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“Tizio, cool those sharp jets of yours. It’s been a day.”
“You got your hands full there, Diego. Things are the usual here, but Leo and Christian have been asking pointed questions that skirt everything and say way too much.”
“It’s not lying.” But it’s close enough.
“And your mission?”
“No fucking idea. Something’s rotten though like Weazel hinted at.” I pause. “Apparently, a girl from here went missing on her way to Corpus Christi.”
He starts swearing, and in the background, Nicolo joins the choir with questions.
“She fit the profile?” Tizio finally asks.
I slide a hand in my front pocket. “We have a profile now?”
“Young, pretty?” he says.
“And easy to put down as a runaway?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“So . . .” Tizio pauses. “How’s the girl trouble?”
“Troublesome.” The word’s out before I can stop it. “Asshole.”
“You owe me fifty big ones, Nicolo.” Tizio laughs, He sounds like himself, unless you listen, and then a man can pick up that hum of strain.
“It’s the past, man.” I rub a hand over the back of my neck. “I’m here to check out the possible connection to home.”
Tizio snorts out a laugh before hanging up, and I kick at the ground because it’s that or break something into tiny pieces.
I get the stress he’s got going on. Keeping shit from the De Lucas they might not need to know but would get themselves in deep because lines have been crossed in areas they don’t tolerate is hard.
I’m also here for a girl, one I never told them about, and they guessed it, anyway. I also can’t believe I lost it back there with her doughboy whatever the fuck he is.
Shit, the thing is, she still affects me, maybe more than she did before. Because now she’s a woman with experience and a life and all these facets I never thought about. She’s a woman, not a girl, and that makes her even more fascinating.
My step falters.
If things were different, if the past had played differently and I were another man, would I go for a second chance with Nadia?
If one was there, on offer?
Fucking hell, is that why I came back?
“Real smart there, asshole,” I mutter. “Working this out now.”
But regardless of my job, who I am, and who I seem to be to others, I want forever. I want to come home to a woman, mine, and love her, make her happy.
Nadia betrayed me, and I did that to her. I guess because I had to walk to give her all the chances, and that included keeping her family together, but—
The point is, I might want a forever, the way she does. That sizzle that thickened in the air when we looked at each other last night, when I touched her cheek this morning, that’s real. Regardless if there’s another man, I’d win hands down in the desire competition.
But her forever dreams aren’t ones I can give her.
It’s everything. My history, how I’m built, our past . . . and what I do now. There’s so much against me giving her her dreams even if I wanted that.
