Page 81 of His Wall

"I'm calling Declan. He'll send the good stuff."

"You're not calling anyone."

He kissed my neck.

"Tyrant."

I poured two mugs. I handed him one. He drank. He made a face. He drank again.

We stood at the counter with the bad coffee and the safehouse light. His arm stayed around my waist. I let it.

That was the terrifying part.

How fast it had become normal.

He started pacing at 10:00 a.m.

He was not a man who did well in a cage. I had known it about him when he was my target; I knew it differently now. He paced from the couch to the front window, looked at the curtain, and paced back. He picked up the safehouse copy of yesterday's Times, read three columns, and set it down. He stood in the kitchen doorway with his hands on the frame and looked at me on the couch with my secure laptop open.

He was thinking about the Vanguard. He was thinking about Declan and Nolan, who did not know where he was. He was thinking about the architecture I had photographed and what Conrad was doing with the time he had.

I let him pace.

I went back to the case files.

A sound. Quiet. A phone powering on.

I turned my head.

Julian was on the edge of the bed through the open bedroom door with his phone in his hand. The screen was lit. His thumb was moving toward the contact list.

I crossed the apartment in five steps. I took the phone out of his hand. I pressed the side button. The screen went dark.

I slipped it into the pocket of his shirt I was still wearing.

"What are you doing, Leah?"

"I should ask you that."

"I need to talk to my partners."

"That phone is a beacon. Conrad has been tracking your movements for months. Every signal it sends is an arrow pointing to this apartment."

"Declan and Nolan don't know if I am alive."

"I'll arrange a secure line. You do not turn on an unsecured device again."

"You don't get to make every decision."

"When it comes to keeping you alive, I do."

He stood up.

His hands went to his hips.

"Leah."

"What?"