“Good call.”
I leaned in to kiss her, and she let me though she didn’t open her mouth or push for more. I stopped after just a couple of light touches to her lips and then leaned back a little to look at her.
“You wouldn’t have to go to school,” I told her. “I can take care of you.”
“I want to go to school,” Lia said.
Her tone left no room for discussion even if I was a little inclined to try to persuade her to try the easy life. She would never have to work as long as she was with me, and the places we were likely to end up weren’t likely to have a lot of universities in the area.
“Can’t we work out the details later?”
“If you are saying that when all is said and done, we’re not going to stay here, and you aren’t going to continue with your current occupation, then yes, the details can wait.”
I nodded, hoping the gesture looked sincere. I wasn’t completely sure if I could live up to the whole idea—there were too many uncertainties. I didn’t even know if I’d survive this little endeavor into Greco’s organization, and even if I did, there was no way to know if Rinaldo would just let me walk away afterwards.
Lia didn’t need to know that though. If she did—if she even suspected it—she might change her mind and walk out. I still wasn’t sure how politely I was going to respond to that, and I needed to stop it from happening.
“You’re not going to leave?” I needed the confirmation. I needed to hear it.
“Do you want me to?” she asked.
“God, no,” I said with a sharp breath. “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I don’t want you to go anywhere. I want you to stay with me.”
“But after all of this,” Lia said as she waved a hand around in the air, “all this shit with the federal agent and all—after all of that is done, we leave, right? Just take Odin and head to wherever you want to go. Then we’ll figure the rest of it out when we get there.”
“Yeah,” I said with a nod as I stared straight into her eyes. “We’ll leave—just you and me and Odin.”
Nothing was going to stop me from making good on that statement.
Chapter 12—Developing Plan
We spent the next three days just moving around the city. I hadn’t gotten any grand ideas on how I was supposed to home in on Greco, and I hadn’t heard anything from Trent or Rinaldo. Of course, I didn’t have a phone anyone could use to reach me, and I’d left at home the new laptop I had bought in the rush, but if either of them knew where I was, they’d definitely find a way to reach me.
So at the very least, I was staying a step ahead of them. I just wasn’t sure what that was accomplishing besides buying me a little more time.
Make that time with Lia.
As soon as we stopped at each motel where we stayed, I was on her and in her as quickly as possible. It was like sex with her was centering me—giving me the focus and purpose I hadn’t felt since I was first deployed to the Middle East. She seemed to either understand how badly I needed it, or maybe she needed it just as much as I did. Whichever it was, she never complained about anything other than being a little sore.
I bought lube, and she stopped complaining after that.
Without any other brilliant ideas on my part, we ended up returning to my Audi behind the goth-themed nightclub in Lincoln Park and then went back to my apartment. I knew we couldn’t stay in such an obvious place long, but there were things I needed. I also wanted to see Odin, so we picked him up at the doggie hotel on the way back to my building.
He was pretty excited to be back and spent about as much time bringing his bone back to Lia to throw for him as he did trying to lick my face and arms. I sat on the couch and watched her play with him for a few minutes before she decided she had played fetch enough for one night. Odin curled up in his doggie bed by the door to the balcony and watched us.
“It’s late,” Lia observed.
“You tired?”
“Yeah, I am.”
She looked it, too. All the running around was already getting to her, and it had only been a few days. I took her into the bedroom and let her get settled without jumping her bones for once. She was out almost as soon as she laid her head on the pillow.
While Lia slept in my bed—a sight I found insanely distracting—I started going through all my lists of people in Greco’s organization as well as contacts that might have some other connection to his organization. I was pretty much coming up with nothing after a couple of hours and was about to throw my laptop across the room when a thought occurred to me.
Nick Wolfe.
Nick might have been Rinaldo’s flesh and blood, but right before I had my little breakdown, he had started seeing a girl. Her name was Milena, and she was related to Andrey Severinov who was the figurehead in Chicago for a crime group along with Rurik Dytalov. They’d moved from Moscow to Azerbaijan several years ago to take a piece of the caviar trade, but they were small suppliers compared to Moretti’s outfit. I’d taken out Rurik’s cousin a few months ago when they tried to home in on Rinaldo’s caviar customers, but as far as I knew, Rurik didn’t know I was the one who pulled the trigger.