Page 235 of Alessio

A bit of spare time on his hands, a tattoo shop across the road from where he was hiding out when he wasn’t working in Siberia, and yeah. Shit happened. Things like that always happened when Alessio became bored.

That’s how all his tattoos got on his body, too.

Besides, now he had something to remember this hellish month by—and since he liked his new body modification, he’d think about that instead of the rest.

Certain places were wastelands, okay?

That’s what he felt like he just came back from.

Dropping his carry-on bag, which was nothing more than a black backpack that made travel easy but also had the essentials he needed should his luggage disappear, to the airport’s tiled floor, he gave Cree a smile.

“Nice to see you, too,” he said.

Cree chuckled, and folded his arms over his chest. “I already know how it went, but go ahead and tell me.”

Alessio shrugged. “It was fine.”

“That’s all you want to say? Your first assignment, alone, too, and it was fine?”

“Yeah.”

Boring.

A little too easy, all things considered. His main part of the job had been the recon mission, which was basically doing nothing except watching, looking for shit, and staying out of sight. Then, when he had confirmation the Russian mobster’s son was in fact in the isolated prison camp, he could prove it, and also had a good idea of the man’s schedule inside the place, he called it into the team.

It was up to The League’s team leader on whether or not he would be allowed to take part in the retrieval, and he had. Not that it had been anything exciting, either. They went in at night, armed and ready, took out the main security that would be a problem, grabbed the guy from his building where he was housed, and then blew out the side of the cement fence that was also wired to electrocute people who touched it.

Simple.

“Well, come on, then,” Cree said, tipping his head sideways a bit, silently saying the two of them should get going. No one from The League liked to linger too long in a public space like an airport after a job in another country. “Let’s get out of here.”

“All right.”

Alessio picked up the bag he’d dropped before and followed behind Cree until they were at the luggage carousel waiting for his to come around. Cree stayed quiet as brightly colored bags passed them by on the conveyer belt. He didn’t mind the silence, as it gave him a chance to relax a bit, more so than he had over the past several weeks.

Nevada felt like home.

In a way nowhere else did.

He watched the people gathered around the conveyer, some leaning close to talk, others laughing, and a few looking as though they were simply ready for the day to be over. It was funny because he related to every single one of them.

For different reasons, obviously.

Did it feel good to be out and finally doing a job?

Yeah.

It also felt good to be back here. For the past three weeks, he felt like that last conversation with Corrado had left a lot of shit unsaid between the two of them. They had unfinished business, and that’s where Alessio’s mind continued to go back to every time he had a moment alone to think while on assignment.

He didn’t need that distraction.

Didn’t want it.

But here he was, so …

Alessio wasn’t going to dwell on the whys of it all, because a part of him knew that was obvious, but he figured now that he was back, the two of them could settle out some shit. Then, he could put that behind him and get back to work. He wouldn’t be kept awake at night by thoughts of a guy who clearly didn’t know what in the hell he wanted where Alessio was concerned.

Or, whatever.