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And was that the seventh man they were still no closer to finding? Could they be one and the same?
With Jairo gone, Mathieu had put all his resources into finding the seventh man, but to both his and Win’s frustration, they were still in the dark.
Win wiped his face and returned to the bedroom, grabbing the clothes Mathieu had stripped off him earlier when they’d fallen into bed, losing themselves in each other. He dressed in the dark, then crept out of the bedroom and went downstairs.
With the estate burned to the ground, Win and Mathieu had moved to the safe house. The one where they’d lived in secret before. Mathieu wasn’t sure if he wanted to rebuild the estate and Win didn’t care either way. It didn’t matter to him where they lived as long as they were together.
The house was quiet, the men guarding them out of sight, but Win knew they were around. Mathieu wasn’t taking any chances after everything that happened. He had men surrounding the house, protecting them twenty-four seven.
Win made his way out to the pool, where he came to sit most nights when he couldn’t sleep. He spotted one of the bodyguards, Shawn, who nodded at him respectfully from the other side of the pool.
Lowering himself into one of the lounge chairs, Win released a sigh and tipped his head back, staring up at the dark sky. It was good that Mathieu wasn’t still actively fighting a war, but that didn’t mean his enemies were all gone.
Jairo had just been one.
The seventh man remained in the shadows and Mathieu was obsessed with unmasking him now more than ever. Win worried for his lover. Jason and the men who’d survived the fire remained at Mathieu’s side, as loyal as ever, but Win knew that even they worried about Mathieu. Hell, Win had even gone so far as to contact Chantal, Mathieu’s estranged sister who now lived in New York, to see if she could talk some sense into her brother. The two of them had some issues they needed to work out, but she’d reluctantly promised Win she’d try. Though, if she’d called Mathieu, he hadn’t shared that with Win.
Win inhaled deeply. He and Mathieu couldn’t return to the life they’d had before Mathieu had cheated and broken Win’s trust, but he wanted them to return to some kind of normalcy. One where Mathieu’s every waking moment wasn’t spent searching for someone who was turning out to be smoke, impossible to catch. Win didn’t see much of his lover anymore, and they only connected when Mathieu crawled into bed at night, seeking the comfort Win was only too eager to provide.
But they couldn’t go on like they were.
A muted thump reached his ears and he sat up, heart leaping into his throat when he spotted Shawn in a crumpled heap on the ground.
“Shawn!” Win jumped up—
“Sit down.” A dark figure peeled away from the shadows in front of him. “We have five minutes before the guards are supposed to check in next and I wouldn’t want to waste that time.” His voice was deep, tone calm and unaffected. “So please.” He waved a hand at the chair Win just got up from. “Sit.”
Win swallowed, refusing to blink. “Who are you?”
“You’re not sitting.”
Was he the seventh man? Fuck.And Win had come outside wearing only his pajamas and nothing else, no weapon to defend himself. With Shawn down, by the time Win even alerted anyone to what was happening he could be dead. He took a deep breath and sat. “You’re making a mistake.”
“I don’t make mistakes.” The guy stepped closer and the hanging LED lights that illuminated the backyard lit up the left side of his face, then the right, until Win was able to see him clearly. He had unmistakably Asian features. Eyes that locked on to Win’s and didn’t let up, not for a moment. Obviously, he didn’t care if Win saw his face. So Win looked. Long dark hair. Something distinct peeking out from behind his left ear. His was a lithe body covered in dark clothes, and he moved like the subtlest of breezes, so faint you didn’t even notice it.
“You killed Shawn.Thatwas a mistake.”
“Shawn will be fine.”
Heart thumping, Win grabbed the edge of the lounge chair. “If I make a sound, you won’t leave here alive.”
Black eyes gleamed. “I would.” Lips curved. “He gave you a number. Where is it?"
Win blinked. “What? Who gave—”“Talk to Pascal. Then contact me with this number.”“Jairo? This is about Jairo?” What the fuck?
“I want the number.”
Win shook his head in an attempt to clear away the confusion. “Look, I don’t know— I threw it away.” What use did he have for Jairo’s phone number when Jairo was dead?
The intruder cocked his head, studying Win as if to memorize his features. “He cares about you.”
Win spluttered. “Jairo? He shot me!”
A twitch of lips. “He didn’t kill you. That tells me he cares about you.”
Now, he sounded like someone intimately familiar with Jairo. Win allowed himself to relax just the tiniest fraction. “You knew him?” Despite leading an MC, Jairo didn’t have a lot of people in his life—after everything Win had learned, looking back he understood that had been by design—but there was one person Jairo trusted implicitly, that much Win knew. The person from Jairo’s old life. “You knew him from…before?”
The man didn’t answer. Instead, he asked, “Did you look at the number he gave you?”
