Page 288 of Vicious Temptation

A black SUV appears in my rearview and cuts through traffic behind me.

“Fuck. They found me.”

“What?”

“They found me.” I floor it as they close in. “Matteo, listen to me. If I don’t make it to her, I need you to tell Remi I love her.” My voice breaks, but I keep going because this might be the last chance I ever get to make sure she knows. “Tell her everything we had was real, every smile, every kiss, every time I looked at her, I meant it.” Tears blur my eyes, and I blink hard to clear it. “Tell her I’m sorry, that I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t tell her the truth before it was too late.”

“Braga—”

Headlights fill my peripheral vision before I can react.

Metal slams into the driver’s side, lifting the SUV off the pavement. The impact throws me against the door, and white-hot pain rips through my wound as the world dissolves beneath the violent shriek of twisting steel.

Seventy-One

remi

“You should eat something.”

I freeze halfway through slamming a magazine into my Glock and can’t help but smile at the irony.

Amalia Montesinos has a body count longer than I could ever begin to grasp. She’s led a team of deadly women on missions most people would’ve called suicide, and she’s one of the best strategists I’ve ever known. But when it comes down to it, no matter how impossible the odds or how deadly the battlefield, she’s a mother first.

“I’m not hungry, and we’re not done.”

She sets her weapon down and braces her palms on the metal table. “Remi, not eating isn’t going to make you feel better. It’ll only make you feel worse.”

“I’m not punishing myself, Mamá. I just don’t have an appetite.” I slide extra firearms, loaded magazines, and boxes of ammunition into my hard case. “Not with everything that’s going on.”

She doesn’t respond, but simply steps behind me and wraps her arms around me.

My hands go still over the open case as she pulls me against her. I let myself lean into her embrace, close my eyes, and listen to the steady beat of her heart as her familiar scent surrounds me. If only for a few seconds, everything I’ve been trying so hard not to feel becomes easier to bear.

Her fingers move slowly through my hair, but she doesn’t tell me it’ll be okay, and I appreciate that more than she’ll ever know.

Thiago’s betrayal feels so much like grief that my heart doesn’t seem to know the difference. It comes in waves I can’t predict. One moment, I convince myself I can keep moving, and if I stay busy, I won’t have to think about him. Then something as small as hearing his name or catching myself reaching for my phone brings it all rushing back.

I hate that I miss him, and I hate even more that I still love him.

Most of all, I fucking hate that part of me still wishes I could wake up to find that none of it was real, that he’d be standing in my garage with that smug smile that drives me crazy, teasing me for working through the night as if I’d never learned the truth.

But I did.

And no matter how badly I want him back, I can’t undo any of it.

“Everything your Aunt Leni said back there is true, mi amor.”

“I told him about our family. I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

“You loved him. You wanted to be honest, and you wanted him to accept every part of you.” She brushes a tear from my cheek. “I understand that more than you know.”

I pull away and shake my head. “But now look at us. We have to leave everything behind. It isn’t fair, especially for Zara. She’s so little, and now she has to leave her friends, her dance classes...”

“None of that matters as much as keeping her safe. As long as we’re all alive, we can figure out the rest.”

I nod, but it doesn’t ease the guilt I’m carrying. “I have to coordinate transport for Hannibal and Clarice. I’ll meet everyone back here tonight.”

“Derek and your father are going with you.”