Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Elian

She was a lot more stubborn than I had anticipated.

I figured that after a real near-death experience that she would give up on her mission to take down her boss and start planning her next steps.

Which would include moving out of Brooklyn , I reminded myself, feeling the familiar gut-punch I got each time I thought of that. Especially as we spent more time together, as we got closer and more comfortable with each other.

She wasn’t mine to keep .

But, fuck, I was starting to want to.

And, honestly, I guess her steadfast determination to do what she felt was her moral duty to take down the senator was one of the reasons I was starting to like her so much.

You had to respect someone who would do just about anything to do what they thought was right. Even if there was a threat of danger involved.

Outside of my family, I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt that much conviction toward something. It was admirable. And I fucking hated it.

Because I couldn’t be there.

I couldn’t protect her.

I couldn’t watch the way she gathered her hair over one shoulder when she was trying to concentrate, or scrunched her nose when she heard something unpleasant, or…

“Yo. The fuck?” Serano called, pulling me out of my thoughts and back to the present.

With no one at the apartment, save for Kevin, he’d decided to hang with me in the car as I waited for Dimitri to emerge from his apartment building until it was time to go keep an eye on Elizabeth for me.

“What?” I asked, trying not to look as caught as I felt.

“Fucking smiling to yourself and shit,” he said, shaking his head at me.

That was practically a fucking speech for Serano, who seemed to struggle to string together three or four words at a time. And even then, it seemed to annoy him to have to do so.

I didn’t know much about Serano’s upbringing. His parents had divorced when he was young, and his mother had taken him out of Brooklyn and raised him in Chicago with her family. All I knew was when he came back at eighteen, he was just like this. Moody, standoffish, quiet. But you could always get a little bit of a reaction out of him if you fed him.

I’d taken him on with my crew mostly because I thought that if I didn’t, he would end his ass up in jail because he always rubbed people the wrong way.

So far, he’d been an asset. Even if he wasn’t the most pleasant company to keep.

I didn’t answer since I had no good comeback to that.

Surprisingly, though, Serano didn’t let it drop.

“Thinking of her.”

“Elizabeth?” I asked, brows lowering.

“Quick with her name.”

“She’s living with me, so who else’s name would I be quick with?”

“She’s pretty.”

“She’s beautiful,” I corrected, getting a shrug from him. I didn’t know what his type was. I don’t think I’d ever seen him with a woman, come to think of it.

“Why isn’t she yours?” he asked.

“Because it doesn’t work that way,” I said, catching a quick sideways look from Serano. “I can’t just tell a woman that she’s mine.”

“Why not?”

“Because they don’t like that kind of shit. We aren’t fucking cavemen.”

To that, he only had a shrug to offer me.

“I’d like to see you tell a woman she’s yours, then see her smack the shit out of you,” I said, smirking at him.

But something caught his eye, and he was jerking his chin toward the windshield.

Half a block ahead, Dimitri was walking out of his front door flanked by two of his men.

I was about to reach to shift the car into drive when Serano’s hand stopped me, nodding toward the street again.

Another car pulled up the street, stopping right in the center, and dropping off someone alarmingly familiar before pulling off again.

It was the man who’d been strung up at the meat shop.

Renzo told me they’d opted to try to use him as a spy, but everything about the fucker’s body language told me he wasn’t cut out for it. He was jumpy and paranoid, gaze casting around. I could practically see him vibrating with anxiety from half a block away.

“Not good,” Serano said as Dimitri nodded toward his men, and one of them pushed the guy in the back, then both of them climbed in with him, blocking him in.

Leaving Dimitri himself to drive, something he rarely did.

Reaching for my phone, I rang up Rico.

“Yeah?”

“That double agent of yours…” I started.

“What about him?”

“Think you should start planning his replacement with his crew,” I said as the car pulled off.

“Fuck. What happened?”

“He wasn’t cut out for it. Think Dimitri clocked something being off right away. Just drove off with him.”

“Well, one less problem for me to deal with, I guess,” Rico said, sighing. “Thanks for the heads up,” he added before ending the call.

“Not gonna follow ‘em?”

“Don’t feel like watching anyone get murdered today,” I admitted, checking the clock, wondering how late Elizabeth was going to be.

I’d caught a recap of the mess that had been that damn town hall meeting that had been going down while Elizabeth had been running for her life through the school. And, yeah, it looked like there was a fuckton of damage control to be done. But she’d agreed that she would leave when the rest of the staff did, so she would be more protected in a crowd.

I was planning to teach her to make a bolognese sauce that we would put over some wide pappardelle noodles. Maybe a side of cicoria ripassata to get some greens in. I might even have time to stop at the bakery to pick up some cantucci—almond biscotti—before heading home to meet Elizabeth. She would love dipping those in her after-dinner coffee.

Then, well, maybe we could cozy up on the couch.

And perhaps one thing would lead to another.

Until we tumbled into bed and finally got our fill of each other.

I’d barely been able to think of anything else since she’d invited me into that bathroom. Since I’d slipped my hand between her thighs and had her writhing and moaning for more. Since my fingers slid inside her tight…

Christ.

I had to get it together.

I couldn’t be going to the bakery with a raging hard-on.

“Where are you going?” I asked as Serano opened the door and started to climb out.

“Coffee.”

“Aren’t you supposed—“

“Be at your place after,” he said, slamming the door before I could offer to drive him to whatever coffee place he was heading to.

He was probably itching to be alone anyway.

So I took a deep breath, deciding I’d done enough staking out for the day. I headed to the bakery to pick up the cantucci. Then to the market to grab more of her cookie syrup, since she was getting low, and some treats for Kevin because his stash was slim, and he’d been doing a lot of begging lately. The cat was ancient; I wasn’t about to deny him extra treats in his old age.

I was just pulling up out front of my building, the sun setting low behind the buildings, when I saw Serano walking down the street, a large to-go coffee looking tiny in his massive hand.

He gave me a nod as he waited at the front of the building.

I was about to climb out when my phone started to ring.

I thought nothing of it until I saw Elizabeth’s name on the screen.

“Is every—“ I started.

“Elian,” she cried, her voice shallow, like she was gasping for air.

“Where are you?” I asked, rolling down my window to bark at Serano. “Get in,” I called, waiting for him to rush around the hood and fold his long body into the passenger seat, his keen eyes watching me.

“W…work. You didn’t see?”

“See what?” I asked, setting her on speaker and dropping the phone in my lap as I peeled off into traffic, ignoring the beeps as I did.

“News,” she said, sniffling hard.

“No, baby, I didn’t see the news. What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“I’m… alright,” she said, but everything about how her voice was shaking and how often she was sniffling, told me a different story.

“He’s shot,” she said.

“Who’s shot?” I asked, slamming my hands against the wheel as we hit a red light.

“The senator,” she said, voice breaking. “It was supposed to be me.”