Page 72 of Stolen Kisses
She turned to face me and smiled.
“He’s scared of the water. He thinks there’s sea monsters in there.”
“I’ll fix that. We can go in the pool later and I’ll make sure he loves the water by the time I’m done.” I continued looking at her. “What doesn’t he like?”
“Darkness, and … ketchup.” She chuckled.
“Ughh, I’m with him on the ketchup and any kind of sauce. Not sure whose idea it was to put something like that on anything. So, he’s a man after my own heart there.”
She started laughing. “Dante you don’t like ketchup?”
“Just don’t say that word. Looks like blood pumped with shit.”
She shook her head at me. “You are the strangest boy.”
I laughed. That was what she used to say to me when we were kids. “Yes, apparently I am.”
As I looked at her, I knew I’d have to leave soon and I’d have to say why. I never had to before and it was strange knowing what to say to her. Stranger too, because this kind of involved her.
“The boys are going to watch you and Flynn again today.” I leaned forward kissed her forehead, then rolled over to sit up.
She straightened up. “You’re leaving so soon?”
“Claudius wants us there early. We have stuff to tend to. I’ll have the boys here and we have people keeping watch on Franco too. We haven’t seen anything yet.”
“Dante …”
I turned back to face her and couldn’t ignore the sadness in her eyes.
“Maria, look this is hard because it is. There’re certain things I can’t tell you and certain things I shouldn’t tell you. You know how it works. We keep our women out of business for a reason.”
“I need to know something. You know me, I may not be in any kind of position to make demands, but if you’re with me I need to know something more than you’ll be out for the day. Something so I’m not left wondering what you’re doing.” She winced.
“Goddess, rest assured I will never cheat on you.” I knew she wasn’t talking about that, but I thought I’d try to side-track her if I could.
“I’m not talking about that. I just want to know you’re safe. I just need to know you’re careful.”
As I looked at her I couldn’t help but wonder if it would be so bad to tell her. Tell her something. Just in this instance, because this was about Christina. So far, we’d managed to do our digging under wraps. The most dangerous thing we were actually up against was Franco and the possibility that he’d found her. It was kind of looking like he hadn’t.
So, it boiled down to this decade long investigation that we’d taken on ourselves, because Claudius tried another path no one else would have explored.
I stood up, dragged on my boxers and returned my focus to her.
“It’s about Christina,” I stated.
“What?” she gasped. “What do you mean?”
“We found some new stuff and I’m looking into it.”
Her face went pale. “What kind of stuff?”
“Names and different avenues. People I may not have considered in my search.”
“Search?”
“Maria, you know me. She was my sister and her killer was never found. You knew I never stopped looking and searching. You know I would never. This is a chance for me to get answers.”
“Is it dangerous? Dante is what you’re doing dangerous?” A tear ran down her cheek.
