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Rafael laughed, the sound so harsh that it made me jump. “What do you think, that we kidnapped her? That she’s here as a sex slave?”
I winced, the words way too close for comfort. And it didn’t go unnoticed by her either. “I’m just making sure that he didn’t hurt her, that’s all.” She could feel the darkness rippling off of Rafael, and for the first time, I saw parts of Romeo in him.
“You saw her. She’s fine. Now you can go.”
My shoulders stiffened at his words. He was right. She should go. I shouldn’t have been out here, not without Romeo.
“Fine.” She huffed out a breath. “But here, have this.” She handed a piece of paper toward me, but Rafael took it from her, reading what was on it. “It’s my number. If you ever need anything.” She backed away another step. “I’m only next door too.” She smiled, a sad kind of smile that told me she saw more than what met the eye. “Name’s Peyton, by the way.”
She was already across the driveway before my brain kicked in and I shouted back, “I’m Bailey.”
I smiled, wider than I had in a while. It felt like I’d just made a friend, something that I’d never been good at. And it felt…nice. Good.Normal.
Until Rafael demanded, “Get back inside now, Bailey. If Romeo comes home and sees you like this, then he’ll blow a damn gasket.”
He wasn’t wrong, so I backed up a step and into the house, keeping my gaze trained on Peyton as she opened the back door of her car and lifted a sleeping toddler out. I wondered if that would be me someday. I wondered if—
I shook my head. I couldn’t make plans like that because things in my life were never on a straight road. I had so many twists and turns that I had motion sickness. Right now, I needed to take one day at a time. One hour at a time. One problem at a time.
“Doyouwant to come in?” I suddenly asked Rafael. If he was shocked by my words, he didn’t show it. He’d stand out here all day, and if I was honest, it made me feel a little on edge knowing that I was inside the house and he was outside.
“Nah.” He lifted the corner of his lips at me, a quick smile that was gone within a second. “I’m good here, Bailey.”
“You can—”
His shaking head cut me off as he then told me, “Romeo wouldn’t like it.”
My stomach swirled at his words. They were the truth, and even though part of me didn’t like the control they implicated, I knew he was just trying to keep me safe.
I nodded, taking a step back, then closed the door, hearing the click of the lock as I pressed the special button that Romeo had showed me, and resolved to just live in the moment. To not take anything for granted. To get what I wanted and not apologize for any of it.
* * *
ROMEO
“How many times do I have to say the same shit to you?” Lorenzo asked, fuming as he paced the length of his office. “You should have fuckin’ messaged me as soon as he contacted you!”
I ran my hand through my hair, letting out a frustrated breath. I should have come straight here after leaving Gio, but fuck, I couldn’t. I needed to make sure Bailey was okay. I needed to…I needed to be with her. I needed to hold her against me. I needed to protect her from that fucker. I just fuckin’ neededher.Plain and simple.
So yeah, I knew I’d made yet another mistake by not coming to Lorenzo right away, but for Bailey, I’d make that mistake over and over again.
“I know,” I said, gripping my hair in my hands. “But I had no idea if he was watching my communications and—”
“He is,” Lorenzo said suddenly, freezing behind his desk. “Remy told me last night that he caught a bug in the system and it was coming from your cell.” His jaw tensed, his rage at the situation clear for me to see. He stared at me for several seconds, but he wasn’t really lookingatme, he was trying to figure out what to do next.
Yanking his cell out, he shot off a message, then told me, “Dante’s coming over. Let me figure this out. Don’t go leaving anytime soon. We have a shitstorm we have to wade through.”
I nodded, knowing better than to say anything else when he was in this kind of mood, and left the room, pacing the entryway. I stayed like that for ten minutes, hearing Lorenzo’s voice from his office but not quite making out what he was saying. Then all of a sudden Dante appeared, heading right for Lorenzo, not sparing me a single look. But it was the two people following him that finally had me feeling something other than angst and anger.
“Well, well, well, look who it is.” I smiled at Navy, beelining it for her and plucking Dario out of her arms. I held him to my chest, bouncing him up and down and grinning as his slobbery lips pulled up into a smile followed by that baby chuckle that everyone melted at.
“I feel like we haven’t seen you in months,” Navy said, wiping away some of the drool from Dario’s face. “Where have you been?”
She should have known better than to ask that, but as Dante’s girlfriend and mother of his child, as well as being an FBI agent’s daughter, she never knew whennotto ask questions. Navy and I had what you would call a unique relationship. She’d gone into labor in this very house and I’d been the one to deliver the baby I was holding in my arms.
“Around,” I told her, cooing down at Dario. It really had been a while, and damn if I didn’t miss him. “How’s my godson been doing?”
Navy puffed out a breath, planting her hands on her hips. It was only then that I actually looked at her. The dark circles under her eyes, her hair that was all over the place. She looked like she was run ragged. “He’s teething.”
