Chapter 8 Mauricio
Mauricio
“If you breathe any louder, they’re going to hear us.”
Regina’s breath is hot against my neck when she whispers it, every syllable a distraction I can’t afford.
We’re pressed together in a storage closet barely wide enough for one person, and the security patrol is close enough that I can hear the static crackle of their radios.
Flashlight beams cut through the crack beneath the door, searching.
“If you hadn’t insisted on getting closer to the shipping manifest,” I murmur against her hair, trying to ignore how she smells like bergamot and vanilla and terrible decisions, “we wouldn’t be playing sardines with armed guards.”
“If you’d trusted my read on the guard rotation schedule,” she counters, her breath warm against my neck, “we would have had another seven minutes before they doubled back.”
The footsteps pause outside our door.
My hand moves to the gun at my spine on instinct, but Regina’s fingers close around my wrist—stopping me, steadying me, communicating without words that violence right now would doom us both.
Her pulse hammers against my palm where our skin touches, and I’m suddenly hyperaware of every point where our bodies connect in this too-small space.
The guard moves on.
We don’t.
The silence that follows their departure should be a relief.
Instead, it’s charged with something dangerous—awareness crackling between us like electricity looking for ground.
Regina’s chest rises and falls against mine with each breath, and I can feel her heartbeat through the thin fabric of her tactical gear.
“They’re gone,” I say, but neither of us moves.
“I know.” Her voice carries that same breathless quality I heard in the parking garage, before I had the good sense to step away. “We should probably—”
“Probably.” But my hands have found her hips, steadying her or claiming her, I’m not entirely sure which. “Though the smart play is waiting another five minutes. Make sure they don’t circle back.”
“Five minutes.” She tilts her head up, and even in the darkness I can see the challenge in her green eyes. “And what exactly are we supposed to do for five minutes in a closet that’s approximately the size of a coffin?”
“We could review what we learned.” The suggestion comes out rougher than intended, my self-control fraying with each second she stays pressed against me. “The shipping manifest showed Rotterdam connections, just like your intel suggested. That ties into—”
“Mauricio.” Her hands rest flat against my chest, and I’m acutely aware she can probably feel how fast my heart is beating. “Do you really want to talk about shipping manifests right now?”
“I really want to do a lot of things right now.” Honesty feels dangerous but necessary. “Most of them would be spectacularly stupid.”
“Such as?”
“Such as kissing you.” The admission escapes before I can stop it.
Her breath catches. “That would be stupid.”
“Monumentally stupid.” I force myself to loosen my grip on her hips, even though every instinct screams to pull her closer. “Which is why we’re not going to do it.”
“We’re not?” But she doesn’t move away, doesn’t create distance, doesn’t do anything except look at me with eyes that promise things neither of us should want.
“We can’t.” I close my eyes, because looking at her makes thinking impossible. “You’re Sabino Picarelli’s daughter. I’m trying to dismantle his empire. Getting involved beyond our strategic alliance compromises everything.”
“Everything?” Her voice drops lower, intimate. “Or just your carefully maintained control?”
“Regina—”
“Because from where I’m standing—or pressed, technically—it seems like you want me just as much as I want you.” Her hands slide up my chest, fingers finding the collar of my jacket. “And pretending otherwise is just another form of lying.”
She’s right, and that’s what makes this so fucking dangerous.
“Wanting something doesn’t mean acting on it.” I catch her wrists, gentle but firm, stopping their exploration. “Another lesson I spent fifteen years in prison learning is that lesson. Desire without discipline gets people killed.”
“Always so controlled.” But there’s heat beneath her words, frustration and arousal braided together. “Don’t you ever just want to feel something without calculating the risks?”
“Every damn day.” The confession costs me. “But feeling without thinking is how I ended up inside. How I lost fifteen years I’ll never get back. So yes, I calculate risks. I maintain control. Because the alternative is chaos.”
“Maybe I want chaos.” She leans closer, and her lips brush against my jaw—not quite a kiss, just a promise of one. “Maybe I’ve spent twenty-eight years being perfectly controlled, and I’m tired of it.”
“Then find chaos somewhere else.” I force myself to lean back, to create the distance that should have existed from the beginning. “Not with me. Not while we’re working together. Not while your life depends on both of us staying focused.”
The hurt that flashes across her face is brief but devastating. She rebuilds her armor quickly, smoothing her jacket with precise movements that speak to years of hiding emotion.
“You’re right.” Her voice is professionally neutral now, all that fire banked beneath ice. “I apologize for the unprofessional behavior. It won’t happen again.”
“Regina—”
“We should go.” She reaches for the door handle. “Five minutes have passed. The coast should be clear.”
She’s gone before I can stop her, slipping out of the closet and back into the warehouse shadows with the practiced ease of someone who’s learned to disappear. I follow, maintaining the professional distance I insisted on, hating myself for the hurt I put in her eyes.
We make it to the exterior without incident, moving through shipping containers and past loading docks with synchronized efficiency that speaks to how well we’ve learned to work together.
The surveillance went perfectly—we have photos of the manifest, confirmation of the Rotterdam connection, intelligence about security rotations.
Everything we came for.
The safe house is fifteen minutes away—a nondescript apartment Tiziano set up for exactly these kinds of operations. Regina drives with focused intensity, her jaw tight with tension I put there.
Inside the apartment, she pulls up the photos on her laptop.
“The manifest confirms shipments every Tuesday and Friday,” she says, all business now. “Security detail rotates at twenty-three hundred hours, which gives us a three-minute window if we want to—”
“Stop.” I can’t take it anymore—the coldness, the distance, the way she’s treating this like we didn’t just almost destroy our carefully maintained boundaries. “Regina, stop.”
“Stop what?” But she won’t look at me, too focused on the screen. “I’m giving you the intelligence analysis you need. Isn’t that what I’m here for?”
“You’re here because we’re partners.” I move to stand beside her, forcing her to acknowledge my presence. “Because we’re working together to give you freedom and me revenge. Not because I’m using you.”
“Could have fooled me.” The bitterness leaks through despite her best efforts. “You made your position clear in that closet. I’m a strategic asset, nothing more.”
“That’s not—” I run a hand through my hair, frustration mounting. “Fuck, Regina, you know that’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?” Finally, she turns to face me, and the hurt in her green eyes nearly breaks something in my chest. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re the one who keeps sending mixed signals.
You touch me like you can’t help yourself, then pull away like I’m contaminated.
You look at me like I’m the answer to questions you haven’t asked, then tell me we can’t cross that line.
So, which is it, Mauricio? Am I a partner or a problem? ”
“Both.” The honesty comes out raw. “You’re both, and that’s what makes this so fucking complicated.”
“How?”
“Because I’m trying to protect you.” I catch her shoulders when she gets too close, holding her at arm’s length even though it’s killing me.
“Because getting involved with me makes you a target in ways you can’t imagine.
Sabino already wants you married off. If he discovers you’re sleeping with his enemy?
He’ll kill you, Regina. Painfully. Slowly.
Making an example that ensures nobody else gets ideas about betrayal. ”
The certainty in my voice finally penetrates her anger. She stops fighting against my grip, and I see the moment reality crashes through desire.
“So what?” Her voice drops to barely a whisper. “We just ignore this? Pretend the chemistry doesn’t exist?”
“We acknowledge it.” I force myself to release her, to step back before I do something we’ll both regret. “And then we compartmentalize it. We stay focused on the goal—dismantling your father’s empire, getting you free. Everything else is a distraction we can’t afford.”
“You make it sound simple.”
“It’s not simple. It’s necessary.” I move to the window, needing distance between us.
The silence that follows carries weight. Then Regina speaks, and her voice holds something I haven’t heard before—vulnerability without performance.
“What if I don’t want to wait?” The question lands soft but devastating. “What if by the time we’ve dismantled everything and I’m supposedly free, we’ve lost whatever this is between us?”
“Then we lose it.” The words taste like ash. “Better to lose a possibility than lose your life.”
“Spoken like someone who’s already lost everything.” She moves to stand beside me at the window, shoulder to shoulder but not quite touching. “But I haven’t. I still have something to lose, and maybe that makes me more willing to risk it.”
“Risk gets people killed.”