Page 64 of Guarding Bristol

For years he’d been diligently compiling material on anyone who might pose a threat to him, making digital copies of everything and storing it on his state-of-the-art system as a backup in case anyone managed to find and crack his safe to get the originals.And that accidental mistake could end up being his undoing.

His gaze caught on the far corner of the hand-woven Persian silk rug.The edge of it was crooked.

He got up, walked over and crouched down, his pulse beating faster.It was slight, but the corner wasn’t straight.As if someone had pulled it back and then hurriedly tried to fix it.

The exact part of the rug that needed to be moved to access the secret panel in the floor.

He stared at it, a sinking feeling taking hold.It wasn’t the cleaners.They weren’t allowed in here.The only people who had access were him, and the few people he allowed inside with him.People like Hawk.Angel.Jon—

The phone on his desk rang, shattering his concentration.He grabbed it and saw his lawyer’s name come up on the display.“Roger.You need something?”he said brusquely, not in the mood to deal with any more headaches.Someone had moved that rug.Someone he trusted.

“We’ve got a potential problem.”

His mood soured further.“What kind of problem?”

“I got an emergency call first thing this morning from my new client.He’s currently in jail for breaking and entering and assaulting a man in Crimson Point last night.He's been telling everyone he works for you.”

Jordan’s blood pressure jumped, his hand tightening around the receiver.“Is that right?”

“Everyone at the jail knows.I think it’s his way of trying to protect himself from the people on the inside.”

“What’s his name?”He would have the idiot dealt with.“Never heard of him,” he lied when Roger told him.

He recognized it as one of the men who had accompanied his inside man Mark at the hospital in Crimson Point to the meeting there last night.The one who was supposed to take care of the surprise fuckingDEA agentJordan had just found out about from a trusted source within the network, and make him disappear to protect that part of the operation.

Moving product in and out of the hospital was surprisingly easy, and lucrative.Losing that conduit would impact business in the region until another stable place could be set up.

“What do you want me to do with him?”

“Nothing.”Both problems needed to be eliminated immediately.The inept assassin, one, for having the colossal stupidity to publicly link himself to him and the organization, and, two, because he clearly didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut and posed a security risk.Then the DEA agent, for obvious reasons.

But that still didn’t tell him who the leak was.He stared at the crooked edge of the rug, fury welling up.Who would dare, knowing the leverage he had against them, and the price of betrayal?

“What’s the address of the place he broke into?”Jordan typed it into his computer and a map popped up with a red pin marking a small house on a residential street.“I’ve got it.Let me know if there’s any more information.”

The instant he disconnected he called his IT guy again.“Find out who owns the property at this address in Crimson Point.”He could do it himself, but he had a lot on his mind at the moment, and things like this were what he paid this asshole for.He gave the street and number.

“All right, give me a minute.Accessing county property records now.”

Jordan drummed his fingers on his desk, mind racing as he planned out his next steps.Thinking about all the people he’d allowed into this room the day before he’d left for Seattle.

The guy in jail was a dead man walking.But if Jordan didn’t find and stop whoever had accessed his files, so was he.

“The property’s owned by a construction company in Crimson Point.”

“No individual name attached to it?”

“Not that I can see.Do you want me to keep digging?”

“No.”It was enough to know the DEA agent had been there last night.Surely there would be some thread to pull on now.“But I need you to find and hack any potential security cameras facing that address.See if there’s footage of anyone coming or going from there last night from seven p.m.onward.”

He ended the call and wiped the sweat beading his upper lip, debating his options.This mess was partly his own fault.He shouldn’t have risked sending someone else to kill Barros.He should have had Angel deal with it in the first place.

And Angel had also been in this room the day Jordan left for Seattle.

He shot off a brief message to him.New task for you.Critical.

Angel called back within five minutes.“What’s the job?”

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