Page 259 of Mario
“Yes.”
I bring my gaze back to him. “And?”
“She looked pale.” Lorenzo pauses. “Unsteady.”
Something moves through my chest before I can stop it.
Not panic.
No.
I do not panic.
But concern comes fast, and I dislike that even more.
“What did she say?”
“Nothing to me. I was coming to speak with her about the operations follow-up. She stepped out before I reached the door. She didn’t notice me.”
“And you let her leave?”
His eyebrows lift slightly.
“She is not one of our soldiers, Mario. She is outside counsel. And she looked like a woman trying very hard not to be sick. In fact…”
He nods toward her door.
“I went in after she left.”
Of course he did.
Lorenzo does not simply walk away when something feels off.
“And?”
His gaze holds mine. “She had been sick.”
The words affect me in ways I can’t say.
I step into the office before he can say anything more. I step to the trash can.
My expression does not change, but inside, something in me does.
Victoria had been sick. Sick enough to empty her stomach in the trash, yet composed enough afterward to rinse her mouth, if I’m gauging things correctly, gather her things, tidy up, and leave.
That bothers me more than if she had simply fallen apart. A woman who runs without thinking leaves evidence everywhere.
Even sick, even shaken, she was thinking.
I scan the desk.
No briefcase or phone. No coffee mug. Tissue box pulled close to the edge of her desk. Not a single thing out of place, except in the trash can.
Nothing else obvious.
No note.
No explanation.
