The Art of You

Walking into that conversation had been like stumbling in front of a freight train, having never seen it coming.

The straw that broke the camel’s back wasn’t the accident. It wasn’t even the fact I had an agent gunning for me, looking to slap me with cuffs on any given Sunday.

No, it was my best friend’s belief about me. “Can’t love you back.” Those four words were the final nail in the coffin of whatever was left of my beating fucking heart.

Well-deserved, because what he’d said was true. And yet, hearing Constantine say what I’d spent most of my life believing hurt like a son of a bitch.

Google the definition for “can’t love you back” and you’d find my face next to the résumé of reasons to not fall in love with me. He wasn’t wrong about me, but Alessandro used to be⁠—

I immediately ditched that dangerous line of thought. I couldn’t latch on to the hope that if Alessandro could change, so could I. We had different stories.

I dropped my head, falling back into the past. To 2010, when my life flipped upside down because of an email. If my father’s message had come one day later, or my orders to spin up had come one day earlier . . .

At the sound of the back door opening, I lifted my head up. I didn’t want to come across to anyone as a man on the verge of snapping. Like I am.

Adelina joined me on the deck beneath the unwelcomed rays of sunlight. “Isabella and Constantine said you needed a minute, but it’s been five.”

“Sorry. I needed⁠—”

“Time?” She zipped up her black leather jacket and closed the space between us on the massive deck. “Are you okay?”

“No.” The honest answer spilled from my mouth a bit too quickly. “I mean, yes. Confused the words.”

“English is my second language, not yours.” She lifted her brow, waiting for me to get my shit together. If only. “I’m not used to seeing you like this.”

“What, bruised and banged up?”

“Wearing your emotions so plain to see.” It was less of an observation and more a statement of fact.

“You saw me in the kitchen for all of five minutes,” I grumbled, not looking for anyone to help walk me off the cliff of crazy right now, even if I needed it.

“I’m talking about now. You were fine in the kitchen.” She narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing me. “You look like a man who just found out the love of his life is getting married to someone else.”

“Stop profiling me. I’m not on your suspect list. Well, at least, I better not be.” And that reminded me, we had work to do. “Aren’t you short on time? Places to go and all that?” I gestured for her to walk inside, but she didn’t budge.

“I can afford a few extra minutes to make sure you’re good before we get to work.” She ate up the remaining space between us, maintaining eye contact. The woman was trying to hypnotize me into speaking the truth. I’d seen her do it to cold-blooded killers before.

“I know what you’re thinking, and you can stop. Isabella is just a friend.” Did I need to wear those words on my sleeve since I didn’t exactly have my heart there?

“Just friends” was becoming one of this weekend’s themes, somehow sending a double homicide to the back seat.

Just. A. Friend.

Period.

Throw in some extra punctuation there, too. A fucking exclamation point if needed. Whatever would get the job done to convince everyone to drop it.

Between the bullshit from Kit at the party Friday night to Constantine serving up those tough-to-stomach words on a silver platter of kill-me-now this morning, I was done.

“Well, I wasn’t questioning your relationship with Isabella Costa, but I am now. If there’s something between you two, it might be relevant to the case.”

Shit. I unintentionally cracked Pandora’s box with that one. Now she’d try and use her heightened special powers of observation to try and lure me into opening up. Nope, not happening. Not today, at least.

“How could my friendship be relevant to anything?” I hissed, not meaning to take out my frustrations on her when she’d made the trip out to the Hamptons to help.

“If Isabella has a stalker obsessed with her, and they see you as a threat, then yes, that’s relevant in helping me figure out what’s going on.” She reached for my good arm and gave it a light squeeze. “I’m here for you. But I can’t help if you’re going to play hardball with me. I’m not the enemy. Looks like you have enough of them already.”

Yeah, like Special Agent Clarke, who was up my ass itching to throw bogus manslaughter charges at me. Something told me that coffee-drinking prick wouldn’t stop even if Bigfoot killing those two men was a more plausible story.

“Stop Doctor Phil’ing me.”

Instead of giving me the eye roll I deserved, she worried her brows together and offered me a sympathetic look.

Her sad expression hit me with just about the same effect as an ASPCA commercial about neglected and abused animals. Growing uncomfortable, I rushed out, “Did you find out something new you haven’t told me that’d lead you to believe she does, in fact, have a stalker?”

“Well, there was something you never mentioned, or maybe you didn’t remember, that has bothered me.” She produced her phone from her pocket and a moment later offered it to me. “Someone photoshopped you out of the picture sent to Isabella on Friday.”

I stared at the two side-by-side images. A photo she’d taken of the one sent to Bella along with another. “No, I wasn’t in that shot . . . was I?” I didn’t remember being in it, at least.

“I couldn’t sleep last night, so I decided to do some digging. I pulled up the article that Kit wrote in connection to the photo, and as you can see there, you were in the background. Not close, almost like a shadow off in the distance near Bianca’s apartment building, but you were there. Definitely you. So, my question is, why did this person choose to photoshop you out when sending her the picture?” She took her phone back and pocketed it.

The biting sting of chills crashed over me. Any direction she was about to run with this wasn’t a good one. No road was worth traveling when it came to this. “This is your area, right? What are you thinking this means? Just tell me.”

“Well, I did some checking, and I haven’t been able to find a single photo of just you and Isabella online. Like ever. You’ve been in images with her and her brothers, but never only the two of you. Aside from this one.”

I hated this. Hating every second of this.

I needed an enemy. A target package. A place to point and shoot. Instead of feeling like a sailor without orders lost at sea.

“Two possible reasons for this.” She was shifting comfortably into FBI mode. “One, our suspect is obsessed with Isabella, and they see you as a threat, which is why they chose this photo to send. It was the only one they had of just the two of you, so they used it to get their message across. They want you gone from her life. It could also serve to cast suspicion on the reporter, but that would mean this person has pretty intimate access to Isabella’s life to be aware you were going to the party together. High-level knowledge to also know Kit had been added at the last minute.”

Stalker. Intimate access. Someone she knows? That unacceptable idea sent more unsettling chills crashing hard over my skin.

“This is often the case when it comes to women who’ve been abducted. It’s almost always by someone who knew them, someone already in their life,” she shared, her tone somber again.

I bowed my head and gritted out, “What’s the other reason why I was cut out?”

“That Isabella receiving that photo could have more to do with who’s not in it than is.” She’d need to spell this out for me, the murderous mood I was in making it hard to think clearly. “Instead of this being about her, someone could’ve sent the photo as a message for you. They’d assume she’d tell you about it.”

I felt the blood rush to my face in real time, feeling like I’d been hit by a fever. “I’m their target, and they’re coming after Isabella to get to me.” I abruptly turned away from her, unable to handle either possibility. I stared out at the ocean in the distance, forgetting how to breathe for a moment.

“I need a lot more to go on before I can piece this together.” She set her hand on my back, coming up next to me. “We don’t know their motives, or if this photo has anything to do with the kidnapping case. Let’s not jump ahead of ourselves, okay? It could be this reporter trying to get into your head, too.”

“I’ve never wished so much that a reporter was looking to fuck with me more than I do now.”

“Before we talk to her, I’d like to see what she does next. See who she talks to. I’m assuming your team already has her under surveillance?”

“Of course.” I turned toward the house, and she let go of my back. “We should fill in the others. Get this over with.”

“Wait.” She reached for my arm, stopping me from heading in. “You haven’t answered me yet, and I assume you’d rather do it in private.”

“About what?” I raced through my memories, finally landing on what she was referring to. “No, there’s nothing between us.” Only in my head and dreams.

“If this isn’t that reporter’s doing, are you sure there’s nothing that might trigger someone obsessed with Isabella to make their first move in scaring her?”

I flipped through months’ worth of moments where I’d come close to messing up when it came to Bella, finally landing on a genuine answer. “We’ve flirted, but it’s been harmless, and was always in private.”

I knew Adelina was just doing her job and covering her bases, but these types of questions were going to give Constantine an ulcer if he had to hear them asked of Bella.

“We’ve been working together a lot. I pretty much see her seven days a week. But nothing has ever actually happened between us.” And it can’t. “Doubtful anyone witnessed our kiss when we were in Rome.”

She lifted a brow, letting go of my arm. “Kiss, huh?”

“It wasn’t like that. It was for work. We were undercover.”

Damn her knowing smile. “And any other ‘for work’ moments happen?”

“You can put down those air quotes.” At least she had me almost smiling, something I didn’t think was possible after she dropped the bomb that someone had photoshopped me out of Bella’s life. “Nothing. Well . . .” Fuck. “There was a gas leak at her place the first week in June, and she stayed in my guest room.” Before she could give me shit, I offered up, “It was innocent.”

“And does anyone else call her Bella aside from you? I noticed most refer to her as Izzy.”

My lips slammed into a tight line. Because way to pull off a quick kill shot with that one. I also didn’t know what to say. I’d never really thought about it, and I didn’t remember being pressed by any Costa as to why I’d one day up and changed her nickname.

“I’ll take that as a no.” The woman before me was definitely the experienced Fed and not my friend, which was exactly what I needed. Someone objective with a new set of eyes to look over everything. “And at the party Friday night, anything happen that could be misconstrued as more? She went as your plus-one. Her stalker could’ve been there, watching you two.”

“I’m sure whoever is behind that photo was on the guest list, but are they tied to the case?” That was the mindfuck I couldn’t unfuck in my head right now.

“You didn’t answer me.”

Dammit. I relented with a deep, dramatic sigh that hurt my chest. The seat belt had abused my shoulder and upper pectoral muscle when it’d locked up to save my life. I liked the color purple, just not on my skin, and sure as hell not on Bella’s.

“Still not an answer.” Arms over her chest, there went her dark brow, shooting up in question.

“Constantine was watching us over cameras while we were there. So, what do you think happened between me and his sister?” In truth, if someone had a better angle of us than Constantine had, they’d have seen Bella testing my willpower. I’d wanted to take her over my knee and slap that cute ass of hers for pretty much grinding against my cock while we were dancing.

Trouble. That woman was the definition of it lately in testing my limits. But I promised myself I’d behave, because breaking her heart wasn’t an option. And as of fifteen minutes ago, I’d basically written that same promise in blood by offering it to Constantine.

“I’m just trying to get a full picture so I can figure out what happened,” she said when it was clear I had no plans to expand on what may or may not have happened on that dance floor. “I’m sorry to do this.”

“It’s why you’re here.” I frowned. “I assume you’ll be asking her even more questions than you’ve asked me.” God, I hated this. “This is messy, isn’t it?”

“It’s complex, to say the least.” She patted my good arm. “But lucky for you, you have me to uncomplicate things.” She forced a small smile I wished was more confident. “Let’s go chat with the others, so I can get to the city and start chasing down leads.”

Right. The two of us started for the back door, and I found myself hesitating before opening up.

She glanced at me. “What is it?”

“You told me on the phone Friday night you had good news, what is it?”

“Ah, you don’t need to hear that now.” She waved me away, lifting her chin as a directive to open the door. “We can talk about that when we’ve wrapped up this case. Or, well, maybe cases.”

“I could use some good news.” I let go of the door, facing her. “I need something to dial my anger down. It’ll help me think better if I can see more than red.”

“Good point.” Mouth closed, she released a soft breath through her nose. “I found her. Well, actually, she found me.”

It took me a second to comprehend what she was saying. “Wait.” Was she serious? “Your sister’s alive?”

She allowed her eyes to reflect her emotions, wearing them as prominently as I’d been wearing my pain. “Mya’s been living in New York, too. She used to be a reporter—don’t hold that against her—then she got into a similar line of work as you. She had no idea she’d been kidnapped when she was three. All those years . . .” She took a moment to clear her voice. “She was working a major case over the summer and stumbled upon the truth, and that’s how she found me. She’s with our parents now in Italy, but I, uh, finally have my sister back.”

“Holy shit.” I pulled her into my arms for a quick hug. “This is incredible.”

“I just came back from Florence last month after having a chance to spend time with her. She’s amazing, smart, and beautiful. A total badass. And hopelessly in love with an Army veteran.”

I hugged her one more time, because this was the epitome of a big deal. “I’d love to meet her one day.”

“You will. When things die down for her, and I ensure you don’t go to prison for a crime you didn’t commit, and we make sure your girl is safe here and⁠—”

“Not my girl.” She’d snuck that verbiage in pretty fast and almost pulled one over on me.

“Yeah, right, you keep saying that.”

“Maybe you should believe me.” I lifted a brow, and she shrugged. “Why didn’t you want to tell me this in the car Friday night?”

“I didn’t feel right about sharing it with Isabella listening. My sister is alive, and Bianca⁠—”

“Bella would be happy for you, not jealous,” I interrupted.

“I only spent five minutes with her in the kitchen, but you’re right, I can tell she’s a good person.” She tugged at the sleeve of my shirt. “Come on, let’s not keep them waiting.”

I opened the door. “We’ll celebrate when this is over. Your news and mine.”

“Yours?” She shot me a funny look from over her shoulder before going inside.

“Yeah, ensuring I never have to find out if orange is my color. The Feds may not have anything to charge me with, but if I find out someone is stalking Bella, I won’t hesitate to commit murder.”