10. Michael
Michael
She lied.
I knew it the second “margarita night” left her lips. “Another girls’ night she went on about…”
Kate can fake casual all she wants — wrap herself in soft throws and morning kisses, sip coffee like she’s not dying inside. But her pulse betrayed her. The flicker in her eyes. The too-smooth brush-off.
She’s scared.
Not of me.
Of this.
Of what’s happening between us—this thing we’ve never named but can’t seem to walk away from.
I walked out of her condo without pushing, but the smirk’s already tugging at my mouth by the time I hit the parking lot. She thinks she’s buying herself space. Time. Control.
What she doesn’t know is… she already lost it.
I’ve had her condo under surveillance the second I knew where she lived. I texted my team while walking her dog. Had my own security cameras, motion alerts, front door, back alley, garage—the works. installed. Vito already on the detail every few hours so she doesn’t notice.
I even had her car tagged while we were ordering coffee.
Too much? Maybe. But I didn’t climb to the top of this empire by leaving things to chance—especially not when it comes to her.
She’s mine.
No one touches her. No one even looks at her without me knowing. If someone so much as sneezes too close in that Cuban bar she’s not going to tonight, I’ll have the full report on my desk by midnight.
She thinks I don’t see the cracks in her armor — the way her fingers trembled this morning when I kissed her goodbye, the hesitation before she told me “no.” But I see everything.
And here’s the part that would probably make her throat catch?
I don’t give a damn.
I want her scared. Want her rattled. Not because I enjoy the power — but because it tells me the fire’s real. That I’m under her skin the same way she’s under mine.
At a red light, I check my phone. My inbox is already a shitstorm of cartel nonsense, club drama, high-roller complaints, and two intel reports I don’t have the patience for.
Still, I swipe over to the security feed.
There she is.
Kate, curled on that patio chair, wrapped in a throw like she’s trying to disappear into the autumn breeze.
She’s thinking. Replaying every moment between us. Regretting how deeply she let me in.
But she’s not running.
Not yet.
That’s all I need for now.
Because here’s the thing she’ll figure out soon enough:
You don’t get to run from me, baby.
Not when I’ve already marked the finish line.
It’s cold tonight. Salt air biting. Stars bright over a silent harbor.
I pull up my collar, letting the wind cut through my bones as I walk toward the old fishing warehouse just past pier twenty-three. Brett is waiting at the chain-link gate. The old man who owns the property nods to me, counts the wad of cash I pressed in his hand an hour ago. He won’t say a word.
Inside, the halogen light hums and flickers over a soaked concrete floor.
One of the men they dragged in from the South End is hanging from a pulley like a tuna. His feet don’t touch the floor. His shirt’s soaked in sweat. Blood drips from his lip to the ground like a busted faucet.
This is what happens when you bring poison into my city.
“You know who I am?” I ask, pulling a black leather glove tight over my hand.
He mumbles something in Spanish. Brett translates. “He says he was just following orders. The street kids run wild. He doesn’t know names.”
I nod. “So I guess he won’t mind bleeding for them.”
A few of my men chuckle darkly, but I’m not smiling.
This is supposed to be a high end resort town. We built something classy. A New England Monte Carlo. Now this asshole’s gang pushes cut fentanyl mixed with candy powder. They’re leaving bodies in alleys and trailers in the woods.
And then that girl—local, tied up and dumped behind the seafood warehouse.
That broke something in me.
I land the first punch straight to his jaw. His head snaps. A string of spit and blood flies across the floor.
Brett watches silently. “What do you want to do with him?”
I stare into the thug’s swollen face. “Cut him down. But keep him breathing.”
Two of my guys lower the rope. He slumps to the floor like wet meat. I grab him by the hair and haul him up to whisper in his ear.
“You go back to your boss. You tell him the next time one of your cartel rats sells death on my docks… I’ll send him back piece by piece in a lobster trap.”
He whimpers.
“I’m not asking for your loyalty,” I say calmly. “Just your fear.”
Brett kicks over a small cooler. Inside is the evidence —pills bagged, the girl’s bloody hoodie, a burner phone with gang messages.
I toss it in the man’s lap.
“This is your warning.”
He’s dragged out of the warehouse, barely walking. I light a cigarette, watching the smoke curl toward the rafters. When I was finished I got back into the blacked out SUV and driven straight into my underground tunneled garage at the casino.
This town is mine. And I’m done playing diplomat.
The blood was already drying on my knuckles, and I should’ve felt better.
I didn’t.
The other guy—scumbag cartel enforcer was zip-tied and rigged like a gutted fish was ready to go out to sea and never come back. But my head wasn’t clear.
Kate had vanished on me again.
Not missing, exactly—just not where she said she’d be.
I had eyes on the bar on Main. She wasn’t inside. Cameras showed her leaving ten minutes after arrival, alone. On foot. Hood up. She slipped out while the mariachi band was warming up. My guys never even got close. None of her friends were ever inside.
I snapped.
"Where the fuck is she?" I growled, slamming my fist down on the private table inside my casino’s surveillance suite. "I want every street cam pulled between that bar and her condo. Now."
Brett flinched. "We’re on it, boss."
My phone was still dry. No texts. No calls. Her last message: Have fun being important. Don’t wait up for me to give you a booty call. It’s not coming tonight.”
Cute.
She thought I’d let her disappear again and sass me while pretending she doesn’t have me in her bloodstream?
Not a chance.
But I didn’t have time to stalk sidewalks personally. Not tonight. The casino was humming, and the pit boss flagged me down the second I walked past the baccarat lounge.
"We got a problem at Table 7."
The dealer was a new hire. Trained clean, vetted clean. But stupid. Thought he could get away with subtle nods and tiny flinches. A guy at the table won three grand on two impossible hands, then walked out with a smirk. Cameras showed them meeting up out back twenty minutes later, splitting stacks.
"Brett, deal with him. You know what that means."
He nodded, grim. That’s why I paid him well. Loyalty and silence. I strode back into my private den full of cameras, turned back to the monitors.
Where the fuck did you go?
I ran through every angle. She wasn’t with her friends—didn’t call a car. Her phone was off, or at least in airplane mode.
She was close. Her condo was walkable. She could’ve taken the long route. Ducked into shops. Met someone. Or…
Or she was hiding.
From me.
I should’ve tagged her shoes. Her coat. Hell, I should’ve chipped her dog.
That was my mistake. It wouldn’t happen again.
I grabbed my coat and headed toward the back exit. I needed to breathe. I needed to hunt.
I grabbed my coat and headed toward the back exit. I needed to breathe.
I needed to hunt.
“Fuck, no.” Brett’s voice stopped me with my hand on the door.
I looked over my shoulder. “Excuse me?”
He stood behind the surveillance desk with his arms crossed, apparently forgetting who signed his checks and who had just spent the evening beating answers out of a cartel enforcer.
“You heard me.”
“I’m looking for Kate.”
“No, you’re going into stalker mode over her—again.”
Every man in the room suddenly became fascinated with his monitor.
I turned slowly. “Stalker mode?”
“You put cameras around her condo, tagged her car, assigned Vito to follow her, and now you’re about to tear through Bayview because she turned off her phone for an hour.”
“She lied to me.”
“Probably because you’re acting like a fucking bloodhound.”
“She could be in danger.”
“She could be eating chowder somewhere without you staring at her through a security feed.”
“She hates chowder.”
Brett stared at me. “That’s what you took from that?”
“I know what she eats.”
“How could you know that? Unless you had someone sift through the dumpster behind her condo… no… you didn’t.” He pinched the bridge of his nose.
My jaw tightened.
“I didn’t ask for opinions.”
“Too bad it’s my job to keep you alive. Sane. Dare I say even fucking happy… you don’t know shit about this broad. What makes her laugh?”
I said nothing.
“What does she do when she isn’t working? What does she even do for work? What music does she like? What’s her favorite movie? Why does she own a boat she never takes out? Why did she leave Bayview, and why the hell did she come back?”
“I’m working on it.”
“No, you’re working around it. There’s a difference.”
I released the door and turned to face him fully. “Be very careful.”
“I am being careful. That’s why I’m telling you this before you scare her off for good.”
“She’s—I’ve never wanted anything more from a woman than sex and dirty kisses in the dark…”
The words landed somewhere I didn’t want them to.
Brett knew it too. He uncrossed his arms but didn’t back down.
“Me, too. But I unlike you—plan to keep it that way. Especially after seeing you go fucking nuts over this broad.”
“Don’t call her that.”
His brow lifted…. “Okay, boss… but you’re doing everything in reverse,” he said. “You’re tracking her before you know her. Protecting her before she trusts you. Acting like she belongs to you before you’ve given her a reason to want to.”
“She does want me.”
“I’m sure she does. You’re rich, good-looking, and terrifying. That combination has worked out great for you so far.”
A couple of the men lowered their heads to hide their smiles.
I pointed at them. “Anyone laughs, they’re working the South End until Christmas.”
The room went silent.
Brett waited until I looked at him again.
“Kate isn’t one of the women at the club,” he continued. “You can’t glare at her, kiss her against a wall, and assume she’ll fall into line.”
“I don’t want her to fall into line.”
“What do you want?”
I wanted access to every locked part of her.
But saying any of that aloud—even to Brett—felt like handing someone a loaded gun and pointing it at my chest.
“I want her to stop running.”
“Then stop chasing her like prey.”
My jaw locked.
“Ask her out,” he said. “On an actual date.”
“I’ve asked.”
“You’ve ordered. You’ve appeared. You’ve intercepted. You’ve shown up at her condo and behaved like you already live there. Have you ever made a plan based on something she might enjoy?”
“I took her for coffee.”
“You followed her into a coffee shop.”
“She drank the coffee.”
“Romance is alive and well.”
I glared at him.
Brett grinned. “Find out what makes her tic. Romance first. Mafia obsession second.”
“I’m not obsessed.”
He glanced pointedly at the wall of monitors, one of which still displayed the empty sidewalk outside Kate’s condo.
“Right.”
“I’m keeping her safe.”
“Sure. But maybe you should let her like you before she finds out you know how many times she lets the dog out at night.”
I looked at the monitor.
The feed showed nothing but her dark patio and an empty chair, the throw she’d been wrapped in earlier folded over the arm. I had told myself the cameras were necessary. Bayview had changed. Cartel poison was spreading through the town.
I could never tell her about the cameras.
“Turn off the interior angles,” I said.
Brett blinked. “What?”
“The cameras that can see through her windows. Kill them.”
The amusement left his face. He gave a short nod to the technician.
“You heard him.”
The screens went black one by one.
I didn’t like it.
Every primitive instinct in me revolted at losing sight of her. But I disliked the thought of Kate discovering them—and looking at me as if I’d violated something I couldn’t repair—even more.
“Leave the exterior perimeter active,” I said. “Front approach, alley, garage. Security only. No one tracks her unless there’s an actual threat.”
Brett’s eyebrows rose.
“Don’t make a fucking event out of it.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re thinking loudly.”
He leaned against the desk. “So what now?”
“Now I find her.”
His expression flattened.
“To ask her out,” I added.
“Without cornering her?”
“Yes.”
“Without a convoy?”
“Yes.”
“Without having Vito drag her location out of every traffic camera in Bayview?”
My silence answered for me.
Brett sighed. “You almost had it.”
“What if something happened?”
“Then we use the cameras. But give her thirty minutes before you declare a citywide emergency because she went somewhere without permission she doesn’t need.”
I hated every word of that sentence.
Mostly because he was right.
I checked the time.
“Thirty minutes.”
“And when you find her?”
“I ask her to dinner.”
“Good.”
“Somewhere private.”
“Public.”
“I own the restaurants.”
“Then pick one and pretend you’re a normal man.”
“I’m not a normal man.”
“No shit.”
“I’ll take her to the yacht party.”
“Well, all fuck…” Brett muttered.
I picked an imaginary piece of lint from the arm of my suit jacket—“You’ll be head of security. Make sure no one touches my woman or I’ll have to kill them.”
Brett knew I wasn’t joking.
I slid my coat on. The leather pulled across my bruised knuckles, reminding me exactly how far from normal I was. An hour ago, I’d threatened to send a man’s body back to his boss in a lobster trap. Now Brett wanted me to buy flowers and ask a woman about her favorite movie.
The absurdity of it should have bothered me.
Instead, I found myself wondering what kind of flowers Kate liked.
Not roses. Too obvious. Too polished. She’d assume I had an assistant choose them.
“What are you going to do?”
I opened my conversation with Kate.
My first instinct was to call out the lie.
Tell her I knew there had never been a margarita night.
Let her know she hadn’t fooled me for a second.
But I craved her. Needed to see her home all tucked in safe and sound.
Needed her to understand that what we had initially agreed to went up in smoke.
This thing between us wasn’t over after last night—instead it was just beginning.