Page 16 of The Prizes We Win
“Hey.” I bump his leg with mine, forcing him to look at me. “There’s a reason we have the protocol that we do. There’s a reason each of us, even Sebastian, is trained the way we are. Because it doesn’t matter how good you are at your job. Even the infamous and terrifying ex-Navy SEAL, Dante DeLuca, can’t make that promise. You can’t promise us, and you can’t promise Joe that she’ll never get hurt again. You can do your best to prevent it from happening, and you can damn sure guarantee you’ll never do it yourself, but you can’t promise it.”
There’s a deep sadness lingering in his eyes, something I’ve only ever seen that day he hurt Joe. As if the idea of failing the ones he loves most is the worst sin he could commit in life.
Reaching up, I cup the side of his face in my hand. It’s the most intimate touch the two of us have ever shared, but I want him to know how much I mean what I’m about to say. “Without you, The Horsemen would be nothing. We would have never saved all the people we have saved, and all of those low-life pieces of shit we rid this world of would still be walking around. Hell, we would have never found Harper that day in the woods.Wewould not be us withoutyou, Dante. Even you are allowed to make mistakes. Even you are allowed to miss things that the rest of us miss. So don’t you dare ask for forgiveness or apologize for what happened because there’s nothing to forgive and there’s nothing to apologize for. Do you understand me?”
Dante closes his eyes and inhales a deep, slow breath. With my hand on the side of his face, I pull him closer to me until our foreheads are resting against one another. “Tell me you understand.”
Slowly, he opens his eyes. “I understand.”
The two of us remain connected as we stare at one another. Our breathing suddenly turns heavy and ragged. And in this moment, I know what I want to do. It’s the same thing I’ve wanted for a while now. The same thing I constantly joke and give him shit about but never seriously allude to. The same thing that consumes my thoughts every time I see him enter a room. But I can’t move first. No matter how daring or forward I may be with everyone else, Dante is different. I don’t even know if this is something he would want.
Me.
A man.
So the best I can do is just wait. Wait for him to tell me. Wait forhislips to touch mine.
And fuck, do I really want them to.
And just when I think the moment is going to pass, Dante’s lips part ever so slightly, and he lets out a shaky breath. “Enzo, I—”
Suddenly, an ear-shattering scream rips through the night.
Dante and I immediately forget the position we’re in and stand from our chairs. He has the binoculars back up to his face in a flash, and I have my gun in my hand at the ready.
“What is it?” I ask eagerly.
“It’s a woman. She’s running across the yard. Maxim and some of the guys are chasing after her.”
Fuck.
“Red hair?” I ask, even though I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.
“Yeah. She went out the back gate and onto the beach,” Dante explains. Not wasting another second, he throws the binoculars down, heads straight for the helm, and starts the boat. “Call Luca.”
By the time I dig my phone out of my cargo pant’s pocket, Dante already has the anchor up, and a moment later the boat launches in the direction of the Novikovs' beachfront property.
I guess this reconnaissance mission is now a rescue mission.
12
Dante
God fucking damnit.
This wasn’t the plan.
Thisisn’t the plan.
But I can’t just leave this woman.
It’s not who I am.
I can’t.
Iwon’t.
“Got it,” Enzo answers, hanging up the phone and putting it back in his cargo pocket as I speed toward shore.
