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I’d just pulled into the top of the Costas driveway, behind Leo and Ella, and cut the bike’s engine when I spotted Greta’s shiny red BMW turn into the drive.
“Go ahead.” I motioned for Ella and Leo to go inside while I waited for her to park and get out of her car.
When she did, the sight of her in her perfectly fitted blue jeans and low-cut blouse made my cock jerk. The girl had a dynamite body. But what struck me even more was I wasn’t seeing the same young and crazy thrill-seeker anymore. Or maybe I was, but I’d seen beneath the surface now. There was more to her. A lot more.
“Hey, Brute,” she said, smiling in that way people smiled when there was a secret between them. Intimate. Sexy.
“Hey there, darling,” I said, pulling her to me while that sweet scent of hers wrapped around me and made me hungry for more than food.
“You’re thinking about it, though, aren’t you? Making this one permanent?”Mike had said. And he was right.
I could tell myself I was fucking her out of my system all I wanted. The truth was, the more time I spent with her—fucking her or otherwise—the moreintomy system she got.
Maybe it was time to act my age, pull my head out of my ass, and accept the girl was mine, that she’d been mine from the day I’d first laid eyes on her, young and radiating that crazy energy that might just be the most addictive substance on earth.
“Do you know what Leo and Ella are doing here?” she asked as she leaned up on her toes, pressing her full tits against me.
“Yeah, I do,” I sighed.
Because mine or not, there’d be time enough to let her know what I’d figured out later. Right now, I had a feeling Greta was about to have a very bad day.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Greta
“What?” I cried, or maybe I whispered. Or maybe I didn’t say anything aloud. I don’t know.
All this time, and we hadn’t even been chasing after the right man?
I sat down in one of the wingback chairs opposite the desk in Nico Costa’s home office. Ella was already seated in the other one, with Nico behind the desk, and Brute, Gabe, and Leo standing around it. No Deo, though; he had Luciano business to tend to.
“Sorry, Greta,” Ella said from beside me.
I reached over and patted her hand in her lap, then squeezed it. “It’s not your fault,amica.You didn’t have to tell us anything, but you did. I appreciate it.”
She nodded and squeezed my hand back.
I took a deep breath, trying to collect my shit.
“So, let me get this straight,” I said, feeling a bit like I was teetering at the end of a diving board, ready to dive into an Olympic-size pool of crazy. “We’ve been looking for his victims in the wrong city; we have nothing but a picture of a stone tunnel to try to locate them; and we don’t even know what the hell the son of a bitch looks like?”
Gabe nodded. “I think that pretty much sums it up.”
“Well, good,” I said weakly. “As long as we’re all on the same page.”
This was usually about the time when I’d call a time-out. I’d leave the room, pick up some stranger at a bar, and fuck his brains out until my head was clear again. But since I had no interest in fucking “some stranger”s’ brains out—nope, I wasn’t even going to contemplate why—that left me with limited options.
“That’s it; I need a drink,” I said, shooting to my feet.
I left the office, but just as I reached the foyer, the sound of quiet footsteps coming down the stairs drew my gaze upward.
It was Nic, gripping the railing tight with one hand while he rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the other. Bob the skunk was peeking down the steps from the upper landing. To the best of my knowledge, the skunk hadn’t ventured down the stairs once since he, Cait, and Nic moved in here a short time ago. I wasn’t sure if he was a timid animal or was just rather cozy with his upstairs living arrangements.
Halfway down the stairs, Nic noticed me, and he smiled brightly, though his hand continued to rub at his tired eyes.
“What’s up,ometto?” I asked, tucking away the frustration of a moment prior.
