Page 66 of The Woman with the Target on her Back (Grassi Family)

She hung up, placing her phone very deliberately down on the counter, then pressing a hand to her stomach.

“I feel sick,” she admitted.

I had a feeling it had more to do with her father, for some reason, than the copious amount of sugar she’d just consumed.

“Here,” Aurelio said, going into the fridge to grab a soda. “Oh, don’t curl your lip,” he chastised. “Soda is good for nausea,” he told her as he popped the top and handed it to her.

Traveler wasn’t a stickler about food per se, not even the super processed shit. But she had an aversion to soda.

She grimaced as she sipped it, but she kept going, clearly not feeling great.

“So, your dad is coming,” Aurelio said.

“Yes.”

“He signed himself out against doctors orders?” he asked.

“Yep. He’s a pain in the ass,” she grumbled. “And, yes, I know,” she said, slitting her eyes at me, knowing I was about to say something about it being a family trait. “He’s been out for over an hour. Already has a replacement phone and his car. So I guess he took a ride back to his house for a bit to get cleaned up before coming here.”

“At least we have some food,” Aurelio said, turning to put another pot of coffee on.

“Trav,” I tried, reaching out toward her, but she jerked away, crossing her arms over her chest.

And just like that, a weeks’ worth of progress disappeared.

That arm-crossing thing? That was how she treated me right at first. She didn’t do that to me anymore, now that she knew I typically only ticked her off out of fun, not malice or because I didn’t like her.

It wasn’t more than ten minutes before we heard a knock at the door. It wasn’t loud, but Traveler damn near jumped out of her skin at the sound.

I was the one who strode toward the door, though, looking out, then letting him in.

He looked like a different man than the one we’d seen in the bed the day before.

Out of the hospital gown and without all the shit connected to him, he seemed taller, wider, and with better coloring. His dark eyes were sharp as he looked at me, then from me to the suite.

He’d definitely stopped long enough to shower away the hospital, then carefully dress himself in a suit. He even put on cologne and an expensive-ass watch.

“How the hell you’d get her to let you put her up in a place like this?” he asked, voice low enough that his daughter didn’t hear.

“I didn’t really give her a choice,” I admitted, shrugging.

To that, his lips pursed, but he nodded, and his eyes seemed bright. Like he approved.

“Dad, you needed to let yourself recover,” Traveler said as James moved inside the suite with me following behind. Where I noticed the unmistakable bulges of holsters under his jacket and around his calf.

The man was prepared for anything.

“I did recover. In a coma. Don’t know if you’ve ever been in a deep sleep for days on end, but it makes you not want to lie around on your ass all day when it’s over. Besides, I got shit to do. Like take my city back. And protect my daughter,” he said.

I saw it then, the way her face tightened at his words. Like she was upset by them.

But why?

Didn’t she want to get her shop back?

Get her life back?

Her father getting himself back on track would secure that for her once again.

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