A muscle ticks in his jaw. “You’re the boss,” he says through gritted teeth, adding, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
That makes two of us.
* * *
“I think you should come completely clean,” Nic says an hour later as we chat over breakfast in a quirky retro diner a few blocks from Central Park.
“Absolutely not.” Dario dabs the corners of his mouth with a napkin as he pushes his empty plate away. “It is far too risky. I know you want to trust him, and I honestly don’t think he’s a bad guy. It’s blatantly obvious from the way he looks at you that his feelings are genuine.”
“But?” I say, knowing there is one.
“There is much we don’t know about him.”
“I agree, which is why I’m personally following him to Berlin.”
Massimo mentioned last night he has to leave tomorrow to conduct some business in Berlin. He said he would be away two to three days max. He was deliberately vague when I pushed for more details, and I know whatever secret he is hiding is tangled up with this.
If I’m going to confess everything to him—and that’s where my head and my heart are leading me—I need to know what he’s hiding.
“Renzo is going to go crazy when he discovers you left without telling him or taking him with you,” Dario supplies, holding up his mug for a refill when the waitress reappears at our table.
“I don’t trust him not to kill my husband,” I admit, voicing my fears out loud.
“He won’t go against your orders,” Dario attempts to reassure me.
“I hope not because I really don’t want to have to kill the man who has been by my side for more than twenty years.”
“I think he’s having marital problems,” Nic supplies.
I cock my head to the side as I stir my coffee. “Why would you say that?”
Nic and Dario exchange a look and one of their silent communications.
“Tell me,” I say before taking a sip of my coffee.
“You know he’s trying to get Maria to relocate to the city, but she’s digging her heels in. She seems hellbent on staying in Philly.”
“I can’t say I blame her. The kids are settled in school, and her friends and family are there.” Renzo met Maria a few months after he permanently relocated to Philly from Vegas. He knocked her up fast, and they had a quickie wedding a few months before their eldest son was born. She is Philly born and raised, and I think Renzo has zero chance of getting her to move.
“I suspect there is more to it,” Nic says, pursing her lips. “I have no proof,” she adds without me having to ask the question. “Just call it a sixth sense.”
“You think that’s what’s distracting him?”
Dario shrugs. “Possibly. Renzo has been very quiet with me lately. I think it’s probably a combination of him worrying about you and stressing over this situation with his wife and family.”
“All the more reason for him to stay here while I travel to Berlin.”
“When are you leaving?” Nic asks.
“I have the jet lined up for eight a.m.”
“I’ll have my decoy hat ready and waiting,” she says over a grin.
“Thank you. I know it’s a pain in the ass, but hopefully we won’t have to do this for much longer.”
Massimo
“Are you sure it’s not a trap?” Fiero asks as I watch him pack a bag from the doorway of his bedroom.
