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She picks up a romance book and puts it down almost aggressively when she sees me looking. She aims her sideways grimace at me like a challenge.
I shrug. “Maybe this time it’ll be different.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“No.”
“Then why say it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I want to believe it.”
I grab a couple of books, then head for the checkout. I stop, a jolt moving through me when I look out the bookstore window and across the street. A woman sits at the window, holding a baby in her arms as she talks to somebody in the chair opposite.
“What’s up?” Lexi asks.
“That’s Scarlet Smith. From high school.”
“An old friend?” Lexi asks. “I don’t remember her.”
“Uh, sort of.” A memory hammers me, making me feel cruel and pathetic. “Not really. I didn’t have many friends in high school.”
“Do you want to say hello?”
“No,” I say quickly.
I’m glad she seems to be doing well for herself. She looks like a glowing, happy new mother. As I pay, the guilt expands in my gut, acid and hateful. It reminds me of how cowardly I once was. It reminds me that I could’ve done the right thing, but I chose not to out of fear, a pathetic need to be accepted, or some other low, miserable thing I don’t want to think about.
“Smile, sis,” Lexi says after we leave the store. “I’m supposed to be the depressing one, remember?”
CHAPTER 10
Luca
“Pick up the pace some?” I ask Colt in between rounds. It’s been a few days since I last texted Ruby. I’m doing my best to forget her and pretend she hasn’t changed me, which means I’ve been at the martial arts gym every day. My buddy Colt and I have been beating the hell out of each other.
Colt looks at me impassively from the other side of the ring. He’s tall, even taller than Elio, with silver hair cut short, maybe a holdover from his military days. He’s forty-five, but his age doesn’t seem to matter in the ring. He’s not breathing heavily as he hops from foot to foot. “Sure.”
From the edge of the ring, his Belgian Malinois, Shadow, sits and watches as calmly as his owner. Shadow is jet-black with eyes that seem to gleam with human understanding.
The buzzer sounds, and we go in on each other, grunting and growling as we exchange punches. It’s a good round. He hits me clean a few times, and I do the same, though you’d never know it from his ice-cold demeanor. It’s only toward the end when he throws a savage right hook that would take my head off if I didn’t slip it. It’s then that I see a glimpse of something truly dark in him, like a rage buried deep, threatening to erupt.
When we’re done, we climb out of the ring, toweling off as we sit and drink water. Shadow stalks around the edge of the room, sniffing, then walks over to us and sits upright, alert, ready.
One thing I like about Colt is that he never feels the need to talk. He’s happy to sit here silently. Maybe not happy but content as long as I ignore the pain and fire that seems to hide behind his impassive eyes.
“I might have a job for you,” I tell him.
“Yeah?”
“Simple enough. Need you to follow somebody and let me know if he does anything he’s not supposed to.”
Colt has never been specific about his military background. The most he’s ever told me is, “I hurt people who hurt people.” I get the sense he was in the Special Forces, but I’m unsure.
“It’ll be good money.”
“I don’t need money,” Colt says. “I need a reason.”
Another thing Colt has never explained is how he can live in an upscale penthouse on a military pension. I’ve never pressed him on it. That’s not the sort of friendship we have. We exchange fists, kicks, and submissions, not feelings.
“He’s a scumbag,” I say.
“Plenty of scumbags in the world. What did this one do to you?”
“Disrespected somebody I…” I pause, then say it. Screw it. It’s not like Colt will repeat it or hold it against me. “I care about.”
“Your brother?”
“No, a woman.”
Colt narrows his eyes at me. I think I almost see him smile for a second, but if he does, it vanishes as quickly as it appears. “I seem to remember a certain Italian telling me his days of partying were behind him.”
“This isn’t the same,” I growl, with much more passion than I intended. “I never cared about a woman before Ruby.”
Colt holds his hands up. “Fair enough, Luca. So what did this scumbag do to her?”
I explain about the photo.
“I’m surprised you let him live,” Colt snarls.
“We can’t always go down that path,” I say, but a prick of shame touches me.
“I’m nobody to judge,” Colt goes on. “I’ve never had a lady I care about. I’ve never had a lady, full stop.”
