Page 94 of Alessio

Alessio scrubbed a hand down his face and turned to stare out the window. Then, Corrado wouldn’t be able to see the displeasure on his face if he was still watching Alessio on the phone. “It’s nothing—me voicing my thoughts out loud.”

“Right,” Cree murmured, “but I think it’s more.”

“And we’re still not discussing my personal business. That hasn’t changed.”

“Les, I get I crossed a line.”

“So?”

“Cut the shit.”

Alessio pulled in a lungful of air, wishing it helped to settle his nerves, but it didn’t. Nothing helped with it anymore, it seemed. Not unless he was in bed with Corrado or Ginevra, because then, he only had to think about one thing, and none of this shit factored into that at all.

Another reason to be here.

“I want to take fewer jobs,” Alessio said.

Cree made a soft noise. “Oh?”

“I used work and keeping busy as a way to run from my issues, and I don’t want to do it anymore. So, I understand what I need to do to fix that.”

“Take fewer jobs, stay home more.”

“Exactly.”

Something shuffled on the other end of the call before Cree replied, “There’s no reason you can’t do that, Les. And you always did well training the new prospects with the occasional job thrown in with the team. If you want to go back to that, you can.”

“But not right now.”

“No,” Cree agreed, “you have to do the Albania job. Within seven days, you need to be on a plane to contact the client within the proper time frame we previously agreed upon. I will send his details over, and you’ll have everything you need once you land in the country.”

“Great.”

Except it wasn’t great.

Not at all.

“Within seven days,” Cree repeated, “call me to confirm you’re on the way, all right?”

“Yeah, sure. A week, I got it.”

Without a goodbye, Alessio hung up the phone. Cree wouldn’t give a damn, really. He’d only slid the phone back into his pocket when Corrado saddled up to his side, arms folded over his broad chest. He spoke to Alessio as he continued watching Ginevra.

“A week for what?”

Alessio’s jaw clicked from how he clenched his teeth. “The Albania job—we were going to do it together, remember?”

“I backed out because of the favor for Andino, yeah.”

“Well, guess who doesn’t get to back out?”

Corrado stiffened beside him, but replied, “It’s a job—what, a couple weeks at the most? You’ll be back soon.”

“Some things are more important than The League.”

“Yeah.”

“And stop glaring,” Alessio added.