Page 36 of The Gambler

“Don’t even,” he warned.

“Don’t what?” She gave him big, hazel eyes.

“That so-called innocent look doesn’t fool me, unicorn. There will be no cyber-attack or hacking of any kind toward your insurance company. I need you focused on my case. Also, you can’t help me if the FBI finds you and locks you up, now can you.”

She crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “I’m insulted that you think I’d get caught.”

“So, what are you going to do today?”

She pointed at his computer. “Since it’s going to take some time before I can really get on your case, I’m going to work on mine.”

“Your cases?”

“Yep. I’m a VPI. A Virtual Private Investigator. I investigate people. It’s mostly people trying to find old boyfriends or girlfriends. Sometimes a lost family member. Lately, I’ve been looking for people cheating online. It’s not the flashiest of jobs, but it does pay the bills. The overhead is near to zero, especially since no one dares to not pay their bill. After all, we live in the digital age, and no one wants to be on a black hat hacker’s shit list.”

“Didn’t you used to go to college with my sister-in-law? How come you didn’t finish it?”

“Ran out of money.” When he gave her a look, she added, “No, really. I had a scholarship but it wasn’t enough to cover the costs. There was this thing with my dad and—never mind. Anyway, that piece of paper wouldn’t have helped me anyway. What was I supposed to do with it? Go on a job interview and work for the man? I've kind of always had this problem with authority.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

She grinned and handed him a cupcake.

He grabbed the piece of sugary heaven and sat across her with his coffee. Grabbing his phone, he went through his messages and emails. Every now and then, Tess’ gaze would rest on him.

For days now, he had the feeling she was mustering up the courage to tell him something. Sometimes he found her contemplating look resting on him. Only when she thought he didn’t notice, of course.

He had a ton of stuff to do. Among which was to find Mick’s brother, Jamie. The guy also worked for Irish Brian. That is, he used to. Word had gotten to him that Jamie hadn’t showed his face again after he’d heard about his brother’s demise. He had an inkling that Jamie would blame Mick’s death on a certain techie’s head. There was no way Luca was going to allow him anywhere near Tess, which meant that now he had a second hunt on his mind.

But first, he needed to get her drop whatever was onhermind.

“Spit it out. Whatever’s hurting that brain of yours, tell me.”

She crossed her knees, drawing his attention to her core. Of course, she had no idea what view she gave him, sitting atop the kitchen island like that.

Focus, Luciano, fucking focus.

“You ever did something so stupid that it came to bite you back in the ass?” For a second there, her eyes glazed over. “I did.”

“Yeah. Trusting a man, someone I thought to be my friend, over my brothers. We both know how that story went.”

She stared at her fingers. “My mistake was much worse. As in, deserving a ticket to hell, worse.”

He highly doubted that. “What could you have possibly done to deserve a place in hell?”

Sorrow crept into her beautiful eyes, and he knew he’d hit a sore spot. His bright and bubbly girl had turned ashen.

He grabbed her hand. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. I won’t judge. I promise.” There was no way she did something bad on purpose. There wasn’t a speck of evil inside her.

“I hurt a man. No, hurt is an understatement. I…” She took a deep breath. “I was responsible for a man’s death.” She tensed, as if she expected him to lay into her.

“Go on.”

“After losing my mom to cancer, I kind of blamed the world. When I later found out that her lifespan was shortened by wrong medicine, I was so angry. I hurt people. Not in the ‘I’m gonna stab you’ kind of way, but I set out to destroy the lives—of her doctors, for example. I found out everything I could about them. One of them was having an affair. I exposed him to his wife, sending her pictures. They got separated while having two kids.

“I know what wanting revenge feels like, and I’m telling you it won’t make you feel any better. No matter how you feel right now, it’s not going to change a thing about what has happened to you. It just leaves a bad taste in your mouth because no matter who you take revenge on, innocent people will get hurt. This Cruz, he has a mother, right? A sister? Brothers? People who love him and whom you will hurt by killing him.”

He ignored the part of him going after Cruz. This wasn’t about him. Not really.

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