“Really. So I’m supposed to believe that you fight like you do and secured your apartment as you did and are on a fast track out of town just because you’re some kind of casual street thug or low-level mob enforcer? I don’t buy it. Incidentally, seeing you in that ring was how I knew for sure—that and the fact that you called off your own dog next to my car when I was attacked. You were utterly in control of yourself and the situation with that druggie, not some sloppy, emotional bouncer type doing a save-the-day. You were a professional—are, actually. Aren’t you.”

She didn’t need him to say a word because she knew she was right. And yet, when there was no comment, she glanced up, half expecting him to be gone in a breath of air.

But Isaac Rothe, or whatever his name was, remained seated at her island.

“How do you like your eggs?” she said. “Hard or soft?”

“Hard,” he bit out.

“Why am I not surprised.”

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 14

Dead to rights, Isaac believed the expression was. As he met the eyes of his public defender, hostess, and short-order cook, it was clear she knew she’d pegged him on all accounts.

And didn’t that make him feel stripped naked.

“I think you should resign from my case,” he said grimly. “Effective tonight.”

She sprinkled cheese and Canadian bacon onto the bubbling circle of an omelet. “I’m not a quitter. Unlike yourself.”

Okay. That pissed him off. “I’m not either.”

“Really? What do you call running from your responsibilities.”

Before he knew it, he’d leaned across the countertop, and was looming over her. As her eyes flared, he said roughly, “I call it survival.”

To her credit, or her stupidity, she didn’t relent. “Talk to me. For God’s sake, let me help you. My father has connections. The kind that run deep and into the shadows of the government. There are things he can do to help you.”

Isaac remained outwardly calm. Inside, though, he was scrambling. Who the hell was her father? Childe . . . Childe . . .The name didn’t spark anything in his data banks.

“Isaac,” she said. “Please—”

“You got me out so I can keep going. That has helped me. Now you gotta let me go. Let me go and forget you ever met me. If your father is the kind of man you say he is, you know damn well there are branches of the service where AWOL is a death sentence.”

“I thought you weren’t in the military.”

He let that one lie where it landed . . . which was on top of the pile of shit he’d brought to her door.

In the silence, she added a little seasoning, the saltshaker making no sound, the peppermill crackling. And then she folded the omelet in half and let it hang out on the heat for a bit.