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“Take no prisoners. Leave no questions asked,” I say, already feeling the flames of the lifelong hell I’m consigning myself to licking at my feet.
“Copy that.”
Eight hours later, I’m airborne, heading back to Chicago, still staring at my reply to Dante’s last text, the same reply I’ve had to all the other six he sent me.
Wait.
Sophie sits across from me, once again dressed in her prim skirt and tucked in shirt, her hair up in a severe bun, amber eyes hurt and angry. At least, that’s how I’m sure they’d look once she spares me a glance. Not that I need her to; those eyes are the reason why I still haven’t given the signal. The reason why I couldn’t leave the clubhouse yesterday. And the reason Cade Quinn is still alive.
Sophie Kellan is the reason why there’s no news of an accidental fire explosion rocking the sleepy San Diego county town.
It’s one thing to wage a mob war, and one or two innocent people get caught up in the crossfire. It’s quite another to wipe out an entire MC club in a bid to cover the assassination of one federal agent.
And all because I wouldn’t man up and kill this pesky woman.
As soon as the captain gives the heads-up for landing, and she senses signals returning to her phone, Sophie makes a call, speaking slowly. Even her voice is subdued. It’s as if the sparrow is back in its cage, and the woman who came undone under me hours ago has disappeared.
“You can go ahead and fill in the time slots, Eva, I’m coming home a day earlier than I anticipated.”
No, you’re not.
She taps her foot nervously, gazing out of the window as she continues speaking. She looks like a woman scrubbed clean of her past.
A past that’s braided into her being and tattooed onto her skin. I glance at the bandage on her hand—the hand she keeps tucked under the other one, like she’s hiding it. While in Harmony she let her instincts drive her. Something tells me she’s shoved that woman beneath this veneer.
We haven’t said a word to each other apart from when I texted her to meet me on the tarmac. A part of me had been hoping she wouldn’t do it, knowing that if she got on this flight, it would be the last thing she ever did.
She ends the call and tucks her phone away in her purse, then goes back to staring out the plane’s window like she’s done the whole time.
Finally, as the plane touches down, she glances at me. “I’m sorry, Nico, This was a terrible mistake. I should never have gone along with the idea in the first place.”
Her voice. The way she says my name. It’s going to haunt me forever.
“You didn’t have a choice in the matter,” I reply. But she’s right; it was a mistake. My mistake. I should never have gotten to know Phoenix. Solid, dependable, hard man. Sophie is his only child.
He’ll never know. She will never be found.
And Phoenix will never report Sophie’s death to the authorities. Instead, he’ll hunt me down. I can deal with that.
She turns to look at me, eyes narrowed. “Even so, my behavior was wildly unprofessional. Not getting involved with clients happens to be one of the rules I agree with.”
Is it sick that she still makes me smile despite the twisting in my gut, despite knowing what’s coming in the next few minutes?
“Which of your behaviors do you think was the most unprofessional, Sparrow?” I drawl.
She goes beet red, and unbelievably, my cock hardens.
She nibbles on her lips and then goes back to looking out the window, but not before I catch a flash of desire and regret warring in her amber eyes. It seems she’s always fighting something—her past and present, the people around her, and her own conscience. Must be fucking tiring.
“I told you, Sophie, I’m not your client. I don’t want therapy.”
Ask me what I want.
When the silence stretches again, she turns from the window, takes a breath as if psyching herself up then looks at me. Really looks, the way only Sophie can. As if she can read a man’s thoughts and intentions.
After a while, she says in a strangely cool voice. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it sounded almost…pleading. “You saw where I came from, the kind of blood that runs through my veins.”
“Sì, I saw all that.” Unfortunately, I also saw how much she wants to get away from it. She’s a loose cannon and the last four days of meeting her have thrown me into a tailspin. She’s too unpredictable and too headstrong.
