Page 2 of Keeping My Girl

“Any sign of him yet?”Aldo’s voice comes through the earpiece secured in my right ear.

I give a subtle shake of my head. Aldo has eyes everywhere in the room, having hacked the security cameras, and I know he can see my response.

“Ten more minutes, and then I want you to get the hell out of there.”

I can’t help but smile. Aldo Allaband is head of my father’s IT team. When I proposed the idea of somehow implanting a tiny tracker on Carbone, Aldo was all for it. But now that I’m here and the danger is real, he suddenly wants me to leave.

Not a fucking chance.

I’m not leaving until I do what I came here to do.

If I can get close enough to Carbone to place the tracker on his suit, Aldo can then trace wherever he goes after this party. Hopefully it’s to his home base, which we haven’t figured out the whereabouts of yet. This will be a huge win for our team. We’ve been trying for years to figure out where Carbone stays when he visits the city. His driver is very good at eluding our men, taking way too many turns and running too many lights for us to be able to follow.

I continue to walk around the room, searching for him. If my mother and father knew I was here, they would have my fucking head. But they’re in Colorado on their wedding anniversary trip and none the wiser. In fact, this is the perfect time to get this done.

Finishing off the champagne, I set the glass down on an empty tray and walk towards the doorway leading out of the ballroom.

“You’re leaving?”Aldo asks, and I can hear the relief in his voice.

“Gotta piss,” I inform him in a whisper as I make my way towards the restrooms.

As soon as I round the corner, I barely have time to catch myself before I nearly crash into a woman. She bumps into my chest, her fingers grasping the lapels of my suit jacket in a white-knuckle grip. “S-s-sorry,” she mutters, her speech slurred. She stumbles backwards in her heels, head down as her mask flutters to the floor.

“No. My apologies,” I tell her, quickly reaching down to scoop up the purple and gold feathered mask that she dropped. My eyes drift to her feet, locking on to the gold sky-high stilettos that she’s currently teetering on. Then, they slowly venture up her long, lean legs to a sparkling gold dress, if you can even call it a dress, that’s so short and low cut it should be illegal.

When I finally stand at my full height, I hold the mask out to her, watching her delicate hand grasp it tightly as if it’s some sort of lifeline. “Thank you,” she says softly, and there’s just something about her voice that makes me think that I have met her before. Her fingers lightly brush against mine, the brief contact causing my heart to skip a beat inside of my chest. My feet suddenly become rooted to the floor. It’s as if my body doesn’t want to leave this spot until I see her face.

She’s about to walk away, her head still down, denying me what I want to see — no, what I need to see — but I reach out to stop her. Ever so gently, I put my hand under her chin and force her gaze to mine. And suddenly, all the air in my lungs escapes in a rush.

I blink a few times to clear my vision, thinking I’m imagining her, dreaming all of this up. But when she’s still there, still looking longingly up at me, I know she’s real. Long, blonde hair cascades over her bare shoulders, and she’s so damn beautiful that it almost hurts to look at her. But her beauty is not what has my hand clenching into a fist at my side. No, it’s her eyes.

One blue.

One green.

They’re both bloodshot, and her pupils are nearly blown like she’s riding high on whatever poison is in her system, but I can clearly tell they’re different colors.

Our connection only lasts for a few seconds, even though it feels like minutes, before she mutters another apology and stumbles past me, securing the mask back onto her face. I listen as the sound of her high heels echoing on the hardwood floor fades into the distance.

Sucking in a deep, unsteady breath, I hurry to the restroom. I take care of business and then wash my hands. Staring at my reflection, I watch my chest rise and fall rapidly. I’m barely holding it together. I’m wound up like a rubber band, ready to snap at any given moment. “Holy fuck,” I mutter.

“What? What happened?”Aldo asks in my earpiece.

“I think I just saw her.”

“Her? Her who?”

“Lina,” I hiss in a whisper.

“Holy fuck,”Aldo says, repeating my exact sentiments. Aldo knows the entire story. Hell, he was there when Selina was living at the compound. He probably loved her as much as the rest of us did. She was so damn easy to love. So full of light and life even though she had been through a horrible ordeal.

And now she’s here. But why? Who is she here with? I have to know.

“There are a lot of people with complete heterochromia,”Aldo reminds me.

Yes, and I found that out the hard way. I’ve scoured the world looking for the girl with one blue eye and one green eye. It’s rare, but definitely not improbable.

“There’s one more thing I can check,” I tell him. Selina had a heart-shaped birthmark on her neck. She always hated it, but I loved it. “I just need to get close to her again.”

“I don’t like this, Nico. What if you run into Carbone while your guard is down?”

“I’ll be careful,” I say, but even I can hear the lie in my voice. My previous mission is completely forgotten. I just want to find the woman and see if she bears the birthmark. I need to know if Selina is still alive. After all these years, all the searching and longing, I need to know for sure.

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