Free Even Villains Have Interns by Liana Brooks Page B

she
expected him to bow and kiss her fingertips. Wyte almost did. That
woman could wrap men around her finger like nobody’s business. “I
heard you were here.”
    Alan scowled. Delilah’s gaze flickered to him
and she winked. It was enough.
    “What can I do for you, Miss Samson? Name it,
and it’s yours.”
    She fluttered her eyelashes, the little
coquette. “Can you make rocket launchers legal in this city?”
    “Um.” Wyte stumbled over the request, but Alan
could see the wheels in his head turning as he tried to think of a
way to make it happen. “Well...”
    Delilah laughed. “I’m teasing! All I need is to
borrow a few plain-clothes police officers for Addison’s New Year’s
Eve party.”
    Alan rolled his eyes. Petty jealousy was not
attractive, he told himself firmly. And he wasn’t jealous. Delilah
flirted with people. She probably did it without thinking. It
wasn’t her fault Wyte was tripping over her like some under-sexed
pimply teen waiting for his first kiss.
    “Will you walk me to my car?” Delilah asked the
police chief.
    “Of course!”
    Of course. Alan ground his teeth
together.
    Delilah hit him with a dazzling smile. “I did
bring a little something for you, Adale. A get well card from
Subrosa Securities.”
    “Trolling for clients?” Wyte teased as Delilah
left a small white envelope on the nightstand beside Alan’s
bed.
    Her smile was deceptively calm when she turned
away. “Subrosa has always made the safety of Chicago’s prominent
citizens a top priority. You can’t have your police everywhere, but
I can put a team anywhere in this city in under five minutes.” The
words were innocuous enough, but there was a hard edge to them that
offered the promise of swift retaliation if things didn’t go her
way.
    Alan waited until they’d left before he opened
the envelope: a generic get-well card and Delilah’s business card.
On the back, in a careful hand, she’d written, “Do not trust
Wyte.”
    That put a slightly sinister spin to Wyte’s
visit. And Delilah’s. Was she tracking him or the police chief?
    A nurse came in with a tray of what he was
certain was nourishing but bland food. “How are you feeling
today?”
    “Fantastic. I could run a marathon,” Alan said.
“When are they releasing me?”
    “After a gunshot?” Her dark eyebrows climbed.
“Honey, you ain’t going nowhere for at least seventy-two hours. Eat
your lunch and get comfy.”
    Alan smiled politely and took the food. The
nurse nodded approval and closed the door behind her.
    Nine minutes later, he ghosted out of the room
leaving nothing behind but a memory and a plate of rubbery
scrambled eggs.
     
     

Chapter Ten
     
     
    Daddy,
     
    Thank you for the watch! It’s absolutely
perfect, and it even matched my new necklace. See you next
week.
    Lovingly,
    Delilah
     
    Delilah checked her watch, then looked up at the
McCormick Tribune YMCA. It wasn’t nearly as dingy as she’d
anticipated. True, the rows of neat two-story houses were all
closing in on their century marks, and the cars parked along the
street were not the newest models by any stretch of the
imagination, but everything seemed well kept. Christmas lights
adorned the trees. Wreaths hung in windows. Wood smoke and snow
filled the air with a wintery perfume. All that was missing was a
wintery soundtrack and some mistletoe, and she’d be in a bad
made-for-TV holiday movie.
    “I told you it wasn’t the bad end of town,”
Travys said from the depths of his hoody and jacket. “Perfectly
safe.”
    “Remind me again how I got roped into this,” she
said as Travys opened the front doors of the YMCA, hot air and the
smell of sweat swamping her.
    Travys smiled. “I have to do community service
as part of my social awareness class. You are here because you need
to leave the office occasionally.”
    “I’m work oriented.” There were a million and
one things she needed to do tonight, but the minions were still
trying to trace the late mayor’s