With a shake of my head, I move out of the office and toward the exit, only then remembering I slammed my forehead against the locked door. Again, I check for a bump. Nothing. It’s good to know I didn’t look like a deranged unicorn while flirting with one of the hottest men I’ve ever met.
I’m in the foyer when I hear Alessio say, “Oops, my bad.”
“No way!” Leo says. “You’re supposed to get it unstuck, not crash it into the sand.” The boy groans and joins me at the door. I notice how he doesn’t twist the handle but turns toward Alessio, who pokes the face of his phone. I hear the lock slide, and something beeps. It’s almost as if the alarms were on the entire time we were in the house. They were. They really were.
Alessio is no Val. When she’s around, everything is open, and people can come and go from the mansion. But with Alessio, the house feels different. I can’t put my finger on it.
Leo looks up. “Go ahead. We can leave now.”
Is it just me, or is this kind of weird?
Sunday is my day off. I should explain to Leo that I need today to rest and get ready for the week ahead. I should tell him how I like spending my days off catching up with tourists or strolling down the beach by myself. But I say nothing because Leo’s little hand slides into mine, and he faces the door.
From his spot in the office, Alessio picks up the phone with a wink at me. “Have fun at the beach.”
I gasp. This bastard crashed the kid’s model airplane into the sand so I’d have to take Leo with me to retrieve it. Now we have to get the airplane before someone takes it.
When Alessio turns his back to me and the boy isn’t looking, I lift my middle finger. A surge of freedom comes over me from that small, underrated, seemingly insignificant gesture that I swear by.
Lift your middle finger. Lift your mood. It’s that simple.
SEVENTEEN
FIGHT THE URGE
Alessio
The burner phone in my drawer will detonate if anyone presses any of the buttons. My best friend recovered it from a crew of bad men who used the marina on my island to restock their yacht before sailing.
When known criminals make pit stops, the law enforcement agencies tracking them inquire about where the criminals were and who they encountered, and since this is my island, I came up on the radar. In exchange for my being taken off that radar, powerful people asked me to eliminate the men on the yacht.
I sent one of my only two friends, who also happens to be the world’s finest hitman, to do the job. But nobody told us the yacht crew was transporting a nuclear warhead along with a kidnapped college girl they’d planned to kill after they sold her baby to the highest bidder.
I did mean it when I said these were some bad men.
My friend? I wouldn’t say he’s a good man, but let’s just say that a pregnant woman he found on the yacht didn’t make his hit list. In fact, he rescued her and forced me to adopt her into the family, all without marrying her like I asked. Which was a terrible mistake, one he made even worse when he went after the man who’d lured his pregnant girlfriend into Europe and caused her to be on said yacht.
Needless to say, Miro went all out with his murderous creativity on the man who wronged her, and ended up in jail. Since I can’t have Miro in jail, I extracted him before they booked him, so the evidence from the scene, while substantial, can’t tie Miro to the murder, because Miro doesn’t exist.
He’s a man without a country or a home who saved my life once. Naturally, I saved his, thinking he’d get over the girl and move on. But I should’ve known better. For a man who never formed attachments, once he did, he couldn’t let go. Now he wants to marry her and live on the other side of the world, while I’m left cleaning up the mess he left after his arrest.
Even with my connections and substantial leverage in both law enforcement and powerful criminal organizations in Italy, where he was arrested, I might not be able to keep his identity a secret. The man’s responsible for some of the biggest assassinations in recent history. He’s offed world leaders, for Christ’s sake, and made it look like they died of natural causes.
Not to mention, Niksha (Miro’s foster brother) could come under fire since he’s a CIA agent operating in high-risk assignments in many different countries. But that’s not all.
The situation with Miro would be more manageable if it weren’t connected with the nuclear warhead I’m safekeeping. Niksha is working on securing it somewhere within his network, but until we figure out who’s connected with the sale and who the original buyer was, I’m safe-guarding it.
Aside from the night I spent with Lake in the hotel, I’ve barely gotten four hours of sleep per night. Granted, I need only six, but those two hours I’m not getting each night could mean the difference between life and death. I need to work at peak capacity.
I’ve worked under pressure most of my life. But this is nuclear-sized pressure. So, yes, I work long hours, and those who are working for me are expected to do the same. I’m holding no one hostage. If they dislike how the ark is governed, they’re welcome to swim away.
I yawn as I check my watch.
Later, I should take a nap with Leo.
With a snort, I sit back in my chair, intending to work on the bid amounts from a spreadsheet I asked Mr. Bono to update, but my mind is stuck on Lake and Leo. They’re walking around out there, unsupervised, unprotected.
No, no, no. Don’t.
