Chapter 8 – Thiago
Eight
Thiago
“Put me down.”
She pushes out of my arms, and I reluctantly let her go, staying where I am as she clears her weapon and starts packing up her gear without sparing me another glance, as if the last several minutes never happened.
I shouldn’t care how quickly she shuts me out, but I do.
This was always the assignment. I’m supposed to get close, gain her trust, and take whatever she’s willing to give me so I can get what I need. Kissing her was never part of the plan, and wanting to do it again sure as hell wasn’t either.
“Who is that?” I ask, finally forcing myself to move as I start packing up my own gear.
“Family.” She throws the bag over her shoulder. “I’ll see you some other time, okay?”
And just like that, I’m being dismissed.
“Wait, Remi.”
She turns back to me, but before I can figure out what the hell I’m trying to stop her for, another voice cuts through the room.
“Everything all right, Rem?”
A man steps inside with a little girl, maybe five or six, trailing behind him. The guy is tall, damn near eye level with me, which doesn’t happen often. He looks younger than I expected, but there’s nothing uncertain about the way he assesses me before his attention shifts back to Remi.
I recognize the protectiveness immediately. What I don’t recognize is the ugly twist in my gut when I look at him.
“Of course,” she says, a hint of annoyance in her voice.
Then the little girl spots her. “Remi!”
Whatever tension was left in Remi’s body disappears as the kid races toward her, and she bends just in time to catch her.
“Hey, menace. How was school today?”
She huffs out an exaggerated breath, her little shoulders sagging. “They sent me home.”
Remi kneels in front of her and tips her chin up. “Again, baby?”
The girl shrugs, sending a head full of caramel-colored curls bouncing forward. “They just don’t understand me, Remi.”
I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve interacted with a kid in the last ten years that wasn’t job-related.
Back in Texas, it was mostly me, my aunt, and a handful of cousins my age.
We all went our separate ways once we reached adulthood, and my Aunt Priscilla is the only one I still keep in touch with.
I don’t know who got married or had kids. I don’t even know where most of them live anymore.
Watching Remi with this little girl affects me more than I expected. I’ve spent the last several weeks reading about the Cains and everyone connected to them, and the files only paint a bloody picture of assassins for hire.
None of that prepared me for this.
The little girl looks at Remi like she hung the fucking moon, and from the way Remi smiles back at her, the feeling clearly goes both ways.
I lift my gaze to the man still standing near the door, watching us.
He’s dressed as if he stepped off a plane from Europe, all tailored clothes and Italian leather.
His eyes, two different colors, don’t waver from mine.
Neither does his stance. There’s a confidence to him that feels older than it should.
I could be wrong, but he looks too young to be the girl’s father. Maybe her brother.
“Who’s he?” the girl asks, looking up at me with a bright smile.
I can’t help but return it. She’s about the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.
“That’s Thiago. He was just leaving.”
“Thiago,” she repeats. “Is he your boyfriend?”
“No, Zara. He’s just a guest.”
“Oh.” Her gaze shifts back to Remi. “Do you kiss all your guests on the lips?”
Remi’s eyes widen before shooting toward the man by the door, who hasn’t moved. His shoulders are rigid, and whatever suspicion was in his expression before is nothing compared to the way he’s looking at me now.
And I wonder exactly who he is to Remi. Before I can think better of it, I close some of the distance between us as Remi straightens.
“No…Zara, I do not. He’s just…He’s a friend.”
I know she’s saying it for the girl, but hearing her call me a friend lands differently. Less than an hour ago, I was the stranger she still wasn’t sure she trusted.
Now, apparently, I’m something else.
The man at the door finally speaks, scoffing under his breath. “How about a formal introduction to this friend of yours with the interesting taste in clothing?”
I already don’t like this prick.
“Thiago, this is Matteo, and this curious little one is Zara. Family.”
“Hi, Remi’s friend who she kisses at work.”
“Zara!”
“I saw you!” she squeals, puckering her lips and making exaggerated kissing noises. “He is your boyfriend, isn’t he?”
Remi laughs as she scoops her up and carries her toward the counter like luggage, Zara giggling the entire way.
I start to follow them, expecting Matteo to do the same, but he steps into the doorway instead, planting himself directly in my path.
I don’t recognize him from the files. Remi says he’s family, but if he isn’t directly tied to a Cain in the system or The Six, there’d be no reason for Helios to have him on its radar.
That doesn’t mean I dismiss him.
I meet the steel in his eyes. “Something wrong?”
“I don’t know, friend. You tell me.” His gaze drags over me from head to toe. “Never seen you before. Doesn’t look like you’re from around here either.”
“I’m not.”
He nods once, like that confirms everything. “How do you know Remi?”
I hold his stare, refusing to give him an inch. “That depends. How much of an answer are you looking for?”
His mouth sets into a hard line. “Enough to know whether you’re a problem.”
“That’s funny. I was thinking the same thing about you.”
His expression darkens, confirming what I already suspected.
The tailored clothes and expensive shoes might make him look polished, but I’ve spent enough time around dangerous men to recognize when there’s more underneath.
Matteo is young, but there’s nothing inexperienced about the way he holds himself.
He watches me without shifting his weight or breaking eye contact, completely at ease with the tension building between us.
Then his attention cuts toward Remi again. And that ugly feeling in my gut makes another appearance.
Whatever their relationship is, they’re close. And I realize, I don’t fucking like it.
“Then let’s make this simple. You hurt her…” he trails off, but he doesn’t need to finish.
I tilt my head slightly, meeting him without backing down. “If I had any intention of hurting her, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. And Remi strikes me as the kind of woman who can hold her own.”
“Damn right.”
I slide my hands into my pockets as a chuckle slips free. Neither of us says another word until Zara’s laughter carries in from the other room, completely at odds with the tension between us.
Matteo watches me for another second, then steps aside just enough to let me pass.
“Nice shirt,” he says as I walk by.
I huff out a laugh but keep moving.
Remi’s eyes find mine as I approach. Zara sits on the counter beside her, legs swinging as she works on a red lollipop.
I haven’t even had time to process what happened between us. Dinner was supposed to be another opportunity to get closer to her, but I spent half the night laughing, sharing food, and forgetting why I was there in the first place. Then I kissed her, and everything got a whole lot more complicated.
Nothing about that kiss felt like part of an assignment. I wanted it, and when she pulled me back for another, I stopped thinking about Helios altogether. Now I’m standing here wondering when getting close to Remi stopped feeling like a job.
“You have really big muscles like my daddy. Is that why you were carrying Remi?”
“That’s enough, Zara. Eat your lollipop while I walk Thiago outside.”
The little girl grins around the candy.
“It was nice to meet you, Zara,” I say, offering her a genuine smile, then turn toward Remi. “And before you kick me out, I still owe you for the shirt.”
“You’re seriously going to pay me for that thing? The seams are barley holding together.”
“You charged me $24.99 plus tax, remember?”
“I was joking.”
“I’m a man of principle.”
She looks pointedly at my exposed stomach. “It’s about to become part of your DNA.”
“That still doesn’t make it free.”
She laughs as I reach for my wallet. “Fine. Give me twenty bucks, and we’ll call it even.”
Remi leans forward, and the glimpse down her shirt distracts me enough that my wallet slips from my fingers and hits the floor. Zara is off the counter in a flash, snatching it up before I can reach it. The wallet falls open in her hands.
“Thiago Braga,” she reads from the card inside, then her eyes light up when she notices the badge beside it. “You’re a police officer like my Auntie Eva!”
Remi goes completely still behind the counter. Her gaze drops to the wallet in Zara’s hands before slowly lifting to mine, and I watch every trace of warmth disappear from her expression.
Fuck.
Behind me, Matteo shifts. When I glance back, he’s already watching me differently. Whatever questions he had about me before, Zara just answered one of them.
Completely oblivious, she swings the wallet in her hand. “My Auntie Eva has one just like this. But she’s not a police officer anymore.”
I step forward and gently take it from her. “That’s pretty cool,” I say, keeping my voice steady as I tuck it away.
When I look at Remi again, she’s already moving toward the door.
“Remi.”
She cuts her eyes toward me, and I know better than to make her say it, so I follow.
“Rem,” Matteo says from behind us, his voice low.
She stops and looks back at him. “Stay with Zara.”
Then she keeps walking.