Page 141 of Restless Hawke

The car moves through the streets. Stopping at lights. Making turns.

It goes on for so long with us just holding each other that I almost forget we are goingsomewhere.

Her lips feather against my neck. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”

Instantly, that moment of post-orgasmic bliss vanishes. That tentative tone in her voice, the hint of fear, is enough to make my hand at her hip tighten in warning. “What?”

She pulls her head back, her lids still at half-mast and glazed over, but they sharpen quickly to a stormy uncertainty. “You asked me once what Satriano had on me.”

“Yeah?”

But this isn’t at all the time or place to have this discussion.

We’ll have to come up with a plan to deal with Satriano and the fallout of what went down today. I just don’t want to do it right now.

“You don’t have to get into it right now, Allegra. We have time.”

She shakes her head, fear filling her gaze again. “No, we don’t. It’s what I was trying to tell you in Vegas, what you never let me explain. Satriano doesn’t have anything on me. But that doesn’t mean I don’t owe him.”

“I don’t understand. Why the fuck would you owe a man like Satriano anything if he isn’t holding some sort of debt?”

Nothing she’s saying is making any sense, and the longer it takes her to respond, the more she trembles, and the more terrified I become of what she’s about to say next.

Her lip quivers, and the tears form in her eyes again. “I know what he’s planning, what he wants from you and your family. I know everything.”

“Why would he confide in you, Allegra? Why do you owe himanything?”

She swallows thickly, steeling herself for whatever she’s about to say and the response she seems to be anticipating from me. “He confided in me because he trusts me. And I owe him because he’s my father.”

20

ALLEGRA

Even safely curled up on Coen’s couch, wrapped in his soft sweatpants and T-shirt, after a long, hot shower, I can’t stop shaking. My entire body trembles violently, and I pull my feet up onto the leather and wrap my arms around my knees, trying to control it.

Coen slides his hand onto my thigh, trying to give me some strength and encouragement for what I’m about to do.

What I have to do.

It’s time to come clean abouteverything—finally.

And I have to do it with an audience…

Savage, Gabe, Stone, and Luca all sit around Coen’s living room, each watching me and waiting for me to start with my formal confession.

As soon as I told Coen the truth in the limo, I broke down so completely that I couldn’t get another word out, and he seemed to realize that trying to question me would have been fruitless at that point.

It felt like I sobbed the whole way here and during the shower Coen insisted I take while he was right there, holding me through the continued tears and panic.

Instead of running from my truth, this time, he seems intent on listening—and ensured the people who needed to know most would be here to hear it all, too.

Coen squeezes my leg. “I want you to tell them exactly what you told me…”

I glance over at him, and he offers me an encouraging smile that warms his eyes.

This entire time, I thought telling him the truth, finally putting it all out there, would be the end of things, but instead, it feels like the beginning of something bigger, something stronger, something truly powerful.

I release a heavy sigh, then look at the Hawke men waiting not so patiently across from us.