Page 37 of The Woman with the Target on her Back (Grassi Family)

Because if he did know, wouldn’t he have been more careful?

Who the fuck knew.

All I knew was we were all feeling pretty fucking defeated as we stuffed ourselves with pasta and garlic bread.

“Alright, kids,” Aurelio said a while later, taking the bag full of now empty takeaway containers with him as he moved out of the kitchen. “That’s it for me. I managed to get myself my own room,” he said, making Traveler’s head shoot over so fast she must have seen fucking stars.

“What? Why?” she asked.

To that, he gave her a bit of a self-deprecating smile. “As much as I hate to admit that I’m not as young as I used to be, that couch has had my back fucking killing me all day,” he told her.

“You could take the bed,” she offered, then seemed to remember it would mean she would be stuck in the living room with me, because she winced a little at the idea of him taking her up on the offer.

“It’s all settled,” he said, shaking his head at her. “I’m down two floors and I don’t have my own kitchen, but as nice as this suite is, I think it would start to pinch a bit if we all were staying together any longer.”

There was a false note to his words.

Granted, I didn’t know Aurelio as well as some of my other cousins, what with him being older, and me being closer in age to his brother Milo, but I knew him well enough to know when he was bullshitting someone.

And he was bullshitting Traveler.

Likely not about his back. I’d seen him wince when he’d moved to stand before. But about… something.

He was gone before I could question him on it, though, wishing Traveler a good night, and saying he’d be by in the morning to talk about next steps.

“I want to see my shop,” Traveler said, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“What?”

“My shop. I want to see it.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s practically my second home, and its been fucked with. I want to see what they did.”

“Alright,” I agreed, nodding. “We can do that tomorrow. With Aurelio,” I clarified.

“You really think it’s that unsafe?” she asked.

“I really think it’s that unsafe.”

“But…”

“Baby, they attacked, and meant to kill, the chief of police. Take it from a criminal, that’s a big fucking deal. Organizations, they might take out a cop, maybe a detective here and there. But when you start getting up there in the chain of command—chief of police, district attorney, judges—that’s serious shit. It brings a lot of heat. And we are hardwired to avoid that kind of thing.

“So if someone is going out of their way not only to try to take him out, but then attack his daughter too? Yeah, this is not something we should be taking lightly. It is very fucking unsafe for you out there right now.”

Traveler let out a shaky breath, but nodded.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” I asked, brows raising.

“What?” she asked.

“You’re just… agreeing with me? Going along with what I’m saying?” I asked, dubious.

“You’re more of the expert in this,” she said as she got to her feet, stretching long as a cat; I tried not to think of the curves of her body as her clothes strained against her with the movement.

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