Page 46 of Wicked Ambition

His hand went to the front pocket of his fatigue pants, and he traced the outline of her small hoop earring with his thumb. Keeping this with him for the past seven weeks had been dumb. He should have left it on the hotel dresser in Los Angeles. Or in Tampa. Instead, Oz carried it everywhere as if it were some kind of talisman. Fuck, he’d been acting stupid since the night he met her and there were no signs his brain was going to come back online soon.

He glanced over at Ayla, but he couldn’t see her face. Her head was down and the sides of the wig had fallen forward, concealing her. There was another shimmy in his chest. Stupid might be an understatement. Why else would he tell her about his parents?

Questions were coming. It was a matter of when not if.

KW rounded the corner, a mug of coffee in his hand, and Oz gladly put his thoughts aside.

“Dude,” Winter complained with his usual smirk as he took a seat on an ottoman, “do you realize how many contractors are in the convent right now? We’ve already had one religious relic stolen, and I don’t want to have to deal with another loss. It distresses Mother Teresita.” He glanced over at Ayla. “Who’s your friend?”

“KW, meet Pollita. Pollita, this is one of my buddies. He goes by KW.”

“You can call me Kyle,” he offered. As Ayla looked up, Winter’s expression became quizzical. “Why did you change your hair?”

For an instant, she gaped at KW. It didn’t last long. “Io! You saw my sister.”

Oz froze, coffee cup halfway to his mouth. KW had been at the café the day Ayla arrived, but he’d been long gone before she exited the bus. “My Pollita is an identical twin. Her sister went missing. When did you see her?”

“She stopped by the convent last Wednesday. She wanted to talk to the Reverend Mother.”

“Do you know why?” Ayla asked, leaning toward KW.

He shook his head. “No idea.” He turned his attention to Oz. “You know she would have been followed when she left the abbey, at least for a while.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Looked like there was another tie to their op. Winter had been sent undercover to the convent because men had been surrounding it for weeks. Men who worked for arms dealer Jorge Torres.

When Oz requesteda room with two beds, he hadn’t expectedthis.

One king-size bed and a bunkbed. The top bunk was so close to the ceiling that any adult would bang their head when they sat up. They had a sagging loveseat and a coffee table, a small desk built into the off-white wall, and there was a flatscreen television mounted next to a huge pole that wasn’t completely concealed by the sheetrock.

“I’m sorry about this,” Oz apologized. “I’ll take the bunkbed.”

Ayla studied it. “It’s made for kids. Your feet will be hanging off the end. I can sleep on the lower bunk.”

Oz shook his head. “Yourfeet will be hanging off, too. That bunk is maybe five feet long. You need to get enough rest.”

She gave him a look he couldn’t decipher. “Or we could both use the adult bed. It’s wide enough that we won’t be on top of each other.”

The offer surprised him. It was obviously not an invitation for anything more than sleeping, but why would she even suggest that much? He could try to get another room, although that might make them more memorable than Oz would like. “We could do that. I didn’t want you to think?—”

“I didn’t. Have you heard from Kyle yet?”

He hadn’t felt his phone vibrate, but if he told her no without checking, she’d ask if he was sure. It was easier to look and skip the question. As expected, Oz found zero messages and shook his head. “Not yet.”

“He said he was going to talk to the Mother Superior as soon as he could.” Ayla twisted her hands at her waist. Oz wanted togo to her and stop the nervous motion, but shewasanxious, and forcing her to be still wouldn’t change her emotions.

“Ayla, the convent has a schedule. There are prayer times and silent hours where they don’t speak to anyone, let alone their handyman. It’s Sunday. There are probably extra things they do. KW will talk to Mother Teresita as soon as he’s able, and he’ll let me know what your sister and the Reverend Mother discussed. He’s not holding out on us.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that this is a lead! We know Io was fine on Wednesday. That’s more than we had this morning.” She shrugged. “Besides, it’s the only thing we accomplished today. Isn’t there more we can do?”

“It’s nearly dark,” Oz said. “We’ll get an earlier start tomorrow.”

Oz wondered how long he could manipulate her into believing they were searching for her sister while he kept her out of harm’s way. It was Baggs doing the heavy lifting on this hunt. Ayla wasn’t suspicious. Yet. But he needed to come up with more safe places for their supposed search, or she might start putting the pieces together, something he couldn’t afford.

Yeah, not only safe but also locations that were logical. His Pollita might be out of her depth, but she thought about the things he said, the things he did, and she weighed them. She wasn’t afraid to ask questions, either.

“Let’s talk about our plans for the morning,” Ayla said. She sat down on the loveseat. The sag had her listing strongly to her right and she shifted farther away from the middle.

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