The Intelligence Unit Series
The Guardian Chapter 17

Delia was going to throw up. No, check that. She didn't have time to throw up, because Peyton had just breezed past her office way ahead of schedule, and Delia only had about ten leggy strides before Peyton turned the corner, after which she'd see Matteo come

out of her office-or, worse yet, walk in on him hacking her laptop.

Delia was up and running before her brain could authorize the movement of her legs. "Peyton!" she cried out, the scissor-sharp urgency in her voice making two of her co-workers' heads swivel tightly in their direction from the opposite end of the hallway, by the break room. Peyton stopped short just as Matteo growled in her ear, "Delia. Be careful."

She couldn't answer, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, since-oh, right-her heart was jammed in her throat.

"Yes?" Peyton asked, a tiny flare of irritation sparking beneath her all-important exterior.

"I, uh." Think. Think. "I thought you were meeting with Kent," she stammered lamely, trying to buy time. She could hear Capelli murmuring rapid-fire instructions to Matteo from somewhere deep in her ear, but she had to block that out. Matteo was in Peyton's office. He was in serious danger of being caught.

Delia had to be his guardian this time.

Peyton made a noise of displeasure, but at least she didn't start walking again. "I was, but he was called away. Some emergency with the McElroy merger that only he could handle. I swear, that deal is the most difficult we've had in at least a year." "Oh." Delia cursed her lack of inventiveness. If she didn't come up with something right now, Peyton was going to go back to her office.

Her mind latched on to the first thing she could think of, and it was out of her mouth before she could temper it. "So, ah, about that report you asked me for. I have some questions."

Peyton's perfectly sculpted brows bunched together in confusion. "What re...oh." Now came the frown. "The trend analysis for all the Q1 acquisitions?"

"Q2," Delia corrected, that much more certain Peyton hadn't really asked her for it in the first place. "But yes. That's the one. I was wondering if you could walk me through it."

The download is at fifty-four percent. I need more time, came Garza's voice through the haze of the plan building in Delia's head. She could do this. She would help him get the time he needed.

"You want me to walk you through a trend analysis," Peyton said, the same way she might say, "You want me to show you how to spell your own name."

Delia needed to appeal to her. Fast. "Well, you're just so smart," she started, revisiting the urge to throw up. "And you're right. I really have been struggling lately. I'm just not myself. I could really use your expertise to help get me back on track. All this stress..." She waved a hand and dropped her eyes, hoping the added faux-motion wasn't over the top.

Peyton bit, hook, line, and stilettos. "You poor thing," she said, sending a covert look down the hall at the co-workers, who were still loitering in the hallway. "Let's head to my office so you can have some privacy."

"No!" Delia's heart tripped, tangling the words in her head. "I, uh, I already started on my laptop." Okay, this actually wasn't a lie. She could grow into this. "And we're already right here. We might as well just dive in."

"You're right," Peyton said solemnly, as if the whole thing were for show. "We don't want you any more stressed out than you already are. Let's keep you in your comfort zone."

Delia had no idea what had brought on Peyton's raft of overdone sympathy, but she wasn't about to question it. "Thank you."

She didn't exhale for another eight minutes, when Peyton was halfway through a trend analysis that Delia could've done in her sleep and Matteo called out the all clear in her earpiece.

***

The two hours'worth of work that Delia forced herself to put in after Peyton left her office went by at a sloth's pace. Capelli and Matteo had cut comms as soon as Matteo had called the all clear, per protocol. Delia knew that the plan had been for Hale to come to the front desk posing as a courier, and that Matteo would hand off the flash drive in a bubble mailer, safe and sound. He hadn't been able to access Kent's laptop, as planned, but since the anonymous user account had been on Delia's machine, and the incriminating activity along with it, surely that was enough to make an arrest.

An arrest she'd helped make happen. For a crime she'd helped to uncover.

This wasn't so much rocking the boat as torpedoing it into Swiss cheese and watching as it swiftly sank to the ocean floor.

"Oh, my God, girl. Go home," Delia whispered to herself. Her adrenaline letdown had hit fast and hard about thirty minutes after Matteo had slipped out of Peyton's office. Her nerves were completely frayed-how the hell Matteo and the rest of his unit did this on a regular basis without going around the bend was beyond her, honestly-and all she wanted was to curl up with a blanket and a cup of tea. No, maybe a glass of wine. No. A complex algebraic equation that begged for a solution.

No. She wanted Matteo, his expression serious and his voice like sandpaper as he asked her question after question to distract her and get her mind to unwind.

Releasing a breath, she closed her laptop and slid it into her bag. Chances were high-around eighty-two percent, if she'd calculated properly-that she'd need to settle for that glass of wine. Matteo was going to be up to his eyeballs in this case, and his job was his first priority, rightfully so. Despite the triathlon her adrenal glands had done in the past twenty-four hours, Delia had been glad to help. But other than maybe having to testify in court somewhere down the line, depending on how things shook out with plea bargains and the like, her part in this investigation was done. Peyton was going to be arrested. Kent was going to need Delia's help recovering the forensic accounting that would be required to unravel the extent of the damage was surely going to be breathtaking, and not in the good way. She was going to be plenty busy with the aftermath of all of this.

Yep. She still wanted Matteo. In more ways than she should probably admit.

Brushing off the thought once and for all, Delia auto-piloted her way from her office to the elevator, taking note of both Peyton's and Kent's darkened offices. Her shoes echoed a soft rhythm on the lobby's marble floor-shush, shush, shush, shush-but her heart joined the band like a bass drum as soon as the front desk came into view.

Matteo was still here.

"Oh, Ms. Sutton," he said with a smile, and how was it even possible to look so ridiculously delicious after a full day of work? "Great timing."

"I, um. What?" she stammered, her face prickling with heat. RIP Confident Delia. Awkward Delia was back.

But Matteo either didn't notice or wasn't bothered by her bumbling in the least. "This just arrived for you."

He held out a manila envelope marked with her name in simple block letters, and Delia took it, catching on. "Oh, thank you. I've been waiting for this," she said for the benefit of the second security guard, even though he seemed really immersed in whatever was on the screen in front of him.

"No problem. Have a nice night."

Moving toward the front door, Delia realized the irony of forcing herself to look casual. But if Matteo could do it, with his loose shoulders and easy-breezy smile, then damn it, so could she. Counting her steps over the pavement until she reached eight, she lifted the envelope, sliding her finger through the flap to open it the same way she would any other piece of mail.

Parking garage. Level three, just outside the stairwell. Twenty minutes. You did great.

Delia did her best to capture her smile between her lips, although her acting abilities only went so far. She'd parked on the second level of the underground garage, so she stopped to lock her laptop bag in her trunk before making her way down one more flight of stairs. She still had twelve minutes to go (fine. Yes, she was counting), so she decided to burn off some of her spare energy by walking around the perimeter of the garage, weaving in and out of the large concrete pillars and the shadows they created. The squeak of the stairwell door hooked her attention-Matteo wouldn't be this early, would he?-and Delia turned in surprise that quickly flashed over into pure, cold dread.

Nicky Bianchi stood in the doorframe, and even from forty feet away, she could tell he was furious.

Jerking back behind a concrete pillar, Delia scrambled for her phone.

No signal.

She scrolled to Matteo's number in her contacts and tried anyway, three times, just in case, but each call failed to connect. Her fear threatened to overtake her; this was, after all, a highly dangerous criminal who'd had her attacked and wouldn't hesitate to do way worse if he thought she was up to something.

And, oh, God, she was up to her eyeballs in something. A big something.

Something he'd kill her for if he knew.

Delia's heart clapped faster, slamming against her eardrums like movie-theater machine gun fire, and no, no, no, no, she couldn't move.

Tell me the story of how you adopted Al.

The memory of Matteo's voice filled her head as if he were right there, and okay. Okay, okay. She could do this. She could breathe. She could move.

Scraping for a semi-deep breath, Delia commanded her brain to present the facts. The options. The best-case scenarios.

Getting out of here wasn't an option. Nicky had been standing right in the doorway to the stairwell, and it was the only exit out of the garage other than the ramp leading to the other levels, which was in plain sight. If she made a break for it, there was no way he wouldn't see her.

That left hiding. But in order to do that properly, she had to know where Nicky was.

And where he was heading.

Closing her eyes, Delia lasered in on everything she could hear. The distant whoosh and thump of cars moving over the concrete on the level above her. The muffled sound of voices-two?-that seemed both angry and purposely lowered to cover the conversation. The lack of footsteps, suggesting that Nicky wasn't moving, and Delia ducked down to car height to chance the tiniest peek around the pillar.

Relief filled her in a fast shot. Nicky stood a few steps away from the stairwell with his back to her. Unless he did a full one-eighty, he wouldn't see her. Thanking every deity she could think of that she'd chosen to wear flats instead of heels this morning, she crouch- tiptoed along the length of the car beside her until she reached a more shadowy vantage point.

The person Nicky was arguing with was Peyton.

Delia's mind whirled back to the files Matteo had found on Peyton's laptop earlier today, then, more specifically, the one file that he hadn't. They didn't have the Silhouette file, which meant that for all the evidence they had to implicate Peyton, the Intelligence Unit still needed to connect her to Nicky.

She could get that proof. Right here, right now. Yes, Matteo would be here in-she checked her watch-six and a half minutes. But what if Nicky was gone by then? The Intelligence Unit needed this to make the case, and she could silently snap pictures from here, undetected. Big, bold move.

With her throat in a knot, Delia opened the photo app on her phone, quadruple checking that both the sound and the flash were off. Between the distance, the shadows, and her unsteady hands, it took a few tries to get anything close to a decent angle. Peyton's face looked drawn and pale in the ultra-harsh fluorescent lighting as she murmured to Nicky. She seemed to be doing most of the talking, but Delia wasn't about to edge closer to try and capture the conversation. She snapped a few photos, but, ugh, she was too far to really get anything recognizable. Zooming in made things worse-instead of gray blobs and overexposed light, she got grainy gray blobs and overexposed light.

Exasperated, she looked at her watch again, then at the glaring no service message in the corner of her phone. Although Matteo would be there in two minutes, she wasn't worried for his safety. Peyton didn't know he was a cop, and Nicky didn't know him at all. His cover was still completely intact.

As long as she stayed hidden, she'd be okay. She would. She...

Without warning, Peyton whirled on her red-soled stilettos and started walking toward the stairwell. The sudden movement startled Delia, her phone clattering to the concrete loudly enough to make her jump.

And to make Nicky swing around so fast that Delia didn't have time to duck for cover.

His stare landed on hers, cold and flat, promising murder. Delia froze, and no, no. No, no, no...

He strode off after Peyton, slamming the stairwell door with a hard bang.

Delia sagged in gut-punching relief. Her hands were still trembling-not a little-as she picked up her phone, and later, she'd have to marvel at the absolute power of the human body's fear response. Right now, she needed to re-learn how to breathe. In, two, three. Hold. Out, two, three, four. Repeat. Find the rhythm. Repeat.

The stairwell door squeaked open. Delia's chin whipped up, the image of Matteo taking the bullet train from her optic nerve to her gray matter to the very center of her chest, and she stood just enough for him to see her.

"Delia? What's the matter?" His dark eyes were assessing, traveling all over her as his strides quickened.

"Nicky," she breathed, throwing her arms around his shoulders as he reached her, unable to help it. "Didn't you see him and Peyton in the stairwell?"

"What?" He pulled back just enough to look at her, dark eyes wide. "When?"

Delia concentrated on Matteo's fingers, firm and warm around her upper arms. Made herself notice that he'd changed from his security guard uniform to jeans and a T-shirt. Breathed in the scent of his woodsy, no-nonsense soap, his body still caging hers as he swiveled a thorough stare around the garage.

"A couple minutes ago." She tried to organize her whirling thoughts. "I was walking around while I waited for you. Burning off energy, I guess. As soon as I saw him come through the door, I hid. I didn't want him to see me and think I was poking around, but then I snuck a look and saw that Peyton was with him."

"It was smart of you to hide. Could you hear what they were talking about?"

Delia shook her head. "They kept their voices low. I could tell they were arguing, though. They stood right there by the stairwell for five minutes. Maybe even less. Then, they left. But Matteo"-her heart raced even faster-"right before he left, Nicky saw me. It was only for a second, and then he was gone, but..."

"Christ," Matteo bit out, then swore again as his cell phone registered the same no signal message hers had. "Okay, I need to get you out of here, just to be safe. When did they leave?"

"Right before you walked in. To be honest, I can't believe you didn't see them."

"They must have gone down to the fourth level." Taking one last scan of the now-silent garage around them, Matteo wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "We're going to walk from here to the end of the row. Just one foot in front of the other, like a walk in the park. Okay?"

"You go for walks in the park?" Delia asked, making Matteo chuff out a laugh, soft and fast.

"It's a metaphor, Sutton. And actually, I go for runs in the park."

"Well, that explains a lot," she said, biting her lip even though it was too late. "Your muscles are, ah. Very nice."

"Thanks. See, I told you that would be easy." Matteo's feet slowed, and holy crap, they'd made it to the end of the row. He swung another gaze around the garage, then turned toward the middle of the level. "We're all good. My unmarked car is just over there." They made the trip quickly and without fanfare, Matteo guiding the black Dodge Charger through the parking garage, then out to the street.

Delia waited out three intersections before she exhaled. "Oh, my God. You have the most nerve-wracking job!"

"Well, for what it's worth, you're not too bad at it," he said. "Your quick thinking saved my a*s today. And it probably got us the evidence we needed to get an arrest warrant for Peyton. Tara's working on it with Capelli and Sinclair right now."

"But you didn't replace the Silhouette file," Delia said, and Matteo's jaw tightened in the evening sunlight filling the car through the tinted windows.

"No. That doesn't mean it isn't there, though. Once Peyton is arrested, her laptop will undergo a thorough forensic search. Capelli will replace it."

Delia's brain skipped back-seriously, this much adrenaline rising and receding within a person's system couldn't be healthy-and she gasped. "I took pictures! Or, I tried to take pictures. Of Peyton and Nicky arguing."

"You what?" Matteo had the car in a gas station parking lot in three point three seconds. "Show me."

Thankfully, her phone wasn't damaged from when she'd dropped it at Nicky's stop-and-glare. Flicking her way through a handful of screens, Delia handed over her phone with the photo roll queued up and ready to go. "They're blurry, and I was kind of far away"- ugh, it was an understatement, now that she looked more closely at the images-"but I knew you probably needed something to connect Peyton to Nicky, so..."

"I take it back," Matteo said, taking his own cell phone from his back pocket. "You are f*****g excellent at this. They're blurrier than I'd like, but Capelli still might be able to make something of these."

Another minute and a handful of Bluetooth magic later, they were on the line with Capelli, Sinclair, and Tara.

"You aren't going to believe this," Matteo said. He handed the conversation off to Delia a second later, letting her recount the details of what she'd seen. Both Sinclair and Matteo asked a handful of counter-questions, and after that, Tara spoke.

"Here's where we are. The files you got from Peyton's laptop today are enough for an arrest warrant for her. But even if we can make anything of these photos Delia took, we still can't connect her to Bianchi. At least, not in a way that'll make the charges stick to him, too. His being seen with her, even arguing, isn't going to cut it."

"If we bring her in, we can get a warrant for her laptop, though," Matteo said, but Tara was quick to counter.

"Yes, but there's no guarantee you'll replace the Silhouette file there."

"If it's on her laptop-and I do mean anywhere-with enough time, I can replace it," Capelli said.

"We'll have to work fast." This from Sinclair, and Delia blinked, trying to keep up. "Once we bring her in, Bianchi will cut bait and lock down everything he's got like a vault."

Matteo tilted his head in thought from beside her. "Unless we can get her to flip on him."

The stunned silence that followed told Delia that was a huge deal. "So, what does that mean?" she asked. "Peyton would have to say he was involved?"

"She'd have to testify to his involvement," Tara verified, "and her own, which means she'd have to plead guilty. It's a risk. Bianchi is a mafia boss, and something tells me Peyton doesn't want to be murdered in her sleep. She's got enough money for a high-end defense attorney, and she looks like one hell of an actress. She might not bite."

"Just because she spends a lot of money, doesn't mean she has it," Matteo countered. "And let's be honest-while I hear you that she's probably scared of Nicky, Peyton also has a strong sense of self-preservation. She's not the prison type. I'd bet my paycheck she'll do just about anything to get out of this once she realizes she's going down solo for the whole enchilada. We're talking about a life sentence, here, probably with no chance for parole." Tara made a noise that said she wasn't pleased. "She'll ask for immunity."

"And your boss will give it to her," Sinclair said. "If it means your office can orchestrate a Bianchi family reunion in Remington State Penitentiary. The optics on this will be huge."

"If you can get her to flip." Tara blew out an audible breath. "This is above my pay grade, Sergeant. We'll have to loop Alvarez in. And your guy from the FBI."

"Alvarez is the D.A.," Matteo told Delia quietly, and whoa. The D.A.? The FBI?

Just like that, Delia's brain redlined. "Okay, hi, sorry. New girl, here," she said. "What does all of this mean, exactly?"

"It means we have to strategize our next steps very carefully to make sure we can arrest both Peyton and Bianchi with charges that stick," Tara said. "And we'll still have to look at Kent, although once we bring charges against Peyton, that shouldn't be a problem." Delia blinked, sitting back against the passenger seat. "So, we wait?"

"Not for long," Sinclair qualified as Matteo let out a frustrated breath Delia was ninety-three percent sure only she could hear. "But, yes. Tara's right. We need to get Alvarez and Peterson from the FBI up to speed to see how they want to play this. We're only going to have one shot at Bianchi. We have to make sure it's free and clear."

"What about Delia?" Matteo asked. "Bianchi saw her in that parking garage."

Delia's belly dipped in dread as Sinclair formed his answer. "He's smart. If he thinks she's up to something, he'll assume we have eyes on her and he won't risk trying to hurt her again. And if he doesn't think she's up to something, he won't bother." Matteo didn't seem so convinced. "He's also pissed. Once we bring Peyton in, that's only going to get worse."

"What about a panic button?" Capelli said. "We could hook her up with one, just in case."

"It's a small transmitter we can attach to something, like a piece of jewelry," Matteo told her quietly. "If you activate it, it sends a distress signal to Capelli's computer with your location." More loudly, he continued, "I have the one I used on the op today. I can transfer it to Delia now, and show her how to activate it in an emergency."

"Do it," Sinclair said. "Better safe."

"And that arrest warrant?" Matteo asked.

"We'll go as fast as we can."

"Understood." Matteo made a face as if the word was burnt. "But, if you're going to bring Peyton in-"

"As of right now, this is Intelligence's case, and you're the lead, Garza. If Alvarez and Peterson and I decide to bring Peyton in now, you'll be the first to know."

"Copy that."

Matteo ended the call, letting out a slow exhale. But before Delia could speak, he beat her to it.

"Let's get you set with the panic button." He undid the strap on the black tactical watch circling his wrist, letting it drop into his hand. Using his thumb and forefinger, he plucked a tiny silver disk from the rim of the watch face, and wow, she never would've known it wasn't a regular old dial.

"This is a micro transmitter. Potent little thing." He gestured to the smart watch on her wrist, waiting for her to remove it before fitting the panic button into place on the side. "If you need to activate it, just hold it down for a count of three. The seal is magnetic and it's designed to hang on tight. Capelli's always good for cutting-edge tech."

Matteo traded a few texts with Capelli to make sure the transfer had worked and the panic button was all systems go, then handed her watch back to her.

She held it like it was made of hand-blown glass. "What if I bump it by accident?"

"It's pretty durable. Waterproof, too."

"Wow," Delia marveled, putting her watch back on. "They don't talk about these on Dateline."

"It wouldn't be very smart from a security standpoint if they did, so I guess that's a good thing. But it'll keep you safe on the off chance Bianchi gets squirrely." Matteo stared through the windshield, his expression serious and seriously unreadable, and worry perked in Delia's chest. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." The reply was automatic. "Sinclair and Tara aren't wrong. We have to make sure these charges will stick not just to Peyton, but to Bianchi. Neither of them know we've got anything to implicate them, so there's no harm in getting the legalities in place. We'll need all the strategy we can get, and we can't afford a misstep. It's just..."

"You know they're both guilty as all seven deadly sins, and you want to make the arrest because your job is important to you?"

Matteo's shoulders relaxed against the driver's seat as he huffed out a laugh. "Damn, you are pretty good at this. Did you ever think of a career in law enforcement?"

"Not even a little," Delia said honestly. "Look, the waiting sucks. It's driving me bonkers, too. But think about the facts. We have evidence that Peyton's guilty." She began to tick off each point with her fingers. "That evidence is leverage we can use to get her to testify against Nicky, because you aren't wrong. I've known Peyton for a long time, and her only loyalty is to herself. Even so"-Delia lifted a third finger-"Capelli's going to replace that Silhouette file, and when he does, you'll be able to prove that Nicky was behind the whole thing right along with her. Case closed."

Shaking his head, Matteo said, "You always look at the glass like it's half full, don't you?"

Delia considered this. "Whenever the facts dictate half-full as a possibility, yes. Of course. I take it you don't?"

"My job dictates that I have to look at the glass like no matter how full it is, whatever's in it is poison," he said.

"That's...cheerful," Delia said, and he surprised her by laughing.

"Sorry. I'll shut up. I'm sure the last thing you want to talk about is this case, anyway."

"I don't want you to shut up." Yyyyep, that was out loud. No stopping now. But she'd felt every other emotion imaginable today. Ignoring the one that felt the best seemed stupid, and she was tired of fighting it.

"You don't?" Matteo's eyes glinted, dark suggestion lit by warm, waning sunlight.

Big, bold move.

"No." Delia leaned toward him as far as the center console would allow. "You always distract me to calm me down. I want to return the favor. I want to listen to you this time."

He dropped his gaze to her mouth before returning to her eyes, and oh, God, Delia felt him everywhere. "If you want to distract me, we aren't going to be talking much."

She knew exactly what Matteo meant. Knew that anything that happened would be no strings attached. Maybe even just for tonight.

She didn't hesitate. "Talking is overrated, anyway. Now let's replace out how fast this car goes."