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I’ve been dragging my heels with this case, focusing on sex more than my job. It’s so unlike me, because my career is everything. But in this particular instance, career success means losing Owen. The better I do my job, the faster he’ll leave.
I want to explore this thing between us—this insatiable, burning chemistry that makes my body glow. That makes my heart glow. I want to know if it will burn itself out, or if there’s something special and lasting underneath the attraction.
The taps twist silently beneath my fingertips, shutting the water off without the squeak I’m used to back home. I step out of the shower and drape myself in one of the many fluffy white towels that fill the linen cupboard, using the long ends to get the excess water out of my hair.
In the mirror, my face is pink and happy. There’s a crinkle to the corner of my eyes that isn’t usually there when I’m working an important case. That’s his influence—he lightens me, grounds me.
The sound of a door slamming on the other side of the apartment fills me with trepidation. I hear the keys hitting the glass bowl and then footsteps.
“Owen?” I don’t bother to dress right away, instead wrapping myself up and heading into the living room, damp hair trailing a few scant water droplets over my shoulders and chest. “Where did you go?”
He turns when I come up behind him, his blue eyes a little wild. It takes a good ten seconds for him to drink me in, but the warmth we shared earlier is gone. There’s a hardness to his handsome features now, a remoteness. This is Owen’s MO: at the first signs of connection, retreat.
“I paid our friend Matt a visit.” He digs his hand into his pocket and pulls out a small velvet box. Inside are the earrings I’d seen on Celina the night at the gallery. “He didn’t know about the connection to the Romanos, though. He won these in a high-stakes poker game.”
“Not entirely surprising.” I peer at the earrings, dazzled momentarily. “Where there’s organised crime, there’s gambling.”
“Right.” Owen closes the velvet box. “Something has been bothering me since the alley. But I couldn’t put my finger on it until I spoke with Matt. He mentioned the name Serge.”
Oh shit. “You think it’s...”
“Sergio Benedetti? Yeah. We haven’t heard anything about him since he was a kid, so that’s why I didn’t recognise him. But he looks a hell of a lot like his dad, now that I think of it.”
The Benedettis were deeply embroiled in a crime gang responsible for some of the worst drug trafficking Melbourne had ever seen in the ’90s. Mostly amphetamines, but they also had a hand in protection rackets, illegal gambling and prostitution. Eventually Sergio’s father was murdered by a rival when he was only five years old. The Benedetti crime family folded and Sergio was sent overseas to live with relatives in Italy.
I shake my head. “Maybe he’s back trying to climb the ranks with the Romanos. That’s how his father started out—joining an existing family and then getting powerful enough to branch out on his own.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Owen said.
“We’ll get that info to Max and see if we can confirm it’s him.”
“And then we try to draw him out.”
“Do you think Sergio has been dipping into the merchandise?” I worry my bottom lip between my teeth. “Maybe he’s skimming off the robberies to fund a gambling habit.”
“Quite possibly.”
“We have to get ourselves an invite to the next poker game.” I’m excited by this new lead, and intuition tingles in my blood. We’re on to something.
“Ihave to get an invite to the game,” Owen says, stuffing the box back into his jacket.
“Excuse me?” I narrow my eyes at him. “Since when is thisyourassignment? I won’t be left out.”
Owen rakes a hand through his hair and exhales through his teeth. Something’s wrong—I can feel it in my bones. When he left our bed, he was loose and relaxed. Now he walks like a tiger who’s been caged, with agitation rippling through his muscles and a slight hunch to his shoulders.
“It’ll be dangerous, Hannah.”
The way he says my name is like a knife straight into my heart. It’s tender and terrified, and not at all how I want it to sound. “This whole job is dangerous, which is why we have procedures. Ididlisten during my academy training.”
“I know, I know.” He walks to the big windows that overlook South Melbourne. It’s a clear, cloudless evening. The sky is purple-tinged and the last streaks of sunset paint the horizon in coral and gold.
“What’s wrong?” I go to him. I want to draw him close to me, but I’m confused—wanting what I shouldn’t and in far too deep to avoid getting hurt. “If this is about before, I promise next time I’ll communicate better. I saw the opportunity, but I should have told you what I was doing.”
“It’s not that. You made the right move.”
“Then what? Is this because we’ve had sex?” I shake my head. “I know you’ve got this impenetrable wall about you, and I understand why. But us having sex has nothing to do with our job, and it certainly doesn’t affect my ability to be a good detective.”
“The condom broke.”
