I gazed back at the organized display of weapons silently making a mockery out of me.
Just who the hell was I dating?
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
Kieran
Nicholas Grimaldi lived in downtown Buffalo at the Nova, a full-service luxury high-rise condominium. The building itself was a landmark but had been renovated so it didn’t show its century-old age. Personally, I thought the glass exterior erased its history and made it look like a massive house of mirrors, but for a clown like Grimaldi, I supposed it was the perfect roost.
“You sure about this?” Ghost asked, gazing out the windshield and down the block at the building.
“You didn’t have to come.” I reminded him.
“And let you have all the fun?” He scoffed. “Please. Besides, we both know you aren’t getting in there without me.”
I cut him a sideways glance. “I’d figure something out.”
“Yeah, and probably take a bullet while doing it.”
Wouldn’t be the first time. Or the last. I didn’t care. I’d take more than one bullet if it meant keeping Hazard safe.
Ghost sighed. “Listen, I know you’re allin lovefor the first time and half-pint is pretty cute?—”
My hand shot across the SUV to fist in Ghost’s jacket. The fabric whooshed when I pulled him halfway over the center console. “You looking at what’s mine?”
“Eyes look at things. It’s what they do,” he remarked like I wasn’t about to rip his head off his shoulders and use it as a bowling ball.
“Wrong answer,” I intoned.
“I can’t help that we have the same type,” he defended. “I’m here to help you.”
“I don’t have a type,” I said, pushing him back into his seat.
“Yeah, because up until two days ago, you didn’t have a heart,” he cracked.
“What’s your excuse?” I retorted. Ghost wasn’t “heartless” like me, but in the ten years I’d known him, he never had a relationship.
“You know what we do is risky. The lives we live, the things we’ve seen, it doesn’t really go too well with our type,”
I shot him a look.
Chuckling, he held up his hands. “Mytype.”
“And what type is that?” I asked. I couldn’t help but be curious that he seemed to think I had a type. Even more so that it was the same as his. I’d never thought about my type. Usually, when I wanted to hook up, I just looked for someone who was willing. I guess I did prefer men smaller than me, but I didn’t specifically seek it out.
“Soft.”
I snorted. “Soft? What the fuck are you on about?”
“Snort and scoff all you want, my guy,” Ghost said, grabbing a bag of nuts out of his jacket pocket and popping a few in his mouth. “But the facts are facting.”
I shook my head. This entire conversation was a waste of time and brain cells.
Crunch. Crunch.Ghost smacked his lips. “All right, go ahead and tell me that the entire reason you even went to the hospital wasn’t because you looked at his profile pic and got punched in the gut by those big-ass eyes right there on his face.” He tossedanother nut in his mouth.Crunch. Crunch.“He was hurt and in the hospital all alone, and you couldn’t bear the thought of someone so innocent and small with no one to protect them.”
“He left me on read,” I replied, woefully regretting that I’d even told this moron how we met. I was distracted, trying to sneak out of the condo without Hazard hearing, and Ghost asked, so I just answered.
