Lights Out: Chapter 26

How do I look?” I asked Aly.

She paused before ringing the doorbell to give me a once-over. “Hot. Want to get out of here and go have naked fun time?”

I clapped a hand over her mouth. “Shush! What if there are cameras out here?”

Her response was only slightly muffled by my palm. “Then it’ll teach my meddling family not to listen in on conversations that don’t concern them.”

Three weeks had passed since the night we’d broken into Brad’s house. The next day, I’d swept my car for trackers, and Aly was still pissed that I’d found one. We’d gone straight to the hardware store afterward and changed her locks.

I removed my hand from her mouth and straightened my dinner jacket, feeling uncomfortable in such formal clothes. “I need to stay on your uncle’s good side. Remember?”

She blew out a breath. “I do. Sorry. I’ll try to keep it PG for your sake.”

“Good girl,” I said, unable to help myself.

Her mouth popped open, a flush creeping into her cheeks that had nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with arousal.

I tried not to let it go to either of my heads. We’d been having so much sex that we’d started implementing forced breaks to keep from chafing. I worried she might become desensitized to me, but the fact that I could still turn her on like a light switch with just two words made me feel better about what her red dress was doing to me. It wasn’t even that clingy or revealing, but I’d never seen so much of her on display in public, and I was reacting like a kid at his first school dance.

“You look beautiful,” I told her.

She smiled up at me. “So you’ve said. We should do this, just the two of us. Get all dressed up and go out for a nice dinner.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling overheated even though it was freezing out.

Aly saw my discomfort and rushed on. “I’ll find a place with low lighting and a table in the back where no one but our server will see us. And if they start to look squirrely, or you don’t like it, we can leave.”

“I don’t know,” I said, still hesitant.

She rolled her eyes. “Look, I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want it to inflate your already dangerously oversized ego, but you do realize that the people who stop to stare at you aren’t doing it because they think they recognize you, right?”

I frowned. “Then why?”

“Because of how hot you are.”

I blinked. Was she serious? Was that a thing? I knew I was more attractive than the average bear but hot enough to stop people in their tracks?

I refocused on my girlfriend, looking for some sign that she was joking or exaggerating, but her expression was stone-cold. Oh, man. If she was right, I was going to have so much fun with this.

Aly caught sight of my widening grin and huffed out a breath. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. You’re going to be insufferable now, aren’t you?”

I turned my face from left to right. “Which do you think is my better side? I’ll need to know when it comes time to send modeling agents my portfolio.”

She slapped my arm and then rang the bell.

The front door opened so fast that Nico must have been standing right on the other side of it. Listening to our conversation?

Awkwaaard.

Nico threw his arms wide and stepped onto the front porch with us. “There’s my girl.”

Aly shot me a panicked look as her uncle hugged her. His overfamiliarity made her as uncomfortable as going out in public made me, and I knew she only endured it for my sake. I’d have to find a way to thank her for it later. Maybe it was time to finally give in and let her use the plug on me for once.

“Alright, fella,” came a lilting feminine voice. I glanced toward the front door as a petite woman with pale skin and light brown hair appeared inside it. “There’s no need to overdo it and scare the girl off.” Her Irish accent was so thick that the word “there’s” sounded more like “tears”. It must have been the infamous Moira.

Nico released Aly and turned toward his wife. “Who can blame me for being excited to welcome our niece back into the fold?”

“Uh,” Aly said. “That’s not what this is.”

Moira gestured us inside. “Either way, get in. It’s cold as a nun’s twat out here.”

Aly and I exchanged glances and followed the pair into the house. From what Aly had told me about her aunt, I knew that Moira’s family had ties to the IRA, and she and Nico met when they were still in their teens, back when the Italian mob was trying to court the Provos. Their dads had done business together, and theirs had been a Romeo and Juliet-style courtship but with a better outcome.

Aly had only interacted with her aunt a few times and said that was all it took for her to grudgingly like the woman. Moira had a whip-sharp sense of humor and didn’t take shit from anyone, her husband included. I’d just met her and could already see what Aly meant.

Moira held the door open as I passed, doing nothing to mask the appreciative way she eyed me, and I decided that maybe Aly had a point about my looks after all.

Moira’s gaze shifted to her niece next, and she winked. “Well done, you.”

Aly slipped her arm through mine, looking like the Mona Lisa with a smile full of secrets. “If you only knew.”

Moira’s brows lifted, her green eyes sparking with interest as they slowly rose to mine.

Nico chose that moment to clear his throat, and I was so grateful that I could have hugged him. Whatever the reason I drew so much attention, it still made me feel like I was about to break into hives.

Nico shut the door behind us and lifted an arm, indicating we precede him deeper into the house. “There’s wine waiting for us, and Moira put out a nice spread.”

She snorted. “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s just some fancy cheeses and crackers arranged on a board.”

Her husband rolled his eyes. “I’m trying to compliment you.”

“Then be more obvious about it,” she shot back. “Next time, try saying something about what a nice arse I have.”

Nico looked scandalized. “Not in front of the kids.”

Aly dragged me past the pair, but we didn’t get away fast enough to miss Moira’s rebuttal.

“Calling that man a kid is like calling the David statue a lump of marble. Stop trying to infantilize him because he makes you feel weird in the tummy.”

“Moira! Jesus Christ. He does not.”

Aly wheezed beside me as we sped down a hallway, doing her best to hide her laughter and failing spectacularly. “Weird in the tummy. That woman is a legend.”

I didn’t find it quite as funny. “So much for me staying on his good side.”

She squeezed my arm. “You’ll be fine. I threatened to tell the cops everything if he ever turns on you.”

I stopped mid-step, dragging her to a halt with me. “When did you do that?”

“A week ago. Remember when you went back to your place to grab more stuff?”

I nodded.

“I came here while you were gone and read him the riot act over the tracker and the mass copying of my keys and keeping us out of the loop with everything.”

“How’d it go?” I asked.

She shrugged. “He said he’d fill us in tonight, but we’ll see if he keeps his word.”

“He will,” someone called out. We spun to see Junior rounding the far end of the hall. He gestured behind him. “We’re in here if you want to join us.”

I was about to have dinner with the whole clan. Nico, Moira, their sons, and all their romantic partners. Great. Splendid. I couldn’t wait to get this started.

Why were my hands so clammy all of a sudden?

Aly squeezed my arm. “We’ll just be a second.”

Junior nodded and disappeared back around the bend.

Aly dragged me into a nearby powder room with barely enough space for us. We were pressed so close that I had a clear line of sight straight into her cleavage. Weirdly, it helped calm my racing pulse. Just last night, I’d nestled my head there after she’d made me come so hard I saw God, and I’d spent several minutes with my ear pressed to her skin, listening to the steady rhythm of her heart. I could almost hear the low ba-dump, ba-dump now.

She took my hands, her eyes large and imploring. “You don’t have to do this.”

I would have leaned down and kissed her if not for the risk of smearing her crimson lipstick. “Thank you, but if you’re here, I’m here. I’ll just have to find some way to deal.”

“You’re sure?” she asked.

“I’m sure,” I said.

She looked amazing tonight, her long hair falling around her in loose waves, her natural beauty accented with makeup, and that dress. God, that dress. I couldn’t wait to see it pooled around her feet later. I’d caught a glimpse of the bra and panty set she wore beneath it, all black silk and lace. An image of me slicing them into ribbons filled my head, but the fantasy would probably never come to life. It turned out fancy lingerie was expensive, and Aly had been low-key pissed after I cut a different set off her.

Maybe I could get away with it if I bought her more afterward.

She shook her head at me. “You’re thinking about sex, aren’t you?”

I grinned. “Dirty, dirty sex.”

“Yeah, you’ll be fine.”

With that, she shoved me out of the bathroom, and we joined the rest of her family in a formal sitting room. Everything about this house was formal, I was coming to realize. The ceiling was sky-high, with white-painted beams bisecting each other in a square pattern. A stone fireplace took up most of the far wall, and a roaring fire had been built in it that turned the room toasty. In the center, beneath a crystal chandelier, sat a trio of white couches facing a circular table filled with refreshments and appetizers.

I’d been expecting a crowd, but only three of Aly’s cousins stood with their parents, Greg nowhere to be seen. I was the only significant other in attendance and didn’t know how to feel about it. Were these dinners supposed to be for the family, and I was intruding? Or had the boys’ partners been excluded because there’d be shop talk tonight?

“Red or white?” Nico asked, gesturing to a pair of wine carafes.

“White,” Aly said.

I eyed the pristine couches before seconding her request.

Nico passed us each a glass.

Aly took a sip of hers and then trained her gaze on the family patriarch. “What’s going on with the investigation?”

Her second oldest cousin, Alec, lifted his brows. “What happened to ‘Hello. How are you?’”

Aly didn’t even acknowledge him, still zeroed in on Nico. “You told me you’d fill us in tonight.”

He gave her a reproachful look. “We don’t talk business until after dinner.”

“That sounds like bullshit,” Aly said.

Moira interjected. “It does, but it’s also a tradition. Food and booze first. People are nicer when they’re tipsy and full.”

“Yeah,” Alec said. “It’s called hangry for a reason.”

Aly frowned. “So, what do we do until then? Exchange frivolous pleasantries and pretend we’re not all waiting for that conversation to happen?”

Moira clinked her glass against her niece’s. “You catch on fast.”

Aly sent me a frustrated glance.

I took a deep pull of wine to keep from having to say anything. Cowardly? Absolutely, but I knew better than to meddle in other people’s family drama, and I wanted to stay in Nico’s good graces as long as I could. I just hoped no one crossed a line with Aly because my Switzerland status only extended so far.

I also understood my girlfriend’s frustration. Brad was all over the news. A child of mega-rich parents had turned out to be a serial rapist and possible serial killer – so far, only the two bodies in the basement had been found, and you needed three for the “serial” title. He was suspected of killing more, and there were plans to excavate the backyard and search the woods we’d fled through looking for further victims.

Nico had stayed true to his word, and a man who looked an awful lot like Brad had been caught on CCTV withdrawing cash from an ATM close to the Canadian border. The crossings up there were on high alert, and Brad’s passport had been flagged. No additional sightings had been reported, but every night, the local news reminded people there was a killer on the loose, and the entire city was on edge, wondering if he’d really fled or if his family was hiding him somewhere nearby.

His parents were housebound because of the media attention, and their lawyers had been extra busy dodging questions and dragging their feet as they tried to slow the police investigation. It turned out the Bluhm’s initial acquiescence mostly came from shock, and now they were doing everything they could to save face in the public eye and distance themselves from what their spawn had done.

There was so much scrutiny on the case that I hadn’t hacked back into the police system despite how desperate Aly and I were to know what was happening. That left Nico as our only source of information.

He gestured at Aly with his glass. “How’s work been?”

She eyed him. “Has your little mole not been filling you in on my daily life?”

Nico grinned. “Greg’s been preoccupied with his own responsibilities.”

“And what would those be?” Aly asked.

“Janitorial, of course,” Nico answered, looking nonplussed.

Aly glanced around. “Where is he tonight?”

“Busy,” all of her cousins said at once.

Well, that wasn’t suspicious.

Aly honed in on it. “With what?”

Nico’s grin slipped. “Anyone ever tell you you’re not great at small talk?”

“Tell me about the investigation, and I’ll try to improve,” Aly shot back.

I hid my grin behind another sip of wine. She’d lured him right into that trap.

The rest of the pre-dinner conversation didn’t improve much from there. Aly and Nico spent most of it trading barbs. Moira attempted to get them back to safer ground several times with well-placed jokes, but neither was having it; they were too caught up in their battle of wills. Junior tried throwing me a lifeline halfway through by bringing up the latest football game, but I’d never been into sports, so that side conversation fell flat quickly.

As uncomfortable as the situation was, I was proud of Aly. The people pleaser in me would have been nice just to put everyone at ease, but she stood firm. We weren’t here because she actually wanted to spend time with her family; we’d been forced. And as funny as Moira was and as welcoming as her sons were being, these people were all criminals. They’d gotten rid of a body for us so seamlessly that it spoke of years of experience.

It made me wonder how many others they’d disposed of. How many families were out there, broken, searching for a loved one who would never come home? The mob didn’t just “disappear” fellow mobsters and gangsters who pissed them off. They targeted shop owners who didn’t want to pay for the mob’s forced protection. They went after government officials and community organizers who tried to stand up to them. Or they got rid of innocent witnesses to their crimes.

And Nico was the guy who made sure no one ever found them.

The opulence surrounding us had been built on the bones of victims. My father was a monster, but at least he’d never profited from his crimes. He committed them because he was sick, because he’d grown up in a violently abusive household, and had suffered several frontal lobe injuries that altered his brain function. I wasn’t excusing his actions, but there was a reason he was the way he was.

It made me wonder what Nico’s excuse was. Aly’s mom told her they had a strict but stable upbringing. Their parents didn’t hit them. Nico had simply fallen in with a bad crowd. But I wondered if it was more than that. I’d been in therapy so long and researched antisocial personality disorders so much that it was second nature to question charming people like Nico. Was he just naturally magnetic, or did he have sociopathic traits?

“Babe?” Aly asked. “You good?”

I blinked and came back to myself. Everyone was heading into dinner, leaving us a moment to ourselves. “Yeah, sorry. I zoned out for a second there.”

She scrunched her nose and dropped her voice. “Sorry about that. I know it must have been awkward.”

I stepped close enough to rub my hand up her arm. “Don’t apologize. You did good. I’m proud of you for holding your ground and not pretending that this is something it isn’t.”

She beamed at me. “Thank you.”

The urge to tell her I loved her was almost too strong to resist, but this was neither the time nor the place. I’d almost blurted it out yesterday over breakfast and the day before that when I caught Aly singing off-key Mariah Carey in the shower, but as much as a large part of me thought she was right there with me, a smaller part second-guessed it, keeping the words in check. It wasn’t that I didn’t think I was worthy of love; I just couldn’t believe I’d gotten so lucky that she was the one who loved me.

Dinner went a little better than cocktail hour. We were too busy stuffing our faces for much conversation, and Aly and Nico were seated far enough apart that they would have had to raise their voices to continue bickering. What brief discussion we had focused on safer topics like how good the food was, how shitty the weather had been, and Moira’s plans to gut their master bathroom and have a custom spa built in its place.

I sat back in my chair afterward, unable to eat another bite, feeling warm and sleepy and sated. No wonder they waited until dinner was over for serious conversation. It would be hard to get worked up when all I could think about was how nice a quick post-meal nap would be.

Aly set her napkin beside her plate and turned to where Nico lorded over us from the head of the table. “Now?”

He sighed. “Yes, fine.”

Moira placed a hand over his. “Coffee?”

His expression softened when he looked at her, and I started questioning myself about the sociopath thing when I saw the warm affection in his eyes. “Yes, please.” He turned toward us. “Would you like any?”

Remembering what Junior said about Nico’s barista-related vanity, I nodded. “I’ll never say no to one of those macchiatos.”

He grinned. “Moira’s even better at making them than I am.” His gaze slid to his wife. “And she’s got a great ass.”

Their sons let out a collective groan and started excusing themselves from the table, taking their plates with them to the kitchen.

Moira, however, looked thrilled. “He can be taught,” she said, leaning in to kiss her husband’s cheek.

Fifteen minutes later, Aly and I joined Nico and Junior in Nico’s office with our coffees. It was the one space in the house I felt like I could relax. The walls were paneled in dark wood. Soft lighting filtered down from a black chandelier. Beneath our feet, a well-worn Persian rug covered most of the slate-gray tile floor. Nico’s desk took up the center of the room, but the two leather chairs facing it looked as comfortable as the dark couch against the far wall, and I decided I’d be happy sitting wherever Aly chose. Leather meant that even if I accidentally slopped a little coffee over the side of my mug, it could easily get wiped up.

Aly decided on the couch, and I settled down beside her as Nico and Junior turned the chairs to face us.

Once he was seated, Nico took a sip of his espresso before lifting his gaze to Aly. “They didn’t find any trace of you or our guys in the house.”

Relief hit me so hard that I had to set my cup on my knee to keep from spilling it.

Aly reached out and gripped my shoulder, and I knew she must have been just as emotional as I was from how hard she squeezed me. “What about the van?”

Junior grinned. “The power company confirmed it was just a routine maintenance call, and the records they sent to the cops back that up.”

“What about all the footprints everyone must have left behind?” Aly pressed.

“What footprints?” Junior said. “The guys swept the snow as they were leaving.”

I forced my fingers to relax around my mug. “So that just left ours?”

Nico nodded. “Remember how we had you wear shoes a size too small?”

“Yes,” I said. “I assumed it was so there wouldn’t be a match to my real size.” I’d pulled a similar deception the first night I broke into Aly’s.

Nico nodded. “The size you wore was also Brad’s.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

My mind worked on overdrive as I thought back to all the other instructions I’d received that night, how they’d wanted me to hack into Brad’s machine but make it look like it was him who’d logged on, and the order to unencrypt anything that the cops might struggle with, like his secret hard drive.

Aly released my shoulder and sat forward. “Are you saying the cops think it was Brad inside the study that night?”

Nico nodded. “And an accomplice. That’s why the police bulletin says to be on the lookout for two men. Lucky for us, you have big feet for a woman.”

Aly grimaced. “Thanks for the underhanded compliment?”

Nico waved her off. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

I frowned. “What about Brad’s phone? Did the cops find it?”

“Ah, that,” Nico said, pausing to drain the rest of his espresso. “Yes, they found it. Brad did some rudimentary searching for Aly on it shortly after being released from the hospital, but she wasn’t the only one he looked for. Most of his digging revolved around another nurse named Erica Willet.”

Aly let out a shaky breath.

I gripped her knee. “Was that your co-worker who fit his profile?”

Her expression was troubled as she turned to me. “Yeah.”

I rubbed a thumb over her stocking-covered skin, wanting to soothe her. If not for our audience, I would have dragged her right into my lap. The need to have her in my arms when she was upset was only getting stronger by the day – more proof of how hard I had fallen.

She turned back to Nico. “Are the cops going to question me?”

He shook his head. “Unlikely. With no other trace of you found, there’s no reason. If anything, they might want to speak to you about your run-in with him to get a feel for what kind of headspace he was in that night, but I don’t think it’ll be for weeks yet, if it even happens. They’re too busy chasing down other leads and looking into missing women reports. Something like twenty hookers have disappeared in the city over the past four years.”

“Sex workers,” Aly corrected.

I sat back in my seat, stunned. “And the cops weren’t worried about it before now?”

Nico raised a brow at me. “You should know better than anyone how little cops care about hookers.” He held up a hand. “Sorry. Sex workers.”

I went completely still. Shit. He knew about my dad.

Aly reached down and threaded her fingers through mine. “I’m going to say this once. That is the last reference like that you make.”

Nico’s gaze sharpened on her. “So you know?”

Junior looked between them. “Know what?”

Nico hadn’t told him? Thank fuck for that.

“Nothing,” Aly said, glaring at her uncle. “Right?”

He held her gaze for a long moment. It felt like another battle of wills was happening between them, this one silent.

“I’m the only family you have left besides your kids,” she reminded him.

He frowned but finally nodded. “Fine.”

Aly blew out a breath. “What else is going on that we should know about?”

It turned out, a lot. A twenty-person task team had been formed to take over the investigation, including local police as well as FBI agents. Their first priority was finding Brad, but the second was finding his victims. Cops were canvasing the city streets, finally looking into all the missing persons cases they should have given a shit about to start with. Brad’s childhood record had been unsealed, and a criminal psychologist was using it to help build a more complete profile of his crimes and potential escalations.

His past victims were being reinterviewed. Judges and lawyers were getting subpoenaed in relation to his previous settlement cases. One of the FBI analysts was pouring over his phone records as they hunted for burial locations and tried to match his GPS data to areas where women went missing.

It was a huge case, and because of that, it made Aly’s name just one word in a vast ocean of information, easily overlooked.

The longer Nico talked, the more I started to believe we just might get away with what we’d done. Brad had left his phone behind when he went to Aly’s. He’d disabled the GPS in his vehicle. Her house and my car had been scrubbed clean. Even if a neighbor had caught him on a door camera approaching Aly’s house, there was absolutely no physical evidence that he’d ever come near us.

Junior swore no one would ever find Brad’s body. Brad’s car had been stripped to the frame, and its pieces were scattered throughout other vehicles across the city. Hell, the cops thought Brad was still alive. When Nico said he intended to keep it that way, with several planned sightings in Canada over the coming months, my shoulders started to relax for the first time since the night Brad broke into Aly’s. Thank fuck, because I’d been working on developing a serious crick in my neck, and my stop-you-in-your-tracks good looks would have been totally ruined by frown lines.

Did I feel like we were completely in the clear? No. But I did feel like I could stop looking over my shoulder every five seconds, and for that, I would be forever grateful to Nico.

We spoke for nearly an hour, Aly peppering her uncle and cousin with question after question until Nico pinched the bridge of his nose and begged off, claiming she was giving him a migraine. He promised to call if anything else came up, and only then did Aly rise from her seat and say that she was ready to go. Nico invited us to stay for dessert, but she declined.

On the way out, she stopped in to use the powder room, and I gathered our coats and waited for her by the front door with her uncle.

It was only the second time I’d been alone with him, and, hoping to smooth over some of the earlier awkwardness, I extended my hand. “Thank you again for everything.”

He ignored my offer to shake, going so far as to slip his hands into his pockets while he eyed me. “I did it for my niece. Not you.”

“I understand, but I’m still grateful.”

His expression flattened. “I don’t trust you.”

“Okay,” I said, because what else was I going to?

He stepped close, and though he was about half my weight, it looked like he planned to keep on coming, expecting me to back up. His eyes had gone cold, and there was a cruel glint in them that made me feel like I was getting my first real glimpse of Nico, the mobster. “If you ever do anything to hurt my niece –”

I laughed.

In my defense, I’d held it in as long as I could. God, he was so predictable. I’d been ready to kiss his ass as long as he remained civil, but I’d had a feeling it wouldn’t last, which was why I’d taken a page out of Aly’s book and was ready with Plan B.

“Look,” I said. “I’m sure this routine works on most people, but you know who my father is. Nothing you can say will ever compare to what I lived through with him.” I lifted my phone out of my pocket and waved it at him. “Also, I recorded that entire conversation in your study and already sent a backup to a private server I own, so now we’re even. You have shit on me, and I have shit on you. Don’t ever threaten me, and certainly don’t try to call in your favor for covering up for me, or I’ll dismantle your entire organization from the inside.”

I lifted my phone and tapped the screen to drive my point home. All the lights in the house flickered. Nearby, the alarm by the front door started beeping. Nico rushed over to it and punched in the code before it could go off.

“Hun?” Moira called from deeper inside the house. “What was that?”

I answered for him. “Must have been a power surge!”

Then I turned my attention back to Nico and did something I hadn’t done in years. I went to that cold, dark place in my head where I used to hide when Dad was at his worst. There was no pain inside it, no emotion. I didn’t give a fuck about anyone or anything there, not even myself, and I knew it showed on my face because this was the same place I’d gone to all those years ago when I scared off Tyler’s shitty ex.

“I don’t care about you, one way or the other,” I told Nico. “And your family seems nice, but I don’t care about them either. You could all disappear tomorrow, and I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. And no, I’m not threatening you, just stating facts. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“That you’re a psycho, just like your father,” Nico spat.

“Nah, I’m not that far gone. I’m able to care about some people. And I care about Aly. I’ll do whatever I have to in order to protect her, go as far as I must. With my skills, I’d make a much better ally than I would an enemy. So, I’m going to offer to shake one more time, and we can try this conversation again.” I extended a hand between us. “Thank you so much for everything.”

Nico’s face looked like a thundercloud, red creeping into his cheeks that spoke of a deep well of rage. I’d have to be very careful around him and his sons from this point on, but if my father had taught me anything, it was that bullies like Nico only responded to threats and violence, and I would never let someone like him push me around again.

I waited several seconds, still in that emotionally detached state, holding Nico’s gaze as I let him decide if he wanted to be my enemy or my friend. Part of me hoped he made the wrong choice. I hadn’t gotten the chance to really flex my hacking skills for years, and the thought of slowly leaking mob crimes to the FBI one at a time made me smile.

I think it was the smile that decided Nico. He shuddered and, with a grimace, finally slipped his hand into mine. “You’re welcome.”

“I truly appreciate all your hard work keeping your niece safe,” I told him, which was true.

He frowned. “You’re pretty fucked up, kid. Aren’t you?”

An indrawn breath announced Aly’s arrival. “What did you just say to my boyfriend?”

In a blink, I came back to myself, my smile becoming more genuine than creepy as I released Nico and turned to face his niece.

“He was teasing,” I said. “I made a dumb joke. Right?” I asked him.

His gaze slid from me to Aly. “Right.”

I clapped him on the shoulder. “Thank Moira again for dinner. It was delicious.”

Aly frowned as she reached us, sensing something was off. “Are you ready?” she asked me.

“I am,” I said before turning back to her uncle. “Can’t wait to do this again next month.”

Nico looked a little green at the idea, but he managed to say goodbye to Aly and see us out the door without giving anything away.

“What the hell did you say to him?” she asked as we made our way toward my car.

“I told him he had a nice arse.”

Aly choked on nothing.

“What?” I said. “He does.”

I unlocked the doors, and we climbed inside. She turned to me as I started the car, her eyes narrowed to slits. “You threatened him, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but in my defense, he started it.”

“What about trying to stay on his good side?” she asked.

“Turns out, he doesn’t have one.”

She punched my arm. “Are you out of your mind? Do you know what he could do to you?”

I turned to face her. “The better question is, do you know what I could do to him?”

That brought her up short. I could see the wheels spinning in her head as she reviewed everything she’d learned about my computer skills. “But the risk…”

I reached out and smoothed her hair back from her face, looking for an excuse to touch her. “I understand the risk, but I don’t think it’ll ever come to that. Nico is a smart guy. He knows a truce between us is preferable to setting his whole world on fire just to prove he has the bigger metaphorical dick.”

She grimaced. “Gross. No relative dick talk.”

“You understand what I’m saying, though. The threat was just a threat. He needed to realize that he can’t bully me like everyone else. And he also needed to know that he can’t push me out of your life just because I’m not Italian enough for his liking.”

Her gaze shifted from my eyes to my mouth and back again. “Did you have to wait until I was out of the room to do it? I would have liked to see you go all alpha on him.”

I cocked a brow at her. “Alpha, huh? Is that something out of your porno books?”

She rolled her eyes. “They’re called spicy romances, and they’ve taught me as much about myself as your masktok account has.”

“Yeah?” I asked. “Like what?”

“Like when we’re at that Airbnb we booked in the mountains, I want you to chase me down and fuck me in the woods like an animal.”

It was my turn to choke on nothing. Yup. Yes. I could definitely do that for her.

“Speaking of my masktok account,” I said. “You want to hold the camera for me again tonight? People seem to like the new content since you’ve started helping.”

She groaned and turned to buckle herself in. “As long as you don’t publicly thank me again. I’ve gotten, like, a thousand new followers since Wednesday.”

“You know people pay for that kind of social media growth, Aly,” I said, unable to keep the teasing note out of my voice.

She turned back to me, deadpan. “Yeah, but do they also pay their new followers to threaten them? Because that’s all I seem to get.”

“They just want to make sure you’re treating me right. They’re still not sure about you after that one time you made me sad.”

She rolled her eyes. “If they only knew the truth about what happened.”

I grinned. “They’d probably think it was hot.”

She sighed. “You’re right. Who am I kidding? I’m living their fantasies. I will always be the enemy.”

I gripped the back of her neck and pulled her toward me. The car had barely heated up, and our breath frosted between us.

“Hey,” I said.

She looked into my eyes from an inch away. “Yeah?”

“I love you,” I told her, unable to keep it in any longer.

“I know,” she said.

“You do?”

She nodded, her hair tickling my forehead. “Yeah, you’ve been saying it in your sleep for the past week.”

“Oh.”

“Hey,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“I love you, too. And no matter what happens, we’ll get through it together. I don’t have anything tying me here. If we have to, we can copy Pretend Brad and flee the country.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said. “But if it does, I’m down, too. I can do my work from anywhere or become a hacker for hire. We have options.”

She grinned. “Okay, but can we agree on someplace warm? I’m over this cold.”

“Wherever you want, baby,” I said, leaning in to kiss her.