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“I didn’t think you were afraid of anything,” I teased.
“Then you’re wrong.”
He didn’t offer more but his arms tightened around me.
“Are you afraid of Bailey? He’s dangerous, Dante. That’s why I don’t want you to go alone. I—”
“Fuck Bailey,” he growled. “I will never tell you the details of my work, Noemi. I can’t. But I’ve taken down men with more power and blacker hearts than George Bailey.”
Dante nuzzled his head against the top of mine. “I need you right now, Noemi. I need you to trust me and to believe in me. Bailey what I’m afraid of.”
“Then who?”
He tipped my chin up and pulled me up into a hard kiss that didn’t last long enough but left me breathless when he raised his head.
“I told you this morning.Youterrify me. This is the first time I’ve gone on a job and thought twice about it. You’ve made me think about who I am and what I want from this world. No, you won’t change my mind, baby girl, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish things were different. Come here for a minute.”
He tugged my hand and pulled me to the overstuffed black suede sofa. He sat first then pulled me onto his lap. He played with the ends of my hair while I waited patiently for him to speak.
“You know I can’t give you details. What I’m about to do is rare, even for me. There’s no contract to uphold. There’s no exchange of money. I’m not being solicited by a third party.”
He ran his hand up my neck and cupped the back of my head. “This isn’t an assassination - it’s murder.”
I gasped at his bluntness; the hair on my skin stood on end. He was always direct, but this time, it came with a sense of foreboding that set my body on edge.
“I don’t want to scare you more, but you need to know that the aftermath of this could get ugly. Bailey’s a public figure and a high-profile government official. His death won’t go away as quietly as Rubinstein’s and McKenzie’s did.”
He was quiet and couldn’t look me in the eye.
“What are you trying to tell me?” I felt sick. This wasn’t the conversation I thought we’d be having, and it didn’t feel good.
He squeezed his eyes shut, then squared his shoulders as he opened them and stared into mine. “When this is over, Noemi, I need to lay low for a while. Until things blow over.”
I scrambled off his lap despite his attempts to keep me there. “What does that mean? Are you leaving?”
He didn’t stand up to follow me but steepled his fingers between his knees and stared at the oak floor. “Yes.”
I couldn’t believe what I heard. “You said you loved me.”
His head shot up quickly. “I do love you. Which is why I’m doing this.”
I shook my head. “No. If you loved me, you’d come back when you were done. Or you’d take me with you. But you wouldn’t leave me. People don’t leave people they love.”
But they did. I knew that. People left the ones they loved all the time.
My parents had.
Dante stood up and tried to reach for me, but I moved away from him. “You could take me with you. Or leave me here and come back. We could go away together.”
“We can’t, Noemi. I told you. This isn’t the same as my other jobs. It’s... trickier. There’s more work here than just... Fuck it. I can’t tell you. You’re going to have to trust me.”
“Trust you? I trusted you and now you’re walking away from me. Again! For how long? How long will it be before I can see you again?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Six months to a year? I doubt it would be any sooner.”
“A year? You want me to wait a year?”
His eyes narrowed as he glared at me. “This isn’t going to happen overnight,bambina. The planning alone could take months.”
