Sneak Attack (Tapped Out 2)

“That either of you could let anyone in.” His attention returned to the road. “Fighters, we usually do better single file.”

“I’ve spent enough time single fucking file.” I didn’t mean to spit out the words.

To soothe, I smoothed my hand up her back. She didn’t respond.

Neither did Giovanni.

“What about you?” I asked when the silence in the truck became deafening. All the other noises seemed far removed. The distant honking of horns, the clatter of a subway car over the tracks. The endless drone of wheels rolling on the pavement.

“What about me,” he replied after lifetimes passed in the interim.

“You’ve always been single file.” I didn’t know what I was getting at. I certainly didn’t give two shits about Giovanni Costas’s love life. But there was so much more going on tonight than two fighter dudes—one retired—checking out a few undressed girls with some associates. There was a subtext rife with things I couldn’t begin to decipher, especially right now.

But I would. I’d damn well remember all of this tomorrow, and I’d get to the bottom of what that bastard had dragged me and my girl into like fucking unwitting lambs.

Normally I wouldn’t have ever thought of myself or Mia that way. But tonight, yes. I couldn’t even guess at the scope of what we’d stumbled into.

“What else would I be?” he returned, the oncoming headlights illuminating his fingers flexing around the wheel.

“Who are those men?”

“It’s better for you if you don’t know,” he said finally. “Tonight was my mistake. I’ll fix it.” His hands tightened. “Somehow I will fix it.”

I didn’t like how low his voice had gone, or the relentless clench of his fingers around the wheel. So much more was going on here than I could puzzle out, and until I made sense of it, Mia could be in danger.

I glanced at her, at the watery stars the streetlights painted on her ghostly cheeks. Her thick dark lashes lay undisturbed, though I doubted she was asleep. She was drifting, lost to whatever battles she waged in her own head.

“What will they do to her?”

“I won’t allow anything to happen to Mia.” His response was too swift, too loud. Almost as if he was convincing himself as much as me.

“What will they do,” I repeated, needing to hear it. I wouldn’t allow it either. That didn’t mean I was naïve enough to tuck my head under the pillow to block out the sound of slaps hitting skin.

I’d done that too many times.

He fell silent for so long that we’d nearly reached Mia’s apartment before he spoke again.

“They will kill her.”

9

Mia

Voices spun out around me, soft, hushed, urgent. Strong arms held me close, maneuvering me out of the vehicle. I wasn’t asleep. I wasn’t unconscious. I was there, except not. If I’d truly wanted, I could’ve demanded to be let down. Of course I could stand on my own two feet. Hadn’t I been doing that all this time? But for once, I didn’t want to.

Mentally, I’d checked out.

He carted me upstairs, into my apartment. I heard my sister gasp, and that more than anything roused me to try to open my eyes. But as soon as I had, the harsh sting of reality had me scuttling right back into my shell.

I’m sorry, Carly.

Tray’s gentle voice eased over Carly’s frantic whispers, until she grew tearfully quiet. Beyond both their familiar beloved voices, there was one more. Deeper, more intonation than emotion. Giovanni. Some small part of me rebelled at him being there in my apartment with my sister, but the rest accepted that knowledge with the same dull finality as I’d accepted all the rest.

It was so much easier to just float away. In this space, I wasn’t hurting or struggling or fighting to remain upright. I’d ceded all control, finally.

This day had been a long time in coming.

The voices buzzed around me for hours. Carly’s anxious tone, Gio’s richer, calming one. And Tray, sweet Tray, who kissed me with words on his lips that somehow pierced the haze and sated my only remaining need.