her sleep for a long fucking time. Still pondering.
By the time I reluctantly trudged off to my own room, I didn’t even know who the hell I was anymore.
“Prison transpo is four minutes out,” Ace announced in my earpiece through a secure line. “Two prison guards will be escorting Esposito from the van, and two courthouse guards will meet them at the door.”
“Nico, you in position?” Dad asked.
“Ready and standing by.”
We’d received information that the transpo van would be dropping Esposito off at the back entrance to the courthouse in order to avoid the media frenzy swarming the front steps of the building. Cris, Dad, and Luka were already inside. Ace was set up with all the camera feeds and various tech back in the SUV we took here, monitoring the situation from all angles. And Rome was hunkered down with his sniper rifle in the building across the street in case shit got real.
“As I suspected, Esposito’s crew is everywhere,” Dad murmured in my ear. “Benito has soldiers patrolling every inch of the building.”
“And the street,” Rome added. “More than just Esposito soldiers, too.”
“You know they’ll all be packing.” This from Luka.
“They’d be insane to pull shit in front of the courthouse,” Cris spat.
“Have we seen any Niners yet?” I asked.
“Nah,” Rome grunted.
“Not that I’ve noticed,” Ace added.
“You’d think Benito would have placed guards back here, too,” I commented. “If this is where Raphael will actually be exposed.”
But the area was surprisingly empty. Nothing but a small parking lot with a few cars and some dumpsters.
“They might not be as concerned about his safety while he has guards on him,” Dad speculated. “He’ll only be walking, what, twenty feet from the van to the building?”
I made a sound of agreement. “If that.”
“Transpo two minutes out.”
I spent those two minutes doing what else but thinking about Lexi. It was the one thing guaranteed to distract me, something I really couldn’t afford to be right then. My mind needed to be on the job, in the moment. Distractions led to mistakes. And in these scenarios, mistakes often meant death. We were only there to ensure that everything with Raphael’s first day on trial went smoothly, but when it involved the families, anything could happen.
Nevertheless, Lexi’s face still popped up in mind. Her sensual striptease. Her enthusiastic blowjob. Her peaceful form sleeping in bed. That happened a week ago, but it might as well have been an hour ago for how acutely it still affected me.
We’d been dancing around each other ever since that night. Not really arguing, but not really getting along either. We both seemed to realize how close things had come that night to getting too intimate, and we’d been tiptoeing around on eggshells to avoid another slip-up. Even fighting was a bad idea because our brand of fighting tended to have sexual undercurrents.
I’d be honest, though. I liked pissing her off.
Pushing her buttons got me hard.
Another thing that got me hard?
Sexy Lexi seemed to have a flare for voyeurism. A few mornings ago, I’d been in my bedroom, having just finished my workout and shower routine. I’d been standing beside my bed, wearing nothing but wet hair and a towel. As I was replying to an email on my phone, I’d heard a noise at my bedroom door.
Sure as shit, Lexi had been peeking through the cracked doorway.
Staring at me. Avidly.
She’d looked beyond mortified at being caught and scurried off before I could get a word out.
But I’d stood there grinning like a jackass for a solid five minutes.
A large white van came around a corner, bringing me back to the present. It headed in my direction down the narrow street behind the courthouse.
“Transpo has arrived.”
I was holed up in an abandoned convenience store across the street. The small building was dirty and empty, aside from some moldy boxes and random trash bags littering the floor that I suspected homeless people and various wild life had made good use of.
The windows were streaked with dirt, but I had a clear view of the entrance Raphael would be escorted through. As the van came to a stop, I pulled back the slide of my .45 1911 pistol. Better to be prepared with one in the chamber in case something did go down than be caught unaware. The van remained parked for several minutes, I assumed to alert the guards inside the building, as well as to mess with Raphael’s restraints.
Moments later, the two courthouse guards exited the building and