Page 105 of Enforcer

I have to keep some mystery about my person, after all.

She grins. “Fair. I think I would, too. I don’t know that I’d be good at it, but if I did, I want to break the cycle.”

“The cycle?”

Part of me knows she means her parents’ divorce, but I want to be sure.

“I want a love that’s lasting with someone who will put in the effort to make it so. I don’t want to have to sit my children down, as I was done, to tell them our family is breaking apart. I don’t want them to have to go between houses or, worse, never see one of their parents again,” she says, and sadness fills each chamber in my heart for the little girl still hurting inside her.

“I want the same. Even though there’s nothing wrong with divorce, Alyssa. Sometimes, for two people to be happy and grow, they need to be separate. They need to grow in different directions. I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault, either.”

I think she’s going to argue back, but she doesn’t. She only nods.

Time flies as we continue to talk and get to know one another. By the time we leave, Alyssa has a nice brunch buzz, and we’re holding hands like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

When we leave, I open the car door for her, and she hesitates before getting inside. The kiss she gives me before she does so is warm and has my head spinning more than the mimosas, and I take my time walking around the car, smiling the biggest I have in years as I head to my door.

“May I?” she asks, reaching for the radio once I’ve pulled away from the curb.

I nod. “Of course, just no Taylor Swift,” I tell her, a stern look in my eyes as I look toward her.

“Yes, sir,” she answers, and I note the snark in her answering tone as I plan to bend her over my knee once we’re back at the townhouse.

It’s only a seven-mile trip from the cafe to home, but it’ll take thirty minutes in this traffic.

Taylor Swift’sBad Bloodblasts through the and I try to change it, but Alyssa swats my hand away as she sings the words loud as shit along with the radio.

“I said no!” I shout, laughing as she sings louder.

We go through an intersection, the light green. We’re still swatting one another back and forth as everything changes. A loud crash fills my ears before they begin to ring.

The world is spinning so fast that I can’t understand which way it’s going. Glass floats by my face, and it looks like it’s suspended in time. It’s like Alyssa and I have become astronauts, and gravity no longer applies to us.

My arm goes in front of Alyssa’s chest as she flies forward from the force of the car’s spinning, and the left side of my face feels as though it’s been crushed somehow.

It happens so fast that I can’t understand what’s going on as the car flips and skids to a halt, and my vision goes dark.

Alyssa is screaming my name, and Taylor is singing through the sound system as tires screech away from us and cars honk inthe background. My hearing becomes muddied by blood rushing in.

The song does seem like the perfect choice. I wonder if fate had a hand in the choosing.

“Dante!” Alyssa shouts as I slip away into darkness. “Dante, I swear to God! Don’t you leave me! Run into the danger. Fight, baby!”

Fate is a cruel bitch.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

ALYSSA

The world around me seems both loud and dull at the same time. Sirens and lights blast through the shattered windows. My hand holds Dante’s, our blood mingling as it moves down my arm and drips off my elbow while we dangle upside down in the flipped car.“Dante,” I whisper weakly, my vision blurring.

He hasn’t even as much as groaned, and it’s making me so fucking anxious that he’s not alright. The car hit his side, and I don’t know how they’re going to get him out.

“Ma’am,” someone’s voice filters through the beating in my ears, the ringing silence. “Ma’am!”

I roll my eyes toward the window beside me the best I can.

“There you are, sweetheart,” the man lingering there in a fireman’s uniform tells me in a thick New York accent. “I need you to focus on me, alright?”

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