The Reveal by Julie Leto

cooperative.”
    “Is he still breathing?” Brynn asked.
    Sean winked in reply, and Brynn read that as a good sign. He hadn’t been so jolly when he’d avoided telling her how he’d dealt with the men who’d knocked her off her bike.
    A crowd of tourists, each rolling luggage across the sidewalk, filed past the building. Sean took Brynn’s arm and led her into the center of the group. They walked a half block before the group stopped in front of a luxury tour bus, the lower compartments open to receive the bags.
    “Did you arrange for this, too?” she asked him.
    “I’m good, but sometimes, I just get lucky.”
    Taking into account all that had happened to him since he was kidnapped from the States, Brynn figured he was due for a turn in fortune.
    Sean finagled two spots on the tour bus for them. He helped her up the steep steps like the dutiful newlywed he was pretending to be. He even deferred the aisle seat to her so that she could stretch out her injured leg, despite how the spot by the window put him at a strategic disadvantage. She gave the tourists a quick once-over but got no negative vibes from any of the mostly middle-aged Americans chattering about topics as varied as the octopus they’d had for dinner to the wine they planned to drink the moment they arrived in France. Brynn allowed the conversations to chip away at her nerves, while at the same time, she was fully aware of how Sean scanned the street through the window, waiting and watching for anyone who might pose a threat.
    She couldn’t forget where she was or why she was here. From a technical standpoint, her mission had been an unmitigated disaster. Yes, she’d saved Sean. Yes, he’d recovered from his injuries. But at this point, she should have been back in the States, bonding with her brother and overseeing the continued fiscal health of her business, not plotting to sneak illegally over a foreign border while on the run from an anonymous force for evil.
    Not that Brynn was in the mood to complain, particularly not after she lifted the armrest separating her from Sean and snuggled into the tobacco-scented lapel of his GQ coat. “Relax,” she said, sliding her hand onto his. “Whatever happens next, we’ll handle.”
    His grin was half-cocky and half-skeptical. “Do you always get this confident after one lucky break?”
    “Not usually,” she admitted, “but you have a strange effect on me.”
    His smile vanished from his lips but not from his eyes.
    “That should worry you, you know.”
    Brynn turned in her seat, away from his handsome face and those devastating blue-gray eyes.
    “Who says it doesn’t?”

Seven
    When they experienced their third lucky break in twenty-four hours, Sean started to worry.
    He’d never been a big believer in Fate, but he had a fairly decent understanding of odds. Sooner or later, the tides were going to turn, and he had to make sure neither one of them fell into a fall sense of security.
    That could get them dead.
    First, they’d successfully blended in with a tour group, booked passage on the bus and crossed into France without a second glance from the border guards, who’d also missed the handguns Sean had hidden in the coach’s air-conditioning unit when everyone else had stopped to take their last photos of the Basque countryside.
    Then a stop at a tiny French vineyard had crossed their paths with a trio of teenaged brothers joyriding in a truck that had rolled off the assembly line long before they were born. Brynn had drained the last of her cash buying the jalopy. With batted eyelashes and a naughty joke, she’d also procured the two sacks of groceries they’d picked up at the market for their mother.
    The third break came after they’d navigated the winding, densely forested roads toward Dante’s estate and arrived, six hours later, long after dusk. They’d agreed that crossing onto the highly secure property after dark wasn’t a good idea. Instead, they took refuge at a