He’d got these for her. Tommaso. He hadn’t sent one of his entourage out to get them. He’d done it. That huge mountain of testosterone had stood in a grocery store and purchased the most feminine products it was possible to buy. For her.
And then he’d kissed her. Kissed her like she meant something to him.
The tears were falling down her face before she even knew they were coming.
“What do you mean, you’ve lost him?” Tommaso demanded.
He’d arrived at the warehouse expecting to find Alfredo bound to a chair with Mattia and his crew keeping watch over him. Mattia and his crew were there. Alfredo was missing.
“He’s disappeared,” Mattia explained tightly. “The trackers on his clothes have stopped working.”
“You mean he’s got wind that we’re onto him and run.” Furious, he dragged his fingers through his hair.
“Don’t act like it’s my fault when you stroll in thirty minutes late, and the damage has already been done.” Mattia’s mouth pulled into a sneer. Dropping his voice so only Tommaso could hear, he added, “What held you up? Fucking your rat?”
Tommaso had grabbed his brother’s shirt collar before his brain connected with the hand clenching it or the fist pulled back like a coil ready to be sprung.
Mattia’s eyes widened in amazement. “You’re going tohitme? Over that bitch?”
His fist tightened. Blood roaring in his ears, jaw clenched, his fury like a thick mist of red, Tommaso forced air through his nose. The silence of the men watching them was absolute.
The Esposito brothers had fought too many times to count in their childhood, but never since leaving adolescence behind. And never over a woman.
The red mist turned cold blue.
What the fuck was he playing at?
Lowering his fisted arm, Tommaso released his grip on Mattia’s collar and gave him a friendly slap on the cheek before kissing him. “I’m sorry. I’m just stressed and uptight.”
“No kidding.” Mattia smoothed his shirt, his eyes holding warily to Tommaso’s. “You look like shit – not sleeping?”
“Not as much as I should be.” His lust for Gabriella was like a tap that couldn’t be turned off. He wanted her all the time, like a junkie needing a fix. That she was always so damned responsive only fed his addiction.
Damn it, what had he been playing at, kissing her like that? What were drugs if not poison? Kissing her had been akin to injecting her sweet, sweet poison directly into his bloodstream.
“You’re not in your twenties anymore. You can’t keep burning the candle at both ends.”
“I know.” Tommaso pulled in a breath and closed his eyes to rid himself of the look on Gabriella’s face when he’d pulled his mouth away from hers. “Fill me in on Alfredo.”
Mattia held his stare a wary moment longer, then gave a sharp incline of his head. “He left his apartment an hour ago. The trackers were all working. He pulled into a garage for fuel. His car’s still there, but the fucker vanished.”
“What was he wearing?”
Mattia brought a picture up on his phone. “This was taken when he left his apartment.”
“Your men followed him from there?”
“They followed him to the garage. We didn’t want to put the wind up him by following him onto the forecourt. He’s been jittery enough as it is.”
Tommaso zoomed in on the picture, thinking hard. “Those trainers and that jacket both have trackers in them. He must have got rid of them somewhere. You have the forecourt’s CCTV?”
“It’s coming.”
“And men searching the immediate area?”
“Yes.”
“How long after he entered the forecourt before you realised he’d done a bunk?”
