Page 37 of Sugar Baby
Nothing is going to stop me this time from getting up and walking out of here. Two days is long enough to be laid out on my ass while the woman I love is in danger.
Quinn snorts with amusement, but then he turns grim again. “Can you get up?”
I nod in confirmation and stand up, once again removing all the monitoring bits from my person.
“Cesca cannot know that we knew about the heist,” he mutters. “She will murder us both.”
“Noted.” There are few things that Francesca Calabrese now Quinn cares about, but her daughter is one of them. She is special, precious to the family for more reasons than she knows. There is no way that the Head of the Calabrese crime family will let anyone live if she thinks they purposefully put her daughter in danger. “So what do we do now?”
“Find Enzo before she does. She has her team working on it, but so do I. Trouble is, the accident was in a blind spot and laying low is Enzo’s speciality. If he doesn’t want to be found, then he won’t be.”
There is a slight pause before he continues in a low tone. “Did you get what I sent you in there for?”
“Sort of. The dossier is taped under a desk in a back office. But I got a video of the contents. Enzo will want it. Where’s my stuff?”
He nods to the cabinet next to me. I reach over and open the drawer, seeing my phone and pulling it out. “I need to make a phone call.”
I dial Trent, the head of the Taskforce I’m covertly working for, in a triple cross that makes my head ache.
“Yeah,” he growls.
“Four, five, two, one, six. You know where I am?”
“Yeah. Assume you’re on your feet. What’s your next move?”
“Leaving and heading back to Quinn’s compound.”
“You know what to do when you get there.”
He hangs up, and I hand the phone to Quinn. I gather up my clothes and start to get dressed, wincing as my side aches like a fucker. Two bullets, through and through, missed all vital organs. Fucking prick. He didn’t want to kill me, just incapacitate me.
When I’m ready to leave, Quinn helps me, letting me lean on him as I hobble out.
“Wait!” One of the nurses at the station calls out. “You can’t leave. You need to talk to the police…”
We both ignore her and keep walking. She can try to keep me here, but it’s not happening.
“I hate to ask this, but will he hurt Sophia?”
“Nah,” Quinn replies gruffly. “She means everything to him. He wants Cesca so he can kill her and claim the Calabrese family, and then he will come after me. It’s a trap that has been nicely laid out. I’m pissed because everything I’ve done to Sophia, keeping her locked away, was so that Enzo couldn’t get hold of her. Getting Trent’s predecessor to run him out of England and back to Italy was only a band-aid. I knew this day would come. I just didn’t know it would be so soon. Our intel had him still holed up in Siena. This is what I mean about him being a ghost. Not even Cesca will find him, but you can. Take what you know about your step-nephew and use it.”
I sigh inwardly.
Step-nephew.
My mother married Gino, Lorenzo and Francesca’s grandfather, when I was still little. They were ten years older than me, but Gino and my mother raised the twins until Gino got tired of her and let her go when I was about twelve. They were as close as if they had been stuck together with glue. But that all changed when Gino died twenty years ago and left everything to Francesca. His golden girl. Lorenzo was furious, and they have been in a bitter battle ever since.
I wasn’t even thought about except by Cesca, who took me in to guard Sophia when she was sixteen years old. I was thirty, fourteen years her senior, and I tried desperately not to fall in love with her, but it was impossible. I never once acted on my feelings for her. No one knew, no one suspected. It was my dirty secret that I had planned to take to my grave. But one day a few years ago, she practically pounced on me when the entire family was on holiday in the South of France. In her tiny black bikini, she was all woman by then, and I had no willpower, so was the depth of my feelings for her. I’m not a fool, though. I know she feels nothing for me. I’m an escape for her. If Aidan or Francesca ever find out, they will tie concrete to my feet and throw me in the lake.
“Nico.”
Quinn’s voice interrupts my thoughts.
“Find my baby girl.” There is absolutely nothing but darkness in his tone, and I know if I don’t come through, it’s the lake for me.
“On it,” I mutter as we reach the van, and he shoves me inside. I can only hope that it’s not too late when I do.
ChapterTwenty-Six
