Page 60 of Rise of Temptation

“I’ve been—”

We both stop talking, and I gesture for him to go first. I’m nervous about his reaction to my question, so I’m happy to put it off for a few more minutes.

“I’ve been thinking,” he starts.

“Sounds dangerous,” I tease, taking a sip of my coffee. “Shit, that’s delicious.”

“I’m glad you like it.” He pauses and looks down at the bed, running his hand through his thick, dark hair.

“What have you been thinking about?” I prompt him.

“A few things. I guess the first is…” He stops and takes a deep breath before continuing. “I want you to stay here. Even after your assignment ends.”

“In what capacity?”

“As… I don’t know. Not staff. I want you to want to stay.”

“You want me to be your girlfriend?”

“That feels so… mundane. But I guess so.”

“What else have you been thinking about?” I’m not going to give him any indication of my thoughts until I have all of the information. But I’m already surprised by the way this conversation is going, so I’m excited to hear more.

He squares his shoulders. “I’m prepared to lift the rules when it comes to Sal, Frankie, and Joey,” he says, and my heart soars. “I’m smart enough to realize that my best chance of keeping you is by sharing you, and I’m man enough to admit that it’s fucking hot to see you with them.

“Plus, this life is dangerous, so if I’m ever not here—”

“Stop that,” I order, interrupting him. “Nothing is happening to any of you.”

“It’s just a fact of the life we live,” he says with a shrug. “But that brings me to the last thing I wanted to say. I don’t want to treat you like a prisoner, but I need you to agree that you’ll stay in the house unless one of us is available to go with you. For your safety, yes, but also for our peace of mind. We can’t afford to always be worried about you when we have so much other stuff going on.”

My instinct is to argue. I can take care of myself, especially when I’m armed, and I’m a grown woman, capable of making my own decisions and deciding if I need extra protection.

Maybe he buttered me up by giving in to what we’ve beenmoving toward, or maybe he brought up a good point about giving them peace of mind, but I find myself nodding. “Okay,” I agree. “I’ll be careful and not leave by myself. At least until we solve this case.” I’m not willing to agree beyond then, but I’m sure we’ll be reevaluating the need for security when the time comes.

“What about the other stuff?” he asks, and I can tell that he’s a little nervous that I won’t say yes.

“I want to stay,” I admit. “And I want to be involved with all four of you, as crazy as I know that is.”

“It sounds like there’s a ‘but’ coming,” Enzo says.

“I might have to quit my job.” The thought just occurred to me when I realized it’s not a great look for a federal agent to be in a relationship with not one, not two, not three, but four criminals.

“Oh. I guess I didn’t realize you planned to keep it after all this.” He turns away, and I can feel him shutting down.

“Hey, look at me.” I wait until he turns back around and then climb into his lap and cup his cheeks. “I haven’t been letting myself think that far ahead. But I want to be with all of you. So I guess that means my days at work are numbered.” It’s a weird realization, but I’m not as upset as I thought I’d be.

“You could quit now,” he suggests. “They aren’t doing shit for us anyway.”

“But they might find something that we don’t know yet. I’ll quit after my assignment is over.”

He nods and then smiles, and I realize just how rare that sight is.

“I want to go call the others and tell them the good news,” I say, sliding off his lap and onto the floor. “I’ll be right back.”

I race to my room and grab my phone, which I added everyone’s number to after Enzo told them about my job. When I turn it on, I find a text from Lydia. She has something to tellme, but she needs to tell me in person. I’ll have to figure out a time when one of the guys can go with me, so I hold off on answering her. After I throw on a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie, I jog down the stairs, intending to make my phone calls from the living room.

But when I see the front door, I realize that I’m finally free to wander the property. In all the time I’ve been here, I’ve only gone out the handful of times that either I had to go to work or Enzo wanted to take me to work with him. His words of warning about only going somewhere when someone is available to go with me replay in my mind, but I’m not leaving. I’m just stepping outside to make a couple of phone calls.

I roll my eyes at myself for questioning if I should call Enzo to go with me and open the door. A quick survey of my surroundings tells me that there’s no one around, and I go out, shutting the door behind me. I unlock my phone and start looking for Joey’s phone number in my contacts list.

When I finally find it, I glance up and realize I’ve been wandering down the driveway. I change directions to go back to the house and look back down at my phone, only to hear a strange sound behind me, like a cross between a swish and a crunch. Before I can turn around to check it out, I feel a sharp pinch of pain in my neck.

As the world around me fades to black, my phone slips out of my hand, and all I can think is how unfair it is for me to die right when my romantic life is finally going in the right direction. The very last thought I have is how mad Enzo is going to be that I left the house without him. If I survive, I’ll never hear the end of it, and I’ll never be able to go anywhere by myself again. But if I do survive, somehow, I don’t think I’ll mind.

To be continued…

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