But this was my opportunity too. I wanted revenge for my mother. Where better to get it than from up close and personal?
“Prove it,” I said, shoving past and slamming out the door.
I promised myself he wasn’t getting anything more from me than a research partner. Even after I broke that promise, I never deluded myself into believing he ever thought of me as anything but a business venture. What we had was incredible and intense, but it wasn’t love.
Since we’ve been in Florida, Rob’s caught me with Oliver’s picture on my browser more than once. He knows I’m obsessing. He’s right. I’ve been searching obsessively for any mention of what I did to the Savocas, even though I know they can’t go public with it. Chicago might be one of the most corrupt cities in America, but gambling is still illegal. But the thing I know for sure—the thing I was absolutely counting on when I sabotaged the program that logged all the Savoca’s gambling transactions—was that Oliver doesn’t have a sentimental bone in his body. He’s cold and calculating when he’s been wronged, and he’s no different than either of our fathers when it comes to wanting revenge. There’s no way he’s not looking for me.
But there’s also no way he’s actually found me.
I’m wound so tight that Ulie’s voice through my door makes me jump. “Lee?”
I unclench my fists from my quilt. “Yeah?”
The door cracks open and Ulie sticks her head through. “Can I borrow the Beetle? I ordered some things I need for dinner at the Loveland fish market and Rob and Adri have the Chevy.”
“Can’t they just pick your stuff up while they’re out?”
She shakes her head. “They took Sherm to Disney. They won’t be back till late.”
“And Grant’s out?”
“As usual,” she says with a flip of her hand.
“If it’s just us, you shouldn’t bother cooking. I’m sure there are leftovers. Take the night off.”
She grins. “I’m taking the opportunity to make something I’ve been wanting to try but I know the boys will hate: charred baby octopus salad with cumin-lime vinaigrette.”
My stomach rumbles. “That actually sounds really good.” I grab my bag off the dresser and dig inside for the key. “Pick up some milk for Sherm while you’re out.”
“Anything else?” she asks, taking it from my hand.
I follow her down the stairs and find both dogs at the front door. Burn is whining for Sherm, just like he always does when Sherm is away. Crash is doing his potty dance, pacing the door and wagging his tail incessantly.
I peer inside the refrigerator. “A twelve-pack of Corona, a dozen eggs, and a loaf of bread.”
“Got it.”
She pushes open the door and Crash and Burn follow her out. I grab the leashes on the hook next to the door and clip them on their collars.
“If you think of it, stop for gas,” I tell her as she cranks the engine. “I forgot when I was out.”
More like I got totally distracted by a ghost from my past.
She nods and bumps down the dirt drive, kicking up a thin plume of dust in her wake.
I watch after her, then scan the driveway and the road beyond. There was no way that could have been Oliver in the Len’s Market parking lot, but that doesn’t stop my heart from racing at the thought.
I turn for the bluff and weave the path down to the beach, where I walk the dogs and try to lose myself in the sounds and smells of the ocean—my new life—and forget about my old one.
Chapter 4
Oliver
It took me longer than it should have to pull my shit together after seeing Lee, which is the reason she may have spotted me. I can’t risk sabotaging this plan over my hard-on for her. Bigger things are at stake. If the organization keeps bleeding cash, I am a dead man.
I grew up, just like every good son of a Sicilian Mafia lord, in fear of my father. But I also respected him. I would have done anything to please him. And I did. There are men who will spend the rest of their lives in wheelchairs because of what I did to them, all in the name of family. But the day I began to question Victor’s tactics was the day he began to question my loyalty. The more I tried to make him see my point of view, the more disappointed he became in me. Disappointment turned to disdain when I suggested we could hit the Russians financially to commandeer their chunk of the drug trade through Chicago versus murdering nearly a dozen of their top guys. And when I tipped the Russian’s off to Victor’s plan, he washed his hands of me completely. Said I was dead to him. When he went into lockup, he shifted power to his consigliere, Sal Bacchio, since he no longer had a son.
But Sal has always had a soft spot for me. He said this was my chance to make good with my father. He put his own neck in a noose by handing the organization back to me. I fuck this up, it’s not only me who will end up in a body bag.
After Lee drove away, I went into the grocery store and picked up some food and water for my hotel room. In the hardware aisle, I found a roll of duct tape, which, since I’m not packing my Sig this trip, might come in handy if things go sideways.
I park at a wide spot on the shoulder a hundred yards up from the end of Delgado’s dirt road and wait. My pulse pounds in my ears when I see the Beetle turn the corner and bump up the road toward me a few minutes later. The plan is to catch her somewhere alone and unaware. This could be my chance.
I inch down in my seat and prepare to crank the ignition the second she’s past.
But it’s not Lee.
Where Lee is light, with long sandy waves that color between brown and blond, big hazel eyes, and golden skin, Ulie is dark, like Rob. There’s no mistaking her espresso hair, pulled into a messy bun and revealing the angles of her face, sharper than her older sister’s.
Once she’s past, I get out of the car. My bloodstream is so adrenaline-charged I need a smoke to settle my nerves. But instead of lighting up, I find myself walking along the edge of the scrub woods toward the house. I stop behind a stumpy palm across the road from the end of their driveway and watch.
In the daylight, I see the old, weather-beaten house the Delgados are currently occupying is situated on a bluff that overlooks the churning ocean at least twenty feet below. Perched above the two stories is a wraparound widow’s walk that would give them an unobstructed three-sixty view of their surroundings. There are lanky palms sprinkling the bluff, and a few scrub oaks along the long, winding driveway. Otherwise, it’s exposed. Easy to defend. Delgado chose well.
I start up the hill, taking a wide berth and casing out the empty driveway. Fifteen feet from the house, I crouch behind a bush and wait, but there’s no sound other than the roll of the ocean beyond the bluff and an occasional gull.
Against all common sense, I creep up onto the long front porch and peer in the windows. The open family room and kitchen are empty. I try the front door. It’s unlocked.
For a long moment I stand here, listening, my heart pounding loudly in the still of the house. Finally, I move deeper into the room. On the right, past the stairs, there’s a door that leads to a bedroom with an unmade queen bed. Brightly colored women’s clothing is in piles on the floor, draped over the dresser, and hanging out of drawers. This must be Ulie’s room. Lee loves order.
Upstairs, the first door on the right leads to a room with two twin beds, both unmade with tangled sheets. When I move to the window and look out, I realize this is the window I saw Rob in last night. There are also smaller clothes, mostly board shorts and T-shirts from the looks of it, scattered around the floor. Rob must share this room with the littlest one, Sherm.
The next door up the short hall is another bedroom, this one with a double bed, the sheets in a pile at the foot. There are empty food containers and dirty dishes on the dresser and floor around the bed, and the strong scent of dirty socks fills the room. A black leather jacket and a pair of faded men’s jeans hang from a hook on the closet door. Grant, no doubt.
Across the hall is the bathroom. There are towels draped over t
he shower rail and hanging on hooks on the back of the door. Various toiletries scatter the counter, and more boys’ clothing sits in a heap in the corner near the tub, but it’s otherwise clean.
Back toward the stairs on the same side of the hall is a room with a neatly made double bed. The file box from the diner is open at the foot of it. There is no clutter on the dresser and the closet door is closed. Neat as a pin. I lift a throw pillow from the bed and inhale Lee’s warm scent, vanilla and honey.
It wraps around me, seeps into my senses, into my thoughts. Another trigger.
Lee was a Delgado, and had just so happened to be in a few of my classes. There was no way I was going to let that opportunity slip by. Now, reflecting back on the whole thing, I know exactly the day things became more personal for me, even though I couldn’t see it at the time.
We were about a month into our project. I sat on my side of the library table, watching her bunch that hand into the hair on top of her head again, causing my body to respond in ways I wasn’t willing to admit weren’t totally in my control.
“Come up with anything yet?” I’d asked, lifting an eyebrow at her when her eyes raised to mine.
“I think we’re over-thinking this,” she said, sitting back in her chair. She combed her fingers through her long waves and wound a strand around her index finger as she tapped out a rhythm with the end of her pencil on the book with the other hand. “All we have to demonstrate is that the corporation breached their fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders by misrepresenting the buyout. They didn’t disclose how heavily leveraged the company was when the subsidiary was sold, and even though the books were technically accurate, they didn’t account for the loss of future earnings in their year-end reporting to the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
My eyes followed the movement of the hand in her hair, memorized. “Say that again.”
She looked up at me and her finger stopped. “Why?”
“I like the way you say fiduciary responsibility,” I said, my gaze tracking to her mouth.
It turned into the hottest fucking pout I’ve ever seen, causing my dick to stir in my slacks. “Oliver, be serious. We’ve got this presentation in six weeks, and we haven’t even pounded out our full argument yet.”
“Why did you agree to do this presentation with me?” Even still, I don’t know why I asked, but the need to know was sudden and desperate. It turned out my instincts where right. Just like me, she had an ulterior motive. Though she didn’t confess it at that moment.
She shrugged, trying to come off as casual, but heat flashed in her eyes and I knew she was feeling some of what was slowly taking me down, robbing me of control. “You asked.”
I pressed forward and pinned her in my gaze, refusing to let her escape my scrutiny. I needed to know what she was thinking—all her deepest desires and secrets. “So did Angela. There would have been four of you, a quarter of the work.” I shifted back, making more space between us when I realized I was breaking into a sweat at her proximity—something I didn’t remember happening with anyone else. “Why did you say yes to me?”
“The intelligence of a group is inversely proportionate to the number of people in it,” she muttered, her gaze becoming unfocused and far away.
I barked a laugh at her parroting of my argument.
She blinked and squirmed in her chair, the dazed look giving way to a scorching scowl. “That wasn’t meant to be funny.”
I pride myself on being in complete control. Always. But that look sent my libido into a tailspin. “I like how you think, Delgado.”
My smile seemed to piss her off even more.
“You want the real reason?” she spit. “I felt sorry for you.”
Her comment surprised me, and it showed on my face before I could contain it. “That would suggest you think I’m better off with your help.”
She shoved away the book in front of her and leaned deeper into her seat. “You are. Far better off.”
She was right, but there was no way I could admit it to her. The way her mind worked was just so goddamn sexy. It was like she came at life from a side I never knew existed. Her mind took the most convoluted complexities and stroked them into something linear, turning all my logic on its head. It was beautiful to watch.
And that body could bring armies to their knees.
“Your perspective on things is interesting. You come at issues from a different starting point, so, on occasion, you might present an argument that wouldn’t have occurred to me. As for my being better off with your help, I don’t know if that difference in perspective is going to make or break this particular project, so I guess the jury’s still out.”
She tipped her head and bunched a hand into her hair again as she regarded me with an insolent gaze. There was a challenge in that stare—one I couldn’t resist. It drove me wild and triggered a ravenous hunger inside me like I’d never known.
That’s when Lee turned from a simple business venture into an obsession. Nothing was going to stop me from having her.
The sound of dogs barking outside wrenches me back to the room. I glance out the window and see on this side of the house, opposite the driveway, there’s a large, fenced dog run. One medium-sized gray dog is jumping up on Lee as she unhooks his leash from the collar. Another, the same size but darker, is sitting in the corner of the run, barking at the first.
Adrenaline kicks me into action mode and I think about bolting, but Lee is already striding across the sand to the front steps when I push away from the window. If I ran for the door now, we’d meet on the front porch.
I open her closet door and find everything as neat inside as in her room. I duck inside and pull the door so it’s only open a crack, the surge of adrenaline fueling my heart to beat so loudly I’m certain she’ll hear it the second she steps into the room.
As I maneuver my six-two frame into the tight space, the front door opens and closes. By the way the stairs creak with no discernible footfalls, I know she’s barefoot. No surprise. Lee hates shoes.
I watch through the crack in the closet door as she enters the room and moves to the window, pulling it open.
“Shut up, Crash!” she shouts.
The dog barks louder.
She slams the window closed and braces her hands on the sill, sighing deeply. After a minute, she pushes off the sill and starts to peel off her black leggings, which I now notice are wet from the knees down.
As she inches her leggings over her hips, I press my face closer to the crack in the door. She’s in a tiny black thong, and that ass is the eighth wonder of the world. Her wet leggings stick to her, and as she bends to peel them lower, my dick starts to swell. My heart stalls when she kicks them off then sits on the bed, staring directly at the door I’m standing behind as if she knows I’m here. As if she wants me to be here.
I hold my breath and wait to see if she’s going to get up and close the door. I should have known leaving it open would drive her crazy. Instead, she spins and lowers herself onto the bed on her back. She hooks an elbow over her eyes and just lays there for a long time. But then the fingers of her other hand begin to trail along the lace of her thong.
And fuck me. My sudden and very inappropriate erection is straining so hard against my zipper, I’m pretty sure my slacks won’t contain it.
Her fingers trail up her stomach and circle her belly button on the way to the curve of her breast. Her shirt lifts as she goes and she arches up slightly and parts her lips when her fingers brush over the peak of her nipple through her bra, as if she’s just about to moan someone’s name.
But then she sits up abruptly and grabs a fistful of hair, her face crumbling. “You fucking bastard. You’re not really here. I can’t want you anymore.”
Seeing that delectable body, hearing her despair, all the lust and regret of the last six months slams into me, forcing me to admit the truth. I may need the pass code. I may want revenge for what she did. But even more, I still want her. Months apart hasn’t ch
anged my body’s need for hers.
She stands and I duck behind the door as she moves toward my side of the room. I hold my breath as I hear her just outside the door, going through her drawers. A drawer slides closed and I listen to the brush of what sounds like fabric over the silk of her skin.
I breathe again, slowly and silently, as I hear her move away from the closet.
But the next second, the door is yanked open.
Time stops as we stand two feet apart, staring at each other.
Her wet leggings are balled in her hand, and I realize the thing digging into the side of my leg is a wicker laundry hamper.
Just like Lee. Everything in its place.
She blinks and backs up a step, trying to determine if I’m real, no doubt.
I step out of closet. “One fucking bastard, at your service.”
She drops the leggings and lunges for her nightstand. Before I can blink, she’s looking down the barrel of her ancient Beretta 87 Cheetah, which is pointed at my chest.
“Why’d you do it?” I ask, my hand twitching at my side. Already, the plan’s gone off the rails because I improvised. If she shoots, I’ll never get the answer to the question that’s tormented me for the last six months. No matter what’s about to happen, I need to know if I was just imagining our connection.
Her eyes narrow as she brings her other hand up and levels the Beretta. “You know why.”
It feels like my heart swallows itself, because I do. Her mother. She told me the first day we met. But I let myself believe what we had transcended our families’ generations of bad blood. I’d hoped revenge wasn’t the only thing that mattered anymore. I thought we mattered.
My fatal error.
Rage thuds heavy through my veins with every beat of my heart, filling me with self-loathing. I’m the player, yet she played me in every conceivable way. I deluded myself into believing I was in control, but it was always her. There’s never been a woman who’s captivated me the way she does. I was ready to turn my world upside down to find a way to make us work, despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
Over the Line: On the Run Novel Page 5
