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He nodded and didn’t wave me off when I hooked an arm beneath his and helped him to sit down, though he very much seemed to be operating under his own power.
All the while, though, I was having a hard time reconciling this man with a killer.
“You seem kind,” I said as I sat down next to him, but then an image of this man with his arm wrapped around the lunatic in the ER sprung to mind. There’d been a coldness in his eyes then. Strange, though, that it didn’t seem to be there now.
“You’re wondering why someone as delightful as me would do the kinds of things I do?” he asked. This time, the corners of his lips twitched with a suppressed smile.
I nodded. I’d come this far, hadn’t I?
“My family has been loyal to the Lucianos for a long time, and I assure you, the Lucianos earned that loyalty. It was not freely given.”
“What exactly is it you do for them?” I asked. Perhaps it was his job to keep people like Raven safe. That wasn’t so bad, was it?
“Unsavory things, Dr. Dawson,” he replied with a kind smile that contradicted his words.
Part of me wanted to inquire further; part of me very much did not. Fortunately, my break was just about over.
“I’m afraid I must be getting back,” I said, standing up, but then I paused, looking around for the car that had brought him here. It seemed to be nowhere in sight.
“Will you be all right?” I asked.
“I will,” he said, nodding without hesitation. “But I do appreciate your concern.”
A killer? This man?
I was just about to turn and leave when his lips began to move again.
“You’d be good for him, you know?” he said
I raised my eyebrows at him. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Certainly, it had nothing to do with the blond-haired, amber-eyed man who flashed through my mind.
“Amadeo. He needs a strong woman.”
I opened my mouth to tell him he was being absurd, that Amadeo was acriminal.A bloody murderer. But this man was just like him, and I was finding it difficult to despise him.
“Amadeo made his feelings perfectly clear,” I said instead. “Whatever it is he ‘needs’, it certainly isn’t me.”
“I do what I want, when I want, to whomever I want,” Amadeo had said. I was just what he’d wanted to “do” at the time. I wouldn’t regret it; I wouldn’t shame myself for it—it’s what I’d wanted as well. But nor would I let this man try to make it into anything more than it was. Just sex. A physical distraction.
“Goodbye, Mr. Carbone,” I said, putting an end to this conversation.
He smiled kindly at me. “Goodbyefor now, Dr. Dawson.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Amadeo
“What the hell are you doing here?” I whisper-shouted as Aurelio hobbled out of the back seat of the Mercedes and made his way over to where I stood by my Ferrari, half a mile from the entrance to GreenVale park.
“I’ve been in bed long enough,Signor,” he said, standing up straighter like that helped to prove his point.
“You should be resting,” I muttered, knowing no matter how much I persisted, the man wasn’t going to budge an inch. At times, I couldn’t help but wonder just which one of us was in charge here.
“There’ll be plenty of time to rest when I’m dead,Signor. And from what I understand, we’re here to watch, not to challenge our messenger to a mad dash across the park.”
He wasn’t wrong, but he’d also lived in this world long enough to know fate had a way of fucking with the best-laid plans.
“All right,” I said, shaking my head. “But if this turns into a mad dash, I’m leaving your injured ass behind, Aurelio,” I added, grinning, both of us knowing there wasn’t an ounce of truth to the threat.
