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What I’d had with her wasn’t real, I’d just wanted it to be. I wanted something I achieved on my own, not a family or girlfriend given to me out of pity.

Once a forgotten De Lange, always a forgotten De Lange.

I slammed back the whiskey.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I didn’t even check the screen before answering. “What?”

The line was quiet for a brief minute. “Wow, you clearly didn’t get laid tonight.”

“No shit.” I gripped the phone harder in my hand. “Did you need something, Ivan?”

“Found your guy crawling down the street, thankfully one of our inside guys was on patrol, picked him up and dropped him off on our doorstep.”

“What a gift.”

“And it’s not even my birthday.” He laughed. “Anyway, through much blood loss and screaming we think we have a lead.”

“Oh?” Finally something. “Do you know why they were after her?”

“Not her,” Ivan whispered. “Him.”

“Louis? Why?”

“He said that Louis stole something from his boss and that he was getting revenge, it apparently has nothing to do with the Alfero’s.”

“That doesn’t explain the break in.”

“Unless…” Ivan sighed. “The person was after Louis in order to get to Raven. It’s possible it’s someone we know and it’s possible they were trying to intimidate you to get close to her, to maybe take her. Has she had any boyfriends in the past before you two er, hooked up, because let’s be fully honest, there is no way it was more than a one night stand. I don’t care what shit you try to spin.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “It wasn’t a one night stand. It wasn’t even one night.”

“What?”

“Louis. It was Louis.”

“And we’re back at square one then, aren’t we?” He cursed. “Keep close to her, someone wants everyone out of the picture, including you. And someone desperately wants her.”

“Over my dead body.”

“That’s the spirit. Well, enjoy your blue balls and whiskey. My wife’s waiting for me.”

“Screw you?—”

He hung up.

I almost threw my phone over the balcony when I made eye contact with someone several floors below and froze. He was wearing a dark baseball cap and staring up at me. He briefly nodded his head like he knew me and then crossed the street.

Strange.

Maybe he was just being polite or noticing my semi-nervous breakdown. Either way, I ignored it and went back inside the hotel room and watched her sleep.

The sheet dropped below her breasts.

I walked over and looked away when I tugged the sheet back up. She grabbed my hand. “Lay with me.”

Did she understand what she was doing to me? What she would be doing to me over and over again until the day I died?

I didn’t think it through.