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Seconds later, her phone rang.
“Hey,” she answered. “Thanks for calling me back.”
“What’s going on?”
Her older brother, Gary Redding, had been her rock for as long as she could remember. But, she had been his too.
“I had sex with one of my targets,” she said.
“Good for you,” he replied.
“Not helping.”
“Did he know you’d been watching him?” Gary asked.
“It was Luciano Santini, so yes, he did.”
“Good Lord, you did not.”
She chuckled. “I did, and it was better than anything I could’ve imagined.”
“Then, what’s the problem?”
“Seriously, Gare, you’re not helping.”
“It was a one-off, well, maybe not. How many times did you climax?” He laughed.
“How can you make light of this?”
“How can you not?” he asked. “It’s not like you committed a crime. It’s not like you’re addingthatto your report.”
He had a point.
“I’m surprised you got yourself worked up at all. Just chock it up to living dangerously and move on.”
After thanking him for walking her off the ledge, she hung up. As she sat in her foyer, she wished she’d never had sex with Luciano.
How do you go from Luciano Santini to any other man?
The only place to go now… is down.
On her way upstairs, her phone buzzed with a text.
Sognami, Simone
She pulled up the translator on her phone, typed in the Italian word, and read the English translation—Dream of me.
Her heart skipped a beat.
Damn that man.
5
RECONNECTING
SIMONE
Monday, just before two in the afternoon, Simone walked down 10thStreet toward the J. Edgar Hoover building in Northwest DC. Her first meeting with Carrera since Z had left the Bureau.
