Low and I are together.” Best to rip the Band-Aid off, yeah?

Atta’s inhale reached his ears, and he braced as she sat back heavily, hands clasped. For some reason, walking into her office the morning after he’d fucked her son had him feeling some kind of way. He couldn’t quite pinpoint what the feeling was, but it was strong enough to keep him from sitting down when Atta waved him toward the chair on the other side of her desk.

He had to give it to her, she kept her expression closed off, making it impossible to decipher her thoughts. When the silence got to be too much, he took a single step toward her.

“Atta.”

“How—” She cleared her throat. “How is he?”

Renzo frowned. “What do you mean? He’s fine.” She pursed her lips and he pressed on. “Atta.”

“What does he know?”

Right. He exhaled a frustrated breathe. “Nothing about us. Yet.” He pulled the chair away from her desk and sank into it. “He knows about Mauricio and that I’m FBI. Your secrets are safe.”

Her chin went up. “As are yours.”

Fuck. “The only reason Low doesn’t know everything about me is because of you,” he told her stiffly. “You made me wait three years, Atta. There’s no more waiting, not where he’s concerned, and what I want from him requires truth. I’m not about to lose him by protecting you. Do you get me?”

“I need more time.” Her voice shook.

“Fuck, Atta.” Renzo pinched the bridge of his nose. “For what?”

“Loose ends.” She dropped her gaze to the papers on her desk and started fumbling with them. “The time has come to tie them up.”

He could say no, but he owed her as much as she owed him. They’d saved each other’s lives on too many occasions. Atta was more than just his business partner. She was his friend. Which was why, even though it tasted foul on his tongue, he made himself nod. “Two weeks.”

She jerked her head up, gaze so much like Low’s pining him to his chair. “You love my son?”

“You know how I feel about him, Atta. You won’t be the first one I give those words.” But it was too soon to give them to Low as well. His lover had no idea Renzo waited for him. No idea the feelings inside Renzo grew with each passing day, instead of petering out the way he was sure Atta had hoped.

“You setting youself up for a fall, Renzo. My son will not be able to handle the truth, and you and I—” She exhaled. “We will lose him.”

That fear wasn’t very far from Renzo’s mind, but when she spoke it so plainly, it sounded too much like truth. Like a foregone conclusion. He couldn’t let that happen. “I refuse to believe that.”

Her eyes pitied him. “You will protect him.”

He answered her decree with an emphatic, “With my life.” He didn’t even try to imagine how Low would react if he knew Renzo and Atta were business partners and had been for a very long time. Knowing how contentious their relationship was made him feel fucking guilty. As if he were betraying Low by being here.

He jumped to his feet. “Two weeks,” he repeated. When she nodded, he gripped the back of the chair. “Tell me about the new girls.”

Mostly all the victims they rescued got to go home back to their loved ones. A few opted to work for Renzo in his clubs. Yes, he had five clubs total. The flagship Club Ȇxtase in Atlanta, then one in Miami, one in San Francisco, one in Chicago and one in New York. All under different names so they wouldn’t be able to be connected back to him. His clubs were staffed with the women he rescued. He’d keep rescuing and he’d keep opening clubs.

They were his chefs, his DJs, his managers, his waitresses. Each one of them had a direct line to call and reach him if they were ever in danger. So far none of them had cause to make that call. But they had the option.

Nobody did it for him. He’d had to find his way himself, which was probably why he was still so fucking damaged. He couldn’t let it happen to anyone else. Something the people who’d recruited him had counted on.

He listened as Atta filled him in on which girls had gone to which clubs. He didn’t keep anyone for Atlanta, not anymore. They were all given new identities and sent off to their new lives with access to health and psychiatric services. This was the network Renzo had set up. He’d been involved in every single step of the process and no one got hired unless he’d personally approved.

Too much at stake.

He ran himself ragged doing for others what no one ever did for him. Maybe in helping them he’d be able to finally help himself, but all these years he’d been doing this and he had yet to feel something other than abject terror when he closed his eyes.

But Low. Low helped.

The fucking irony.

* * *

The cool November air caressed Renzo’s nape as he sat on a bench in Piedmont Park, legs crossed. He came here when he needed to think. When he needed to focus. He could be here, surrounded by people, and be alone.

He’d left Atta’s place with the idea of going to the club to handle some shit. Instead he’d detoured here. His conversation with Atta about Low played on repeat in his head, like a record scratching. He wanted to be upfront and honest with Low, tell him everything, but at what cost?

“You and I…we will lose him.”

What if Low walked away?

What if all that truth cost him Low? He’d already paid too much for the little bit of happiness he had now. He would not, could not, give Low up. So instead he would pretend, and he would act like that pretense wasn’t slowly killing him inside.

He tightened his grip on the coffee cup in his hand, lashes fluttering when the warmth seeped into his palm. That heat was almost better than Low all wrapped up in his arms. Almost.

A crunch of leaves drew his attention to his left just as someone sat next to him on his right. He stiffened, hair on his nape sending a warning far too late. He took his time checking to see who his companion was, figuring if they wanted him dead, he’d be by now.

“What’s this? Renzo Vega without bodyguards?”

He turned to his right, bringing the coffee to his lips. “Stavros Konstantinou. What a surprise.”

The Greek mercenary smiled, expression all predator. “A good one, yeah?” He nodded at his own question. “I know.”

Renzo rolled his eyes. “What do you want?”

Stavros sat back, legs crossed, body angled so they could stare at each other. “Heard you were under the weather.” His eyes didn’t waver from Renzo’s. “Came to check up on you.”

Right. “You heard, huh? Your spy has been exceptional, hasn’t she?”

Stavros’ gaze sharpened. “Where is Tennyson?”

Renzo copied Stavros’ position and cocked his head. “You were sloppy,” he said softly. “Sending pussy to trap me.” He clucked his tongue. “Someone didn’t do their research.”

“Where is Tenny?”

“Oh, did you misplace the spy?” He shook his head in reproach. “Again, sloppy. Heard you were the best.”

Stavros’ eyes flashed. He was good-looking in a smooth and deadly kind of way. Dark hair, narrowed eyes, self-satisfied smirk playing on his lips. A dangerous man. He just didn’t scare Renzo, not even a little bit. He’d dealt with true monsters and survived to tell the tale. Stavros didn’t even rank.

Acting as if he didn’t already know who shot him, he asked, “You tried to kill me? Why?”

Stavros chuckled. “I don’t try, Mr. Vega. If I wanted you dead, you’d be six feet under a long time ago, but you already knew that. Now—” He uncrossed his legs and leaned toward Renzo, who didn’t budge. “This will be the last time I ask the question: where is Tennyson?”

“I’m just surprised you didn’t send somebody else this time.” Renzo shrugged. “You know, somebody more my type. Maybe he would succeed where Tennyson failed.”

“I am here.” Stavros licked his lips.

“Wait.” Renzo squinted at him. “Are you coming on to me?” For real?

“He is not.”

That second voice, chopped and screwed, roughened even more by a thick Spanish accent, came at Renzo’s back, jacking up the hair on his body and putting him on red alert.

Gaze still on Renzo, Stavros smiled but somehow Renzo knew the gesture wasn’t for him. It was too raw, too intimate. Felt to Renzo as if he was witnessing something he had no right to. But he didn’t have to look behind him to put a name to the voice.

He knew who it belonged to and while Stavros didn’t worry him, this newcomer did.

“You moving with a partner now?” he asked Stavros dryly.

“Depends on your definition of partner.” Stavros smirked. “He’s the only reason you’re alive. You should thank Syren Rua for that.”

Renzo’s pulse sped up at the mention of Syren’s name. Why suddenly was he everywhere Renzo looked? “Who? I’m not familiar with that name.” He sipped the rapidly cooling coffee to wet his dry throat.

Stavros’ eyes mocked him. “Yeah, but he’s familiar with yours. So familiar in fact, he turned you into a bargaining chip.”

“Diablo.”

Stavros seemed to melt, right in front of Renzo’s fucking eyes, at the word growled at Renzo’s back in that massacred voice.

No fucking way.

Stavros stood, hands shoved into the pockets of his black coat. “So fucking lucky for you I wanted someone else more than I wanted to see your blood underneath my fingernails.” His tone dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “I find out you did anything to Tennyson, hurt her in anyway, and I’m coming back, Mr. Vega.” He grinned. “And my first stop will be the dark-skinned cutie with the sexy West Indian accent.”

Renzo jumped to his feet. “The fuck did you just say to me?” Did that son of a bitch have a death wish?

“I’ve been to Grenada, so I know they make them spicy as fuck down there.”

Renzo stepped forward.

“Easy.” A hand clasped him by the neck, stopping him in his track when he would have launched himself at Stavros. “You will lose,” that fucked up voice whispered at his ear. “And I will make it so, if you move another muscle. Never threaten him.”

Yeah, fuck that. Renzo embraced the rage rising so hot and fast in his chest. “You even look at Low,” he told Stavros. Softly. Slowly. “Konstantinou, you so much as look at him and I promise—I give you my fucking word—I will bring your world down around you.”

Stavros cocked his head, an indulgent smile playing on his lips. His gaze flicked past Renzo to the man holding him back. “My world isn’t as easy to destroy as you might think.”

“Low is off limits.”

“Wrong. Nothing, and no one, is off limits. Not if you’ve hurt Tennyson.”

The hand at Renzo’s nape fell away, the threatening presence at his back disappearing. Then the man behind the voice came into view, stepping next to Stavros. If ever there was an angel of death, Daniel Nieto was it. Tall and skinny, dressed in all black—the collar of his wool coat turned up—with hooded eyes and a couple days’ worth of whiskers along his jaw, he was everything dangerous and bloodied he was rumored to be.

And he stood shoulder to shoulder with that psycho, Stavros.

This was not good.

“Renzo Vega, have you met Daniel Nieto?” Stavros smiled that smile again, the one Renzo was sure he wasn’t supposed to witness. “My world?”

Christ. “Are you serious?” Those two homicidal fuckers together? It was a wonder Atlanta wasn’t already on fire.

“I want to hear from Tennyson within twenty-four hours,” Stavros said. “Or we get to see whose world comes crashing down. Spoiler, it won’t be mine.” He turned away with a wink then the two men strode off.

Renzo tossed his cold coffee into the nearby trash can with a curse. “Fuck!”