In so deep he definitely couldn’t breathe.
Which was why his voice came out sounding like he’d been snacking on the sand instead of sitting in it when he asked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean we walk around every day knowing everyone and everything we care about can be snatched away in the blink of an eye.” She snapped her fingers, and he was momentarily distracted by how delicate her hands were. So small and thin and feminine-looking.
Everything about her called to the man in him, the protector in him. Until he wanted to spend his days hulking over her, snapping and snarling at anyone who ventured too close. Keeping her safe from the big, bad world.
She didn’t need him to do that, though. The more he got to know her, the more he understood that she was living proof mighty things could come in small packages. That sometimes what seemed as breakable as glass could be as strong as a diamond.
“We walk around knowing our time is finite and that the people we love will one day cease to exist,” she continued. “And still we find ways to smile. To experience joy. I just...” She shook her head in wonder. “When I stop to think about it, it seems miraculous. Don’t you think?”
“I guess so.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wanted to pull them back in. They sounded solamecompared to her heartfelt speech. His only excuse was that he couldn’t think around the longing that grew deep inside him. A longing he couldn’t pinpoint exactly.
All he knew was that it had her name on it.
And then, in the next instant, that longing morphed into thoughts about how Alex and Mason were on their way to Spain to find the cipher. Thoughts about how once he and his partners located theSanta Cristina’streasure, Mia would move on.
Her leaving had always been a given. From the moment he’d met her, he’d known she wouldn’t be a permanent fixture in his life. But her heading out to her next job had been some nebulous thing way out in the future. Now it felt...imminent. Inevitable.
He wasn’t ready.
Wasn’t ready to let her go. Wasn’t ready to give up the way she made him feel. Wasn’t ready for the memory of her to be the brightest light in a life that would seem dull and dreary by comparison.
A frown pulled at the corners of his mouth, and he knew he’d been quiet for too long when she cleared her throat. “I, um... I want to clear the air between us.”
Oh, no. Here it comes. It’sherturn to try to letmedown gently. To tellmethat all we can ever have is a friendship.
“I owe you an apology.”
He wHe He blinked in surprise. “You do? For what?”
“For calling you an asshole.”
When a laugh burst out of him, he supposed he’d proved her right. Humanscould finddelight in the strangest of places and at the oddest of times.
“I stayed down too long and scared the hell out of everyone.” He waved away her concern. “Itwasan asshole move. You had every right to bust my balls.”
“Still”—she shook her head—“we’re friends. Which means I shouldn’t call you nasty names.”
“My partners are mybestfriends, and at least one of them calls me a bastard or a dickhead or a sonofabitch on the daily,” he assured her.
“But that’s said infun,” she countered. “Not in—” She frowned.
“Anger?” he supplied helpfully. “Exasperation?”
“No.” Her voice dropped a decibel. “Sheer, unadulterated terror.”
His steely heart, the one he’d meticulously forged so many years ago, melted. Just a little. Or maybe a lot. Because he’d never known such compassion.
He’d certainly never experienced the like from his mother. After his father had died, Renata Delgado had spent all her time exchanging one gangster for the next. Her only ambition had been to be the latest conquest of the homeboy most likely to climb the ranks of the organization. And it hadn’t mattered if the men she’d invited into their home had slapped Romeo across the face for talking back or kicked him across the room for shits and giggles, because that was the life. And his mother loved the life.
She was a barrio babe to her very core.
Then there’d been Romeo’s older brother, Alejandro. Hecertainlyhadn’t been the touchy-feely sort. In fact, Alejandro had made it his mission in life to “toughen up” Romeo by beating him bloody on the regular. And then, once Romeo came of age, Alejandro had exchanged the beatings for lessons in gang politics, hoping the two of them would one day rise to the top of the Mexican Mafia power structure.
“With my brains and brawn keeping the homeboys in line, and your pretty mug keeping the homegirls horny and willing, you and I could rule the roost,hermanito,”Alejandro had dreamed aloud.
