Page 56 of Seek Him Like Shelter

“She’s living with me, so who else’s name would I be quick with?”

“She’s pretty.”

“She’s beautiful,” I corrected, getting a shrug from him. I didn’t know what his type was. I don’t think I’d ever seen him with a woman, come to think of it.

“Why isn’t she yours?” he asked.

“Because it doesn’t work that way,” I said, catching a quick sideways look from Serano. “I can’t just tell a woman that she’s mine.”

“Why not?”

“Because they don’t like that kind of shit. We aren’t fucking cavemen.”

To that, he only had a shrug to offer me.

“I’d like to see you tell a woman she’s yours, then see her smack the shit out of you,” I said, smirking at him.

But something caught his eye, and he was jerking his chin toward the windshield.

Half a block ahead, Dimitri was walking out of his front door flanked by two of his men.

I was about to reach to shift the car into drive when Serano’s hand stopped me, nodding toward the street again.

Another car pulled up the street, stopping right in the center, and dropping off someone alarmingly familiar before pulling off again.

It was the man who’d been strung up at the meat shop.

Renzo told me they’d opted to try to use him as a spy, but everything about the fucker’s body language told me he wasn’t cut out for it. He was jumpy and paranoid, gaze casting around. I could practically see him vibrating with anxiety from half a block away.

“Not good,” Serano said as Dimitri nodded toward his men, and one of them pushed the guy in the back, then both of them climbed in with him, blocking him in.

Leaving Dimitri himself to drive, something he rarely did.

Reaching for my phone, I rang up Rico.

“Yeah?”

“That double agent of yours…” I started.

“What about him?”

“Think you should start planning his replacement with his crew,” I said as the car pulled off.

“Fuck. What happened?”

“He wasn’t cut out for it. Think Dimitri clocked something being off right away. Just drove off with him.”

“Well, one less problem for me to deal with, I guess,” Rico said, sighing. “Thanks for the heads up,” he added before ending the call.

“Not gonna follow ‘em?”

“Don’t feel like watching anyone get murdered today,” I admitted, checking the clock, wondering how late Elizabeth was going to be.

I’d caught a recap of the mess that had been that damn town hall meeting that had been going down while Elizabeth had been running for her life through the school. And, yeah, it looked like there was a fuckton of damage control to be done. But she’d agreed that she would leave when the rest of the staff did, so she would be more protected in a crowd.

I was planning to teach her to make a bolognese sauce that we would put over some wide pappardelle noodles. Maybe a side of cicoria ripassata to get some greens in. I might even have time to stop at the bakery to pick up some cantucci—almond biscotti—before heading home to meet Elizabeth. She would love dipping those in her after-dinner coffee.

Then, well, maybe we could cozy up on the couch.

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