Lennon
Iend up sleeping most of the day, too depressed to get up until I have to for my shift at Metro Diner. I dreamt of Sandro and woke up with salty trails of dried tears on my face.
Sloane keeps texting me. I know she wants to talk about what happened last night, but I’m just not ready. Not ready to share Sandro, share the most perfect night of my life, even just to recap it.
At the diner, I go through the motions, serving food, making small talk, ringing up orders. My eyes are swollen and gritty from sporadic crying jags.
At first, I startled every time the bell over the door jangled, remembering the man who barged in and tried to rob us. But after a few hours passed, my nerves settled down.
Now I’m just numb as the night drags on.
It’s not until I close up and step outside that I notice the black SUV in the corner of the parking lot. I pause and stare at it.Is it Sandro?My traitorous heart surges with hope before I squash it.
I hurry to my car and start it, biting my thumb nail as I keep an eye on the SUV. No one gets out. If it were Sandro, he would be here to talk to me, right?
I’m too exhausted, too raw for this. I back up and pull onto the road. In the duct-taped review mirror, I watch the SUV do the same.Okay.I’m being followed for sure.
Is it the same person who was following me in the Mercedes? Who would want to follow me? I’m just a social worker. This has to have something to do with Sandro.
At the next light, I text him:Do u know why a black SUV would b following me?
My phone dings immediately, but I wait until I’m stopped at the next traffic light to read it.
Sandro:It’s for your protection.
My protection?
I type back:My protection from who?
Sandro:Giada’s wrath
Crap.She must’ve found out about our night together somehow. I toss my phone into the passenger seat and glance up at the large headlights behind me, feeling better. Until I remember the Mercedes. It was following me before last night. Unless I’m just being paranoid. There’s a ton of black Mercedes in Tampa after all.
But my gut tells me I’m not being paranoid enough.
Chapter 30
Alessandro
My men and I are sitting around the dining room table in my penthouse. The Tampa skyline is glittering beyond the bulletproof glass wall behind us. It’s almost midnight, but after I got off the phone with my father, I had to call a meeting.
I rub at a dull, throbbing headache, then glance up in time to see Gunnar eyeing my busted knuckles with a frown. Waving off his concern, I lean forward. “All right. Here’s the deal. The Commission wants us to push the Bratva out of Tampa without starting a war.”
Rocco snorts as he holds his lighter to the label of his sparkling water bottle. “Where’s the fun in that?”
I shoot him a warning look because I know he’s only half kidding. He would burn Tampa to the ground to flesh them out if he could. I turn my attention to the other men around the table. They look tired and stressed. “We need to make it impossible for them to conduct business here. Hit me with some ideas.”
Caelian clears his throat and adjusts the wire-rimmed glasses on his aquiline nose. His thick, black hair is sticking up, and he’s dressed in basketball shorts and a grey T-shirt. It looks like I got him out of bed. His mind is fully awake though. “We need to interrupt their shipments. Do we have enough cops on the payroll to get a raid at the dock?”
We both glance at Fausy. As a capo, that’s his territory.
Fausy nods confidently. “We do. I’ll make contact.”
Gunnar pipes up. “We know where three of their main warehouses are. We could do a raid. Hit them in the pocketbook.”
I meet his gaze and consider his idea. “We’d need to hit them all at once, so they don’t add guards.”
“Maybe we don’t start a full-scale war,” Caelian says. “But surprise casualties can have big impacts on the psyche.”
