Page 148 of Restless Hawke

“He’s had countless opportunities to finish what he started when he attacked the Grind. He could have taken us all out on the day of the groundbreaking. He could have let Atlas, Astrid, and Kennedy die at the hands of Dan Roselli. I’m sure his goons could have hunted each of us down individually at any point and taken us all out?—”

Gabe snorts. “I would have liked to see him try.”

“He didn’t for a reason, just like we never went after him for a reason. Because it’s mutually assured destruction. If he touched any of us, we’d go after him. If we went after him, his people would come after the rest of us. It’s a vicious fucking cycle we’re stuck in.”

Savage considers me for a moment, tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair. “So, what? Are you suggesting we play his fucking game, that we pretend to be friends so he feels like he has a big, happy fucking family?”

The icy words slice through me. “I don’t know what I’m suggesting. All I’m saying is that what Allegra’s noted makes sense. He hasn’t acted because it isn’t what he really wants. He’s giving us the opportunity to make a different decision, to partner with him, to find a way to coexist peacefully?—”

“You can’t coexist with a man like him.” The warning from Luca draws everyone’s attention back to him. “You can all try, but I’m telling you, we’ll pay for it in the end.”

21

THREE DAYS LATER

COEN

Allegra’s knee bounces wildly under the table, and I reach across it and place my hand on top of hers next to her uneaten beignet and the napkin she’s shredded while we’ve sat here waiting.

“Don’t be so nervous. Remember, treat this like any other game. Stay calm and cool. Hold your cards close to your chest.”

Her gaze cuts to me—the first time she’s actually looked at me in the ten minutes since we arrived. Instead of enjoying her breakfast, she’s been constantly scanning the street and sidewalk around us at Café du Monde, on high alert.

And she’s become a bundle of nervous energy that needs to diffuse quickly.

Those pretty lips of hers twist at me, analogizing meeting her dad to a poker game—but it seemed a good way to describe it, and I thought it might be enough to drag her from what could be a spiral of nerves. “Was this really the best place to tell him to meet us?”

Her brow furrows as she looks at the throngs of tourists surrounding us, occupying every table and wandering on the sidewalk.

I lift her hand to my lips and kiss her knuckles gently. “Absolutely. Allthisis exactly why we chose Café du Monde.”

Her eyes widen slightly before she returns to watching everyone suspiciously, as if any one of them might be a spy for the opposition, the way she was for her father. “Why?”

“Because it’s always packed with tourists, and your dad is far too intelligent to do something stupid in such a public place.”

At least, that’s the theory we’re working under today.

And it hasn’t failed us in the past when we’ve had to meet with Satriano and wanted to protect ourselves from an ambush.

Public places.

Busy times.

Lots and lots of witnesses.

Allegra considers me for a moment, then releases a heavy breath and nods. “You’re probably right.”

“Besides…”—I kiss her fingers again, earning a little shiver from her—“I haven’t gotten to take you to do any of the touristy things in town.”

A smile plays at the corner of her lips. “No, you haven’t.”

In the few days since the tournament, since our talk with the rest of the Hawkes and her full confession, we’ve barely left my condo. Not because I’m afraid of what Satriano will do—more because I can’t get enough of this woman and don’t want to let her out of my arms or my bed.

Her scent permeates every surface of my condo, her presence there becoming so familiar and easy that I can barely remember a time when she wasn’t with me.

I suck one of her fingers into my mouth and her eyes widen, her cheeks pinkening.

“Wh-what are you doing?”