Page 519 of One More Kiss

Paolo

When I arrived backat the Bilotti mansion with Vincenzo, Arlo and Justin were guarding the house. Avery must have finished with her friend.

I worried the entire time I was out with Vincenzo if she was safe. Now that I was back, I had to see her with my own eyes. I jogged down the stairs to check the theater, but she wasn’t there. Then I checked her room. It was empty.

Where the hell could she be?

I found Arlo in the kitchen making a sandwich.

“Where’s Avery?” I asked him.

His brows knitted together. “We were told by the boss to come back here. She was still at the restaurant.”

Justin nodded, but they both had wide eyes. They knew they’d fucked up.

I gritted my teeth. The fucking boss didn’t say that to them, so either they were lying or someone else handed down the order. I fully intend to find out which, once I was back from picking up Avery.

As I raced out the front door, Vin shouted something after me that I didn’t catch. I jumped in my jeep. My phone rang and Vin’s name flashed across the display I ignored the call as I whipped out of the driveway and onto the road.

So much time had passed in this undercover mission. The lines between what I needed to do and what I was doing were blurred past fixing. I would need to evaluate my actions soon, but I had to get to Avery first. Sure, I’d whittled the mole down to a handful of men, but they were all slick as fuck and none of them were giving anything away.

I parked in a fire lane and rushed into the restaurant.

Avery was seated at a table. Her face was pale, and her back was ramrod straight. I realized that it was not Lena Carpone she was seated opposite, but Joe.

Fucking Joe. He was one of Vincenzo’s soldiers. I’d only seen him at the house once.

Had everything she said been a lie?

I clicked the secure app on my phone and pulled the information I had on Joe, but everything in the file was normal. There was no red flags, nothing that connected him to Frank.

But the fact that she was currently on a date with some other guy pissed me off. Especially since we planned to talk later.

Also, the comment that Vin had pulled her protection back didn’t sit well with me.

I fired off a text to her and let her know that I was here to pick her up. I didn’t care if she thought I was being a dick by cutting off their date. She shouldn’t be on one.

I caught her as she rushed out of the restaurant, her face ashen and her eyes wide. I was careful not to let Joe see us or my face. I didn’t want Joe to know that I was the one picking her up from the restaurant. Or that I saw him.

As soon as she was secured in the vehicle, I slid back behind the wheel and sped off, the baseball cap still on my head, concealing my face in case he watched from the windows.

I remained silent as we left the city limits, unable to speak but growing angrier by the second.

She didn’t speak the entire trip home.

“What the fuck, Avery?” I said with a growl once we were through the gates of the Bilotti mansion. “You ask to speak to me later, but then go on a date?” “Do not growl at me,” she snapped. “I went there fully intending to meet Lena, but I was blindsided by that—man.”

Her entire body trembled.

“Wait, you didn’t know that you’d be having dinner with Joe?”

She frowned and she looked over at me, her face still pale. A tear slipped down her cheek.

“You know him?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” I said, confused about what the hell was going on here. “He is one of your father’s soldiers.”

She pressed a hand against her stomach and glanced up at the house. “We need to talk later where nobody can hear. But not this second. I have to do something first.”

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