And Luc, in an irritatingly charitable mood at the time, hadn’t slaughtered every last one of the rat bastards. Some, he’d even employed. Giuseppe had been one of them, despite his father being a fucking thief, and he’d swiftly become the bane of my existence. Not because he was a treacherous fucker, just an out-and-outcretinu.
“Luigi called me in,” Chad continued. “He was worried. Rightfully so.”
“Yeah, it’s your day off, no?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
I wanted nothing more than to dump this on Luc’s lap, seeing as he’d given Giuseppe a position on our security, but ever since the hospital visit, he’d demanded more of me. I figured his logic was that if he ate up my time with wet work, I wouldn’t wallow on my creation.
What it actually meant was that I’d slept less than ever before and my patience levels were subpar.
I.e., the probability of me dropping this on him and him throwing it back at me was high.
“I’m heading in. Watch over them. If they?—”
“You don’t have to say it. But I needed you to have my back if shit goes to shit and I acted.”
“The Albanians are whacko. Half of them sniff too much of their own product and the others are siblings who have cousins for parents. We wouldn’t have given you a hard time if they went batshit and you eliminated them.”
“You say that now. I prefer not to dance with death.”
I knew that our motto of ‘murder first and feed to the pigs later’was not a part of Uncle Sam’s playbook. You could take the man out of the army, but the army never left the man.
“Until I get there, officially, don’t shed any blood unless they draw their weapons first.”
“Copy.”
When Chad hung up, I avoided my team’s concerned looks and tipped my head back to glare at the ceiling.
This was a distraction.
The test results on my desk, the Albanian situation—they all took my mind off the one thing I wanted to concentrate on.
Since the hospital, my angel had been the only reason I’d gotten up each morning.
That I’d pushed myself in rehab.
Today, I hadn’t even come to my lab before going to visit Conor O’Donnelly.
For the first time in too long, I had something to fixate on that wasn’t work, official or otherwise, and it came as a relief.
I could think about her beautiful face and smile. Could remember those curves that a pair of scrubs hadn’t diminished.
My memories of her were so powerful, they could and had resulted in an erection.
Hadn’t I jerked off this morning for the first time in years?
Guilt was there, shame too, for moving on, for the passage of time doing what it did best, but there was also hope.
A light at the end of the tunnel.
I hadn’t had that in so long…
And I wanted her. Now.
But, first—family.
