Page 105 of Mafia Obsession

I don’t look away from the screen, because if I do, she’ll see in my eyes how I’m crumbling.

“It’s not,” I answer slowly, feeling the truth harden in my veins.

“What happened, Ares?”

“I fell for her,” I say simply, undeniably and irreversibly.

My eyes sting, seeing Lourdes brush the girl’s hair into a soft braid at the back of her head that she twists into a beautiful bun. After that they eat pastries.

The room stays silent. Daria looks to be recalibrating the parameters of a mission that has just acquired a heartbeat.

“Have Wrath maintain a strict perimeter,” I say, already walking away from the monitors. “Continue pulling everything on Jessica Parker. I want medical reports, attending physicians, anyone who so much as signed a form.”

“Where are you going?” Daria asks, though I think she already knows.

I pause at the doorway of the control room, the hum of servers and screens at my back.

“Whatever she’s doing there, I’m not letting her do it alone,” I reply.

“Ares, I need you here.”

Ignoring Daria, I pull out my phone and issue the order that I should have issued yesterday. “Ready my jet.”

Chapter 41

Lourdes

The next morning, I return to Lakeshore with Sandrine’s favorite almond pastry in a small white box from a bakery two streets over.

I fix her hair and then she digs into the box. She takes a bite of pastry, and her eyes roll in the back of her head. I wait for the ward nurses, who barely look at the patients, to object to the outside food. They’re gazing out the windows or playing on their phone.

We eat the pastries like when we were kids, licking sugary frosting off our fingers and laughing. I feel a spark of hope that we’re on our way to being the sisters she wants to remember.

With a to-do list a mile long, I tell Sandrine I’ll be back the following day. When she skips off to her art therapy, I head to the administrative director’s office to lay the groundwork to have Sandrine transferred. But the receptionist tells me the director is busy with a patient brought in last night and that he’s dealing with the family.

She gives me an appointment for the following day, and I leave the office frustrated. I decide to use the time to buy some new clothes. I’m still wearing the sweater dress I left the penthouse in yesterday morning. I could tell Sandrine’s caretakers noticed.

I push through the front entrance doors and head out into a bitter cold that bites my cheeks. The winter sun glints faintly off the lake across the street, blinding me for a moment.

As my eyes adjust, I spot a man down the front walkway. He’s in a long, dark overcoat, the expensive, understated kind, standing next to a limo parked, coat collar turned up against the wind, hands tucked into the pockets. I go still, frozen in fear.

Ares.

Suddenly, I understand that my escape was never as clean as I believed. There was nowhere on earth I could hide from Ares Zervas.

We lock eyes, but his expression is composed. I imaginehe’s angry at being duped, that I’ll be made to pay for running.

But he’s not angry. He looks worried.

When I don’t run or scream, he crosses the distance between us in long, deliberate strides. When he reaches me, he doesn’t demand answers, doesn’t accuse me of anything. He just pulls me into his arms and holds me.

He presses me into his large frame, his hands sliding up my back and into my hair like he’s checking if I’m real. Or deciding what to do with me now that I am. Despite my frustration at being found, I melt against him as tears slide down my face.

After a moment, his large hands cradle my face, and he presses kisses on my forehead.

“What are you doing here?” I manage through sniffling tears.

Instead of answering, he puts a gloved finger to my lips and steers me toward the limo. Of course, I go.