He rubbed his temple. “And why were you on Gino’s property?”
I briefly considered lying, but I quickly realized there would be no point. “I think you and I both know the answer to that question.”
His movements were unhurried, the set of his shoulders relaxed, but he didn’t fool me. He was upset. “You’re right. I do know. Did she see you? Or any of Gino’s men? Other than the obvious one, of course.”
“No.”
“What did you do while you were there?”
I hesitated, unwilling to divulge any more information than I had to. “I watched her.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
His eyes narrowed on me.
“I know you told me to leave her alone?—”
“I did,” he agreed as he strode back to his desk, whiskey glass in hand.
“—but I can’t,” I finished.
“And why can’t you?”
I thought about that for a moment. “I don’t know.”
Setting his glass down, he sat and leaned back in his seat, rubbing his forehead with the fingers of one hand. He was losing patience with me.
“I’m sorry,” I told him.
“No,” he said. “You’re not. But I’m just trying to understand here, T.”
How could I explain something to him I didn’t understand myself? “I’m sorry,” I repeated. “I don’t have an answer for you.”
He sighed heavily, and his eyes caught mine and held. “You told me at the wedding that you thought you knew her from somewhere.”
“Yes.” It wasn’t a lie. She did seem familiar to me.
Eyes going to his computer monitor, he typed in his password and pulled up a screen. “Since you’ve been so busy stalking the girl, I’ve been doing a little digging.”
I walked around his desk, standing beside him so I could see the screen, and watched as he opened an email. My eyes immediately locked onto the picture in the body of the email. And for a moment, I forgot how to breathe. Luna’s name appeared in bold across the top of a current photo of her. It looked like a license or passport photo from the look of the plain background. But even with bright lights and no filters, she was stunning. As I stared at the image, my heart began to pound heavily in my chest, and my skin grew clammy underneath my suit. A sense of desperation rushed through me to be near her, throwing me off balance. To make sure she was okay after what I’d witnessed the night before. Forcing myself to focus on what Luca was showing me, I shook off the feeling.
Further down in the email was another name and another image. A guy somewhere around her age. First name Logan. Same last name.
A flash of heat burst inside of me, and my fists clenched at my sides. Was she married? Did she have a husband somewhere wondering where she was? A husband who had a much bigger claim on her than some old, Italian capo?
“Luna Marie Wilde,” Luca read. “Twenty-six years old. Single.”
The room tilted around me, and I took a breath, bringing it back into focus. It shouldn’t bother me so much to think of her as someone’s wife when she was currently Gino’s whore. It just seemed…different somehow.
“Up until two weeks ago, she was a dancer at Honey’s, the strip club in north Austin that Gino has recently taken over for me.”
“I know the place.” I’d gone there once or twice to collect Luca’s share of the nightly profits when his usual runner wasn’t available. The club also contained a secret room in the back for gambling.
The copper taste of blood filled my mouth as I bit down on the inside of my cheek, thinking about Luna stripping for the type of men that frequented Honey’s. Had I ever seen her there? No. I couldn’t have. She definitely would’ve caught my attention. Just thinking about her on that stage made me want to punch something.
“Logan is her younger brother,” he continued, distracting me from the black hole I was about to spiral down. “Four-year difference between them. He attends UT Dallas and is currently there for spring semester classes. In the fall, he’ll be starting his junior year. On his breaks, he lives with her.” He scrolled down. “They were raised together in foster homes until Luna turned eighteen and petitioned the courts for custody of her brother and got it.” He looked up at me. “Any of this sound familiar?”
