3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Leigh

A mermaid. Leigh was walking down the streets of Cove City with a flesh and blood mermaid.

If he hadn't been so dumbfounded when he first took in Tolly's tail, he would have spent longer cataloguing the way it looked and touched it like Tolly had offered. Deep red and gold scales adorned by fins along the sides as well as the tailfin at the end. The fins were near transparent, while the scales glittered like precious metal.

Low at Tolly's hips, the red began to fade into his olive skin, leading into his human half. He still had sunspots. In fact, the ones that had been on his legs freckled his tail in darker red. Whether showing off his tail or sporting long limbs, he was positively breathtaking. Magical, even.

Leigh was in so much trouble.

Tolly was a literal walking disaster—his entire knowledge base of humans came from films he'd watched at outdoor drive-ins and movies in the park—but at least he was good, selfless, and endearing. Leigh couldn't let someone like that, a mythical creature no less, get messed up in his life of darkness and misdeeds.

If he had lived a different life, he would have welcomed having a beautiful man like Tolly enter it, so open and heartfelt, already professing a desire to know Leigh, to be with him—to date him. To stay with him forever.

Leigh wasn't worth that kind of blind devotion. Tolly didn't know him. Love was a burden in Leigh's eyes, something people used against each other more than positively, and Leigh would be no exception if handed a fragile heart like Tolly's. Once Tolly came to see the kind of person Leigh was, he would dive headfirst back into the water.

When Leigh glanced at the merfolk-made-man beside him as they hurried down the street to Sweeney's club, he expected to see disappointment creeping into Tolly's expression. The neighborhood by the docks wasn't exactly a glowing example of city life. The streets were dirty, shops run-down, some closed, fewer and fewer families or children about other than Deanna's kids and Ralph. It wasn't a place anyone wanted to be other than aging folks like Miss Maggie with rent control and stubborn resolve to never move. Or criminals like Leigh.

To his surprise, though, with the morning light glinting off oil stains along the street and people smoking on corners and eyeing pockets to pick, Tolly looked captivated and smiled at everyone they passed. The sheer joy on his face to simply be here made it hard for Leigh to suppress his own smile.

"Are they moving in?" Tolly asked as they paused at a street corner for the walk sign to change. The shop there, a little electronics store that Leigh had thought would be there forever, had boxes all around and bustling activity of employees packing up. "Are they new?"

"No. Must be rearranging." Or leaving . Leigh wouldn't be surprised, but he didn't have time to stop and ask. The light changed, and they continued.

"I know this is urgent, but perhaps when we return home, we can take more time to explore. It is all so thrilling. I would like to see more."

Leigh tried not to be tripped up by Tolly already calling his apartment "home." He really was na?ve if he thought the ghetto was thrilling, but his exuberance was hard to say no to. "Maybe," he said. "If we have time." And if I'm not running for my life.

"Do you think—" Tolly started to ask another question but broke off when Leigh's cell phone trilled from his pocket. He was lucky he'd only had a burner phone on him last night when he was dropped in the river. He always left his real phone at home if he was on a job.

Answering it now, he wondered if it would be Alvin telling him to hurry—or scram—but his parole officer's name blinked instead.

"We have an appointment in fifteen minutes," Leigh answered by way of greeting.

"Yes, we do," Tabitha Beckett said. She was a good woman but tough as reinforced leather. She tended to call in reminders of their check-ins since he'd missed a few, and she'd made it clear that many more would not end well for him.

"Gotta ask a favor today, Beckett. Can we make it tomorrow?"

"Give me one good reason, William."

Leigh glanced at Tolly beside him, who looked back at him curiously. "I have a new roommate I'm showing around the neighborhood."

"A roommate?" Tabitha deadpanned.

"Someone to keep me out of trouble. Figured you'd be pleased."

"In that case, bring him by tomorrow. I can't wait to meet him."

"Already planning on it." Honestly, Tolly meeting Tabitha was a lot less terrifying than where they were headed now. "8:00 a.m. sharp. I owe you one."

"Be on time tomorrow and stay away from Arthur Sweeney. That's all you owe me."

Leigh reached out to push open the door to the club as he said, "Don't even remember the last time I saw Sweeney. Later, Beckett. See." He turned to Tolly after hanging up the call. " Liar ."

Tolly's lips pursed in concern or maybe deep thought, but he didn't reply. Better if Leigh started pushing him away now, before he got it into his head that there was anything redeeming about him. He was exactly what he'd told Tolly, and that wasn't going to change.

The club was quiet as they entered, not open to the public at this hour but still housing Sweeney's best and brightest loyal goons.

Bruiser Jake Theilen and honeypot Rosa Brookes were immediately visible, as well as hacker Cary Pettinger, the resident expert for getting around security or into bank records. Leigh ignored the gauging stares at Tolly and headed for Alvin sitting at the bar with a glass of milk. Even if it hadn't been morning, he wasn't one for liquor.

"You brought the boy toy. Hi again." Alvin spun on his stool. "Dad's waiting for you in the back. The Morettis think you're good and gone, and the word on the streets is minimal."

"Good. How mad is he?" Leigh nodded beyond the bar.

"You know Pops. He doesn't get mad."

Just homicidal.

"And you're my best friend. He'll fix this."

Right. Tolly wasn't the only na?ve one in Leigh's company. "Watch him so he doesn't try making friends," Leigh said to Alvin, and Tolly immediately straightened.

"You are leaving me? I cannot protect you if I am not with you."

"I don't need protection from Sweeney." At least Leigh hoped not.

Not wanting to risk an argument, he pushed past Tolly. He'd be fine in Alvin's company.

The back room was Sweeney's private office, where ledgers were kept and dirty dealings done. As Leigh entered, Sweeney wasn't sitting at his desk but poised on top of it, expertly shuffling a deck of cards to the feigned delight of runner Selene Cook. Everyone knew to pretend to enjoy his magic tricks or risk his wrath.

He was an average-looking man, shorter than Alvin, though Alvin had his father's same pronounced nose and wide grin. "Pick a card, Miss Cook, pick a card." Sweeney held them out to her.

She obediently reached for one, but just before her fingers touched the edge, the cards burst upward in a shower of rectangles that ended in the appearance of a fake bouquet of flowers.

"Got me again, Boss." She chuckled.

"Mr. Hurley, care for the bouquet?" Sweeney dramatically thrust the flowers at him as he continued his approach, while Selene bent to attend to the fifty-two-card pickup.

Leigh knew better than to refuse the offer and pulled on a smile as he got in close to smell the plastic, expecting a spray of water or something equally childish. Instead, Sweeney reached into the center of the bouquet and gave a tug, reverting the illusion to a cloth bag that he then pulled from his hand to reveal—

A gun .

The flowers and bag fell to the floor and Sweeney was left grinning with the barrel pointed in Leigh's face. He really should have expected that.

"I can explain," he said, hands rising to delay the inevitable.

"Can you? Well, that might change everything." Sweeney tilted the gun upward and stepped back, but a second later, his smile dropped, and he pointed the gun at Leigh's head again. "Then again, it might not."

Click . Leigh's heart very nearly stopped as a flag with the actual word BANG on it shot out the end of the fake gun to go with the fake flowers. He hated this man. Alvin was a good sort, Leigh's best friend, no doubt, but that didn't excuse his father, and it certainly didn't protect Leigh from him.

"Your face!" Laughter erupted from Sweeney, which meant Selene had to laugh too, and Leigh forced a chuckle of his own. "You didn't actually think I'd shoot you for some little tiff with Leo Moretti, did you?"

"Well…."

"No, no, no. William , if I decide to shoot you, I'll let Mark do it."

Click —this time from behind Leigh, where his spatial awareness should have alerted him to the presence of someone else there, but he'd been too distracted. That click was a real gun that he soon felt pressed to the side of his temple.

Selene never went anywhere without Mark Gaines. This whole damn mob family traveled in pairs, aside from Leigh.

"Now," Sweeney said with deadly seriousness in his wild eyes, "explain to me why I shouldn't have Mark put a bullet in your brain."