"The damage was done the moment our eyes collided."
~Xavier De Luca
***
One life-altering night ignites a soul-scorching passion between a gangster and a good girl...One that could burn everyone they know and love to ashes.
Loyalties and legacies...
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Less than twenty-four hours had passed, and I was already homesick for the shelter of Xavier's arms. As promised, he called as soon as he'd landed in San Francisco to let me know that they were going straight into meetings.
He told me he'd call again, but I was swiftly coming to realize why my Mamo always said 'It's the hope that kills.'
I was teaching piano lessons and cooking meals for my family like nothing had changed, yet everything was different, and it felt all wrong.
Questions and suspicions continued to cloud my emotions while shredding my insides.
My family suddenly didn't seem to care about my involvement with a De Luca, or that I'd abandoned Laoise at the local drugstore to disappear completely (again), which left me bereft for reasons I couldn't put into words.
It was as if I was as dead to them as Gannon, who they also didn't talk about.
Worse still, the heinous new details of my brother's death weighed on my soul like an ever-expanding anchor. I could tell Xavier was curbing his descriptions of Gannon's murder for my sake, but his eyes revealed the truth.
Not to mention, the man Xavier suspected was responsible for those unspeakable acts, was none other than the father of his ex-fuckbuddy-slash-almost-fiancé, Mia Bianchi.
Going back to any semblance of normality after learning all that was frankly so impossible it was insulting to even try.
I was grateful, however, for my students. They brought me back to something I loved and understood, music.
"Now, remember Charlotte," I looked into a pair of enormous honey-colored eyes, so warm and adorable, it was like staring into the face of a living doll. "Watch those wrists when you're practicing at home. And next week, I promise to show you how to play the first line of that SpongeBob SquarePants song."
Our overly loud bell echoed up the short entryway to draw our attention to the figure on the other side of the door.
I remembered Charlotte's mom being much shorter, and thinner than the person ringing the bell, but I figured it could have been her dad.
Imagine my shock to find Detective Nowak on our doorstep instead!
"Ow!" Charlotte whined (rightly so) and twisted her tiny hand out of mine. "You're hurting my fingers, Grace."
I'd gone rigid, assessing his expression of annoyed relief.
He was in plain clothes, but still, an air of authority clung to his business casual attire. It was also a sweltering summer SoCal afternoon, and he was rocking a long sleeve polo shirt (which seemed a bit much).
"Who's that?" Charlotte asked, suddenly shy.
"My name's Brian Nowak," he replied, shifting his gaze to the pint-sized cutie next to me with that disarming smile of his. The one that didn't quite reach his eyes. "And I'm a detective helping Grace's family catch a bad guy. Do you know what a detective is?"
