Page 229 of Don’t Say Mafia

“She closes the coffee shop. You’re parked across the street. She works the casino. You’re at the bar. She gets on the bus. You follow two cars back. She walks the last block. You wait until the light in her apartment turns on before you leave.”

He took another sip of my scotch. “Repeat.”

I exhaled slowly through my nose. “It’s creepy that you know all of that, by the way. But also, if I have to explain myself, I do all of that because she lives in a bad part of the city.”

“So do half the people we’ve dealt with,” he replied. “You don’t trail them home.”

I leaned back against the bar. “You want to get to the point?”

“The point,” Cruz said, rising and stepping closer, “is that this stopped being casual somewhere around day three.”

I didn’t bother denying it. “She’s married,” I said instead.

Cruz’s expression didn’t change. “I’m aware.”

“She’s exhausted. Overworked. She looks over her shoulder like she expects something to follow her home.”

“And you decided that something might as well be you.”

I met his gaze. “Someone should.”

“That’s never been your philosophy before.”

Silence stretched between us, and the city lights flickered behind him, reflected in the glass like a second skyline suspended in the dark.

“I’m going to get rid of her husband,” I said finally.

Cruz smiled like that was adorable instead of murdery. “Are you?” His voice held curiousity, not incredulity . . . which somewhat made up for my scotch. I liked when he was a supportive king.

“You already had Lawson look into him?” he asked, studying me over the rim of the glass.

“Of course,” I said. “He’s a dead end. No job. No ambition. He’s perpetually high, and all he does is drag her down. He’s using her.”

“Hmm,” Cruz mused as he walked to the window. “And what happens if you actually sit across from her one day and she isn’t what you’ve decided she is?”

I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He glanced back at me. “What happens if she’s nothing more than a good fuck?”

I growled like he’d insulted her, and he held up his hands innocently.

“I’m just saying . . . you’re making a lot of assumptions here. Maybe you should sleep with her first before you decide to go all Murder, She Wrote.”

“That the latest novel you’ve read, Cruz?” I asked, laughing as I pretended his words weren’t landing.

At first it had been my goal to fuck her and be done.

I’d told myself that what I was feeling was just appetite, the thrill of the chase. She was gorgeous and off-limits. Of course I wanted her.

It would have been really convenient if that’s how it had stayed.

Unfortunately for my criminal record, every time I talked to her, that shifted.

It wasn’t just her face. It was the steel under it. The way she held eye contact, like she refused to shrink. The way she absorbed insult and still stood upright. The way she worked double shifts and never let its toll be visible until she thought no one was looking.

It was the flash of temper she tried to swallow. The intelligence she downplayed. The quiet pride stitched through everything she did.

It was the way she challenged me.