Page 130 of The Problem with Dating

Go home, Chicago.

This was officially past boys being boys. This was much more than some apple pies and silly string. Tatiana was injured. She or others could’ve been seriously hurt. It had all gone too far now, and I knew exactly who I needed to talk to—even though I didn’t want to at all.

* * *

“Hey!”I exclaimed as I barged into the police station, straight to Cole’s desk. I slammed the brick onto his desk. “Do something about this.”

He arched a brow and surveyed the brick. “You’ve been finger-painting or something?”

“Some kid threw that brick through the front door of my restaurant tonight.”

A sinister smirk spread across his face. “It sounds like kids just being—”

“Stop the shit, Cole! Tatiana was injured. It could’ve been a lot worse, too.”

“What do you want me to do about it? I sent some of my guys down there.”

“I want you to start actually giving a fuck. These vandalizations have been happening for months now, and for some reason your department can’t seem to figure out who these kids in ski masks are. You need to do your job.”

He sat back in his chair and folded his hands together. “You want me to do my job?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Fine,” he agreed, “as long as you leave Yara alone. You want to know whose doing this to your place? I’ll dig deeper once you leave my wife alone.”

“Ex-wife,” I corrected. “And what’s that? Blackmail? You think getting me to stop seeing her is going to what, magically make her want you back? Get real.”

“Real? You want to talk about real? Fine. Let’s chat. I did some digging on you, Alex,” he coldly stated. “I saw that you were abandoned by your parents. Shipped off to Madrid. Then your girlfriend left you, too. Are you seeing a trend?”

“Piss off,” I murmured, feeling my rage building. I knew what he was doing. He was trying to get under my skin. He was trying to shake me.

“You’re a rebound for Yara,” he said. “You’re not end game. You’re the passing fancy. Not the final stop.”

“It must kill you, huh? Seeing her with me. Seeing her happy and knowing you’ll never have that again.”

His mouth twitched as his face reddened. If he was going to get under my skin, I was going to return the favor. “Screw you, Ramírez.”

“Look, I didn’t come here to talk about her. I came to get some real help down at my restaurant. My employees and my customers don’t deserve that harassment. Especially with people getting injured.”

He pushed out a hard laugh. “I don’t care.”

“What?”

“I don’t care about your customers or employees. Did you really think I’d give a damn about the harassment, especially now?” Cole questioned. “Between you and me, I hope the thing burns down to the ground.”

I should’ve known I’d be wasting my time talking to him. He was such a maniac that trying to talk sense to him was too far-fetched. Without another word, I turned and started to leave.

“She’s going to leave you, Ramírez,” Cole called out. “And when she does, I hope it hurts like hell.”

“Oh.” I turned back to him and took him in. I really looked at him and saw the pain in his eyes. “I get it. You think I’m your competition.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, you do. That’s why you tried to bring up the stuff from my past to trigger me. But Yara already showed me too many glimmers. My past doesn’t hurt the way it used to.”

“What the hell is a glimmer?”

“You would know if you knew Yara. That’s the issue, though. You don’t know her. You have no clue who that woman is, and I’m not sure you ever did know her. You think you and I are in a race for Yara’s love. You think if you can get rid of me then you’ll win, but you already lost. You lost her before I existed in her mind. You lost her before she muttered my name.” I crossed my arms. “Sure. Maybe she will leave me. Maybe she’ll walk away and not look back. But I’ll be able to sleep peacefully knowing there is no way she’ll ever go back to you. She has too much self-respect to do that again.”

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