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“Yeah, that’s probably best before we are at each other’s throats.” Dom left without another word.
“Christ,” I said once it was just Wilder and myself. I moved out of my twin’s hold and paced for a few seconds. My thoughts were right back on Nadja now that the aggression and testosterone faded.
Wilder was smart. He kept his mouth shut about this. But I knew it wouldn’t last.
I didn’t know how many minutes passed, but I knew Wilder was mulling over the shit he wanted to say. He wanted to make sure he didn’t fuck this up and say the wrong thing. I knew him better than he knew himself and vice versa. Maybe it was a twin thing. Maybe it was because we were one and the same.
Either way, this needed to get out in the open or it would just fester between us.
“Just say it, Wilder. Say what you want to say.”
Wilder was silent for so long I didn’t think he’d say anything. He leaned against the kitchen island across from me, crossed his arms over his chest, and then just stared.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he finally asked, but there was no malice or judgment in his tone. He sounded genuinely confused and interested.
I exhaled and lifted a hand to scrub it over my jaw. The several days’ worth of scruff moved along my palm, the sound loud in the kitchen as the silence descended on us.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
He gave me a slight nod as if he knew I really had no idea what the hell I was doing.
“But you’re not gonna let this go?”
I shook my head slowly. “I can’t.” And I honest to God couldn’t. I had to find out who that woman was. I had to figure out if I was losing my damn mind, or if the love of my life was finally back.
And if it was the latter… I was going to make her mine again, even if it killed me.
14
Frankie
Three days later
I’d been sitting in this car, staring at that fucking rundown laundromat off and on for the last three days.
For seventy-two hours, I’d been anxious, obsessed, chomping at the bit to see the mystery woman again.
And I hadn’t. Not one shred of evidence that she even existed.
Fuck, am I losing my damn mind?
I took my baseball cap off and scrubbed a hand over my head. I was tired, so damn tired I felt it deep in my bones. But just thinking—hoping—that I wasn’t crazy and I’d actually seen Nadja gave me this renewed sense of energy.
The sun was starting to rise, and I turned the car on, knowing my brothers would wonder how long I’d do this.
However long it took. If it took an eternity with the possibility of seeing my girl again, I’d sit out here every fucking night and watch the sun rise.
I was never considered a rational man. But no one had ever been as determined as me, and when it concerned the woman I loved… all bets were off.
* * *
Nadja
I’d wanted to go to the laundromat again, but something felt off, felt different. But I’d pushed it off to paranoia, to the squealing tires of the van that had sped away just days prior.
So I left to go to the corner store, and that’s when I’d first noticed the dark SUV. It was out of place for this side of the city, and as I stared out the cracked and foggy glass of the apartment building’s front door, I noticed it sitting in the same spot across from the laundromat for three days.
The windows were tinted so dark I couldn’t see who the driver was. Fear was strong in me, wondering if I’d been right and that van speeding away the other night had in fact been the bratva, or if not the Russian mob, then maybe Maximillian had found me.
I didn’t know for sure, but what I knew with certainty was I had to find Frankie, to see if he was still at the same house… to see if he’d help me. And if he wasn’t there, if he had a family, a new life, and I was just a complication, then it was time for me to leave. It was time for me to run and hide, to get a new identity.
And that’s what I was going to do now. I had my clothes, the few items of food, and the two bottles of water I had left shoved in my bag.
My baseball cap was pulled low, and as I stood by the apartment building’s front door waiting for the cab to take me across town, I stared at the now empty spot where that SUV had been parked all night. I’d watched it leave just as the sun rose, and I knew that’s when I’d make my escape.
