Page 19 of The Enforcer

She huffed. “Are you kidding me? You haven’t so much as talked about a guy since coming to New York. That’s a long dry spell. You should have seen your eyes that night of the rehearsal dinner.”

“Okay. He intrigued me, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to attempt to find him. We met. I saved his life. There was nothing else.”

“Except for one hot kiss.” She loved teasing me. Maybe because I deserved it.

“Don’t remind me. Thank you.”

“You have no sense of humor. You know I looked him up?”

“Why?”

Her nose wrinkled before she answered, which usually meant she was about to lie. “Since I’ve never seen you so interested, I had to see what all the fuss was about.”

“And?” She knew I’d ask.

“His photographs certainly do him justice. And he’s very well known in Athens and from what I can tell, everywhere in Greece. His family owns some clubs that must be doing well. I think they’re quite wealthy.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

When she sighed, I stopped and turned. “What?”

“You know how the press embellishes everything,” she started. I remained quiet. “It’s just that the family’s reputation also includes the fact they’re…” She stopped and glanced from one side to the other as if worried someone was listening in on our conversation. “A mafia family.”

It took a few seconds for what she’d told me to sink in. I burst out laughing. “Are you watching those crime thrillers again?”

“Don’t be naïve. You know there are crime syndicates in every country. Think about it. The gunshots. The dead bodies. The press was all over the incident, but the police were vague, just saying no evidence had been found at the scene. You know they clean up their messes.”

I’d thought of the possibility once. Just once. I’d chalked it up to the news I’d read about one of the New York mafia families and a bloodbath a few months before. “Stay away from the crime shows. Okay?”

“Hey, ladies. Why don’t you come join us at the bar in an hour for drinks? We’ll talk about heading out to dinner. You can’t come to Milan without savoring their food.”

Molly was handling the lectures, an amazing doctor I’d admired for years and one reason I’d decided to attend.

“Come on,” Emily pushed.

“Fine. I just need to change.” I knew I’d need to relent at some point. I couldn’t spend my time in the hotel room reading books on my Kindle.

“Excellent. See you ladies then.” Molly raced off and Emily gripped my arm.

“You’re going to have a great time. You did bring something other than business attire. Right?”

“I have a dress.” One. One dress. This wasn’t about going out on the town, but about learning more about my craft. Yet, I was glad I’d slipped it in at the last moment.

“Good. Let’s go get all girlified.” Emily was way too happy. She’d earned this trip and I was thrilled to have her as my companion. I wasn’t certain I would have agreed to attending without her.

“That’s not a word.”

“It is in my world.”

I couldn’t help but laugh around her. She had a way of looking at life in a glass as if it was always more than half full. I wasthe complete opposite. Losing patients, watching them suffer, and seeing the families suddenly forced to face their lives on their own had already taken a toll. While I’d only been out of residency for three years, I’d seen more by working in the ER than most cardiologists did in a lifetime.

We rounded the corner and heat suddenly prickled my skin. I stopped briefly, looking around to see if there was an overhead heater of some kind. I didn’t see anything like that.

“Is something wrong?”

I shifted as crowds of people walked by, my eyes catching something. “No, nothing’s wrong. I just thought I saw someone I knew.” We continued heading for the elevator and I continued searching through the crowd. What had I seen?

The prickles of heat suddenly turned into tiny jolts of electricity. I’d only felt the sensations once in my life. That had been when… I stopped a second time, pressing my fingers to my lips.

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