“I was thinking turtles.”
“All right, get the fuck out of here,” I half-yell at them, and they obediently skitter out of the room.
I’m still shaking my head as I lock up for the night. Simon is at the front desk as I leave. He offers me his usual nod of acknowledgment as I pass. His eyes are ever-assessing. I have no idea what he is thinking most of the time. Somehow, I find that comforting.
I know how I look. I know how much coffee he’s brought me today to compensate for the lack of sleep that’s so clearly etched itself on my face. I blame it on the new house, the new environment. The emptiness of it. The lack of…
The thought of going back suddenly stops seeming so appealing. For a long moment, I debate turning around and spending the rest of my evening lost on the casino floor.
It feels a lot more welcoming than returning to the brownstone alone.
But all this business with Amos Rubio…united efforts… Brooklyn bright and early in the morning, another sleepless night…I may well ruin whatever tentative progress we’ve already made if I can’t even think clearly.
Begrudgingly, I step out into the night and head home.
It’s with an odd sense of deja-vu that I ascend the front steps of the brownstone and walk inside. It’s just another night, another empty house with nothing but Caravaggio for company.
I shouldn’t feel alert. Shouldn’t expect anything out of the ordinary. There’s nothingdifferentper se; it's just a feeling ofsomething.
The house doesn’t feel lonely. It feels like a home.
When I find Mia pacing the lounge, it’s not unexpected.
Her hair is curled up into a bun. A few tendrils have fallen down to frame her face, perfectly out of place. She’s so devastatingly pretty.
She freezes as I lean against the doorframe and cross my arms. I am absolutely not drinking her in like a man parched due to her lack of attention. “I never asked the other day, but how do you keep getting in here?”
This is apparently not what she expected me to say, as her mouth opens in a perfect little “O” shape.
“Would you believe me if I told you I stole the key from under the mat?”
“No, not really.”
She doesn’t elaborate any further. Not that I really expected her to.
“Can I get you a drink? Whiskey?” I ask instead, keeping my tone as neutral as possible.
“No.”
Unyielding, frustrating woman.
With a sigh, I take a step further inside. She takes a measured step back away from me. Deliberate, overly cautious, like she’s learned something from last time.
“This was a mistake,” she says warily. “I should have gone to Teo.”
A pang of unrestrained jealousy hits me out of nowhere, and I try desperately to rein it back in, focusing instead on the woman before me.
Mia looks concerned. Concerned enough to come back here, even after putting very clear boundaries between us last time.
She also looks, quite unfairly, beautiful. There’s something about the night that suits her so perfectly. I think it’s the darkness of her clothes and the way they complement her skin tone. She’s a creature of secrets and shadows, whispers under bed sheets, the knife that you never expect until it’s lodged in your heart.
I mentally chastise myself for getting so distracted. “Why would you go to Teo?”
“You going to pull the ‘you don’t belong to the Guild anymore’ card on me?” she retorts.
“Do I have to?”
She considers me for a moment before dropping down on the couch. “I have a lead on Amos Rubio.”
