“Merry Christmas, Marco. Thought you’d have run off by now.”
I shrugged one shoulder. The bad one was stiff, aching from the cold I could never quite escape here. “I was planning on it—after the party Remy insisted I come to.”
“You sure I can’t convince you to stick around this time?” Max asked. “I can double—hell, triple—whatever they’re paying you down in DC.”
I almost laughed, because it was tempting. Tempting in that dull, persistent way I knew I’d ignore. Truth was, Max had gotten good at making offers I could barely refuse. It was probably why we’d become something like friends. Circumstantial friends, I guess, because I’d never agreed with how he did things. But I knew him better than most. And maybe knowing someone counted for more than agreeing with them.
Still, money wasn’t the issue. It never had been.
“I appreciate the offer,” I finally said, “but no. The city doesn’t agree with me.”
Max nodded slowly as if he expected my answer. He always asked anyway. Maybe it was his way of checking, of leaving adoor open without actually admitting he cared whether or not I walked through it.
“Fair enough,” he said after a pause, taking another sip of his whiskey. “Well, if you ever reconsider, the spot’s yours. You know I’ll save it for you.”
He meant it too. We both knew he wasn’t talking about the money or the job—not really. He was talking about history, the fact that despite all our differences, we were still here, years later, standing around in his living room pretending neither of us remembered how bad things used to be. How far we’d both come. How strange it felt, being the last two people anyone would’ve expected to end up on speaking terms.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” I said quietly, and I meant it.
No matter how many times I walked away, he never fully shut the door behind me. Maybe because he knew better than anyone, sooner or later, I always ended up coming back.
“Where’s your wife tonight?” I asked.
One mention of Rosalie and Max went from stone-cold, ruthless bastard to something else entirely. Suddenly, there he was, smiling that same stupid, lovesick grin he always wore whenever she walked into a room. I’d seen grown men shrink under Max’s stare, reduced to nervous stammers and shaking hands, but around Rosalie? The man turned into some lovestruck teenager.
“She’s around here somewhere,” Max said, already scanning the crowd, instantly distracted. “Ah—there she is.”
I followed his gaze, but the second I saw Rosalie, my attention snagged on something else. Or, more accurately, someone else—the woman Rosalie was talking to.
“Talking to Valentina, of all people,” Max muttered, shaking his head with mild annoyance.
Valentina.
Now I had a name to go with the weight I’d been dragging around.
She looked different tonight somehow. Not because she was dressed up or had changed her hair, but because she wasn’t wearing that ridiculous oversize coat she always seemed to hide inside. Without it, she blended quietly into the crowd. Why I even noticed, let alone cared, was beyond me. It wasn’t exactly my job to pay attention.
“How’s she been doing?” Remy asked as if he were talking about an old friend and not someone tangled up in our mess. He did that sometimes—acted more familiar than he had any right to.
Max’s voice cut into my thoughts, pulling me back from wherever they’d wandered. “She’s been circling the drain ever since Cillian died.”
Cillian.
The name should’ve rolled off my back like every other name that had come across my radar. Just another name, another job. One more in a long list of things I’d handled without thinking twice.
Except it didn’t roll off—not quite. It stuck around.
It shouldn’t have mattered. The job was done. I’d followed orders, as always. I didn’t feel bad about it. At least, that’s what I told myself whenever it crept back into my mind. Cillian had become a liability. If I hadn’t taken care of things, someone else would’ve. That’s how this worked. Still, logic had a way of sounding hollow after the fact.
Remy cleared his throat, looking my way for just a second before turning back to Max. “Well, her husband’s assets have been squared away. The estate in Chicago—it’s all ready for her.”
Max gave a small, dismissive shrug. “It’ll be hers when she gets her shit together.”
Remy frowned slightly, that familiar line forming between his eyebrows—the one he always got when he disagreed but wasn’t sure how far to push it. “It’s been months, Max. You’re holding onto it as if she’s incapable.”
“Because she is incapable,” Max shot back. “And loud. And reckless. Not to mention, she’s become a liability with the Callahans.”
That got my attention immediately. The Callahans—the Americans—were the reason I was standing here at all. The reason Max and Remy had needed me in the first place. They weren’t the kind of people you wanted to owe anything to, and you certainly didn’t want to be on their radar. The second you were, life became complicated.
