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Smith looks at me, eyeing me for several long beats before he looks at Aaron. “What the hell is this?”
“I don’t know. I exposed my real name to Ashley, but that’s not enough to put me on a hit list. All I can think is that this is about a case I was working on before I was setup. I got close to something that hit high levels of the CIA. I needed to be out of the picture.”
“You’re saying the CIA is dirty?”
“Oh, come on,” Aaron says. “Like it’s hard to believe. Our level of dirty is filthy. And you have to know that. I can’t trust anyone. Hell, I don’t want to trust you.”
“Then why are you?”
“I have the money and resources to disappear and live well, but I want more for Ashley. I want to know that we aren’t living as hunted animals. She doesn’t deserve that and that’s why I stayed away. I needed to make this go away before I went after her.”
“And yet, here we are,” Smith says dryly. “And here she is.”
“There’s a hit out on her, which is obviously about me. They wanted to lure me out of the shadows, and it worked.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Ashley believes you have the resources to help me make that happen.”
“We have the resources to help,” he says. “The question is: should we? We can take Ashley. We can protect her.”
“No,” I object. “That’s not happening. I’m staying with him, with or without your help.”
Smith narrows his eyes on me. “He lied to you.”
“He was on a mission. I was part of it. I was a way to get to a client my law firm was dealing with.”
“He used you, and you feel good about this?” Smith challenges.
“People meet with a side agenda all the time, Smith. They don’t plan to fall in love.”
“And I do love her,” Aaron says, “with all my heart.”
Smith’s gaze shoots accusations at Aaron. “Or, you’re still using her to get to the target at her firm.”
“I’m no longer CIA. They’re hunting me. I have no reason to go after that client except one: to find out why that investigation led us here, where we are now.”
Smith shifts his attention back to me. “You need to think about Cole and Lori.”
“I am thinking about them,” I argue. “Someone tried to smoke Aaron out. There’s every reason to believe they’ll do that through me and my people next. This has to end.”
“Keeping this small is important,” Aaron says. “If one person in your operation is dirty, and don’t tell me no one is, because everyone has dirty people involved, lives could be lost.”
Smith scrubs his clean-shaven jaw. “I have to talk to the Walker brothers. Who was the client you were investigating?”
Aaron shakes his head. “I need to meet your bosses before I give you anything. I’m not risking the people Ashley cares about getting hurt because I named a name to the wrong people.”
Smith scowls. “How do I reach you?”
“You don’t. We’ll reach you.” Aaron stands up and takes me with him. “You have twelve hours and then we leave the city.” Aaron pulls me around the table and doesn’t stop. He’s a bulldozer, driving me forward and through the restaurant.
We exit to the streets, and he holds me close, cutting right. “Don’t look. Man in the leather jacket by the pole. He’s a problem.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he’s not your friend’s friend.” We cut down a side street, and my heart is suddenly racing, adrenaline pumping.
“What are we doing?”
