“WHAT WAS HER NUMBER?” I remembered roaring, demanding to know how many lives the bastard had taken.
His eyes had been cold and dead as he’d blankly stared at me, refusing to answer. I’d wrapped my hand tighter around his throat. “What was her fucking number?” I’d seethed, dragging the knife in my other hand down his sternum.
The bastard had looked down at my knife, then back into my eyes, a gleam evident in them.
Seeing red, I’d snapped and stabbed him. Constantine and Alessandro had reached for me, pulling me back to prevent me from finishing him off.
“You good, Boss Man?”
Blinking a few times, I dropped my eyes to the knife in my hand, and all I could see was blood coating the blade. “What?” I muttered, freeing myself of the thirteen-year-old memory.
“You okay?” my sous-chef, Brandon, asked. “You’re off tonight. You’ve never messed up a dish.”
“I messed up a dish?” I let go of the knife and faced him.
“Yeah, man, this doesn’t taste right, too much salt.” He set a bowl of my signature red Romesco sauce in my hand. “That’s not like you.”
I snatched a spoon and tasted the sauce meant for tonight’s salmon dish, and damn, he was right. But my mind had been messed up ever since the exchange with Thomas that morning, especially the conversation afterward with Maria.
In the back of her head, she had to have known my brothers and I would never have let that animal walk away after what he did, though. Justice had failed my sister. The murderer’s lawyers had the case thrown out of trial because of evidence mishandling. No way would we let him walk away and potentially hurt someone else.
We’d wound up arrested for his murder. Constantine had tried to fall on the sword for us, but we wouldn’t let him go to jail.
But then we were offered a get-out-of-jail-free card and a fake news story about the man’s death in exchange for our souls. Though nothing in life is ever truly free.
“I think I need to step out. Can you take over?” I was in no condition to be cooking.
Before Brandon had a chance to respond, I began walking my fingers down my jacket, preparing to leave.
I heard him say, “Of course,” as I tossed my jacket on a chair on my way to the back door.
Once outside, the door to the parking lot thudded shut behind me, drawing the attention of the only two people outside. Facing Maria right now was not the plan. But there she was. And so was Natalia.
Maria had avoided me all day after she’d dropped Chiara off at Thomas’s house. She’d texted earlier that she planned to drive herself to the restaurant instead of catching a ride with me, and I didn’t argue. She’d needed space, and I’d given it to her, too worried about my state of mind to be around her in the first place.
“Everything okay?” Natalia called out, her hand over her stomach with her back to her husband’s truck. A nearby lamppost illuminated both of them, making them look like angels, and there I was standing in the dark like a damn metaphor for something.
“I just needed to step away for a minute,” I shared, unsure if I wanted to go to them or escape somewhere else.
“I was about to head in.” Natalia started toward me and whispered upon passing by, “She’s upset about Chiara being gone. Cheer her up, please.”
Yeah, she’s upset about more than just that. But I nodded, then waited for Natalia to head inside before I reluctantly ate up the space between myself and the woman who drove me crazy. But the world also seemed to stop spinning whenever she wasn’t with me. And that wasn’t good for anyone. “You didn’t tell her what happened between us?”
Maria fidgeted with the sleeve of her cream-colored blouse as she said, “No, not yet.” Her eyes worked up to mine as she leaned against the truck. “I’ve been doing some thinking today.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” I glibly responded.
She huffed out a deep breath and let go of her sleeve, only to nervously shake her hand at her side. What was she planning to say? “And?”
“You keep telling me you’re bad for me. Dangerous. And sometimes I forget that this is real life and not fiction.” She wet her lips, drawing my eyes there like a magnet. “And if a guy tells you he’s not good for you, well, in real life, you should listen.” Her gaze lifted to the clouds overhead in the dark sky. “The thing is, I’m stubborn. I don’t listen well. And why can’t life imitate art? Or hell, who says art’s not actually just a mirror of life?”
I grabbed the back of my neck and squeezed, uncomfortable as I waited for my little fireball to continue. That morning, I told her I’d killed a man, and she was taking it in stride. Acting as though I’d confessed only to stealing someone’s recipe or running a stop sign.
“Even in light of what you told me this morning, I’m still here.” She sniffled. “I’m willing to risk my heart for you,” she declared in a soft voice as her eyes returned to mine. “I’ll take the chance you break it if it means you’ll give us a chance.” She was being vulnerable with me, possibly even forgiving me for murder. And I was standing there like an idiota, unsure what to do or how to react to that.
I promised her father long ago to protect her and Natalia. But I’d made a promise to myself, too: never let anyone I care about feel anything close to the kind of pain I lived with daily. And if I gave in to my desires, gave in to my feelings for her . . . what if the horrible scenarios that crossed through my mind like a deadly storm came true? What if I hurt her? Lost her forever?
“Maria.” Her name came out like a rough plea from my lips. Of course, I had no idea what I was begging her to do. Stop wanting me or never stop?
“I tried to open the door to my heart for you on my birthday, and you slammed it shut.” Her voice trembled this time. “I’m opening it again for you tonight. Right here in this parking lot. It’s up to you whether you want to walk through. This is your last chance. I’ll stop being stubborn if you reject me tonight. I’ll face reality and move on.”
Was this my shit-or-get-off-the-pot moment, as my brother had so eloquently called it?
“You’d risk your heart, but what about Chiara’s?” I cut straight through to the meat of what I knew would be the main problem for her. The only counter defense I had left in my arsenal to use against her, to keep this woman from breaking me down to the point where I stopped fighting this thing between us, and I tried to be happy.
“No.” She shook her head, tears in her eyes. “You’d kill yourself before hurting my little girl.”
Without question. “And you already know what I’m willing to give up if it means keeping you safe.” I reached for her, cupping her cheeks, unable to think straight.
Her glossy eyes unleashed a few tears. “Yeah, you’re already doing it,” she whispered. “Breaking your own heart so you don’t risk breaking mine.”
My hands slid to her hair, and I set my forehead to hers, playing with the locks by her face as I mustered the strength to keep fighting her on this.
She was offering herself to me, doing what I begged her not to do, but this went way beyond sex. She was offering all of herself to me. Not just her body. Her whole life.
“Maria, what are you doing to me?” My voice broke that time, and her hands covered mine.
She shifted back to stare into my eyes as her lower lip trembled.
“After what you learned about me, I just can’t wrap my head around why you still want me,” I bluntly said, no point in sugarcoating anything now. “But I need time to think things through before I . . .” I let go of a ragged breath. “Can you give me that?”
Her lips rolled inward, and it took all my strength not to lean in and suck that bottom lip, to not taste her for the first time in six years.
“Okay.” The word was more like a breath of air passing between us as she eased her body a bit closer, and my hand brushed against her breast with barely any space between us. “I wish you’d kiss me,” she cried like it was meant as a confession for a priest. Only I was far from worthy of hearing anyone’s sins. I was a man incapable of redemption, and my soul wouldn’t wind up with hers on the other side when my time came.
I pulled my hands free from hers and brought the pad of my thumb along the seam of her lips, and her eyes closed at the contact. “The next time my mouth touches these lips,” I began before reaching between her thighs with my other hand, “or these lips,” I added in a low voice, and her pussy arched into my palm, “you’ll first know the truth about me. But not tonight.”
She wanted my walls down? Then so be it. But I was terrified that once they came crumbling down, she’d hate me and build them back up herself.
“Give me something,” she pleaded, peeling her eyes open. “Either a bit of hope. One of your secrets. Or, at the very least, touch me. After the day I’ve had, especially with Chiara being out of town, I need something.”
My shoulders slumped at her request. Hope? That wasn’t in my wheelhouse. And my secrets weren’t meant for being shared in a parking lot.
I looked around, finding us still alone, so I snatched her wrist and guided her so her back was to my Tahoe on the other side of Ryan’s F-150, which served as our shield from the back door of the restaurant. “You want my touch? You want it out here? Like this?”
She licked her lips and nodded.
Of course you do. It disturbed me how easy it was for her to break through my defenses, to get me to do things I’d vowed never to do. “Unzip your pants for me, then,” I ordered.
Her palm slipped between us, and she did as she was told.
Hoping like hell no one walked outside and witnessed us, I spun her around so her hands landed on my SUV, and her eyes caught mine in the reflection of the glass.
I set my hand on the window alongside hers while my other wrapped possessively around her body as I’d done last night, pressing my hard length against her ass.
Her parted lips slammed into a tight line the moment my hand dove beneath her pants and panties. I nuzzled her neck with my nose, nearly losing control at how soaked she was. “Fuck my hand,” I demanded, wanting her to take from me all that I could give her right now.
She rocked against the heel of my palm; my finger slid up and down her wet sex, and I swept the pad of my thumb in circular motions at her sensitive spot as she moved. But her ass rotating against my cock was going to destroy me, as it’d nearly done last night.
“Why is it that when you touch me, when you’re this close to me . . . I feel unstoppable? Powerful somehow? Being with you makes me feel . . .”
Complete?
“You hold the power, Tesoro. With me you do. You always have,” I admitted, somewhat terrified by that truth.
“Then why won’t you give me what we both want?” she begged. “Promise me you will one day.” She was on the verge of coming already, I could tell by her shaky inhalations and the way she moved faster against my hand. “Please.”
That cry mingled with her desire had me opening my stupid mouth and doing something I hoped I wouldn’t regret. “I promise,” I whispered.
More breathy moans left her lips; worried someone would come out and hear her, I reached around and covered her mouth with my other hand. Her tongue skirted between her lips, licking my skin, and I nearly unzipped my pants and took my bad girl right there.
I felt the shudder rip through her, and she came so hard, she bent forward and would’ve whacked her head against my Tahoe if I hadn’t caught her.
She had to be dripping down her leg, and I wanted nothing more than to take her inside and clean her up myself. Lick that pussy and see how she tasted.
Frustrated in more ways than one, I snatched a fistful of her hair instead, angling her head to the side to look back at me. “Feel better?”
She nodded, licking her lips, and I was far too tempted to kiss her. I released her hair and stepped back as she fixed her zipper and faced me. “That should’ve been on my list.”
“What list?” I asked as she tucked in her blouse.
“The naughty things I want to do with you,” she responded, her tone going shy, which was adorable given what she’d just let me do to her.
My hand went to the SUV over her shoulder, and I was prepared to ask her to elaborate, but her gaze snapped to our left, and her eyes widened.
I turned at the realization we weren’t alone, hating myself for not noticing sooner. This woman was a distraction, that was for sure.
“Am I interrupting?” A man stepped into the light. Although shadows crossed his face, it took me less than a second to recognize him, and a sharp, stabbing pain of worry cut through me.
“And you are?” Maria asked once I’d aligned myself alongside her.
“I’m an old friend.” The blast from my past finally spoke.
“From?” Maria pressed.
“The army.” His lips quirked as if realizing Maria wasn’t someone he could lie to and get away with it.
“Why’d that sound like a question?” Maria didn’t back down from anyone, did she? Not even me. And that made me nervous. What if she crossed the wrong person one day?
Instead of answering, he offered his hand. “Jesse McAdams.”
Maria reluctantly accepted his palm, but I felt her eyes on me.
I was too worried as to why Jesse was there to look at her. “I need you to go inside now,” I told her, maintaining eye contact with the former army ranger turned CIA hit man. And last I heard, he now worked in private security.
“Yeah, okay.” She gripped my forearm and sent me a reassuring squeeze, as if sensing I needed it, then left us alone.
“I heard rumors you were a chef, but I didn’t believe it until this moment.” Jesse scratched his beard while he assessed me. “I guess you were always good with a knife.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked, cutting to the point, my heart beating erratically at the fact he was there, which meant something was wrong. The pit in my stomach doubled in size when he reached into his pocket and showed me a USB.
“I’m in the middle of a job, and I stumbled across some information you’ll want. Although I do have orders not to share it with you. Not yet, at least.”
“And yet, here you are,” I remarked in a low voice. “Why?”
He handed me the USB, and I held it tightly in my hand, waiting for answers. “My team at Falcon Falls Security is working a case. And a few days ago, we managed to get close enough to a man we were tracking to hack his computer. When we tried to grab him, though he evaded us like Harry fucking Houdini.”
Someone got away from you? That was a surprise. “What does any of that have to do with me?”
He pointed to my fist holding the USB. “My team is worried that if I hand that over to you while we’re still pursuing him, you’ll interfere with our op.” He held his palms up. “But I’ve known you longer than my team leaders, and if it were my sister, I’d want to know now.”
My body went cold, even though my heartbeat doubled in speed. “Isabella?” I opened my palm as if the USB were a grenade with the pin pulled.
“No,” he said. “This is about your other sister.”
Chills like I’d never known before coated my body as I slowly worked my focus back up to look him in the eyes. “What?” The word was a dying breath from my lungs, nothing more. Because that was impossible.
“The man we’re hunting is a professional cleaner. The kind of guy the mob or a dirty politician calls when—”
“I know what a cleaner does,” I roughly bit out.
“Yeah, well, this cleaner also assists with alibis and frame jobs. He doesn’t just clean up the crime, he ensures someone else is to blame and all within hours.”
I knew what he was getting at, and I refused to accept it. Because that would mean . . .
My head was spinning. Body starting to sweat.
“Someone hired him thirteen years ago to pin Bianca’s murder on that other guy,” Jesse said, spelling it out for me as if I weren’t putting two and two together. “The proof is on that USB. We just don’t know who hired him, and trust me, when we grab him, we’ll find out.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I killed her murderer. That asshole followed her home from a nightclub.” A million questions raced through my mind, but I held back from asking them.
“And that asshole was framed.”
He gave me a few seconds to adjust to the news and the shock, and now I needed to clarify something. Something that had my stomach dropping. “You’re trying to tell me we killed an innocent man? I had his life in my hands, and he didn’t beg. Didn’t try and convince me he didn’t kill her.”
“Would you have listened?”
Probably not.
“That man wasn’t innocent by any means,” Jesse added, clearly sensing the panic in my eyes. “Based on the cleaner’s records, the cleaner always has a running list of people in New York to pin crimes on at any given time. People who meet certain profiles. So when he gets a request to cover up a crime, he’s able to handle the case much quicker because of it.” He waited for me to look at him before continuing. “The man he chose to frame was a killer, he just didn’t kill your sister.”
I turned and set my palms on the SUV, my mind and heart at odds. Some weird fight-or-flight mechanism taking over. “There was evidence at Bianca’s place. He lived in the same part of town.”
“And the case was dismissed because of evidence tampering or mishandling. Something like that, right? But in reality, the cleaner planted the evidence at her apartment, and based on his files in which he laid out his plan, he even drugged his fall guy so he wouldn’t remember the night of her murder. It’s possible he even thought he’d committed the crime.”
My hands turned to fists as I bowed my head to the window. “You’re going to need to run this by me again. Use smaller fucking words, I don’t know. Because I’m not understanding.” Nothing made sense right now. Not a damn thing.
Jesse was quiet for a moment, and I lifted my head to catch him in the reflection. “Someone else killed your sister and hired this fucker to clean up the mess and provide him a bulletproof alibi, I just don’t know who the hell did it. He didn’t have any names of who paid him on his laptop. We’re trying to track the money trail, but it’s thirteen years old, and—”
“And you have another case more recent you’re working on, too.” I slowly lowered my hands and faced him.
Jesse shifted to the side. “It looks like you’re trying to start a new life, same as me, so the last thing I want is to come here and fuck all that up, but—”
“Your team is right. I’m not going to sit back and let someone else handle this.” The adrenaline shot through my body as I murmured, “You know exactly what I’m going to do.”
“Yeah, I figured you’d say that.”
“Any chance you were followed?” I looked around, hoping it was just the news that had me paranoid, feeling as though we were being watched.
Jesse peered back at me, his brows drawing tight. “No tail.” He reached into his pocket, producing a folded sheet of paper. “My number. It’s a secure line. Text me after you look at the USB and talk to your brothers.”
I accepted his number and shoved it into my pocket. “Thank you for breaking orders.”
He held his mouth for a moment as if guilty for being the one to share the news with me. “Is she your Ella?” He tipped his head toward the restaurant, and I searched my memory bank for the name, Ella, and then remembered she was Jesse’s “the one”—the woman he never thought he could have because of his past, because he’d believed he was too broken.
I forced a nod, then pointed to his hand. “You married Ella?”
Jesse fidgeted with his ring. “Yeah, I finally removed my head from my ass.” He held the back of his neck and met my eyes. “I’m guessing you’ve yet to remove yours?”
“No,” I said under my breath. Not yet.
I’d been slapped in the face by the fact someone else was responsible for my sister’s death, and at the same time . . . Jesse had managed to deliver me hope. If he could change and marry the woman of his dreams, could I?
