Page 62 of Pink

“Them. Their business. Whatever Jensen Todrey thinks he might be able to get from you. It’s all bad news. Without details, he could cause you a lot of problems. Word to the wise—keep away from him, and anything he wants you to do, as much as you can.”

She cleared her throat, shifting from foot to foot and hugging the bomber jacket she’d thrown over a short, flowy dress tighter to her form. “I don’t think my agency would put me in any danger, Lev.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

He wasn’t going to give her all the information he learned today. Not because he couldn’t … but because he wasn’t sure that it was safe to do. Hopefully, if she stayed away from Jensen, then that would be that.

Right?

The buzzing of a phone in Lev’s pocket reminded him that he still had a boss to report back to and soon. Probably tomorrow because he needed to grab his daughter after daycare, too, and he was running out of time to beat the worst of traffic if he lingered too long.

“I gotta run,” Lev told her, “but don’t trust them, Gigi. Please.”

He’d use the exit at the end of the hall to head out of the business and then just round the back and side of the building to where he left his Jeep parked with a meter running.

Before he had the chance to say goodbye, Gigi asked, “Could I see you again? I’m going to be in the city for a while, and if you have time I would love to catch up.”

He should have told her no.

She already had traffickers too close.

Did she really need a mob enforcer around, too?

Lev’s heart raced to speak before his brain could explain why it might be a bad idea—all because looking at her gave him a sense of nostalgia that he had never felt before. She looked at him differently than most people did; she saw a man she had known from a time before.

And that time came before he was this man.

Pink.

So yeah, he should have said no.

Instead, he said, “Yeah, there’s a bar I like where we could meet up in the next couple of days … it’s private, and you probably need that, right?”

Gigi laughed. “More than you know. I’ll still have to sneak there to not be noticed. I mean, if you don’t want your picture splashed on every social media gossip site basically within hours. Or you might get a day, if you’re lucky.”

Well …

At least she was honest.

He appreciated that.

• • •

“Well, I don’t know, John,” Andino said into the phone receiver pressed between his ear and his shoulder. With his feet propped across the edge of the desk, shoes hooked at the ankles, the man varied his attention between his call and the ruddy-colored dog at his side letting him play with the tips of his ears. “Well, I’m saying because if you think someone’s skimming off the top of it, we’ll have to get on it now—you hear what I’m saying?”

Feeling comfortable enough to think he could afford to be distracted considering his boss’s current conversation with his cousin, another major figure in the New York criminal underworld, Lev went a little deeper into his thoughts. Straight back to the other afternoon when it felt like he walked right into his fucking past.

He had needed to switch off after doing his job for Andino and having his moment with Gigi. Arely was waiting for him to pick her up from daycare with the small scoop of strawberry gelato from the little place down the street like he promised. He went from mob boss’s most trusted man to a little girl’s daddy in the span of ten goddamn blocks.

Because he was a dad now. Somebody’s father. Somehow, he was going to have to explain that to Gigi.

And even though he had done what he always did for his little girl the day before, that didn’t mean his night was made any easier. Stuck between memories of a few days in his past and the concerns about the present, he bounced back and forth from irritation to infatuation all in one fucking blow.

He wasn’t any better today.

“And what do you have for me, huh?” Andino asked, his voice an echo in the back of Lev’s racing thoughts.

He didn’t answer back, thinking the man was still talking to his cousin. John was decent—another man he occasionally worked for under Andino’s discretion or demand. He just didn’t care to entertain their business when he had his own to consider.