Page 49 of Unexpected Temptation

“Damn right, it is. You don’t need her. She’s dragging the business down.”

He’s trying to get in my head. He’s trying to make it about the sanctuary. The truth is, he wants her gone because he needs me cold, just like before. “I hired her for a reason.”

“We got a case to crack. You need to focus.

“I am.”

“No, you’re distracted. I see it. She’s trouble.”

I grind my teeth, working my hand on the steering wheel like a garotte. For a bleak, ugly second, I imagine strangling my old friend, one of the only people who made it out of that ravinewith me. Nobody should come between me and Maya; that’s the violent, possessive feeling that grips me.

“She’s not trouble.”

“Then what is she?” It’s like he’s honestly curious. “I want the best for you, man. But from the outside, it doesn’t look great.”

“She’s different,” I snap.

“Different, how?”

“She just is,” I say, not because there isn’t a lot I could say. It’s how she smiles at the dogs and stares intently at everything, her eyes working away as she puzzles something out. It’s the shape of her legs and the taste of her and the feel of her hot, curvy body against mine.

Dammit, it’s the first time I saw her, a silhouette in the night.

“We’ve got the Mob breathing down our necks, and you’re getting sentimental?”

“Breathing down our necks,” I say. “No, Tank. I’m serving them up on a silver damn platter for you. Anyway, it’s not like that.”

“Then what’s it like?” he says.

I wonder if I should make up some lie and dodge the question somehow, but Tank deserves the truth. “I can’t stop thinking about her. I mean, literally, Tank. I mean, all damn day. I made an excuse to go around there, and …”

I’m not sure I know how to explain what happened during that short time at her house.

“I just don’t want this to fail,” Tank says, sounding on edge. “We need to get these guys.”

“Well, I can’t fire her, and it wouldn’t change shit about Friday anyway.”

“I’m worried about you, too. You need that place.”

I don’t say anything. He’s right. We both know it. When we bled, when I held my boy, my Odin, I knew I had to do something. “I can pay her. I’ve got the funds. As for the next few months, I don’t know. If we’re doing this thing, let’s do it. I can’t afford to think about the future.”

“So you’ll be ready for Thursday. That’s when Carlo wants to do it, right?”

“Friday,” I tell him. “I’ve got other plans on Thursday.”

“With your lady, I guess, right?” Tank sighs. “Man, I’m sorry for how I was and how I’m being. This shit’s got me on edge. I want to make some headway with these monsters. The stuff they do …”

“I know,” I tell him coldly. “I ran guns for them. I worked security. I even did some irreversible things to men who deserved it, but I ignored the rest. I pretended it made me better than them.”

“T,” Tank mutters. “You know I can’t hear this stuff.”

“You going to arrest me?” I say, laughing darkly.

“Have fun Thursday, okay?”

“Pfft. I thought she was going to be the end of me.”

“I know you. You’re not going to change your mind. Hell, what you said about thinking about her, I’ve never heard you like that. What are you doing for the date?”

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