Chapter 51
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Harper
I've rewritten my speech for Hudson five times in my notes app. Each draft is worse than the last. It’s like I’ve forgotten how to form a cohesive sentence.
I told Ace I could get out of this. I told him, with confidence, a kiss, and a smile that made him believe me.
But every argument I type out, I can feel Hudson's rebuttal.
A deal is a deal. The company hasn't been signed over.
The engagement is leverage, and leverage doesn't just dissolve because you've fallen back in love with a bull rider in Arizona.
I have a few ideas. I can potentially keep up the lie with his parents without living and working in LA. I can still get Gianna what she needs, even more so from New Falls.
And Gianna might be my card out of here entirely.
That's why I'm sipping espresso at seven in the morning in a near-empty café, waiting for the mafia princess to show. I have a plan. A pretty decent one. Because all I want to do is go home to Ace and have a real shot at my happy ever after.
I can almost taste it.
The bell above the door rings, and I look up.
In walks Gianna. Red heels. Black leather shorts and a black crop top showing abs covered in ink.
Her dark hair swings over her shoulder as she pushes her glasses up her nose.
She spots me, and the switch from assassin to friend happens so fast you'd miss it if you blinked.
One second, she's a woman who could end your life over an espresso.
The next, she's smiling like we're old college roommates.
"Harper Jones," she greets me, nodding at the barista as she sits opposite me and crosses her legs.
"You look good, Harper. You look..." She pauses. Her eyes travel over my face, my neck, the places where Ace's marks have only just faded. "Well fucked?"
I bark out a laugh. "Maybe."
Her lip twitches. "Don't lie to me. Harper got some good dick in Arizona. Tell me I'm wrong."
The waiter rushes over with her cappuccino, and she hands him a fifty without looking at it.
"I did."
She pulls out a cigarette. Lights it and takes a slow drag. "And it wasn't Hudson's, was it?"
I shake my head. "No. But that stays between us."
She shrugs, exhaling smoke through a half smile. "Good for you. I was hoping you'd move on. Waste of your time, that man."
My cheeks flush. She's either incredibly good at reading people, or she knows far more than she's letting on. I can't tell which. Both options keep me on my toes.
But this woman is my ticket out of here.
"Well, that's actually what I want to talk about," I say quietly, glancing around the empty café.
Her eyebrow arches. She taps ash into the tray.
"Shoot. What do you need?"
"I want to quit my job at LA Press. I want to leave Hudson and call off the engagement. I want to move back to New Falls."
"Ah." She takes a drag. "The dick must have been very good."
I nod. "I fell in love again, Gianna. My life is there. I'm done with it here."
For a second, something flashes across her dark eyes. Grief. Or something close to it. Something she buries before I can name it.
"I can still work for you," I say. "Get you what you need on the Greeks. Help you get that meeting with Hunter. Just from there. Not here."
She takes another drag. I can see the calculation happening behind her eyes. Every angle is being weighed. She's quiet long enough that the café's background music fills the space between us.
It makes me uneasy. And, strangely, kind of excited. I'm sitting across from the Italian mafia, negotiating my own freedom.
"You're a smart girl, Harper," she says, leaning forward.
"Do you know why I went to Hudson for help in the first place?"
I frown.
"I wanted you. Not Hudson. I needed Harper Jones. Ex-girlfriend of Ace Sterling. The woman who took on the Red Creek case and buried it." She taps her cigarette and lets that sink in. "You were always the asset. Not the article."
"I..." I start. Stop.
Did she submit the Red Creek tip?
She laughs, finishing her coffee. "I was hoping this would be the outcome.
Having you in New Falls is more beneficial to me than having you here writing some story to publish for a readership of nobody.
" She sets the cup down. "I'll tell Hudson we're killing the story and investigation. The job is done."
Relief floods through me so fast I feel dizzy.
"But, Harper."
"Yes?"
"We aren't done with our deal until I say we are. I want one meeting with Hunter; you need to find out what will get me that."
My stomach sinks. The relief curdles into something colder. It feels like I've walked out of the fire and signed the papers straight down to hell.
But I have the Sterlings behind me. Gianna doesn't scare me, because she doesn't scare them.
"Okay. I can deal with that." I straighten my spine. "To be clear, I'm not working for you. I will find information, and I will relay it. My loyalty lies with..."
She smiles. "Ace?"
I nod. "Yes. With Ace."
"I can deal with that. I'm on their side. I don't want trouble with them. I want the Greeks gone."
There it is again. That pain. Flickering behind her composure like a candle she can't quite blow out. Her brother. The reason all of this exists. I can't help myself. I reach across the table and rest my hand over hers.
"I will do everything I can to deliver that man to you," I say.
The man who killed her brother deserves to pay.
She looks at me. And for a second, the armor drops.
The red heels and the leather shorts and the cigarette smoke and the calculating eyes all fall away, and underneath is a woman who has been fighting alone for a very long time.
A woman who might not have a single person in her life who looks out for her without wanting something in return.
"I don't want your money, either," I say.
"I called you smart, Harper. Don't make me take that back."
I laugh. "I'm doing this as a friend, Gianna. One day, I might need a favor. Or maybe just someone to get a cocktail with."
She's quiet for a moment. Studying me.
"What's it like?" she asks.
"What?"
"Being that deep in love that you're willing to step into a war. Quit your job. Leave your home."
I don't answer right away. I think about Ace. About the truck bed under the stars. About the way he buckles my seatbelt. About the way he said I'll marry you, Goldie and made it sound like a promise that existed long before the words did.
"It's something I never want to lose again, G." I smile. "That's how good it is."
She gives me a soft smile.
"Go end your engagement. Get out of that trap." She stands. Adjusts her glasses. "Call me when you're back in New Falls. I'll handle Hudson."
“I need to make sure anything Hudson knows about Ace and his family is wiped from his brain, too,” I tell her.
She nods. “Easy. I can be persuasive.”
We both stand, and she takes a step toward me. I freeze as her arms wrap around me. A hug. A real one. She holds it for a beat longer than expected, and I feel something shift between us. An alliance becoming something closer to trust.
"Thank you," she whispers.
I hug her back. This woman, who runs a mafia family and wears red heels to a seven a.m. meeting, just gave me my freedom in exchange for a friendship she didn't know she needed.
"I might have an idea to convince Hunter to speak to you," I say quietly.
She pulls back. Straightens up. The armor slides back into place. The assassin returns.
“Do tell.”
I grin. “I’ll send you the details. How good are you at tracking people down?”
“Pretty decent. Well, Dom is.”
I nod. “There is someone the Sterlings want that might be hiding out here in LA.”
“I like this.”
“I can’t promise, but that might be the offering they need.”
Hunter Sterling wants Carson so he can buy Ranch 42. If Gianna offers him, I see that as a win-win all round. Ace told me Hunter will need some encouragement, and I think I’ve found it.
Now she just has to find a missing rancher.
"Now go," she says. "Before I change my mind."
I grab my bag and walk out of that café into the LA morning sun, and for once, the city doesn't feel like a cage.
I’ve got the key, I just have to unlock it. And that’s my next stop. LA Press.