“Why do you ask?”
“You sounded…like you’d be furious if the senator made a move on her. But if he chooses to, that’s his business.”
A dark, dangerous heat slid through Tonio, sharp enough to surprise even him. “Tell the senator to be patient. I will have results soon.”
“I’ll relay the message. But you need to deliver. Soon.”
“I’m aware.” Tonio ended the call.
The silence that followed hung heavier than before. “Fucking hell,” he snapped into the quiet of the motel room. She was going to be killed if he didn’t move soon. Yet something in him—strange, unwelcome, and unfamiliar—hesitated at the thought of threatening her or putting fear in her eyes.
Her sharp curiosity, the way her gaze lingered on him in the diner, haunted his thoughts, cutting through every warning he’d given himself.
Interestingly, whenever he was with Sofia, the usual ghosts stayed at bay, and the guilt that normally gnawed at him was muted, drowned beneath the persistent pull of her presence and this damn need to know and understand her. Last night, his dreams had been filled with her. Not peace—he didn’t deserve that—but a stolen reprieve. And the danger was undeniable.
This was a problem.The old warning flashed, a dull blade against a new truth. The distraction was too much if he was feeling ruthlessly protective.
What the hell am I doing? I need to pull my shit together.
He dragged a hand over his face, fury and something darker twisting low in his gut. Getting tangled up in a woman’s eyes, her pain, her fucking sweetness—that was how men ended up dead. He knew better.
Still, he pulled his encrypted laptop from his bag and opened it, fingers already flying as he dug for any link between the senator and this quiet little town. He would finish the job in a few days and return to New York.
Simple. Clean. Bloody, if necessary. And he would cut out whatever softness had started to rot inside him before it cost them both.
Tonio satat the far end of the bar, nursing a cold beer. His mind replayed the last few days, every loop ending with her—the tilt of her head, the spark in her eyes, the subtle twitch of curiosity that he could feel in the space between them. He’d been avoiding Sofia for a couple of days. He should’ve walked away after that first coffee. But the way she looked at him—like she was peeling back the layers of a con—kept him hesitating.
He shouldn’t have damn well kissed her. Luc and every man Tonio had worked with over the years would laugh their asses off if they knew he’d gotten tangled up over a woman after only a few meetings. What the hell was wrong with him? What about her was so fucking appealing that she could slip under his skin this fast, this deep?
He didn’t have an answer, and that unsettled him more than anything else.
A shadow fell over the bar. Lost in thought, he hadn’t noticed a man in a tailored suit slide onto the stool next to him. Rookie mistake.
“You look like a man with something on his mind.”
Tonio took a slow sip. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
The man chuckled, low and unpleasantly. Polished suit, calm posture, but his eyes were flat, operational.A fixer.
“Word is, you were getting cozy with a certain girl. Is there a reason for that?”
Tonio froze a fraction—he’d been watched. He met the man’s gaze, flat. “Didn’t realize I had to report my coffee habits.”
The man’s smirk turned venomous. “Your bosses don’t like loose ends.”
Tonio leaned forward, his voice low. “I don’t work for your people. I work for my family. I’m here to clean up a problem. Don’t fuck with me.”
The polished smile tightened. “My boss is a man who deals in futures—his own, and the ruin of others. He can’t afford a scandal, and you can’t afford his attention.”
The wordattentionhung—a thinly veiled threat to Tonio's family.
Tonio looked him over with cold finality. “The ‘loose end’ is mine to manage. Interfere again, and you’ll become the next problem I have to clean up. The conversation’s over. Get the fuck out of my sight.”
The man’s smirk vanished, his eyes flat and assessing. He gave a single, curt nod. “Understood.” He slid off the stool, the echo of his polished shoes against the floor a quiet warning. “For now.” Then he disappeared into the crowd, swallowed by the dim bar lights.
Tonio watched him go, calculation in his eyes turning to ice. The senator hadn’t just sent a message; he’d sent a hound. His warning to Luc to pull them back had been ignored—a professional courtesy now treated as weakness and an insult. They were circling Sofia, loading the gun themselves.
The path forward was horrifically simple. Tonio wouldn’t waste any more time trying to find her Achilles’ heel—the leverage he was supposed to use to intimidate her into compliance. Tonio didn’t want that spark in her eyes snuffed out by a bullet from the senator’s men. The bastard was scared. Whatever she was investigating tied back to him, and Sofia hadto be circling dangerously close to the secrets he was desperate to keep buried.
