Page 52 of Bene

“I get it—let you know where I am. Sorry, next time I will. So, dinner?”

She wouldn’t call it a date.

He might, though.

That’s all Mario wanted.

Just the idea they were something.

His smile curved his lips again. “Fine, woman, dinner.”

Battle won.

She was sure it wouldn’t be the last, either.

Vanna tapped her ballet flat against the tiled floor of the college’s hallway, trying to settle the way her nerves suddenly decided to make themselves known. It didn’t seem to matter how many times she had these meetings, or the fact that they had never gone badly—never mind that she hadn’t even been caught doing it—she still became terribly nervous.

Classes at the college were over for the day, and since it wasn’t unusual for Vanna to hang around for a bit after she finished, no one ever thought twice about the fact that for the last month … she had stayed an extra hour every Friday.

The squeak of cheap shoes against the tile had Vanna sighing. She glanced up, but stared at the white brick wall across from her position, instead of the man she knew was approaching her from the left. Soon, he was sitting on the bench to her right, and swiping at the screen of his phone while she waited for him to speak first.

It always went this way.

Never failed.

She thought it was stupid sometimes—anyone could see them having a conversation, so why did they need to make it seem like they were just two random people sitting in a hallway of a college that the man with graying hair clearly wasn’t attending?

One look at him, and everyone would know.

Cop.

He looked like one.

Smelled like one.

Walked like one.

All cops were the same.

They simply wore different badges.

“How was your week?” he finally asked, never looking up from his phone.

Vanna rolled her eyes. “Could we not?”

His head tipped up, giving her a good look at his aging profile, the lines speaking of years past etched on his features, and the almost gray eyes that seemed cold whenever he did stare at her. His jawline had softened, but she could still tell that once upon a time, he had probably been a very handsome man.

A long time ago.

Probably before his partner, who once thought to take down the infamous Gian Guzzi, had failed, ruined his career as a detective in the process, and then proceeded to drink his life away. Then he decided hanging himself from his stairwell would be the best option.

Vanna learned, with nothing more than a conversation at her father’s grave with this cop, that vendettas didn’t stay with only Italians. Sometimes, a person’s need for justice when it came to something that just wouldn’t let go of their very soul, and they were willing to do anything to get what they wanted.

Like this man beside her.

Jacob Keefs. A constable in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. A detective who had been moved from several divisions after several upsets in his earlier career—including a failed attempt to take down Canada’s biggest crime family, the Guzzis. He’d worked with her father for a time, according to him. Just enough for her father to trust him, and for him to trust Adam. A cop that was willing to be dirty to serve his desires to end a criminal empire … was it justified?

She didn’t know.