“Ciel, look at me.”
I shook my head, throat constricting. “I’m b—I’m busy.”
She let out a long sigh. “Can I help?”
Maybe that would be good. A second set of eyes.
But no, she needed more rest. To heal. I’d seen her bruises and Ryuji’s gash. This was my fuckup to fix. If I let her know how much I was struggling, she wouldn’t trust me next time. None of them would. And I couldn’t lose them. I wouldn’t end up alone, bleeding out in a ditch, again.
I could do this.
“No,” I said, maybe a little too quickly. She sucked in a breath and opened her mouth, but I grabbed her hand and rubbed my thumb across the back. I forced my larynx to relax. “No, it’s okay. I can do this. He can’t outrun me forever.”
This time, when she reached up to cup my cheek, I leaned into her palm. Closing my eyes, I soaked in the intoxicating feeling of her delicate touch.
“What’s the problem?” Her voice was tender. I opened my eyes. “Don’t lie to me this time.”
It was my turn to sigh. “Someone wiped the trail. All the data is gone. It’s taking some time to recover it.”
“Shit.” She chewed on her lip. “Well, maybe if you can’t follow the trail, we could skip ahead.”
“What do you mean?”
“If the footprint around the club has been erased, maybe it picked up somewhere else. Stop looking near the club. Look ahead.”
I released a breath, mentally kicking myself for being so close-minded.Of course. I should have taken that approach from the beginning.
“I’ll check all the camera feeds from the routes we tracked back when we were looking for Cas.” Leona had put a tracker in an Italian driver’s jacket, and that was what had led us to Max two weeks ago. Maybe he’d surface along those routes again. “We know Max favors that casino. Maybe he went there.”
And that also got me thinking—there was no way Max didn’t have help to extract him. I still had that Italian driver’s phone data. I could hack into his phone for its GPS location, but also grab the information from his contacts and track their GPS locations, too.
“I know that you’ll find him.” She cupped my cheeks and forced my face away from the screen to face her. “I want you to keep looking. But Ciel, you’re running on fumes. You need to rest first. You’ll think better after you’ve had some sleep.”
I pulled my face from her grasp, shame knotting in the pit of my stomach. The longer it took, the harder it would be to find him. I couldn’t waste time.
“Just another hour or two.” I glanced at the clock, then forced the corner of my mouth to quirk up. “This is easy. I’m used to staying up for days at a time. You don’t have to wo—You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Ciel—”
“Stop.” My voice came out stronger than I intended. She recoiled. “Stop, Leona. Let me work. I can do this.”
“All right.” She barely hid the hurt that flashed across her face. Pushing off the desk, she looked toward the hallway. “I’mgoing back to sleep. Please take care of yourself, Ciel. I need you.”
And that’s exactly why I couldn’t take a break until I found Volpe.
“Night.” I didn’t watch her leave. If I had, I would have regretted sending her away instead of scooping her up and settling into bed together. I’d been craving her since that night she slept in my bed. And I knew she spent the night before in Wynn’s room. I wanted that, too.
But I couldn’t get distracted now.
It wasn’t just Leona who needed me. All my brothers did. We all knew we’d be stepping into unknown territory when we agreed to Leona’s partnership. And Iwantedto forge a new path toward a future we could all choose for ourselves.
But the only way for that future to become a reality was for me to do my job. It all rested on this. I couldn’t let them down again.
4
LEONA
Agentle hand on my cheek pulled me from a fitful and painful sleep.
