Page 103 of Beautiful Villain
“I amprotectingher.”
“You are haunting her.”
His jaw flexed.“You don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly,” I said.“You lost her, and now you’re sitting here hoping what?That she’ll feel you through the glass and come running?”
His hand tightened on the steering wheel, knuckles bleaching white.
“Get out,” he said.
I didn’t argue with him.There was no point.Gianni was already too far inside his own head for reason to get through.
I opened the passenger door and stepped back out onto the street, the night air cool against my face.I closed the door quietly, like I was leaving a church instead of a battlefield.Gianni did not look at me.He stayed frozen in the driver’s seat, eyes fixed on Mikayla’s house like it was the only place on earth he wanted to be.
I crossed back to my car and sat inside for a moment, hands resting on the steering wheel, thinking.Then I pulled out my phone and dialed.
Mikayla answered on the second ring.“Dunn?”
“There’s a black sedan parked two houses down from you,” I said.“License plate ends in seven-three-four.”
Silence on the line.I could almost hear her frown.
“So?”
“It would really help me if you went outside,” I said carefully, keeping my voice soft, “walked up to that car, and knocked on the driver’s window.”
Her breath caught.I heard it through the phone.
“Why?”
“Because then you’ll have all the answers you’ve been looking for.”
I ended the call before she could ask more.Before she could say no.
Across the street, Gianni still sat in the car, unmoving, staring at the house like it might break his heart open if he looked long enough.The glow from his dashboard lit his face in pale lines, sharp and hollowed.
I stayed in the shadows, watching both of them now, hoping that dragging the truth into the light would not cost me my job—or worse.
43
Gianni
Ihad been parked across the street long enough for the engine to go cold.
Long enough for the night to settle around me and turn everything heavy and watchful.The street had slipped into that late-evening quiet where even the wind sounds like it’s trying not to disturb anyone.Across from me, Mikayla’s house glowed soft and warm, one stubborn square of light in a row of darkened windows.A lighthouse for idiots who had ruined their own lives.
I told myself I was there for security.To watch over her and protect her.
That was a beautiful lie.
I was there because when she left, she took something with her that had not come back.Something that did not respond to logic or pride or the fact that I had a thousand more important things to do than sit in a parked car like a private detective with no case to work on.
The front door opened.
I went completely still.
She stepped out into the night, wrapped in a sweater that looked too thin for the air, like she was either braver or more stubborn than the weather.Her hair was loose around her shoulders, dark and familiar and far too effective at making my lungs forget what they were supposed to do.
