Nico raised an eyebrow. “Is this a date?”
My cheeks went red. “Uh…not…that’s not what I meant.”
We sat in silence for several seconds. The awkwardness elevated with each moment that passed. Finally, we both burst out laughing.
“This is weird, right?” Nico asked, still laughing.
“So weird,” I agreed.
“Look, this isn’t how I pictured my life going, either, but like I said, I’m not going to push you into anything.”
“I know. It’s a lot to work through.”
“My first priority is to keep you safe. Find answers and try to get your life back to normal. Well, as normal as it can be. Maybe it’s all just a really big misunderstanding. I don’t think it is, but I’m going to do everything I can to figure this out. I want you to be able to sleep easy at night.”
His words dripped through my mind, gentle and kind. It made me all warm and fuzzy inside. It wasn’t helping with the thoughts I was having about him. I stared at my fingers for a few seconds, trying to think of what to say. At last, I found the courage to look up to speak, but the words died on my lips.
Nico’s brows were knit into a deep frown, and his body had gone stiff. He glanced around the diner. I could tell there was something wrong by the way he was holding himself.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered.
“We’re being watched.”
An icy finger of fear stabbed into my chest. “What? How can you tell?”
“Instinct. Something feels…off. I can sense eyes on us. Like we’re being watched.”
Nico pulled his cell phone out and put it on the table. He flipped through the numbers until he got to Sebastian’s name. He called him, all the while glancing around the diner.
“Bro, I’m not even home yet. What do you need?” Sebastian answered.
“There’s eyes on us. I think someone followed me and Maddy to Gena’s Diner.”
“What? Are you sure?”
“Almost a hundred percent. Get down here. Luis is in Tampa. Call Felipe and tell him to get here. Move it.”
“Okay, okay, I’m on it. Be right there.”
“What are we gonna do?” I asked, my voice quavering. Memories of the attack flashed through my mind.
Nico reached across the table and laid a hand on my wrist. “Maddy, it’s gonna be okay. We?—”
He clamped his hand around my wrist like a steel vise. Before I could wince or tell him it hurt, he yanked on my arm, pulling me down at the same instant that the window beside us shattered. The world around us exploded into movement. The few patrons who’d been in the diner with us started screaming. The waitress and cooks were yelling at each other to call 911. More gunshots rang out in the early morning darkness. I lay on the floor of the restaurant and watched a coffee mug burst into a thousand pieces, then the cash register shattered as three bullets slammed into it.
Nico was on top of me, shielding my body from falling glass and porcelain. Once there was a break in the gunfire, he took my hand and we ran to the kitchen, staying as low as we could, basically running at a crouch. I heard a cook screaming into a cell phone as we made our way toward the back door. Nico opened the door and leaned out, checking the parking lot. I could hear squealing tires from the front of the diner, followed by the screaming roar of an engine.
“I think they’re gone, but let’s be careful,” Nico said, helping me down the back steps.
By the time we got to the asphalt of the parking lot, my Jeep came tearing down the road at a solid hundred miles an hour. Sebastian had taken it home since I was riding with Nico. Any other time I’d have been pissed to see him driving it like that, but the moment, I’d never been happier to see it.
The tires screeched as it slowed and pulled into the lot. Sebastian threw it into park and jumped out of the cab. The jovial, happy-go-lucky guy was gone now. Sebastian had turned into a monster, angry and ready to kill. He ran to us, a scowl on his face.
“What the fuck happened?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“We were being watched,” Nico said.
I heard sirens wailing in the distance.
