Page 16 of A Game So Reckless

He tips his head forward in a small nod. I should have known he would have seen it and grabbed it before the police could get to it.

He lingers for a moment, like he wants to ask me something, then apparently decides not to and strides down the hall.

“Goodnight to you, too,” I call at his back. He raises his hand in acknowledgement, then keeps on going.

When I shut the door, it’s as if all the bones holding my body upright give up at the same moment. My knees buckle, and I lurch forward, barely catching myself on the edge of my bed before I fall over. I toss down my clutch, then let my body slump onto the clean, soft blankets.

Thank goodness I ate some of those appetizers before everything went to shit tonight, otherwise I’d probably be in much worse shape. My dinner was basically two sips of a martini that nearly killed me. I don’t know how I’m ever going to look at olives the same again, the little bastards. Between that andgelo de melone, I’ve lost two of my favourite things.

Dio mio. What kind of a person am I that I’m worried about not enjoying certain foods and drinks again when a man lost his life right in front of me tonight?

I hate myself for it, but I can’t summon up any grief. I barely knew Dario, and what I did know, I didn’t particularly like. Now, knowing he was in bed with the Russians…

As my husband, he easily could have gotten me killed.

Darragh simply got to him first.

The more I think about it, the more I know that Darragh Gowan saved me twice tonight. From choking.

And from Dario.

I suck in a sharp breath, relishing my ability to be able to breathe in at all. I turn out the light by my bed and then roll onto my side, staring out the French doors that lead out onto my balcony overlooking the back of our property. Custom-made, those doors. Bullet-proof glass. Through them, I see the moon, fat and bright as a pearl.

“You’re not judging me, are you,bella luna?” I whisper. “For not being sad?”

For being…

Relieved?

Exhaustion overtakes me. My swollen eyelids lower over my eyes.

When I dream, I dream of a ghost on a rooftop.

Except the rooftop changes, no longer a rooftop at all.

It’s my balcony.

Chapter9

Darragh

It was too fucking easy to get up to her balcony.

Any batshit crazy bastard could find his way up here.

Batshit crazy like me.

Then again, most people wouldn’t be able to climb a tree to get over the fence at the back of the property the way I just did. Nor would they be able to pull themselves up and over the balcony railing using nothing but a patio table below as a jumping off point.

Most people didn’t grow up climbing boxes and dumpsters and fire escapes in Dublin alleys because their mammy was too high to open the apartment door after locking you out.

Most people also wouldn’t know where to look for the camera. They wouldn’t know to make the ivy rustle like wind had hit it until the leaves cover the lens.

Even so, I probably am still on camera, at least for the time it took me to get to the back of the house. But since no Sicilians have come hauling ass out here with their guns blazing, I can only surmise that there’s no security guy watching the screens 24/7. Or, if there is, he’s sleeping on the job or off tugging on his cock somewhere.

All in all, old Vinny seems a lot more lax on the security stuff than his heir Elio. Elio’s place is locked down like a fucking fortress, with soldiers scattered all over the property at all times. I have no doubt it has to do with his young wife, Deirdre O’Malley, daughter of the now deceased Jack O’Malley.

Elio is pathetically obsessed with her. Such a dangerously stupid fucking thing, to love a woman as intensely as that. My father learned that lesson the hard way.

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