Page 159 of Vicious Temptation

Seeing a SWAT vehicle doesn’t mean Thiago is here, but my brain doesn’t give a shit about logic. Before I can think better of it, I pull my motorcycle to the curb and kill the engine, tuck the helmet beneath my arm, and make my way toward the crowd gathered behind the barricades.

As I weave through them, I scan every face, including every officer standing near a patrol car or clustered around the command post. I know it’s ridiculous, but I could pick Thiago out of a lineup of a hundred men. I refuse to examine what that says about me.

A helmet skids across the pavement and rolls to a stop a few feet away. Its owner mutters a curse and jogs after it. He bends to retrieve it, then glances up.

Recognition flashes across his face the moment our eyes meet, and it takes me another second to place him. I don’t remember his name, but I’ve seen him before. He was with Thiago at the range.

“Hey,” he says as he straightens. “You’re Braga’s girl.”

Not that long ago, I would’ve rolled my eyes at the implication. Now, after three days of silence and entirely too much overthinking, hearing someone call me that way sends an unexpected warmth through my chest. The fact that I don’t correct him might be even more ridiculous.

I nod. “Yeah. Is he⁠—”

“Tell him we miss him.”

My heart gives a violent thud.

“Miss...him?” I ask.

“Yeah. Tell him to get his ass back to work too. A guy his size has no business letting a simple flu take him out.”

I stare at him as the panic that flared inside me gives way to confusion. “Thiago’s sick?”

He stares back at me, his brow furrowing. “You didn’t know? He’s been out for the last three days.”

While I’ve been stewing in anger and replaying our argument, Thiago has been laid up at home with the flu. Before I can ask anything else, someone calls out the officer’s name from across the perimeter.

“I’ve got to go.”

He gives a quick nod in farewell before heading back toward the others.

I remain behind the barricade, clutching my helmet to my side as people move around me. The anger I’ve been carrying vanishes almost instantly, and guilt rushes in to take its place.

I’ve spent days convincing myself that Thiago didn’t care enough to call, even though I was the one who told him not to. Some stupid part of me still expected him to ignore me, to show up anyway and prove that I mattered enough for him to fight me over it.

Meanwhile, he’s been home sick, and I never once checked on him.

That makes me feel even more like an asshole. If the roles were reversed and I disappeared, I know exactly what Thiago would do. He’d show up at my door, whether I wanted him there or not. By the time I realize I’ve made a decision, I’m already heading back to my bike.

Now it’s my turn to show up anyway.

Forty

remi

The call goes straight to voicemail for the fifth consecutive time.

Shoving my phone into the back pocket of my jeans, I approach Thiago’s apartment. I remember the butterflies in my belly the last time I stood outside this door, hoping he was home, and the disappointment and hurt I carried when I left.

I push the memory aside and knock.

Several seconds pass without an answer, so I knock again, a little harder this time. When the apartment stays silent, unease twists in my chest. He has to be home. If he’s sick enough to miss work for three days, where the hell else would he be?

My hand finds the doorknob before I fully consider what I’m doing. I turn it, expecting it to be locked, but the door swings open, and relief floods me.

“Thiago?”

No answer.