Chapter 102

Ethan

I got to the coffee shop far earlier than was necessary—close to an hour before Vanessa and I had decided to meet—and proceeded to sulk in the corner like a loser, downing coffee.

I’d long since stopped smelling the fresh-baked goods layered behind the glass counter, and I was far too nervous to stomach the thought of a pastry anyway.

The coffee was making my hands shake.

The bustling cafe at least set a cozy, pleasant scene for a first date. The hum of conversation and jazzy background music soothed my frayed nerves a bit. It all felt worlds away from the chaos of the Mafia world I’d been lurking around in for far too long.

I spotted Vanessa the moment she walked through the door.

There was something about her that just … drew the eye. Something utterly magnetic in her presence. It wasn’t just her looks—though she was quite beautiful.

Maybe it was the way she carried herself—shoulders back, head high, as though all the efforts of the world to cow her had been utterly in vain. This was a woman who would not be broken.

I could easily see why she and Layla were such fast friends.

Her arresting green gaze met mine from across the room, and her mouth flickered in a shy smile. She wove through the round tables towards me as I stood to meet her.

“Hey.” I wasn’t sure what the proper greeting was, so I merely pulled out the chair across from me.

“A gentleman would offer a lady the corner seat,” she replied without sitting.

My brows lifted in surprise. “Would you rather sit against the wall?”

“Oh, I never turn my back on a crowd.” Vanessa flashed me a tight smile as she slipped past me to commandeer my chair. “You live and learn, right, Cop?”

“Right.” I plopped down into the chair across from her, indeed uncomfortable with my back to the crowd, the door. Aldo Marcello had sat in this seat when we’d met here—had he been this uncomfortable?

Or was he so used to discomfort it had long since ceased to bother him? I wouldn’t put it past the man to have eyes in the back of his head.

“So. Are you going to talk to me?” Vanessa asked, drawing me back from my thoughts. “Or just sit there thinking about who could be sneaking up on you?”

“Very funny.” I leaned forward to fold my hands on the table. “I expect you to give me plenty of warning if someone sketchy walks through the door. Since you took the good seat.”

Her mouth twisted in half a smirk. “Of course.”

“Well, since this is technically a date,” I said, “Allow me to begin the conversation with all the normal awkward questions. Are you from New York?”

Her shoulders tensed, then softened with what looked like deliberate effort. “Not originally, no. Chicago. But I needed a fresh start.”

My stupid cop brain, naturally, filed away that little detail along with that momentary flicker of tension.

“Looks like you got one.” I offered her a smile. “You and Layla are practically peas in a pod.”

Her smile stretched in genuine joy. “Layla is good people.”

“She is.” And we’re on opposite sides of the world, I didn’t add. What I wouldn’t have given to have changed that. To have brought her out of the darkness and into the light where she belonged.

“She saved me, you know.” Vanessa’s voice took on a strangely lofty tone, and her green eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. “Some asshole was trying to mug me, and bam, action-hero Layla pops out and kicks the guy’s ass.”

My jaw nearly hit the floor. “Damn. Layla did that?”

“You best believe it.”

“Good for her.”

“She’s learned some practical skills lately, I take it.” Vanessa’s eyes sparkled again, and I realized what she was doing. It was like teasing, but … more. Different.

She was trying to prove a point.

“Evidently.” My voice came out stiff, dry.

“Sometimes,” Vanessa said, voice softening to barely more than a murmur, “the people we care about are more than the world they come from. And sometimes, those worlds aren’t as black and white as they seem.”

I studied her face for the true meaning behind such words. She cared for Layla, that much was clear, and she knew about the darkness in Layla’s world.

But those words … they came from something deeper than her months with Layla. Something buried in her past, tattooed on her bones. “You understand the world better than one might guess.”

Vanessa’s smile was enigmatic, almost hollow. “I’ve lived enough to know that things are rarely simple.”

“You’re different, aren’t you?” I leaned forward a little more, like maybe I could see beneath the sparkling eyes, the crooked smile, the soft lines of her face, to the truth beneath. “What’s your story?”

For an instant, something flickered beneath her gaze. Something hard and cold, like the edge of a knife—or the remnants of such an impact. “I’m no stranger to the darkness.”

“I didn’t think so.” I propped my chin onto my hand, kept studying those green eyes. “But I can’t shake the feeling that you’re … hiding something.”

Her brows lifted in clear surprise. “Of course I am. Aren’t you? Aren’t we all? Secrets are a part of life, Cop. You know that.”

Something about the blatant honesty disarmed me. I was so used to people clamming up, playing defense, that the offensive maneuver left me momentarily speechless.

“Am I wrong?” she murmured, like she’d sensed my inability to form a coherent thought.

“No,” I finally admitted. “But that hardly means all our secrets are of the same caliber, does it?”

“No.” She leaned forward, nearly halving the distance between us. Even over the lingering scents of coffee and pastries, I inhaled the floral sweetness of a new perfume.

Like the rest of her, it was magnetic.

“So, Ethan.” Her breath whispered across my cheek. “What caliber are you secrets, hm? Care to divulge?”

“Depends,” I choked out, nearly breathless in her thrall. “Are we trading tit for tat?”

She sat back, smiling. “I do enjoy some good verbal sparring. But seeing as it’s a first date, maybe we’ll start with the basics?”

“Right.” I huffed a laugh, feeling like I’d just emerged from a fog. “Keep things light.”

“Exactly. Tell me what it’s like to be a cop in New York City.”

I humored her with a few stories, and she traded a few of her own. We shared a few laughs, a few somber memories. As the afternoon wore on, I felt her guard lower even as mine did, too.

Yet in the back of my mind, something nagged. Vanessa was charming, intelligent, and seemed genuinely interested in understanding me. But there was … something.

That cop gut instinct again.

When at long last we rose from our table, I walked her to the door before we stopped to part ways on the sidewalk.

“You’re a good man, Ethan,” Vanessa said. “I’m sorry I doubted you before.”

“I’d want nothing less for Layla’s most trusted new friend.”

“And that’s part of what makes me like you. That and your spleen.”

Before I could respond, she leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to mycheek. “Goodnight, Ethan.”

I watched her disappear into the building, conflicted. Vanessa was unlike anyone I’d ever met. But the questions lingered. Who was she, really? And what was she hiding?