4. Chapter 4

four

Athena

I had two leads go belly up on me in two days.

While I could hardly blame that asshole FBI guy for the Leo Lombardi date-night mess, I could—and would—blame him for losing Antonio. Who knew what kind of information I could have gotten out of him if I wasn’t interrupted?

And I needed information. Solid, irrefutable information that could bring the Morellis down, one man at a time. I was alone in this world, no one to look after or care for, so all I cared about was taking those men down.

They were going to pay for everything, but not today.

Today I met the Morelli brothers for the first time. I’d done plenty of research and knew what to expect of them, how to present myself, and what buttons to press to intrigue them and make them want to keep talking to me. I knew my way in.

I knew that Carlo Morelli had a daughter a few years younger than me, Bianca Rose, and after finding her social media profiles I bought a box of hair dye and a straightener so I could look sympathetic to him, reminding him of his daughter.

I knew Angelo was married; photos of him showed a wedding ring, and he’d mentioned having dinner waiting at home for him in an interview once. I couldn’t find any pictures of the wife, but the “dinner waiting” implied that he liked a traditional woman, so I dressed (relatively) conservatively in a plain blue blouse with no cleavage showing and a navy blue skirt that ended just above the knees.

Phone records showed that Carlo spoke to their sister in San Diego all the time. She had just come to town with her son, Antonio, two days prior. It was pure luck that I found the texts between Leo and “Antonio” confirming they would be meeting up soon to go over some job, and that I got Antonio’s phone number from that exchange. I used it to track his phone to the airport to pump him for information before he ever met with Leo. I thought it was luck at the time—if you count blackmailing my neighbor in the apartment across the hall into illegally giving me information from his job at the phone company “luck”—but now that the opportunity was squandered it felt like a mistake.

I sighed, giving my hair a pat, trying to get used to the color and texture. Bianca Rose had straight brown hair, so I flat-ironed my curls for the first time in a decade. It just felt wrong to see the stick-straight hair falling in my face. Both the color and the style would wash out, but it still unnerved me.

I winced when I accidentally hit the tender spot on the back of my head. I'd styled my hair carefully so it was pulled back to cover the small gash left from the bullet graze; I didn’t want to put the dye on my roots with an open wound there. My annoyance with Special Agent Lucas Blake roared back to life. If he wasn’t there distracting Antonio, I might have been able to complete my mission without burning another bridge.

I also might not have been shot in the freaking head.

I shook my head, rolling my eyes at myself this time when the solid throb returned with the harsh motion. I didn’t have time to spend thinking about Lucas Blake. I had to put on my game face and get ready for the next mission.

The meeting went better than expected.

Carlo Morelli was definitely interested in doing business with me—in more ways than one, which was a little annoying since I was trying to look and dress like his daughter to avoid another Morelli man pawing at me—but I suppose the hair wasn’t enough resemblance for him to think of her.

Carlo might have been attractive once upon a time, but his age was catching up with him fast. He was fifty-seven and had that thickness that resulted from muscles going slack with disuse. His hair was mostly silver with a couple streaks of black at his temples, the dark hair mirroring the creases at the corner of his eyes. The crow’s feet were emphasized all the more by the creepy smile on his face as he walked me out, hand resting much too familiarly on my ass as he paused to kiss my cheek at the door, sending me on my way with the promise of another meeting in a couple days to finalize the details .

I went with the flow, as always, and smiled when I looked at him demurely through my eyelashes on my way out.

Angelo was even creepier, just watching the whole exchange without saying anything. His eyes were the same shade as his brother’s, but where Carlo’s eyes seemed to be relatively harmless, even as he leered at me, Angelo’s gaze was piercing, like a stab wound wherever he stared. I avoided the sass and sarcasm that were my go-to’s whenever I felt uncertain. Blowing him a kiss could be a huge mistake; there was no world in which I wanted to encourage Angelo Morelli.

I gave one more wave before I walked out the front door, crossing the street and heading up the block to where I’d parked my car. I was a couple storefronts away when I took out my phone, stopping the recording app and immediately saving the audio in three separate locations…Just in case. I hadn’t even slipped the phone back into my purse yet when the side door of the locksmith van parked next to me opened and I was pulled inside.

My instincts kicked in and I twisted out of the man’s grip, throwing my weight into a punch. He managed to dodge the brunt of my hit in the crowded space, almost like he anticipated it. I was aiming a kick to his torso when I took in the face of my attacker, instantly recognizing those movie star good looks and chiseled jawline. Who knew I could get so annoyed at perfectly styled hair and hazel eyes? Was Lucas Blake a stalker?

I dropped out of my defensive pose onto my knees and grunted in frustration.

“Are you following me?” Why are you following me? seemed a more accurate question. Did he actually give a shit after all ?

“No.” His voice was firm, almost angry. “I’m on a job. Wanna explain why the hell you’re here? What did you do to your hair?”

I glanced around the inside of the van, blinking in surprise when I saw it was full of recording equipment. So no, it had nothing to do with me. Was he watching the Morellis? Did he see me with them? Instead of answering his questions and digging myself further into a hole, I asked my own.

“How long have you been here? Who are you watching?”

“I’m going to watch the people who tried to kill you yesterday. What are you doing in this neighborhood?”

I hid my relief; he clearly didn’t see me exiting the Morelli office. I needed to distract him before he realized it wasn’t just a coincidence. “For the record, people didn’t try to kill me yesterday. Just one guy pulled the trigger.”

“After someone else gave the order.”

“Yeah. One someone.”

“How do you know it was just one person? That man works for some dangerous people.”

“First of all, you’re being condescending. I’m not a child and I can take care of myself. Secondly, that was a personal issue, not a professional one. His boss doesn’t know anything about me and didn’t order a hit on me.”

“That you know of,” he said ominously.

I rolled my eyes. I was literally just in their office. If they wanted me dead they had plenty of opportunity to pull me into a back room and get it done. But I couldn’t say that to him.

“Look, I’m not doing anything wrong. Can I go, or should I start recording this conversation as well?” I dropped my purse from my shoulder down to my elbow and began rifling through it, but no phone. Right…It was in my hand when he grabbed me. I dropped it outside the van in favor of making an FBI-punching fist, even if I didn’t get to land a hit on him.

He stared hard at me, then glanced at his video feed. The Morellis were back in their offices, not visible through the glass front door. It was safe.

“Fine. You can go. But I’ll drive you. It’s not safe for you alone out there. You don’t know the people you’re up against.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m taking an uber.” I actually was going to head back to my car, but he didn't need to know that. A license plate would give me away pretty quickly.

“Alright, I’ll stay with you until pickup. What’s the ETA?”

“I haven’t ordered it yet.”

“Then you better get to it. I don’t have all day.”

Wow, the arrogance.

“Well? What are you waiting for?”

He just had to be doing that on purpose to provoke me. Nobody could be that annoying on accident.

“I think I dropped my phone outside when you decided unlawfully detain me. Again.” I eyed him up and down from where he was still crouched next to me, somehow managing to look cocky while hunched over in the stupid van. Good thing he was so hot or he’d never get laid with that irritating attitude.

He rolled his eyes, but slid the van door open a couple inches, glancing around. After a few seconds he opened it further, reaching down under the vehicle to retrieve my poor phone, ignoring the obvious problem as he slipped it into my hand.

“It’s fucking wet.” There was clearly guilt in his eyes, but he didn’t even have the good grace to admit that it was a dick move to grab me that way. Sure, I had a heavy-duty waterproof case for this exact reason, but still. What a dick to not even apologize. He apologized in the back of the ambulance when we first met—why couldn’t he do it now?

“So?”

I tried to hold in my anger. Maybe the good looks weren’t enough. Maybe he acted like he had a stick shoved up his ass because no one was around for him to—

“Do you have a girlfriend? Boyfriend?” We were in San Francisco after all. I wasn’t one to judge.

“What? No, not right now. Why are you asking?”

“Just thought that if you could find someone to get all that aggression out on in the bedroom you wouldn’t need to be an asshole out here in the real world.”

He gritted his teeth before relaxing his jaw, trying to stay calm and professional. “For your information I don’t take my aggression out on my girlfriends. That’s what the gym is for.”

Was it possible for a man to be prissy? I felt like Lucas Blake was very prissy and prim.

“Hey, I didn’t mean that in a bad way. Sometimes a girl likes a guy to be a little rough with her, you know?” His face was devoid of emotion, but his eyes blazed. He was only pretending to be unaffected. “I guess you don’t know. I feel sorry for your girlfriend.”

“I told you, I don’t have a girlfriend right now. Not that I couldn’t have one if I wanted to, but I’m in between relationships this month.”

This month? What the hell, was he a serial monogamist? “Okay, then I feel sorry for your next girlfriend. Too much vanilla sex is bad for the relationship, you know. You should watch some BookTok. That’ll give you ideas for the next poor girl you date. Maybe she’ll stick around this time.”

I didn’t think I’d be able to keep a straight face if I looked at him, so I took my phone out and ordered an uber. It would only take a minute or so to get here.

“Do I even want to know what BookTok is?”

I dared a glance at him, pleased by the confused look on his face. I shrugged. “Maybe. Look it up. A little googling never hurt, right? If you know how to do it right, that is. You do know how to properly—”

“When is your ride getting here? I’m gonna need to arrest you for assault if you keep this up.”

Psh. “What assault?” I wasn’t scared of him or his badge.

“What else would you call all these burns you’re leaving me with? Pure bodily harm, baby. Plus the damage to my ego.”

I laughed, even as that baby sent a thrill through me. I was a sucker for all the classic endearments. Besides, even if he was annoying and getting in my way, I appreciated that he could take an insult with grace. It didn’t make me like him any more since he was clearly a controlling jerk, but I could appreciate him from afar. Hopefully very far afar.

“Any minute now and I’ll be out of your exquisitely styled hair,” I told him just as my phone dinged. “Right now, actually. So stop following me. I’m just fine.”

His hazel eyes were sparkling with amusement when I hopped out of the van. I imagined he wouldn’t be nearly as amused if he knew even a hint of the truth about why I was hanging around the Morelli offices.