Page 75 of The Woman with the Handcuffs

No, things like that didn’t happen in real life, right? A woman didn’t tell a random guy about an awkward encounter they had only to have him exact vengeance on your part. That was the stuff of romance novels and suspense movies. In real life, when you told a guy about that kind of situation, they asked you questions about how you might have led the guy on and suggested maybe you were being paranoid.

I knew.

Because that was what the guy I’d been seeing at the time had said to me.

We didn’t last through the rest of that week. Because, while I didn’t necessarily expect a man to protect me, I wanted one who valued my level of comfort and didn’t try to make me believe I could have done something wrong in a situation that involved harassment.

“He lives above a nightclub?” I asked when we made it to the building.

“Zeno is a night owl. And when he’s working, he can block just about anything out.”

“My nerves would be shot,” I admitted. “The couple above me fighting is enough to get my anxiety rolling some days.”

We hoofed it up the steps to Zeno’s place. Where Gav spent two minutes slamming on the door and calling his brother on the phone.

“Did he not know we were coming?”

“He knew. He probably just forgot. He struggles with executive functions. Especially if work is busy for him. Which it usually is.”

“I feel bad adding on then, if—”

The door flew open.

And then there was Zeno Costa.

There was a family resemblance with all these men. They were all tall, dark-haired, with similar bone structure. But the siblings I’d met so far were also incredibly unique unto themselves.

Where Gav had a sexy academic air to him and Leo had that lovable bear quality, Zeno had a sort of party-hard rock-and-roll vibe to him.

His dark hair was bed-messy and he had nothing on but an almost scandalously low-slung pair of cute ghost-printed pajama pants. Tattoos snaked across his skin. His nails were painted black. There was a piercing in his brow, and when he opened his mouth to speak, there was another piercing in his tongue. Unlike Gav’s dark blue eyes and Leo’s medium-brown, Zeno had dark brown eyes with the kind of thick lashes I could only dream of.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Nugget,” he greeted me, making me snort.

“Did you tell him that?” I asked, glaring at Gav’s profile.

“No.”

My eyes narrowed.

“Then how… oh.” I looked between the two men, seeing matching guilt on both their handsome faces. “You had him look into me.”

“You handcuffed me to a chair,” Gav reminded me.

“I, for one, would not have complained about that,” Zeno said, charm oozing from every pore. “You could have had me barking like a dog if you wanted.”

Gav rolled his eyes and took a step inward. “We have a phone and bank accounts to get more information about.”

“Sure, sure. Come in. Do I smell a PSL?” he asked, sniffing the air.

Gav’s eyes closed and he shook his head in complete defeat at his brother not only knowing what a pumpkin spice latte smelled like, but the acronym to call it by.

“It’s the best time of year,” I told him, waving my mostly-empty cup.

“Wow,” Gav said, turning back to look at his brother. “What the fuck happened in here?”

Glancing around Zeno, all I saw was a tidy apartment dominated by a huge workstation full of monitors and keyboards and one of those fancy see-through things where you could see the computer’s guts.

“What? It’s clean,” Zeno said, moving inside so I could step in as well.