I surge upright and whizz my gaze across to the kitchen island, searching for Aria’s purse. She used it tonight to check in with her friend.
Crap, how long ago was that? Four, five hours?
Did she turn it off?
I spot the cheap purse on the coffee table, dart over to it and tip the contents onto the surface.
The phone is shitty alright.
One of those ancient flip ones that sends and receives texts and makes calls and not much else.
But more importantly…it’s off.
Relief floods my veins and I pocket it.
My clever angel.
I force myself not to breathe too rapidly as Gio continues. “Our tech guy has the new cell number. We’ll have her the moment she turns it on.”
“Can’t they still track it when it’s off?”
“Apparently it’s too old for his sophisticated tech. If you ask me, I don’t know why we pay thepezz’i miedda.”
Because he knows how to keep his mouth shut when it counts. Which is all the time.
“You feel like doing your littlefratia solid and checking out of a few more bars while you’re down there? I need to stick around here, make sure our politician is kept in line for the deal. And the men I’m sending out there are good, but they’re not you.”
I take a breath and picture my angel sleeping peacefully upstairs, lost in the sea of white linen, newly deflowered with her rosy snatch full of my come that could right now be creating our baby.
And my answer is easy. “No can do,brother. This is your mess. You clean it up.”
“Thanks for nothing.”
“And Gio?”
“Yeah?”
“Make sure you keep my updated.”
He drops another pithy curse and the line goes dead.
I breathe another sigh of relief.
I have zero guilt about lying to my brother.
But more and more, I’m fearing that not coming clean about Aria will backfire on me, big time.
I can’t hide who I am forever.
Not from my family, and especially not from her.
I make my way slowly upstairs to the bedroom and gaze down at her sleeping form. I suspect this is the soundest sleep she’s had since she took off from New York.
I check the time.
Almost three a.m. I undress and slide into bed, pulling my angel into my arms.
One day.