Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 83167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
There was all this, and Mo could read a person, it was an important part of the job.
But the most important part of it all was that Mo would lay his life on the fact he saw that guy looking at cucumbers in the produce section of King Soopers on Sunday.
Mo felt a curl in his throat and heat hit his gut.
This was their guy.
Mo didn’t move, even though, from the second night on, Hawk had fitted the team at Smithie’s, including the bouncers, with earpieces and wristband radios.
This was where training was crucial.
This guy bolted, not a man on the mark knew it was him and he might be able to outrun Mo if Mo had to take off from his current position. Though the team would see Mo make a break for him, he could slip through a crowd like this and do it easy.
Then, if he got free of the building and didn’t park in the parking lot, which he likely wouldn’t considering Smithie had cameras all over and they were visible, when he got out of camera range and to his car, they’d have no clue who he was or where to find him. And obviously, no car on camera, no make and model or license plate.
He needed a tail that night.
No, he needed put out of commission that night.
Mo couldn’t lift his arm and alert the team, the guy might see him and know he’d been made.
His body screamed to do it.
No.
It screamed at him to rush the man and incapacitate him in a way he’d never recover.
But it wasn’t Mo’s job to take down the guy. He couldn’t rush him from his position backstage.
It was his job to stay on Lottie.
So he had to hold.
His only choice was to keep him in his peripheral vision so he didn’t tweak him with a movement that would communicate he’d been made and set him to running.
Something he might already know since they’d locked eyes.
Mo needed the lights to dim even though he would be concerned the guy would make his move when they did.
It seemed to take years for them to go out.
His hand went right up, wrist to lips.
“Red polo. Jeans. Thinning hair. Second row. Left side. Stay on him,” he ordered before tagging Lottie’s robe.
He was two seconds late in throwing it over her bare shoulders.
She took off her top only in the final few seconds of her last song and never her panties.
He still really hated it that hundreds (probably thousands) of people had seen her mostly naked.
But tonight, he hated it oh so fucking much more.
He didn’t have headspace for that.
The second she had her hands through the arms of the robe, he took hold of her and started to move her to safe ground.
“Eyes on him,” Axl, one of his buddies on Hawk’s team said in Mo’s earpiece. “I’m on him. Following through.”
This meant Axl would tail him home.
He got Lottie into the room, the girls streamed out, and he looked down at her.
“Gonna step into the hall. Be gone half a minute. Lock the door. Get dressed.”
She stared up at him, her hands arrested in the act of tying her robe closed.
“Lottie,” he growled.
“Okay. Locking the door,” she whispered.
He went out. Heard the lock go.
He then stepped two steps to the side and pulled out his phone.
He called Hawk.
“Status,” Hawk said as greeting, not sounding like Mo just woke him, even though Mo knew he just woke him, and waking Hawk, he probably woke Hawk’s wife, Gwen.
Undoubtedly a common occurrence for Gwen.
Fortunately, she was a kickass chick and she loved her man so much, Hawk could grow a beer gut and take up fishing every weekend and she’d simply wait for him to come home and still jump his bones.
“He’s here tonight.”
“He made a move?” Hawk asked.
“No. But I know it’s him. Axl’s on him. I want him taken tonight.”
Hawk said nothing.
Mo didn’t either, letting his boss think.
Finally, Hawk spoke.
“Gut?”
“Yeah.”
“How sure?”
“Very.”
“We’ll take him tonight. You’re wrong, we’ll figure it out.”
“I’m right, I want in.”
A moment then…
“She’s under your skin,” Hawk murmured.
“She’s not under my skin. I sleep on her couch. I guard her. But when this is over, she’ll be in my life. My choice? For the rest of it. So that’s not under my skin. She’s just going to be a part of me.”
Hawk did not sound surprised when he asked, “And her?”
“That part of where we’re at for her has been difficult to contain.”
“You should have reported this,” Hawk said impatiently.
“I would have, but it’s been contained.”
“It’s been contained, and you wouldn’t let me pull you off her detail, which, if I knew this, was what I’d fuckin’ do.”
Mo decided not to respond to that.
“So, knowing this, I’ll ask again. Your gut. How sure?” Hawk asked.
“This is our guy.”