“You’ll move like a man who knows I can scream loud enough to wake half of Miami.”
Nico glanced at Bite Me. “I believe that.”
He walked out of the water with his hands visible and his shoulders loose, which should’ve made him look harmless and absolutely didn’t. Water streamed down his torso. His gold chain caught the first warm hint of sun. When his feet hit wet sand, he stopped a few yards away instead of crowding me.
Dangerous, but not stupid.
He bent to pick up his pale linen shirt from the sand. His phone lay beside it. I watched his hands because they’d been on my waist last night, and I had no patience for my own timing.
He pulled the shirt on without buttoning it.
Somehow that made everything worse.
“Start talking,” I said.
“Torretti Harbor Capital is a lender,” he said. “The paperwork is real. The debt is real.”
“I knew that part. I have the ulcer.”
“My uncle Sal runs the collection side.”
“So he’s the charming man behind the countdown text?”
The muscle in Nico’s jaw jumped. “That would be Sal.”
“He doesn’t send muffin baskets, does he?”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“And Sal is also a shark?”
“Yes.”
I stared at him. “Your whole family?”
“Some.”
“That’s not the reassuring answer.”
“It’s the honest one.”
I stepped off the path and onto the sand because standing above him made this feel too much like I was taking a customer complaint about the ocean. I wanted to be level with him when I decided whether to yell, run, or throw my keys at his expensive face.
“What else?” I asked.
His eyes stayed on mine. “There are humans in the organization too. Lawyers. Paperwork people. Money people. But my family gives it teeth.”
“You hear yourself, right?”
“I do.”
“And you still said it?”
“It seemed better than lying.”
“Miracles are happening before breakfast.”
His eyes narrowed, but not with anger. “Nella.”
