Oxblood (19 page)

His lips were soft and moved gently with mine. He combed his fingers through my hair and gently cupped my head with his palm, pulling me to him. Somehow kissing Ian felt natural. I knew it was ridiculous, but how could I explain feeling so connected to a man I had only known for such a short time? This wasn't a silly summer romance, something Tiffany and I could giggle about during slow shifts at the diner. This was real. My entire body was lit up like a Christmas tree, like the sky on the Fourth of July. There was something real between us, something earth-shattering.

“I don't even know what to say to you right now.” He smiled as he pulled away and gently brushed my cheek with his thumb. “These feelings, it's secondary school behind the library all over again.”

“I don't know what to say, either.”

“And tomorrow?” He tried to step away, but I wouldn't let him.

I took his face in my hands to make sure he was looking at me. “Tomorrow doesn't change right now.”

Ian searched my eyes before he kissed me swiftly and then wrapped his arms around me again. I had never felt like this with anyone before, or so quickly. When I looked at him, it was easy to forget where I was or what I was doing. But it scared me. I was scared because the thought of leaving him broke my heart. I was scared because Miami didn't feel like home anymore. I was scared because I had never wanted anything more than I wanted Ian Hale.

“Do you want to go back to sleep? You can have my bed if you'd like. I'll take the couch,” Ian offered.

“I don't think I'll be able to sleep at all,” I told him. I tightened my grip around his waist and he reciprocated.

“Good. Because what I really wanted to ask was if you would stay out here with me a little bit longer.”

“I would stay out here with you all night.”

Chapter 19

Morning came and everything seemed normal in a strange sort of way. The team milled around the apartment like it was a normal day and they were all getting ready to go to work. The fact that work meant making sure guns were cleaned and loaded and surveillance and tracking equipment was online and ready made for an
interesting
“normal.”

Adam and Claudia sat at the kitchen table calmly eating toast and drinking coffee; Carter and Eva were in their bedroom “getting in the zone,” and Ian was in the back bedroom putting together fake driver's licenses and passports for identification purposes.

“You want something to eat?” Adam asked. “Some coffee maybe?” He held out the French press before pouring himself another cup.

“No, thanks,” I answered. “Too nervous to eat.” I sat down at the table across from Claudia.

“That's normal,” she said.

“Yeah. I threw up three times before my first assignment,” Adam said.

“I want you to know how much I appreciate what you're doing. Putting yourselves out on this shaky limb means a lot to me.”

“Hey,” Claudia said as she covered my hand with hers. “Despite what Ian says about family, we are one. You, Victoria Asher, are totally legit, which means I'd walk a hundred miles in stilettos for you.” She gave me a sweet, crooked smile, and I felt some of my anxiety melt away.

“You guys really are the best.” I myself was beginning to get choked up. I would miss Adam and Claudia. When I left Italy, I'd never see them again.

Of course, the preemptive good-bye sentiments were all contingent on finding Gil during the mission—a hope I couldn't help but hold on to, even though I knew there were no guarantees.

“Everything is set,” Damon announced, coming through the front door.

“Good,” Ian said, joining him in the living room. Damon had been gone since the early morning hours, even before Ian and I left the balcony. Ian said it was protocol for Damon to check the meeting point and make sure everything was clear.

“How is everyone this morning? Feeling good? Ready?” Ian asked.

“Uh, good?” Claudia said curiously.

“What's wrong?” I asked her.

“In all the time I've known Ian, he's never asked how we were doing before an assignment,” she explained with a smile.

“Victoria? May I speak with you for a moment, please?” Ian asked.

“Sure.” I followed Ian into the kitchen. “What's up?”

“I've been thinking, and I'm not so sure about you being involved in this. These guys are much more dangerous than your average Mafia families. If Gil is there, I promise you, we will get him out, but I just don't think it's a good idea for you to be with us.” Ian's eyes pleaded with mine.

“I'm going to be fine,” I said. I appreciated him being concerned about me, but I had come too far to
not
go. “I know where I'm supposed to be until you call for me. I've been practicing my poker face if Gil is there when I walk in. I can do this, Ian. And I trust this team to do what they're supposed to do to keep us all alive.” I took his hand in mine and squeezed. “We're R-14, led by
the
Ian Hale. What could go wrong?”

“I don't want anything to happen to you,” he whispered.

“I know I'm safe as long as you're leading this team.”

He sighed, knowing I wasn't going to change my mind.

“You have to promise me that you'll stay in the surveillance van with Claudia until Carter calls you,” he said forcefully.

“I thought you said we didn't hide out in unmarked laundry vans.” I smirked, but Ian was less impressed by my humor. His glare said as much. “I promise,” I conceded.

When everything was packed and ready, we left for our assigned locations in Venice. Adam and Damon left first and took their places on opposite rooftops of the meeting point, a pastry shop known for being controlled by the mob. Claudia and I took the surveillance van that Damon had acquired for us and parked a block down from the shop. Finally, Ian, Carter, and Eva got into position for their meeting with the child-selling scum.

“So, what is all this?” I asked Claudia as I took in all the switches and buttons of the fake laundry service van. It was tall enough for us to stand in, but only by an inch. “It doesn't look like we'll be able to see them. No monitors.”

“We won't. We didn't have enough time to install cameras, or someone on the inside to ensure that they'd meet where we could watch,” she said. The disappointment in her voice told me she didn't like not being able to see what was going on. “The best we could do was put microphones in the guys' buttons and one in the brooch Eva is wearing.”

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“We wait,” she answered simply. “And since we don't have any beer in here, we can't play Never Have I Ever.” She laughed and tweaked a few buttons, then held a pair of headphones to her left ear.

“Is that really how you all tell your stories to one another?” I asked.

“Not really. It's just something dumb we do sometimes to take the edge off. Are you asking because you want to know my story?” she smirked.

“Oh my gosh! No! I'm sorry if it sounded that way. I wasn't prying, really,” I said, flustered.

“It's okay, Vic. I don't mind telling you. Everyone else knows. You might as well join the club.” Claudia flipped a few more switches and then turned a dial from headphone to speaker. “After things with acting took a dive, I went back to college. I thought I'd major in theater and then teach. I had to take a theater tech class as part of the major's requirements.

“The school had this ultrasophisticated system to control the lights, curtains, stage, and props. I ended up becoming really good friends with a tech TA who was majoring in computer science but minoring in theater tech.” I gave her a curious look. That was the weirdest combination I had ever heard of. “I know, right? Well, he would talk about all the things that can be done on computers and I would listen. Pretty soon, we were hanging out and he was showing me all these different hacks and teaching me how to code new programs, and it just made sense to me. It was like a light went on inside my brain. I started seeing things differently, experimenting with different operating systems, and even building my own programs.”

“So how did that land you here?”

“I had been dating this other guy for about six months when I found out he had been cheating on me the whole time. When I confronted him about it, he totally lied. And when the other two girls came with me, he acted like we were all crazy and delusional.”

“
Two
other girls? Jerk!”

“Yep! Well, after almost a year of working on my mad computer-hacking skills, I was well equipped to make his life a living hell.” She smiled sinisterly.

“Oh my God, Claudia! What did you do?” I had a feeling this story was going to be way better than the time I helped Tiffany let all the air out of her cheating ex's tires.

She twisted her mouth to the side in feigned nervousness. “I hacked into the college's system, changed his grades, and erased two entire semesters of his work.”

“HO-LY crap! That is some serious vengeance,” I said, amazed.

“That was just the beginning. I added a note on his school demographics form indicating that Steven would prefer to be called Stephanie because he was going through gender reassignment. I also had a subscription to a girly magazine sent to him at his parents' address.” She gave a little snicker. “Too much?”

“Oh no. That is just enough crazy to know not to screw with you.”

“If only that were the end.” She raised her eyebrows and I began to realize that the sweet girl-next-door Claudia was anything but. “I changed his address with the US Postal Service to a biker bar on the other side of town known for its
unsavory
characters. When he found out where it was, he had to go all the way down there to get any mail they didn't toss.”

“And that's what got you in trouble with the law,” I surmised.

“Yeah. They aren't kidding when they say messing with people's mail is a federal offense. So I created a couple of new identities and split town,” she said.

“What about your family?”

Claudia's lighthearted manner in which she told her Carrie Underwood song–inspired story disappeared. Her expression turned flat and hesitant.

“They had already disowned me a long time before any of that happened. They're hardcore conservatives from South Korea. I was fresh out of high school and dating a white guy I met at an audition. They told me to break it off with him because he wasn't Korean. They put up with it for a little while. I think they thought it would be a phase, but when I broke up with that guy and started seeing a black guy, it got even worse. I moved out when I was nineteen and lived my own life, which was not what they wanted. It took a while, but they eventually realized that I wasn't going to take over the family store, marry a guy they picked out for me, and only eat traditional Korean food. I would never live the life they wanted, so they disowned me.

“So even though I technically have family out there, I don't really. I'm dead to them, which is why Ian let me on his team.” Claudia switched the knob and put one side of the headphones back up to her ear. When she heard nothing, she pulled it off and switched the knob back again.

“Oh, Claudia,” I said sympathetically.

“It's all good. I wasn't made for that life. I mean, they came to America for a reason, you know? I considered reaching out to them when I decided to go to college. I thought they might be proud of me, but then I remembered that I was going to college for theater, not business or law or medicine. And college probably wasn't going to sway my preference in men.” She sighed like it was the period to her sentence.

“Thanks for being so open.” Sitting in the surveillance van and listening to Claudia share her story reminded me of empty nights at the diner when Tiffany and I would sit at the counter and talk over pie and coffee. “All that's left is for Adam, Carter, and Eva to tell me their stories and I'll know everyone's. Although I'm pretty sure Carter isn't going to spill the beans anytime soon. He strikes me as the kind of guy who likes to be mysterious.”

“Oh my God! I swear he's going to introduce himself as James Bond one of these days,” she laughed. “So you know Ian's and Damon's stories?”

“Yeah. Ian told me last night, and Damon found me on the balcony in the back bedroom the night we played Never Have I Ever. I think he felt bad,” I told her.

“You're a lucky girl. I've been on Ian's team two years and he still hasn't told me,” she said.

“I'll be leaving soon, so he probably figures it's not a big deal,” I said with hesitation.

“No worries. He'll tell me when he thinks I need to know.” She pulled two bottles of water out of a small cooler under the counter with all the knobs and dials and handed me one. “So I know I'm breaking the rule and talking about Damon's story without his permission, but, poor guy, huh? Watching your whole family murdered. What an awful thing for a kid to go through.”

“I know! Wait—he was a kid when he saw his family murdered?” That wasn't what he told me at all, unless I wasn't remembering correctly.

“Yeah. A Mafia family came through town and wanted his father's pharmacy in their back pocket. When he refused, they killed his family while Damon hid under the back counter. I thought you said he told you his story?” Claudia's face was as puzzled as mine.

“He did. But he said that he was a police officer. That the Mafia came in and killed any cops who wouldn't go along with them, and slaughtered their families as collateral. I assumed because he was still alive that he had gotten out somehow. But that they had killed his family.”

I thought about my conversation with Damon that night on the balcony. “Damon never actually
said
his family had been killed. He said that some officers chose to side with the Mafia while others who didn't were either killed or their families were killed. I assumed because he was
here
that his family had been killed.” I stood up in the tall van and shuffled my feet. “Why would he tell us two different stories?”

“Maybe his real story isn't as exciting as he thinks everyone else's is. Or maybe it's actually more horrific than what he told either of us,” she said.

“Maybe.” The uneasy wheels were turning in my head. “Did he tell you in a group setting, like Never Have I Ever, or alone?”

“He told me one night when we were both a little lonely, if you know what I mean,” she said sheepishly. “I was missing my little sister a lot. We shared stories about our families and that's when he told me.”

“
Hmmm
.”

“What's going on in there?” Claudia pointed to my head like she could see the wheels turning.

“I don't know. Something doesn't feel right.”

I thought about the stories Damon told us. What was the difference between the two? Both were about him losing his family. He was a little boy in Claudia's and a cop in mine.

“It's like he told us stories he thought we wanted to hear. You needed to feel connected to someone who understood what it was like to miss family. I needed to know that I was safe and that finding Gil was a reality. Who better to do that than a former cop?”

I searched my memory for all the times I was with Damon. He had always been so charming. Too charming. The way he kissed my hand the day we met. How he rubbed my back to calm my nerves when we discovered Bianca on the hotel surveillance. Laughing and teaching me Italian curse words when we were all worried about Ian. It was all to disarm me.

It finally clicked when I remembered something he'd said when he trained me: