Page 36 of My Pucking Enemy (The Milwaukee Frost #4)

Wren

Once, in Thailand, I ate some mango sticky rice that had been sitting out for too long and got the worst food poisoning of my life. I suffered in our luxury hotel room, rolling from side to side, writhing in pain.

And this feels worse than that.

I haven’t been able to sleep, the ghost of my father haunting me everywhere I go. The calls have finally stopped, but that’s only setting me even more on edge.

Then this morning, the article about Luca.

Is that what this meeting will be about? Uncle Vic asking us if our relationship is real?

It feels too real. Too deep, too much. I close my eyes, wishing I’d been smart enough to keep everything between Luca and me above-board, because maybe then I wouldn’t be sick, worrying about Luca and what’s going to happen next.

I sit in Uncle Vic’s office, stomach twisting at the unknowns. I hate not having information. And I hate even more the obvious assumption I have to make with the information I don’t have.

Yesterday morning, I snuck out of Luca’s hotel room. At first, I was just going to get up and go to the bathroom, but I didn’t want him to hear me retching and come to check on me. This has happened to before—the anxiety manifesting in constant nausea. I’d forgotten about what torture it could be.

I shouldn’t have left him. I know he wants to talk to me, and I can sense the conversation coming that’s going to confront the reality of what we’re doing here.

But right now, I just can’t face up to it. Can’t look Luca in the eye and believe that I’m the best thing for him. Not when they keep nearly losing games, and I’m actively hallucinating the ghost of my father in supermarkets and on crowded streets.

Now, Uncle Vic sits quietly across from me, his chin in his hand, an unreadable expression on his face. Sometimes, I try to search his features to see if I can find myself in them—he’s my mother’s brother, after all—but I never do. And today, he’s not meeting my eye.

After having that pint on Christmas, he and I get together once a month like we said we would to have lunch outside of work.

Surely Uncle Vic knew about the relationship between Luca and I, but he never commented on it during those lunches.

We never talked about anything serious, and up until this moment, I’d had the sense that something was healing over the fish fries and butter burgers.

Now, I’m not so sure.

The door opens and Luca comes in, striding confidently, and I purposefully don’t look at him. If I do, it’s going to take my breath away. And I can’t afford to be distracted right now.

“Great,” Uncle Vic says, flicking his eyes up at Luca when he walks in. “Alright, there’s no easy way to do this, so I’m just going to rip off the band-aid. Luca, I think you were right.”

I blink, glancing between the two of them, desperately trying to figure out what’s going on.

“Right about what?” Luca and I ask at the same time, which prompts me to look at him, which is a mistake. Even with the bags under his eyes and the way his hair flops into his face, he’s gorgeous, and my heart beats a little harder, yearning just at the sight of him.

All I want is to crawl into his arms, and live there, hide there. Let him wrap himself around me and protect me from whatever is about to happen.

But I can’t do that, because that would mean Luca taking the blows instead. And he’s worked way too hard to go down because of me.

“About Wren.” My uncle glances in my direction, swallows, and I feel it—the harsh truth that he doesn’t trust me.

And why would he? My mind flashes back to all those years ago—me sneaking out of his place, my dad pulling up on the curb and whisking me off into the night. Every time Vic tried to save me from myself, I made him regret it.

In his eyes, this is just another instance of that.

I’ll never be able to outrun my past.

“What about her?” Luca asks, crossing his arms and glancing over at me. I sit quietly, not meeting his eyes even as the weight of his gaze practically burns a hole in my cheek.

Uncle Vic sighs, and the sound is an echo from my childhood. “Luca, come on. Surely you, of all people, have noticed the fact that both the Panthers and the Bruins had a clear read on our strategy for both games. Even after the emergency session.”

“You’re saying…Wren?” Luca asks, my name coming out of his mouth on a breath. This time, when he looks at me, I can’t stop myself from looking.

And what I see there is a question. Confusion.

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

“You’re terminated,” Uncle Vic says, and to his credit, he at least sounds shaken up about it.

“What?” Luca shakes his head, taking a step back. “You can’t—”

“Give me another explanation,” my uncle says, and when he looks at me, I see a flicker of the man who met me at the airport.

Who wanted to give me the benefit of the doubt—give me a chance.

“Tell me how those teams could possibly know what’s going on if you’re not feeding them information.

It’s too much of a coincidence for Luca to have predicted that this might happen right at the start of the season, and now it’s happening. ”

I swallow, and it feels like I’m pushing razor blades into my throat. There is one explanation, but I can’t give it. Because I have no proof, nothing other than my gut instinct. And the moment I bring up my father in this conversation, I know Uncle Vic is going to assume that I’m working with him.

Too many times, I’ve shown Vic that I’m not someone he can trust. I’m like the boy who cried wolf, and now that it’s actually not me, I have no moral history to call on. There’s no point in arguing or trying to fight this.

It was foolish of me to think I’d ever be able to get away from my dad. I spent too long being one kind of person to ever think I could come back, even after a year of service with the FBI.

“Wren?” Luca asks, his voice breaking when he turns to look at me, and that’s my final straw. He’s not defending me, not telling Uncle Vic there’s no way it could be me. That I care about this team too much—and I care about Luca too much—to do that to them.

Luca followed his instincts when it came to me back at the start of the season, and he’s following them again now.

“I’ll get my things,” I say quietly. When I stand up, there’s a Frost security guard standing in the doorway with a blank look on his face. It settles in that this is who I’ve always been. From the moment I landed in Milwaukee until now, I’m the kind of woman you’ll find detained by security.

I walk to the door. I keep my head straight. I nod at the guard and force myself not to look back… because I know it will hurt too much.