AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Domani scowls at the reminder. Since getting married, he has even less tolerance for men like Esposito.
My phone vibrates against my thigh. The sound rips through the stillness, jarring in its urgency. Everyone knows we're here dealing with this. They wouldn't call. Too risky.
Karina.
Cristo. She shouldn't be calling now, not when I'm covered in death. But I don't even have to see the caller ID to know it's her.
I've avoided her for the last three days, trying desperately to do the right thing. At least, that's what I tell myself when I'm standing across from her house, watching her. When I'm following her around town, stalking her. When I'm everywhere she is, unseen. She deserves better…and yet, I can't seem to stay away.
She's haunted my mind endlessly since I put her in the cab and watched her drive away. It has nothing to do with her father, either. I don't give a fuck that she's Alessepo's kid. It's her—her smile, her laughter, those gray eyes, that fierce courage.
"Karina?" I answer the call, my voice steady despite the adrenaline still coursing through me.
"C-Coda," she gasps my name, her voice shaking.
My hackles rise, fear for her shooting through me.
"Karina, what's wrong? Talk to me." I holster the gun without bothering to wipe it down, my senses prickling with a new kind of danger—one threatening someone I never meant to care for. And yet, I care for her far more than I've ever cared for anyone.
Domani eyes me, one brow lifted.
I shake my head, silently telling him not to even ask.
That's all he needs to know this doesn't involve him. Domani and I have worked side by side for fifteen years. Until him, I didn't have friends. I didn't need them, didn't want them, didn't give a shit about making them. The motherfucker wore me down.
I'd kill for him, no questions asked, and he'd do the same for me. But Karina is my business, and I'm not ready to talk about her to anyone.
"My father… I-I think he…" she stammers, stumbling all over her words as she tries to explain. Eventually, she gives up with a whimper. "I'm scared, Coda. I don't know what to do."
She's afraid. The same fiery little angel who put her hand in mine and followed me from that ballroom. The same brave little goddess who stood before me and stripped bare.
Hell no.
"Where are you?" My voice is granite-hard, a reflection of the cold anger settling deep within me. That motherfucker has her tangled in something dark enough to have her running to me. It's unacceptable.
"Northwestern," she whispers. "I-I didn't know where else to go so I ca-came back to campus."
"Stay there. I'm coming." I disconnect, all thoughts of cleanup and alibis pushed aside. Karina needs me, and that eclipses everything else.
The jaded, cynical motherfucker who has spent far too much time mired in darkness knows it could be a trap—an invitation to a bullet with my name on it. But it doesn't matter. In a matter of days, she's become the light in a world that I've let grow too dark. I'll be damned if I let that light go out. Not on my watch. Not ever.
"I have to go."
"I heard," Domani says. "You good?"
"I will be."
"You need backup?"
"No."
"Who's Karina?"
"My business."
He chuckles softly. "One of these fucking days, Coda…"
"Maybe, but not today." I pause, glancing back at him. "You good to clean this shit up and dump him?"
