress and dart to the sink, my hand clapped over my mouth. I breathe deeply, waiting for the mortifying purging of my guts to begin in front of this wanted criminal that broke into my home and handed me water in a mug my grandmother made for me.

I hear the squeak of the latch on the window above the sink, and blessedly cool air hits my slick skin a moment later. I can feel Leo next to me, and startle as he picks up my hair and twists it around his right fist to keep it out of my face. The action isn’t intended to be sexual, but that fact apparently doesn’t matter to my perverted mind. It’s so jarringly dominant that I gulp for more reason than the threat of vomit, and I’m praying that Leo doesn’t notice the goosebumps that skate over my skin.

With his left hand, he picks up my wrist and turns my arm, so that my forearm is facing up. He places his thumb in the crook of my elbow and pushes down on the skin, dragging the pad of his thumb the length of my forearm and back again. He does this three times, my eyes following the progression of his scarred fingers with fascination. Finally my wits return to me, and I blink at the close confines we are in.

“W-what are you doing?” I ask, my eyes still on his hand.

“Something my abuela used to do. For the nausea. Usually done the day after the alcohol though.” He chuckles. “It helps for some reason—helps the resaca.”

My eyes flick up to his face, and my breath catches when I find him already staring down at me intensely. He’s deliciously warm, pressed into my side, and it takes everything in me not to lean deeper into him.

“R-resaca?” I manage to croak, not even caring what it means, just wanting him to keep talking to me.

“Sickness after drinking.” He contemplates for a moment, thinking how to translate the word. “With the stomach, body, head.”

I nod. Yup, I’m sick in the head, all right.

“Where are you from, Leo?” I peel my eyes away to look back at his calloused thumb as it moves over my skin. It feels safer to leave my gaze there.

The pressure on my arm doesn’t necessarily feel good, but I haven’t emptied my stomach all over his shoes yet, so I’m going to consider that progress.

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