The Reveal by Julie Leto Read Free Book Online

she’d gone.
    He saw nothing.
    Heard nothing.
    The bright blue bumper of her ride had crumpled like a soda can crushed between two massive hands.
    She’d been hit. Forced to stop.
    But where was she?
    His phone dinged. The emotion he’d shielded within his chest burst open so forcefully he grabbed at his sternum with his hand.
    She’d activated her tracking app—in reverse.
    She was beautiful, brilliant and now, he knew, nearby.
    He ditched the bike and took off on foot, holding the phone directly to his ear to hear the increase in frequency and volume of the pings while he concentrated on scanning the darkened buildings for any sign of where she’d gone. When the dings turned into a prolonged whistle, he shut the phone down. He was tucked into a junction that connected four buildings, but he saw no sign of her.
    Until a piece of paper floated in front of his face then fluttered to the ground.
    He picked it up. It was a torn corner—glossy, as if from a flyer or magazine. He looked up and scanned the sides of the buildings, shadowed in the darkness by balconies, metal stairs and clotheslines.
    Then, tucked behind a portable grill on a third-story fire escape was a flash of pale skin.
    He opened his mouth to call out to her but stopped. If she’d ditched her bike, moved out of sight and activated the tracking device on his phone, she’d been followed. Her pursuer might be watching him now, waiting for him to lure her out of hiding.
    Or waiting to jump Sean and drag him back into hell.
    Sean flashed to the warehouse dungeon when he’d been minutes, maybe seconds, away from death. The fight had been beaten out of him—his resistance training too far removed from his life outside of the agency for him to rely on it any longer. He’d resolved to let go, surrender, meet whatever fate awaited him in his next life, since he’d done a bang-up job of fucking up the first.
    Then he’d heard something.
    A clicking noise.
    Brynn, picking the lock. Brynn, sliding into the room. Brynn, figuring out how to thwart the sadistic devices that had trapped him.
    She’d risked her life to save him.
    Now, he had to risk her life again in order to return the favor.
    He picked up his phone and tapped on the screen until the volume of what sounded like the tracking signal broke through the silence. He let out a triumphant, “Yes,” then started to run as far away from Brynn as he could get.
    * * *
    Brynn pulled her foot back under the tarp, gulping down a string of curses as the strips of denim on her left pant leg abraded her raw skin. The road rash string streaking up her thigh had become so painful she was nearly numb.
    But not numb enough.
    She had to remain still. Soon, the sun would rise. The cockroaches that’d run her off the road would scatter back into the sewers. She had no idea how she’d gotten away, except for the fact that she’d been faster and nimbler than they’d bargained for after they’d run her scooter off the road.
    But the burst of adrenaline that had saved her life was long gone. Every second that elapsed felt like a year. Every tiny movement took her minutes to complete. She clutched her cell phone in her hand, wanting desperately to text Sean, but she resisted. They’d agreed on radio silence. She’d already bent the rule by sending him the tracking signal. But he’d seen her. He knew where she was. He was leading the bad guys away from her, but he’d be back.
    She trusted that he’d be back.
    Her eyelids pressed down with the weight of lead bricks. But when the fire escape shifted and shook, she forced them open and threw back the tarp, gun drawn. Sunlight blinded her. Before she could cry out, she was disarmed.
    “Aw, hell.”
    Sean’s voice cracked through her agony. She blinked, forcing her eyes to deal with the glare.
    The window directly above her was open. Half of a curtain fluttered in a chilled morning breeze. A middle-aged woman with a baby on her hip watched Sean slide his hands