Tristan looked at her for a long second before staring out to the lake. “An informant. He wants to meet.”
“What are you not telling me?” she asked, pulling him to face her.
He took a deep breath, his eyebrows slashed over his forehead. “There was one Reaper, a long time ago, but he and his family died in a fire.”
Morana winced, her lips pursing. “You think it’s him?”
“I don’t know,” he stared off into the distance, his hands fisting beside him. “I’m more interested in why, whoever he is, wants your attention. Bad enough to get the codes and return them to you.”
She pondered on that for a second. “Maybe because of the same reason I was unique to you twenty years ago. I’m the only girl who came back.”
Tristan shook his head, his eyes distant. “I never understood that you know. I’m glad you came back safe but why? It wasn’t because your father loved you, that I know for sure.”
‘Oh, he loved you.’
Maroni’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
“Maroni said something to me today,” she informed him. “About there being a reason why I am the only one who came back. Maybe he was playing with my head.”
“Maybe,” Tristan mused.
They both stood at the edge of the lake, lost in their own thoughts, with more questions than before.
Amara was officially off the radar.
As Morana looked at the lake and hills surrounding it at barely six in the morning, she worried about that. It had almost been a week and she didn’t know what the hell to do.
Her morning had been pretty bizarre as well. Tristan had received a call and he’d been out the door in less than five minutes like his ass was on fire, telling her to track his phone if he didn’t come back in an hour. How he knew she had a tracker on his phone in the first place, she didn’t know. But he had left and Morana had busied herself dressing and clipping the extra gun he kept in the living room drawer to her jeans and watched the time while standing out on the porch.
At this hour, the hills were misted with a dense cover of fog, the sunlight muted but cutting through it. The cold wind played through the strands of her hair and the scent of early morning dew and flowers permeated her surroundings. She had never been in a place like this. For a moment, she felt transported back in time to another era, the sight before her ancient.
A shiver traveled down her spine and she clutched to the modern technology in her hand, her phone, and reminded herself not to get spooked. She looked down at the screen, at Tristan’s tracker, and saw his dot about half a mile away from her location.
Exactly after fifty-three minutes since he’d left, her phone vibrated with a text.
Tristan: Come to my location. Quick.
Morana: On my way.
She locked up and followed the navigation, heading into the woods on the other side of the cottage. Though he was just half a mile away, Morana followed the path that felt longer, her breathing better than it would’ve week thanks to her training with Vin daily.
After about a few minutes of no sounds except the wind on water and birds chirping, the tall trees gave way to a small clearing at the base of the hill, the cottage hidden behind the thick foliage.
Morana saw Tristan standing there, his arms folded across his chest, talking to a man she wouldn’t have recognized but for his size.
Dante.
Covered in beard and wearing a shaggy, loose grey shirt the old Dante wouldn’t have been caught dead in, his hair messy around his face, he was barely recognizable as the once perfect Dante Maroni. Before Morana could stop it, her feet were flying across the clearing as she crashed into the man she’d thought she’d lost, the man who had become important to her.
Big arms wrapped around her in a bear hug unlike any she had ever experienced and she hugged him tightly, smelling hints of his spicy cologne contrary to his appearance, and had to smile despite herself. You could take Dante Maroni out of the clothes but you couldn’t take the clothes out of Dante Maroni.
“Good to see I’ve been missed,” Dante’s smiling voice rumbled as he slowly patted her back in reassurance. Morana pulled back, blinking up at him with eyes that burned even as she couldn’t stop smiling.
“Are you okay?” she asked, looking over him. Though he was smiling, his usually warm brown eyes were, not cold exactly, but off.
“He’s fine,” Tristan said from behind her, his voice slightly off. “Stop fussing over him.”
“Go stand with him before he decks me, Morana,” Dante rolled his eyes, his tone deliberately light. “I’d hate to bruise his pretty mouth, out o