“Yeah, I think we’re good.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead and slowly rose before placing more logs in the fire. Returning to stand in front of me, he crossed his arms. “Well, what are we going to do now?”
I wrinkled my nose. “I have no idea. I’d usually be buried in my laptop on a snow day.”
He sat down beside me and leaned his head on his fist as his elbow dug into the couch. “Tell me about hacking, or coding, or whatever. I don’t get any of it.”
I could feel my eyes light with pleasure. “Really?”
“I mean, yeah.” He gestured around the cabin. “What else are we going to do? You obviously love it, and that makes me curious about it.”
My heart skipped a beat at the tender words. There was something so sweet about this man that he didn’t even realize, but I understood intrinsically. Several times during our time at the safehouse, he’d said things that were inherently genuine. He didn’t hide his thoughts behind veiled words or masculinity. He just said what he truly thought.
It was such a rarity in today’s disconnected world, filled with filters and endless social media posts designed to imitate fake emotion. It was so hard to find someone who was just comfortable being themselves, and who said what they truly thought.
“What?” he asked, and I realized I was staring at him.
“Nothing. You’re just...cute.”
He scowled. “I can assure you, I’ve never been called cute in my entire damn life.”
Laughing, I shrugged. “Well, you havenow.” Settling into the couch, I ticked my fingers as I spoke. “Okay, we’ll start with coding, then we’ll move to hacking, and then we’ll move to AI. That topic is fun and scary, all at once.”
“Riveting,” he said, lifting his eyebrows as he teased me.
Grinning, I got to work educating my mafia crush on all things technology. Surprisingly, it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable conversations I’d ever had.
Chapter 13
Michael
Istepped out of the SUV, slamming the door before I walked brusquely toward the warehouse. The soles of my expensive leather shoes clicked on the pavement, echoing the steady hum of anger that pulsed in my veins. The shoes glistened in the winter sunlight, but I felt a foreboding that they might be covered with blood when I exited.
Two of my best men, Chris and Joaquin, flanked me, and Chris pulled open the door, the creak of the metal ominous as I stepped inside. Once the door closed behind me, the only flickers of sunlight that lit the dim warehouse were the ones that streamed from the dirty windows that lined the top of the abandoned space.
I approached John Armetta, rage coursing through my veins. He was strapped to a chair, his wrists and ankles bound, and a piece of duct tape covered his mouth. Stopping only inches before him, I harshly ripped off the tape.
“Fuck you!” he hissed, spittle flying from his lips.
I slammed my gun into his jaw, snapping his head to the side as he groaned in pain.
Lowering to a crouch, I held up the gun, slowly turning it as his gazereturned to me.
“Let’s get something straight,cafone. You’re alive for one reason, and one reason only: you know where Nick and Alexis are. You’re going to tell me where to find them, and if you tell me quickly, I might let you live long enough to say goodbye to your family.”
John’s eyes narrowed and he spit out a bloody tooth that I’d knocked free when I struck him. “Where are my men?”
“Your worthless bodyguards?” I asked, my eyes drifting to the two men who were bound behind him. “They’re both unconscious on the other side of a concussion. We’ll let them rest for now.”
John inhaled through his broken nose, and I rose to address Damien, one of my men who’d abducted him. “You rearranged his face pretty good,” I said, approval in my tone.
“You told us to rough him up.”
My gaze returned to John. “Where are Nick and Alexis?”
John sighed with resignation. “In a cabin near Indian Lake. My men were supposed to get the flash drive info from Alexis. I told them not to do detrimental harm to her. If she was difficult, they were supposed to torture Nick in front of her to get her talk. I expected her to break quickly, and my men were going to leave them on the side of the road to find their way back.”
“What do you mean ‘were?’”
John exhaled a breath, full of pain from his recent rough-up. “A fucking blizzard blew in and I haven’t heard from my men in a few days.”
