Page 94 of No Greater Oblivion

“Hold on.” I practically trip over my own feet as I rush to stand. “Are you going out?”

She grabs a water bottle and closes the fridge. “Yes.”

“I can drive⁠—”

“No.”

“Take Beni⁠—”

She spins on her heels and exits without so much as a glance in my direction. Diego crosses paths with her on the way in and whistles.

“I just felt a chill.” He smirks at me.

I cut him a look before returning to my call. “Where are you now?”

“About to dump this phone down a well.”

“Fine. Call if anything changes.”

The call ends and I leave my phone on the counter. There’s so much to do today but I’m torn between heading upstairs to my office and running after Dahlia. She’s been giving me the silent treatment since Saturday and the ride home from the villa yesterday evening was painful to say the least.

“Trouble in paradise?” Diego asks.

I almost go. She couldn’t have left yet; she wasn’t wearing any shoes and probably left them by the apartment door upstairs. There’s time to find her and follow her, even if she’s angry, even if she doesn’t want to speak to me.

But I can’t. No matter how much I want to. With the news Ferrer just gave me I have less than an hour to come up with a plan and set it in motion. This shipment from Galicia is too important. An opportunity like this may not come around again.

“She’ll get over it…eventually,” I tell my brother. “When all of this is over with Sandro, I’ll make it up to her.”

“I hope you do.” He grabs two water bottles from the fridge and says, “Because if she ever decides to leave your sorry ass, I won’t hesitate in driving her to the airport myself.”

I glare in his direction. “Thank you for the support.”

“You’re welcome.” He leaves one of the water bottles on the counter in front of me and takes a sip from his own. “Was that Ferrer on the phone? What’s going on?”

“Sandro’s getting a shipment from Galicia; twenty-five million euros worth of product.”

Diego lifts a brow. “I imagine this is an eleventh-hour attempt on his part to stay afloat.”

“It is.”

“What are you going to do? Tip off the SVA?”

“Better. He has plenty of adversaries in the north.”

My brother nods. “What are we waiting for then? Let’s bury the son of a bitch.”

Dahlia

“What I’m about to tell you is a secret.”

“Uw.” She glances at her menu. “I love secrets.”

When the waiter arrives to pour us each a drink, I gently touch her wrist. “Leave the bottle.”

This catches Lyss’s attention and she lowers her menu. I pour us each a glass of cava up to the rim—not like it’ll do much in terms of taking the edge off but Lyss is a notorious lightweight who can’t handle more than a few glasses of wine at a time.

The afternoon is too beautiful to be spent inside so I chose one of my favorite Mediterranean restaurants for lunch. Seated in the arcade space of Plaça Reial, we’re surrounded by city natives and tourists alike, all enjoying the pleasant weather. A pair of children put little boats in the water fountain while a group of teens toss light up toys into the air—the kind shaped like frisbees with colorful fringes.