Page 75 of The Lies We Tell

He’d been stupid. There was no other way around it. He saw what he wanted to see where Tessa was concerned, and he got burned because of it. He couldn’t lay the blame anywhere but his own feet. And now he might be exposed in Belgium, vulnerable who knew where else, all because he’d been distracted by a great pair of tits and a willing mouth.

But as painful and expensive as this might be to come back from, he would come back from it. He would grease the right palms, put better security measures in place, and make sure he never found himself vulnerable to anything or anyone ever again.

That was really the problem here. He’d let himself get too close to someone in a way he’d never allowed himself before. He’d gotten comfortable, and because he had, he’d seen what he wanted to see in Tessa. That was his mistake. One he wouldn’t be repeating.

Pushing Tessa and her tears and her pleas from his mind, he got to work. There were plenty of threads he could pull and paths he could follow to figure out who fucked him over and who needed to be punished as a result.

Tessa might have known the airport existed, but someone else had to have given Antonetti the location for an attack and the time of incoming and outgoing shipments. And they were going to be dead as soon as Matteo learned their fucking name.

He was scanning through his contact list when the screen lit up with Roarke’s name. Accepting the call, he put it on speaker.

“Talk to me.”

“Somebody sure hates you,” Roarke said.

Matteo’s stomach clenched, and he got up to pace in front of the windows. “That bad?”

“They fired on your shipments with RPGs.”

“Fucking hell.” Where would Antonetti even get that kind of firepower on such short notice? “And the cops?”

“So far, they’re calling it an act of terrorism. There wasn’t much left of the flights in terms of wreckage, so I doubt they’ll be able to pull out anything they can pin on you as illegal. And your paperwork did a damn good job covering you when it came to the manifests.”

“I should give Peeters a raise.”

Roarke snorted. “He could use it to put more food on the table. Man looks like a twig. I could snap him in half with one hand.”

Matteo chuckled and then sobered. “Do I need to be worried about the authorities?”

“They’ll probably pay you a visit to have a chat with you on the record, but I wouldn’t say you have anything to worry about.”

Leaning his forehead against the window, Matteo blew out a relieved breath. That was one thing he could check off his list. The last thing he needed was to be stuck in the middle of an international terrorism scandal.

“I don’t like being tied to the word terrorism, though.”

“I wouldn’t either,” Roarke agreed. “We Irish don’t exactly relish the term. Quinn might be able to pull a few strings in Brussels. Get it classified as something else. My advice? Let it play out a bit first.”

Matteo nodded. Roarke was good at reading people. If he said Matteo should let it ride, Matteo trusted him.

“I’m going to stick around to make sure you’re in the clear and then head back to Dublin. Did you want me to reach out to Quinn’s people while I’m here?”

“Maeve is already calling them.”

Roarke was silent for a beat. “How is she?”

“Not looking forward to coming back to Ireland, but resigned to it.”

“If she doesn’t, she’ll end up dragged by her hair kicking and screaming by the sounds of it. Quinn is very determined to get her wed.”

“So I’ve heard,” Matteo replied. “And you’re okay with that?”

“It’s none of my business what Quinn does with his own. I’m just here to close deals and break bones.”

“Right. Keep me posted on any developments in Belgium. And Roarke? I owe you one.”

“You owe me several. I’ll put it on your tab.”

Disconnecting the call, Matteo shoved his phone into his pocket. He wasn’t out of the woods yet. But with the police in hand, he could zero in on who the fuck was involved. And once he found out, he was going to make them pay.

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