Hazel snorted softly. “Pardon my French, friend,” she said, pushing away from the counter, “but there’s no other way to put it. You’re royally fucked with this one.”
“That bad, huh?”
She took another sip of her drink. “Personally, I’d bail. Life’s too short to be chasing impossible dreams.”
She walked away, leaving me standing there alone with the music thumping faintly through the walls. For a long moment, I didn’t move. Because she was right. This wasn’t about surveillance anymore.
I had stopped pretending that after Leo confronted me in the hospital corridor.
Since the night I’d broken into Leo’s house and heard him collapse in that bathroom, sobbing like his entire world had been ripped out from under him; I hadn’t been able to get the sound out of my head. But it wasn’t just about pity. The man ran his life like a machine. He was so poised and confident, so assured of himself. He knew I was Mafia and didn’t cower before me. Not once did he attempt to butter me up or be careful about what he said to me.
And I liked that.
I liked how intelligent he was and how his brain worked.
I even liked the way he talked to me like I was something he’d scraped off the bottom of his shoe. Like I was beneath him. Just muscle, no brains.
That slap he’d given me?
Christ.
I’d stood in the shower that night, stroking myself and obsessing about it until I came against the tile.
The doctor himself was clean-cut and handsome, even though he always looked sad. That day he’d slapped me, for a brief moment, he had smiled at the doctor walking with him. The second I saw him, I should have walked away before he was aware of my presence. But that smile had struck like lightning, and I’d been glued to the spot, soaking up the radiance that had come over his features.
Leo was the whole package—smart, handsome as hell, and he had a nice, athletic body. He was the kind of man who would never give someone like me the time of day. I was so far beneath him that he wouldn’t have looked at me twice if I weren’t stalking him.
Which only made me wonder what it would be like for him to bend me over.
To feel a proper man like him lose control inside of me.
The man whom he thought wasn’t even fit to lick his boots giving him pleasure.
Hazel’s words echoed in the back of my mind.Life’s too short to be chasing impossible dreams.Maybe she was right. Maybe I was delusional, thinking I could keep Leo under surveillance indefinitely without letting my true intentions be known. But I couldn’t walk away. If I had a one-percent chance, I wanted to take it because something told me Leo was worth it.
I pushed away from the counter and headed toward the club floor. Nik spotted me the second I stepped back into the main room. He was exactly where I had left him, leaning against the bar while Jess and Darius continued their chaotic excuse for dancing nearby.
“I’m stepping out for a bit,” I said.
Nik’s grin widened instantly. “Oh yeah?” He lifted his glass and waggled his eyebrows. “Tell the doc hi for me.”
I didn’t stop walking.
“Oh, wait,” he called loudly after me, “I forgot. You’re just going to watch him from a hundred yards like always instead of actually trying to talk to him.”
I flipped him the finger over my shoulder without turning around. Then I remembered Leo doing the same to me, and I grinned. My heart rate was already picking up at the thought of seeing him again. I didn’t even need to be close enough to smell the deep, citrusy musk of his scent. I would be satisfied just seeing him.
The cold night air hit my face the moment I stepped outside. The muffled bass from the club faded behind me as I crossed the parking lot and climbed into my truck. For a moment, I sat there with both hands on the wheel, staring through the windshield. Was I really going to do this? If I left the club, there was no turning back. I was all but admitting that for the first time in years, I craved something more than protecting Maxim Morozov.
Fuck this.
I started the engine.
The drive to Leo’s house took me about ten minutes. From my place, it was just over half an hour. The roads were nearly empty, streetlights sliding past in long golden streaks across the hood of the truck.
When I pulled up across from his house, I immediately noticed something was wrong. His BMW wasn’t in the driveway.
I frowned when I saw the time on the dashboard. Leo finished his shift hours ago. Had he gone out tonight? He’d been living like a hermit since his husband passed. He didn’t go out, and he didn’t have people over. The one time a neighbor brought him food, they’d been out in five minutes, tops.
