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With his hands. Hands that only hours ago played me like a fiddle. Strumming me until—
The land is prime Florida property.
Yep. It’s perfect.
Unlike how I feel right now.
Like I was left at the edge of a mountain, I’ll never be able to get off . . . pun intended.
With a shake of my head, I try to make myself remember why I’m here. For Tobias to buy this property.
It would be a great investment piece.
It’s on the water. Right now, the location is a teardown in Brickell, but the surrounding buildings are perfect. Beautiful high-rises.
While we walk outside, I can’t help but stop and admire the view. The Atlantic Ocean stretches into the horizon. Taking a deep inhale, I allow the salty air to calm my sexual frustration. A dip in the Atlantic might help. Doubtful though. Not unless it were thirty-three degrees and I’m doing a polar bear plunge.
“It’s beautiful,” Tobias says as he comes up behind me.
He’s standing close. Close enough that I can smell the faint smell of his cologne. It’s woodsy and fresh, and a complete contrast to the ocean air competing for my attention.
My heart starts to beat rapidly. I don’t want to look at him. I don’t want him to see the lust in my eyes.
“Yeah,” I whisper, turning my head to look at him because as much as I will myself to not, I can’t stop it.
He wins.
I regret the movement immediately.
He looks at me as if he’s always known me, and I feel unnerved.
“I grew up here.”
“Here?”
He gestures around us. “On the property, actually. In this very structure.”
“So, this is personal?”
He nods. “It’s very personal. This is where I learned everything. Where I became the man you see before you now.”
“Tell me your story,” I hear myself say. “Please.”
“Where did I leave off?” He lifts his hand and runs it through his hair, tugging lightly on the unruly strands that have grown wild due to the wind billowing off the ocean.
“It was going to be the best day of my life.” Tobias’s voice is calm as he says this, his gaze steady. “Yet as so many tragic stories go, it ended up being the worst.”
This time it’s me who steps closer. There is an invisible magnet connecting us, and I can’t pull away.
“This is the building where I learned about the business. Where I met with the cartel. Here, I learned the way to separate distributors from suppliers. For years, our businesses weren’t run that way, but then it changed.”
“Why?”
“Well, that’s a different story. That’s the story of how the man who raised me died, but you didn’t ask for that one. We were talking about my worst day.”
My heart beats frantically in my chest. How can anything be worse than that? But I don’t even need to know the answer to know anything is possible.
Evil exists. I have seen it. Lived it. The horror I lived through . . . well, I would never wish that on anyone. It feels as if my stomach is being ripped apart as I remember my own worst day. My hand reaches out to rub my wrist. To rub the tattoo. And then I remember the boy. The boy . . . who died. I shake my head and drop my hand, pushing the image of the paper airplane away.
“Please.”
“Okay.”
“I think I mentioned it was my birthday; I didn’t celebrate it. Often, we moved around, trying to expand the business. I didn’t have friends, so why have a party. This year would be the same. My father, however, had other plans.”
He had mentioned before that it was just his father and him, but where was his mother? I’m not sure if it’s my place to ask, but I do anyway.
“Where was your mom?”
“She died in childbirth.”
A part of my heart broke. He lost his mother and his father. He is an orphan. Like me.
“That day, my father woke me, and it was so different. That day, he wanted to celebrate me. I always thought that since my mother died on my birthday . . .”
Tears form in my eyes, and I feel myself hyperventilating. I’m choking from the emotions clogging my soul. It’s as if I’m being ripped apart. The pain I see in his eyes is, I’m sure, in mine as well.
“Tobias, I—”
“It’s time. They’re here.” Gideon’s voice rings out through the open air.
I have so much to say. So much to tell him. There are words stuck on my tongue, and I can’t say them now, not in front of Gideon.
I feel devastated because I want to know his story, and I want to tell him mine. There is something about Tobias. He’s familiar to me. He is me. My pain knows his pain.
“We’ll continue this later,” he says, and I nod, but I know we will.
