Page 48 of Daddy's Little Spy

“How? What happened?”

Apparently accepting she wasn’t going to move until she got her answers, Benito sighed and settled back against the padded headboard. “As far as most of the world is concerned, I was killed by Detective Bartholomew Franks, who has since disappeared. Ostensibly to save himself from my cousin’s wrath.”

“You faked it.” Red colored the edges of her vision as fury churned in her stomach. “You fucking faked it?”

“Yes.”

“You dirty, lying, scheming, rat-faced, son-of-a —”

He held up a hand, cutting off her tirade with a stern glare. “Stop right there unless you want to have the rest of this conversation with a bar of soap between your teeth, little girl.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” She could hear her voice rising, could feel the hysteria bubbling up inside of her, but she couldn’t have stopped the words from spilling out of her even if she’d wanted to.

“You made me think you were dead. Dead! I cried for you, Benito. I wept over your body. I watched the love of my fucking life get shot, right in front of my face, and you have the goddamn nerve to lecture me right now?”

To her shock, he didn’t grab her and throw her across his knee or drag her off to the bathroom for that bar of soap. Instead, the corners of his lips kicked up, just a bit, and he tilted his head to the side. “The love of your life?”

“Yes, you idiot. You really think I would threaten to shoot another cop, even a dirty bastard like Franks, if I didn’t love you?”

“You love me.” Shifting to his knees, he slipped an arm around her waist, yanking her into him again. “Say it again, Diana.”

Tilting her chin up, she glared at him. “No.”

“Then I will. I love you, Diana. I’ve loved you from the moment you opened your door in that sexy as fuck dress, to go to a goddamn ballet with two people who could have easily murdered you and dumped your body where it would have never been found. My beautiful, sassy, stupidly brave girl.”

“I am not stupid.”

“No,” he murmured, reaching up to brush the hair from her face. “Just so brave it fucking terrifies me. I swear I should blister your ass for putting yourself in harm’s way like that.”

“He had a gun.” The anger she’d felt when he’d confessed his deception seemed to have burned through her, leaving her exhausted and empty. “What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t just watch him shoot you.”

“Because you love me.”

Closing her eyes, she pressed her forehead to his. “Yes. Because I love you. Some cop I am, falling for a fucking criminal.”

“If it helps, I’m not technically a criminal any longer.”

She huffed out a laugh. “You don’t just get to decide you’re not a criminal anymore, Benito.”

“Ah, but there’s the rub. I’m no longer Benito Reinaldi. Ergo… not a criminal.”

Heart pounding with a horrible, terrifying kind of hope, she narrowed her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Francesco D’Anna, at your service.”

The thundering of her heartbeat in her ears nearly drowned out his words. “I… I don’t understand.”

“Benito Rinaldi is dead,” he repeated, his tone one might use when explaining a particularly complicated math question to a child. “As is Detective Diana Clarke.”

Grief threatened to overwhelm her again. “Why?”

With a quiet sigh, he climbed out of the bed and crossed the room to a rolling cart. Silence seemed to fill the space between them, pushing them further and further apart as he poured them each a cup of coffee.

When he turned back to her, she let out a strangled cry at the explosion of purple and blue across his stomach.

“I’m fine, bambolina,” he assured her quietly, handing her one of the mugs. “The vest took the brunt of the bullet.”

“You could have internal injuries. Have you been to a hospital?”

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