Her treacherous heart did a flip. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. We’ve got unfinished business.”
“I know.” Too soft.
She winced. Of course he’d heard it—the pause, the weight behind her words.
“I want to see where this goes,” he said. “But we’ve got to be in the same room to do that. Alone.”
She smiled faintly. “What about breakfast? For once, I’m not serving it. Just no waffles, please.”
“Sorry, baby. I’ve got a nine o’clock meeting. Dev’s been on a tear with them lately.”
“What about Thursday for lunch? I don’t have class until two, but I’ve got an event with Regina after that.”
“That doesn’t work for me.”
She sighed, rolling onto her side. “Is fate or the calendar trying to tell us something?”
“It’s saying we’re both spread too thin and need to make some adjustments.”
“Adjustments don’t pay my rent,” she said quietly.
There was a beat then his voice dropped. “You’re juggling too much. You should let me take care of you, Em.”
His words sat between them, heavy and complicated. When she didn’t respond, he growled softly. “Have you always been this stubborn?”
She smiled, despite everything. “You’ve known me for how long?”
His frustrated sigh filled her ears before he said, “Long enough to know you’re worth the fight.”
Her breath caught. It was the sweetest thing ever—and he’d said a lot. She didn’t know how to answer.
Luckily, he wasn’t expecting her to.
“Get some sleep. We’ll figure it out.”
She hoped so. But she didn’t say that. Instead, she whispered, “Good night, Alec.”
“Night, baby.”
When the call ended, she stared at the ceiling. Her chest ached—not with fear but with something far more dangerous.
Hope.
She should do what he suggested—turn off the light and go to sleep—but the journals called to her.
Three things kept surfacing:Denali. Gold Coast. Shipment codes.
She typed “Denali” into the search bar. The results loaded slowly, as if the internet itself hesitated.
Then it returned a flood of hits. Number one: Denali crime family. She clicked on the easiest—Wikipedia—and scanned the long line of bosses over the past century. Vittorio Denali, the patriarch, long deceased. His son, Benito, followed, also deceased. Most recently, another son, Vincenzo—convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and racketeering, with drug and sex trafficking charges pending.
He was the one shot in Miami that Alec had mentioned.
Emily stared at the screen, her pulse thudding in her ears.
Her father had been closing in. Ethan had picked up the trail. And now, they were both gone.
