Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
NICO
For once, I’m glad to see my friends leave.
Not that I don’t like spending time with them. I do. I wouldn’t have started a company with the intent on having them join me if I didn’t.
But after having them here all day, helping with Sofia’s case, I’m ready for some time alone with her.
Even if it’s just us sitting together on the couch, me working on my laptop and her watching TV.
Or she can fall asleep on me, using my shoulder or leg as a pillow.
I don’t care what she does, really, as long as she does it with me.
I know a chance isn’t the same as a certainty. Sofia could change her mind about me. But I’m going to do everything I can to convince her she shouldn’t.
Is it crazy, being so sure about Sofia after spending so many years apart?
Two weeks ago, I couldn’t have imagined a future with her. Or if I had, I would have dismissed it as an impossibility. But now, I can see it.
I can picture us going on dates around the city.
I can see us spending lazy evenings at my condo, doing the normal, couple-y things I hear some of my employees talk about.
We could take trips together to all the places we dreamed about back in high school, like New Zealand and Sicily and Antarctica.
And maybe, just maybe, we’ll end up deciding to spend our lives together like I was once so convinced we would.
Or maybe she’ll decide she can’t forgive me after all. We could realize we’re not a good fit for each other anymore. We could discover we both want different things.
If it happens, it happens. As we’ve both learned, sometimes life doesn’t work out the way you want. But there’s no way of knowing unless we try.
So I’m going to try.
I’m going to prove I’m a man worth taking a chance on.
And I’m going to end this insane plot against Sofia, one way or another.
“Nico.” Sofia comes back into the living room, freshly changed into her comfy clothes, she calls them—worn leggings and one of her oversized shirts. Her hair is pulled back into a loose braid and her feet are bare. “Do you want to have dinner now? Or wait?”
My heart rolls over at the sight she makes.
The future winks at me again.
This could be your life, it seems to say. Coming home from work, changing into comfortable clothes to spend the evening lounging in. Seeing Sofia like this, so cute and sexy without even trying.
I set my laptop on the coffee table and stand. “We can eat whenever you want. If you’re hungry, we can have dinner now. Do you want leftovers? Or we can order something new.”
“Either,” she replies as she crosses the room to meet me. “We have tons of food in the fridge. So we probably should use up some of it.”
“Should doesn’t matter. If you want something different, we’ll get it.”
Once Sofia reaches me, I hold a quick inner debate with myself.
Should I hug her? Kiss her? Wait for her to make the first move?
With the other women in my past—casual relationships and hookups—I’ve never worried about it.
I’ve just gone with whatever feels right.
But with Sofia, I’m worried about fucking things up.
Pushing her for more than she’s ready for.
“I don’t want to spend more money if we already have food,” she replies. “I could heat up some eggplant parm. And toast the garlic—” She stops. “Never mind about the garlic bread.”
“No garlic bread? Why not?”
Her cheeks go pink. “No reason.”
“Soph.” I compromise by taking her hand. “Tell me.”
She stares at me for a second. “Fine. Because it’ll give me bad breath.
Even if I brush my teeth three times, I won’t be able to get rid of it.
And I don’t want to kiss you with gross garlic breath.
Not when we only just started kissing again.
Garlic breath kisses are for couples who’ve been together forever and they don’t care about making a good impression anymore. ”
I’m not sure which part to examine first.
The part where she talked about kissing? Or the part about being a couple?
Sofia’s face turns a deeper pink. She makes an exasperated sound. “I don’t know why I just said all that. The garlic bread is fine.”
“No, it’s not fine.” Saying a mental fuck it to myself, I pull Sofia into my arms and kiss her forehead. “If you want to have non-garlic breath to kiss me, who am I to complain about that?”
“It sounds silly,” she replies. “Worrying about garlic breath.”
“I don’t think so.” I kiss her again, this time a quick brush of my mouth against hers. “Anything to do with kissing is important. Although—” I cup her cheek while holding her gaze. “I wouldn’t care what your breath is like if I get to kiss you.”
“Oh, really?” Amusement chases away the uncertainty in Sofia’s eyes. “So if I had horrible breath, you wouldn’t care? Even if it smelled like onion and old coffee and hot sauce?”
A laugh rumbles up in my chest. “Onion and old coffee and hot sauce?”
She giggles. “I was trying to think of the worst combination.”
“I guess that is a pretty terrible combo,” I concede. “But I’d just eat all the same things. Then we’d both have terrible breath, so it wouldn’t make a difference.”
“Nico.” Her expression softens. “I missed you. Did you know that?”
My heart thumps hard. “I missed you, too.”
Sofia strokes my jaw. Her fingers are soft and cool against my skin. After a brief pause, she says thoughtfully, “I still don’t know why I came to see you. And I know the circumstances aren’t the best. But… I’m glad I’m here.”
My heart thumps again. “I’m glad you’re here, too.”
She looks into my eyes for another second before squeezing my hand. “Come on. Let’s get some food.”
I let her lead me into the kitchen, feeling absurdly pleased by it. Even though I’ve always been more on the controlling side—yes, I know I am, and running a company with forty plus employees doesn’t help—I don’t mind when Sofia takes over.
“Your friends are really nice,” she says. “I mean, I thought they were when I met them at Fox & Falcon. But spending the day with them here… I got to know everyone better. I can see why you wanted them to start the company with you.”
“Yeah.” I give her hand a little squeeze back. “They’re more like brothers, really.”
“So was it just the five of you on the team? In the memoir I’m reading, the author talks about having six men on his team.”
“Yeah, our team was just the five of us,” I reply. “After Wraith left for the CIA, Grump replaced him.”
Sofia releases my hand and heads for the fridge. “Grump? Was he grumpy all the time?”
“His name was George, actually. And no, he was the opposite. Always cheerful. Annoyingly so, at times.”
“Was?” She turns away from the fridge. Worry creases her forehead. “Did he—”
“Oh, no.” I smile to reassure her. “He’s still active duty. Grump was younger than us, just twenty-five when he joined the team. So he wasn’t ready to leave yet. We understood. I told him he’s got a job waiting at F & F whenever he wants.”
“Oh, good.” Sofia reaches into the fridge and grabs an armful of to-go containers. “It must be tough, being so close with people like that and knowing…”
“Knowing what?” I hurry over to take the containers from her.
“What you did, it was so dangerous. I can’t believe I didn’t know. I mean, I knew you were in the Army, but not that you were Delta. That you were doing pretty much the most dangerous things possible.”
“But I’m fine.”
Emotion shadows her gaze. “But if something happened.”
“It didn’t.” I set the containers on the counter. Then I hug Sofia to me again. “And I’m here. Safe and sound.”
Sofia looks up at me. “You are. But it’s scary, thinking about how easily things could have been different. I read things online all the time about men lost in action. Heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.”
“I know what you mean.” Though Sofia wasn’t in the Army, I almost lost her, just the same.
And the men who tried to kill her are still out there, I remind myself. All this talk about protecting Sofia, and I can’t even catch the asshole who took a shot at her. Or the pieces of shit from the alley and the hospital.
Rationally, I know it’s not as simple as that. We’re in a city of millions of people. Her attackers were wearing masks, so even if I could get a screen capture of one of them, which I haven’t had luck with yet, it’s unlikely I could identify them.
The shooter from yesterday is a different story, though.
He may have been long gone by the time we got to the building he took the shot from, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still find him.
Given he was in a building filled with accountants and finance managers who’d probably notice if a guy was walking around with a full-face mask, I have a feeling he wasn’t wearing one.
What I think is, he went in disguised as a regular guy, wearing a nondescript suit, carrying his sniper rifle in pieces in his suitcase.
He headed up to the roof without notice, found a hiding spot, put his rifle together, took the shot—which, thank God, he missed—and then strolled right back out like nothing happened.
It would work, if I hadn’t created a program to catch him.
That’s what I worked on today—coding a program that uses AI to identify everyone caught on a security camera in the building.
Then it automatically runs a background check, specifically searching for red flags like a criminal record or an association with known criminals.
Assuming I get a hit, which I’m really hoping I do, then I’ll track down the suspect to investigate further.
“Nico?” Sofia’s face pinches as she looks at me. “Are you okay?”
“Hmm?” I yank my thoughts away from snipers and pieces of shit who think nothing of beating up a woman. “What? Why?”