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Even if this had real wheels, this attraction between us, where the fuck could it possibly go?
“You don’t think that Happy’s is in neutral territory, do you?”
“It’s a front?” She sounds horrified, defeated, and a little defiant. “I never saw anything to think that.”
“It isn’t. Mia and Scarlett wouldn’t be somewhere like that, and I figure you’d be able to tell. Just like I’m pretty fucking sure you can tell Mia’s club isn’t a front. I quit for you”—overstepped—“because of where it is. And I really can’t be hanging there all the time.”
Now, I suck in a breath and drop my bomb.
“They know I’m an enforcer. It gives me certain leeway, but the operation whose territory your bar, your home, your photo studio’s on? They don’t like people like me hanging around.”
She shifts, and her gaze burns into me. “So, you what? Decided I’d quit?”
“Avah, on the backseat are some packages that were hand delivered this morning. There have also been calls made to Happy’s. Combine that with the fact your ex-manager’s phone weirdly showed up again last night, and well . . . even if the place were deep in neutral territory, you’d still have quit. The job’s too public for it to be safe.”
“So, you think it’s okay to be . . . be worse than my dad or his people and take over my life?”
I turn on the indicator and swing a right, heading out of town. “Yes.”
“I hate this.”
“I’m fucking aware. You tell me all the time, Avah.” I take a breath, gaze cutting to the rearview mirror. No cars following. “I went to see the Lowlanders. They do supply mainly. Their other stuff? I don’t know, but while the De Luca family might have connections with them, we aren’t in deep. There’s no bad blood, but they’re also the kind I can’t afford to step on. My boss wouldn’t like it.”
She’s deadly quiet. “Your boss? He doesn’t know, does he?”
“It’s complicated, but . . . no, Leo doesn’t, nor do the other two. They know I’m messing with things, but we’re going with plausible deniability. AndTesoro, that’s not important. What’s important is the fact you’re being stalked. Someone is after you, and I can’t figure out why.”
It’s not totally fucking true. I’ve got inklings. But if there’s something bad in the bones of the Lowlanders, they either don’t know or care.
“I staked my claim on you,” I say. “That’s what I was doing this morning.”
“You what?”
“You heard me. I’m an enforcer, I work for the De Luca family, and I’m on their territory with you. Figured I’d do the kill two birds. Let them know things were personal and not professional, and also to see what they knew.”
She doesn’t say a word, but she nods. “And?”
“Nothing.”
Then she sits up, the rip cord hiss of her seatbelt filling the air as she does so. “This isn’t the way to your place or mine.”
“No,” I say, “it’s not.”
“Where are we going?”
“My old family home.”
* * *
Avah looks around the simple house. I don’t even have to see her face to know what she’s thinking.
The basic place isn’t more than a cabin because that’s what I did to it. We’re not too far from Dallas, about twenty minutes, but this place, the piece of land, has been part of our little unit since my father came to the United States.
And Avah’s thinking I’m either lying or lost or somewhere in between.
I dump the overnight bag and lean against the simple kitchen bench.
“I thought you said you didn’t have a family.”
