Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Chapter
Seventeen
MASON
“Let me know when you’re home safe,” Mira tells her friend, giving her a hug. She insisted we walk her down to the entrance and watch as she gets in the car. Enzo was spotted going into the Wrigley Building not long ago, and hasn’t been spotted coming out since.
Thankfully, I’m friendly with a handful of the Chicago Police Department, and they’re just as eager to get the Morettis off the streets as we are. I called a buddy of mine to do some off the books surveillance, making sure we knew a general location of Enzo before I had either Mira or her friend move.
“I’ll take you home,” I tell Mira and she looks a little surprised.
“I thought you’d want to talk about this.”
“We can talk in the car,” I say, already thinking about how I’m going to have to shift through the footage before anyone else sees it. My team has access to this safehouse so it’s not out of the question that I would have someone go there while I looked into something. But I don’t know what all Mira said to her friend and I don’t want to be surprised by anything. So for the sake of not having to make more work for myself, it would be easier to talk to Mira in my car.
She nods and follows me outside. I open the passenger door for her and then get in, turning on the car.
“I need you to tell me exactly what you told your friend. And don’t leave anything out.”
“Okay,” she says slowly, immediately looking defensive. “I’ll do my best, sir,” she adds pointedly. “I told her I’m working with the FBI to help get info on the Moretti family and you kind of forced me into working with you so I don’t get in trouble with the law for not having a PI license."
“Seriously? You do know I’m a federal agent, right? I didn’t force you to do anything.”
“I forgot, Agent Harris. It’s not like you remind me every chance you get.”
“You put your friend in danger by telling her the truth.”
“What was I supposed to do, lie?”
“Yeah.” I shake my head. “I didn’t think I’d have to explain the importance of a need to know basis on this.”
“No shit,” she fires back. “She needed to know why I was acting so suss and why we had to go to a freaking safe house to avoid some guy I supposedly went on one date with. If I tried to lie, she would have poked and poked and maybe even blown my cover, which is probably going to happen, by the way, because I did not sign up to go on more than one date with this guy.”
“Are you sure about that? Because you seemed to quite enjoy his company at dinner?”
“What?” Her eyes go wide as she looks at me incredulously.
“I heard every word and I don’t think you’re that good of an actress.”
“Oh, sorry Special Agent Harris for going above and beyond. I can’t help it that he found me interesting and charming even when I was pretending not to be. I guess you’re not used to that.”
Fuck, she’s irritating, yet the spark in her green yes is intoxicating. Her tenacity comes off in waves, and I don’t think there’s a damn thing she can do to put a damper on it, no matter how hard she tries. And she’s right, it’s annoyingly interesting and charming. You don’t come across people like her often. But when you do, you want to do what you can to stay in their orbit because just being around them, feeling the gravitational pull, makes you feel everything so much fuller.
“Look,” I say, trying to go back to business. “Whatever you did, worked. Enzo is clearly smitten.”
“Yeah, obsessively. If one of my clients told me they had a great date—so much so they stalked said date after dinner—I’d tell them they’d need help!”
“Aren’t you the help?”
She narrows her eyes. “You know what I mean.”
I do, but I don’t want to tell her I do.
“It doesn’t seem Enzo is used to not getting his way with women,” I go on and Mira nods.
“I thought the same. He would seek out the type of woman who would fall all over him in a glucose guardian type of way?’
“A what?”
She laughs and the way her face lightens immediately does something to me. “A sugar daddy. It’s a silly thing you say online because sometimes keywords can get you flagged.”
“Right. You have a big following.”
“My friend, Kat, has close to a million followers. It’s pretty cool, actually. She posts about the places she travels to.”
I nod, finding it interesting that she deflects a compliment about one of her accomplishments to a friend, saying how she’s even more accomplished. Trying to convince myself I’m just interested in getting to know Mira better from a psychological standpoint, I slowly take in a breath and reach over, moving a loose section of hair out of her face. She goes still and her eyes meet mine as my fingers sweep against her forehead.