Page 49 of Sunflower

Tentatively, Callum’s palm started moving up and down my leg again, his forehead furrowing as he thought about what I was saying.

“Then a few months later, you wake up to find the photograph on your coffee table. Who do you turn to? George. And two days later, you both leave New York and come here.”

“You think this guy is after George?”

“I think there’s a strong possibility he is. But you were the weaker target and linked to him, so he started trailing you instead.” I tapped my fingers on his chest more decisively. “And then it takes him a while to find you again once you’re over here. Until The Majestic, where he not only finds you, but me as well.I’d imagine it wouldn’t take long to put two and two together, considering we were both at our parent’s wedding.”

Callum hummed his tentative agreement.

“And out of the three of us—you, me, and George—who’s the weakest link? Me.” My fingers finally stilled against his chest. “He wanted to use you to get to George but found an easier mark—me. He wants to use me to get closer to you, and then use you to get closer to George.” Staring at Callum, I nodded at my hypothesis. “It’s not us he wants…”

“It’s George…” Callum murmured in dawning realization.

“He just wants us to do all the hard work for him.”

“Holy fuck, I think you’re onto something.” He scrambled up to kiss me soundly. “I need to call George.”

Chapter Seventeen

Joey

Forthesecondtimein less than twelve hours, I found myself in a darkened cinema. This time, however, I was in an empty theatre with a film that had been out for ages playing in the background while I met George for the first time.

On Callum’s advice, I’d left my phone at our parent’s place and packed a bag to stay at his apartment overnight. As he’d said, if Iwasbeing followed, I wasn’t doing anything more than what I’d been requested to do. The bag remained in his car as we both sat in the cinema talking to George.

While Callum told George about what had transpired today and my subsequent theory, I took in the older man sitting beside me. Dressed entirely in black, he blended well with the darkened theatre. A long beard that had been neatly trimmed into a squarish box cut matched his well styled gray hair, even if the fact that it was almost eleven at night meant that it should have been messy from the day’s travails. Modern rectangular tortoiseshell glasses sat well on his slightly larger than normalnose, and the entire package made me think vaguely of Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings movies if he wore modern day clothing instead of a long gray robe.

When Callum finished his summary, George stroked his beard in deep thought and said in a slightly British accent, “Hmm. That might be why we didn’t have a casualty on Wednesday night.”

From the other side of me, Callum raised an eyebrow. “You think this guy is mixed up in all of that?” He flashed a quick nervous look over to me, before swallowing loudly and looking back at George.

“It feels too coincidental otherwise,” George admitted, narrowing his eyes at the way Callum was fidgeting. “Have you not told Joey everything?”

“Not that. We can keep this from him,” Callum said, frowning at George. “It’s level twelve knowledge, George. I’m not fucking authorized to read him in on something that sensitive. You know that!Ishouldn’t even know it!”

Caught in the middle of them, I slowly put my hand up like I was in school. “Um, if this is some confidential government stuff, I can sit over there until you sort things out.” I pointed to the other side of the theatre.

“There’s a mole in the department,” George stated plainly, obviously not giving two shits about protocol.

“Dude! What the actual fuck!”Callum’s jaw dropped in some odd mix of astonishment, disbelief, and annoyance. “Leveltwelve!He didn’t need to know that!”

George simply waved his hand like he wasn’t breaking however many governmental laws. Federal laws? I didn’t know. I suspected I didn’t want to know.

“He’s going to be your partner, Callum,” George explained patiently, like he was talking to a child. “He has a right to be read in properly.”

Callum threw his hands up in the air before pointing a stern finger at George’s chest. “After what happened today, I thought your vision was wrong,” he hissed angrily, poking his finger against George’s sternum. “Yes, he got approached by someone, but it wasn’t to work with us. It was a rogue trying to get him to spy on us. That changed things from your vision. With that new information, Ithoughtwe could keep him out of the in-house shit. You know my thoughts about bringing him into the fold. It’s too dangerous! If we could’ve just protected him from the rogue and got him through this situation, then he wouldn’t need to be brought in long term with us at all.”

With a flat stare, George sat back, crossed his arms, and watched Callum huff in annoyance.

“Telling him about the mole just ensured he’ll never be free of us,” Callum complained, running his fingers through his hair in agitation. “Jesus fucking Christ, George.Why?You know how much I wanted to protect him from all of this.” He waved his hands between the two of them before plonking them onto his thighs and rubbing his thighs in an agitated manner.

George pressed his lips together tight and cocked an eyebrow at Callum. “Are you done?”

Callum glared at George with venom in his eyes. “I mean, I could go on…”

Very obviously, George rolled his eyes, and as I watched, they slowly turned black. The whites of his eyes, the blueish gray of his iris, everything. Everything behind his glasses turned to ink. If I hadn’t known any better, I would’ve thought a demon sat next to me.

Beyond startled, I scrambled back in my seat to get away from George and press into Callum over the armrest between us.

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