Page 144 of Alessio

“Has anyone tried to get in contact with you to speak with me?” she asked.

Andino passed her a glance. “I don’t understand.”

“From Toronto, I mean.” Ginevra didn’t want to out her relationship with Corrado and Alessio because that wasn’t anyone’s business, but she still had to ask. “Corrado, maybe, because he watched after me. Or … Alessio?”

It took Andino a second.

Then, two.

He gave her a curious glance when he said, “I heard rumors about those two, but I didn’t know if they’re accurate. People say they’re together, but they share women, too. How true is that?”

Nope.

She wouldn’t do that.

Not with this man.

“Has anyone tried to contact me?”

Andino shook his head. “Anyone in Toronto has been quiet since you left. That’s all I can tell you.”

Why did that sound like a door closing? Like an end—an answer she didn’t want, but one she now had. What should she do with it?

It was almost strange how when Corrado needed something to relax him, or pull him out of the hell that was his mind, he often found himself back at a place that rarely allowed him those things in the past. The League, that was.

There was little about the complex that allowed Corrado happy memories. In fact, his training had been some of the worst months of his life. Demanding, intense, and often mind-breaking. Although, that had been the point. They had to break all the pieces of him to put him back together better.

Maybe that was why, now, his mind didn’t work the same way. He didn’t find normal things relaxing—not the shit other people liked to use to chill them out, anyway. Now, he needed the familiarity of a space that had humbled him in more ways than one, and gave him something he hadn’t known was possible in Alessio.

Love, that was.

Even if love wasn’t here now.

Corrado spent a few days at his family’s lodge in Quebec, hiding away from the world, focusing his attention on taking care of himself, and doing what he needed. He didn’t have a phone to answer, and he didn’t use the landline at the lodge to call out except once to let his father know where he was, if needed. He hadn’t stayed on the call long enough for his father to ask questions, and he informed no one else about his whereabouts, either.

Should anyone at The League need him, Dare could use Corrado’s tracker. His brothers had their own life and business to handle, so they didn’t need to worry about Corrado.

Alessio left—the fucking job.

Ginevra …

Well, she made her choice.

Didn’t she?

Corrado was letting her make it.

Simple as that.

Except it wasn’t that simple.

The one thing he never experienced with Alessio in all their years together was heartbreak. Not because there hadn’t been opportunity or things that came up between them that might separate them. They always chose each other first, and everything else second.

Usually.

For the first time, Corrado learned about having his heart broken by someone he loved, and he realized that, no, he did not react well to it. In fact, he took it so badly that he wanted to hide away from the world.

That was the problem, though.