Shadow Man (Grayson Duet #1) - Catherine Wiltcher Page 0,24
of sin that turns saints into killers. “He’s a not happy drug dealer, Grayson. Did you finger his girlfriend or piss all over one of his clubs?”
“He’s an asshole,” I say, wrapping my mouth around something other than a bottle of whiskey, and one that tastes a hell of a lot better.
“Yes, but he’s a clever asshole who saved our lives last year,” says Dante, switching his tone to a shade cooler than ice. “We've been through too much together to let your dick get in the way of things now.”
“Did you come here to reprimand me?” I take another bite, chewing slowly, holding his gaze. He’s barely shifted position the whole time we’ve been talking, and that’s a bad sign. I know this man better than he knows himself. When he goes ultra-calm, people die. “What’s my dick got to do with shit, anyway?”
“If you want her, take her.”
“Who? Rick’s girlfriend?”
I’m being obtuse. I don't like where this is headed.
“Don't stand around on fucking ceremony, Grayson. I didn't.”
“Is this your one piece of dating advice, Dante? Newsflash: kidnapping doesn't do it for every woman.” This conversation is slaying my appetite. I chuck the remainder of my uneaten bagel in the trash. “We should have been straight about why the Russians took her six months ago.”
There’s a pause. “We made the decision not to. That woman fucking hated me for marrying Eve anyway. Why make it worse?”
“It’s not sitting right with me anymore.”
“Then ignore it, like you’ve ignored every other sin you’ve committed in the last two decades. What makes one lie so special?” He cocks his head and narrows his eyes. “What are you not telling me?”
“No more than usual.”
He curses in Spanish, and I know I just took the winning point—game, set and match. The whole ‘knowing him better’ thing doesn’t work both ways. He can’t read shit about me, and it drives him to distraction, but when you work for someone like Dante Santiago, you better be damn sure you have an ace up your sleeve. It evens up the mayhem; it’s a good thing to ta-dah like a fucking magician when he’s close to slitting your throat. A bored Dante is an executioner-in-waiting.
“How did you lose her?”
This catches me off guard. Motherfucker.
“Rick’s got a loose mouth.”
“Rick… Eve… My wife is sick with worry. Her friend is a liability. Part of me thinks we should have left her to rot in that fucking cage in Amsterdam.”
Now it’s my turn to act like an effigy of death. Dante carved up my stomach once, and I’m not averse to returning the favor over her.
“Is that really what you think?” I say quietly.
He glares at me, psyching me out, and then his lips start to twitch. “Jesus Christ, you’re an uptight asshole today.” He strolls toward me, holding out a piece of paper.
Eve’s right. Her husband is a dictatorial head-fuck. I once heard her scream it at him, and I remembering thinking she had the measure of her lover already.
“Of course I don't think we should have left her in Amsterdam,” he says. “I only said it to see that dead-eyed shit you display when my depravity bites too hard. And to confirm what I already know…”
“And what’s that?” I say, snatching the piece of paper from him.
“I’ll leave it up to you to figure out.”
“Cryptic.”
“Honest.”
“Delusional,” I mutter, deciding on this occasion that my deference to him can fuck right off.
Dante hisses under his breath, but his gun stays put. “We're amoral motherfuckers, but we did good this year. We destroyed an international sex trafficking ring and swiped a layer of black off our souls.”
It’s not enough.
Never enough.
Nothing will make up for the decisions we made over her.
“What the hell is this anyway?” I say, shaking the paper in his face.
“Full disclosure, but answer me one thing before you open it up.”
“What?”
“Do you feel her in your fucking bones?”
It takes a beat for his words to register. That’s twice he’s caught me off guard.
“Do you feel her in your fucking bones?” he repeats, his face as serious as I’ve ever seen it. “When you bleed, does she heal? When you kill, does she save? Do all the shattered, fucked-up parts of you want to fix for her, even all the jagged, serrated shit?”
“The jagged, serrated shit’s unfixable,” I say automatically.
“Everything’s fixable if you’re willing to pay the price.” There’s a pause. “Anna took a flight to Cartagena from Miami International at 4:30 a.m. this morning.”