Page 85

“The cat?”

“Yes, the cat. She jumped on the eject button.”

Slash set down the glasses and narrowed his eyes at me. “Are you sureyoudidn’t press the eject button because you were losing?”

“Hey, I was almost even with you, and the momentum was mine. It was the cat. She’s got it in for me.”

“The cat?”

Principessa strode into the room, wound around Slash’s legs and gave me a haughty stare. I pointed at her. “See, she’s mocking me.”

Slash shook his head, clearly thinking I was nuts. “Come on. Let’s start over.” He knelt on the floor in front of the machine and pressed the game back in. “Now we go to the best of twenty rounds.”

“Fine by me.”

I swear the cat was smirking at me as she stalked out of the room and I knew full well what that look meant.

War.

Chapter Forty-Four

Lexi

Slash and I took an evening stroll down by the beach. I’d been doing a lot of thinking and I knew he had, too.

“How long are we staying?” I asked as we walked past a family of four packing up from a day at the beach. The father carried one kid in each arm while the mother had a cooler, a bag of sand toys and an oversize beach bag. The mother smiled at Slash as we passed, and he murmured a polite hello.

“Just tonight,” he said. “I’m needed at the NSA and I’m sure X-Corp wants you back, too. No matter what, we both need to be back at work on Monday. I’ve been going through Lazo’s financials and found some things that are not exactly aboveboard. But I don’t think that’s going to be enough to discredit him.”

“Actually, I’ve been thinking about taking a different approach.” I watched him carefully, wondering how he’d take my suggestion. “As uncomfortable as it may be learning more about Father Armando’s past might be useful, as well.”

His jaw tightened slightly, but he nodded. He was smart enough to see the value in gathering as much information as we could, no matter how painful. “Agreed. Let’s work on it tonight.”

When we came home from our stroll, Nonna was sitting at the kitchen table reading a book while hooked up to her oxygen machine. She set it aside when she saw us.

“Is she okay?” I whispered to Slash in concern.

“She’s fine. Her oxygen levels have been low, so the doctor prescribed oxygen whenever her levels fall below a certain threshold.”

“But otherwise, she’s good?”

“She’s good. Don’t worry,cara. She’ll probably outlive us both.”

He didn’t seem concerned about it, so I dialed back the worry. Somewhere along the line, I had become quite fond of Nonna, and for more than just her cooking. Although we couldn’t communicate well, we genuinely seemed to like each other. In my case that was a near miracle, since I generally didn’t like most people.

After Nonna retired for the evening, Slash and I set up our computers in the sewing room, which was also my bedroom for the night. Even though Slash and I were officially engaged, out of respect for Nonna, I insisted we sleep in separate bedrooms. We set to work on our respective hacks. Slash already had a good handle on Lazo’s financials, but he dug deeper into Lazo’s life while I focused on Father Armando. Neither of us was sure exactly what we were looking for, so we set up several automated searches to assist us and hoped something would pop. Unfortunately, neither of us found anything of great interest, so we let the searches continue and decided to call it a night.

“Are you sure I can’t stay here with you tonight?” Slash murmured.

“Don’t you remember what happened last time? Nonna walked in on us. Behave yourself for one night. It won’t hurt.”

“Soshesays,” he grumbled, but went off to another room.

I got ready for bed. There was no air-conditioning, so I was sweating by the time I lay down on the bed, which was really Nonna’s oversize floral couch. The cushions were lumpy and the door to the room wouldn’t close tightly. There wasn’t much I could do about it, so I lay atop the sheets in nothing more than a tank top and underwear, and tried not to think about how hot I was. Slash was probably used to it, but I was ready to rip off all my clothes and sleep in a shower of cold water.

I was pretty sure I’d never fall asleep, but while I was wishing I could be eating ice cream while swimming in the Arctic Ocean, I finally drifted off.

Cardinal Jacopo Lazo