The Art of You

Bella was curled up asleep on the couch, her head on my lap. I couldn’t help but stare at the bruise around her eye and feel guilty we’d even been in an accident in the first place. I should’ve never let that happen.

I went for my scotch to work the lump down my throat, careful not to disturb her as I reached for it on the table next to me. The drink did nothing to ease my guilt, so I forced my attention back to the screen.

After watching her two favorite Swayze movies, she let me watch one of my favorites of his—Road House. But we were now on film four, and she’d switched the vibe up quite a bit to The Shining. Apparently, much like golf, horror helped her fall asleep.

It also could’ve been the food we overindulged in that knocked her out. We’d chased down our Cantonese dim sum, dumplings, and sweet and sour pork with alcohol. Not to mention the woman had to be in a sugar coma from all the candy she’d eaten.

But aside from bathroom breaks, we hadn’t budged from this spot on the couch in about seven hours.

Maybe we were ignoring a whole host of problems that kept building up to what I felt would be the point of no return, but spending this time with her had to be the best seven hours I’d experienced in a long damn time. Though, I’d have to admit, I may have been more focused on her than the movies.

While sipping my drink, I mindlessly ran my fingers through her thick hair, watching the kid in the movie ride his tricycle down an empty hallway at the Overlook Hotel.

My hand went still as I realized we were no longer alone. Alessandro was in the doorway, staring at us. He quietly gestured for me to join him, and I set aside my drink, contemplating how to extricate myself without waking Sleeping Beauty.

After stealthily maneuvering her into a new position so I could stand, I went into the hall and immediately addressed the elephant in the room. “About what you saw.”

“Relax. I’m not Constantine.” He folded his arms, propping his shoulder against the wall at his side.

Works for me.

“I appreciate you looking after her today.”

Not really a hardship to spend the day cozied up with her.

“How’s she doing now?”

Despite her bruises, which killed me to look at, she didn’t seem in pain. Well, from what she’d told me. “She’s fine, I guess.” Maybe he should’ve been asking her this, though.

“What about you?” He angled his head, eyes narrowing, likely preparing for me to lie to him.

So, I went ahead and gave him the truth. No sense in hiding it. “Feel like someone played whack-a-mole with my chest, face, and back.”

“Sounds pleasant.” He smirked. “You should be taking something stronger than Advil.”

“Says the guy who can’t even handle cold medicine without acting drunk.”

He rolled his eyes before glancing at the open door. I started to close it, assuming he wanted more privacy, but then opted to leave it slightly cracked.

The idea of leaving Bella asleep and alone with Jack from The Shining, even if he was on screen, didn’t sit well with me. As crazy as our weekend had been, I was prepared for the impossible to happen. For fictional characters to come to life. The dead to start walking. Pigs to actually fly. And Constantine to tell me he’d love having me as a brother-in-law.

I rubbed my eyes at the last thought. That one definitely snuck up on me. It had no business being in my head. Time to switch gears. Kind of. “You hear from your brothers?”

“Constantine texted that he’d rather go over everything with us in person. He and Enzo should be here in an hour or two.” He pushed away from the wall. “Not sure if that makes me feel better or worse.”

Same.

“Anything from your dad?”

After unleashing a disgruntled sigh, the mere thought of my father souring my mood, I shared, “If the Feds learned anything helpful from their interview of the two suspects, they’ve yet to talk to my father about it. So, unfortunately, nothing on my end to share.” My gaze flicked to the bandage still on my arm, the memory of the car accident and the fact I could have lost Bella still far too fresh. “Where are you at with looking into that valet? Enzo turned that job over to you, right?”

“I’m still looking into the both of them, especially the one that first parked the Porsche when you arrived. Nothing conclusive yet.”

It’s probably a waste of time.

“Eduardo and Chris knew you were coming to the party, but they didn’t know the real reason why since the ambo kept them in the dark. They thought you fell for the trap to draw you away from where the real ransom drop would take place. Sounds like they had a contingency plan set in place in case things went south like they did.”

“The truck at the gas station and that valet for an assist, you mean?”

“They could have easily recruited that valet. Told him they had concerns about a potential threat to the ambassador and tasked him with tagging your vehicle.”

No one should’ve been able to get any kind of drop on me. I’d been unfocused. Not only with Bella at my side, but with the ghost of an old friend in the back of my mind.

“The kid may have even thought he was helping protect the ambo from you.”

“The kid?” I arched my brow.

“Now that I’m forty, anyone under twenty-five feels like a kid to me.”

“Fucking same, which is why I didn’t even check out Bella⁠—”

Alessandro’s arms fell at the same time I realized what I’d almost confessed, fortunately cutting myself off and finishing that thought in my head.

And where the hell did that come from, anyway? I did the math in my head. Shit. She was twenty-five when I started calling her Bella. Seven years ago. It should’ve been hard to pinpoint an exact date, but it’d been a memorable evening. She’d come home from London for her birthday, and since our travel schedules never seemed to align, it’d been the first time I’d seen her in two years.

Her family threw her a party worthy of royalty, and I’d never forget the moment I set eyes on her walking into the hotel ballroom. She was suddenly all grown up. The way her fitted black gown clung to her golden-tan skin, it appeared to have been glued to her body. Her hair had been pinned up instead of wild and down like normal.

After I’d picked my jaw up off the floor, the name Bella rolled from my tongue when I’d told her happy birthday.

I hadn’t looked back since, or thought about why I’d used that name, until Adelina mentioned it this morning.

I blinked, remembering where I was. I hauled my ass from the past to the present. “So . . .” I cleared my throat. Focus. “Even if that valet tagged the Porsche, he’s still more than likely not our shooter, which brings us back to square one.”

Alessandro stole a look at the theater room, and I wasn’t sure if he was about to press me on my earlier unfinished thought. He wound up going in a completely different direction than I expected and said, “I’m guessing Izzy hasn’t been on her phone in the last thirty minutes. I know you rarely use social media, but she does all the time.” His gray eyes slipped down between us and to the floor. Shoulders breaking forward yet again from the weight of whatever he planned to share.

“No, her phone is in her bedroom. Why?”

“Since Callie and I have spent all afternoon in the depths of social media hell poring over posts connected to the party . . .”

I’d never get Bella’s remark about ellipses and their emphasis out of my head. I swore I could visibly see the three dots rolling between us as I waited for Alessandro to continue. “What is it that’ll make me want to actually commit murder?” My nerves were toast at this point.

He reached into his pocket and unlocked his phone. “Your name is already a trending hashtag on X. Videos are spreading like wildfire across all apps. You’re going to want to punch a few people. I did. I may have spent more than a few minutes swinging at the heavy bag in the gym.” He kept his hand curled around the phone. “I’m sure your father will be blowing you up with calls the second his campaign manager lowers his blood pressure. Probably throw a glass instead of a punch like I did.”

My stomach was already doing motherfucking cartwheels, why not turn them into rings of fire? “Just hand it over.”

He finally set his phone on my open palm. “Start with X. It’s where Kit published her story. And it’s the origin of this mess.”

I stared at the image Kit had posted of me. It was the photo she’d taken of us outside the party when I’d been distracted. “Twenty-seven million views in thirty minutes? Is that even possible?”

Alessandro shrugged. “The internet is a strange beast.”

I forced myself to open Kit’s article, and it took me less than two seconds to understand why Alessandro expected me to snap.

Kit severed my arteries with her words, and I’d bleed out in no time.

I had to breathe as steadily as possible through my nose as I read her article, doing my best to remember to keep control. Who the hell told Kit this? And why now?

Kit claimed to have a reliable source who shared the real reason I left the Navy. Her source claimed my father had lied about why I truly left, choosing to use my mother’s cancer as a way to garner sympathy and support for his campaign rather than acknowledging my career as a SEAL ended in 2010 because of a disastrous op the government covered up as a training exercise gone wrong.

Everyone on my team had been ordered by Command to keep our mouths shut about what went down that day. That op had been fifty shades of motherfucking classified by orders of Joint Special Operations Command. And JSOC had taken their orders from Congress.

“It gets a bit more . . . gross. The accusations,” Alessandro warned after recognizing I’d paused only a few lines into reading.

Because there I was, right back in Afghanistan, surrounded by both gunfire and buildings ablaze.

“Hudson?” He gently set a hand on my shoulder, pulling me from my past hell and into this new nightmare.

I forced myself to continue reading, and my stomach dropped even more. “I did not sleep with your sister,” I hissed. “You believe me, right?” My eyes burned as I fumed at the accusation that I’d slept with Bianca Costa and had moved on to my next target: “The last female darling of one of New York’s wealthiest families.”

My hand holding the phone shook as I read someone’s comment to her vile story.

“Son of the governor is trying to manwhore his way into becoming a billionaire.”

“Of course I know you didn’t sleep with Bianca.” Alessandro’s words had me peering up at him, and he slowly removed his hand from my shoulder. “What about Izzy?”

“I didn’t sleep with either of them, dammit.” The deep drop in my voice did me dirty. While it was the truth, I felt guilty how desperately I wished that I could sleep with Bella.

He cleared his throat, not even close to being subtle about it. “I meant, does Izzy know you never . . . with Bianca? You and Bianca were close back then, and if she reads this article, she might wonder.”

Jesus. “It never really came up in conversation,” I drawled, unsure if I meant that sarcastically or in anger at this entire situation. We already had too much to deal with, and we didn’t need more. But the fact Kit published the story had me more inclined to believe she was connected to everything, just as Bella had first assumed. “Maybe the photo really was from Kit.”

“I guess we’ll know more when the guys get back.”

I handed him the phone. “I can’t look at this any longer. It’s all bullshit.”

“So, you don’t have a thing for my sister?” He lifted a brow as he pocketed his phone. No humor there, just an honest question. One I couldn’t answer.

I tightened my mouth into a hard line, unable to bluff my way out of this. I was too unhinged. He’d see right through me. “I would’ve left the Navy to take care of my mother, that’s true,” I said instead, finding myself wrestling with guilt, my least favorite emotion. “But what you don’t know is I also handed in my trident and didn’t re-up because of what happened on that last op.” My stomach roiled as I stared at the floor between us. “Kit’s anonymous source either came from Command or someone in Congress. That, or someone from my old team talked.”

He paused. Processed. Took it all in, then surrendered a quick, “Fuck.” Another long pause. “I’m sorry. But, uh, assuming it’s not someone from JSOC or Congress, any idea who from your old team may have a grudge against you?”

My body locked up, the tension mounting. I hung my head, giving in to that wicked emotion of guilt again, and admitted, “Yeah, probably everyone.” At least those still alive.