Bitter Pills

on the hard days. I looked for him on the easy days.
Gavriel's private plane waited for me as the limo pulled up. I had a duffel bag of gear and zero expectations. I made plans to be gone for just forty-eight hours. I couldn't stand to be away from Grace for too long.
A real man sticks to his guns and does what is right. That's the thing about ultimatums. Even when they hurt. Even when they go against every cell in your body. And watching over Grace had become one promise I couldn’t shake.
I ascended the stairs leading to the plane and removed my sunglasses. I had plans to go over the lead Gavriel's men compiled during the five-hour flight. I wasn't convinced there was enough evidence to warrant a flight to Mexico City, but grasping at straws had become a habit of mine. I spent countless hours checking the internet for traces of him only to come up empty. This was the first time I felt like we had something solid. I didn’t want to waste a single second.
I handed my bag to the flight attendant and twisted to face the main cabin, stopping when I saw a flash of red hair, long legs, and a smirk.
"Grace. What are you doing here?" I asked in an even voice. I wasn’t surprised that she was here. She had lunch with Sunshine earlier, and they probably conspired while I gathered intel. It didn’t matter if she knew or not. I wasn’t bringing her with me to Mexico. All signs in Nix's disappearance pointed to something sinister, and there was no way in hell I'd be risking her for that.
"Sunshine told me about Nix. I'm coming with you."
I gritted my teeth and pulled out my phone to call Gavriel. I held the phone up to my ear, listening to it ring until I was sent to voicemail.
"You're not coming with me," I replied before shoving my phone back in my pocket.
"Yes," Grace began. "I am."
I guess I'd have to carry her ass off the plane then. She needed a spanking, too. I rolled my neck and stalked closer to her. Grace was a determined firecracker. She had no sense of self-preservation. Gavriel once told me that he found her stripping at the age of fifteen. Fucking fifteen! She didn’t consider the danger of a situation. I couldn’t decide if she was fearless, naive, ignorant, or the bravest person I’d ever met. "You're not coming. End of story."
She swiftly nodded at the perky flight attendant, and I turned around just as the door was locked. "Sunshine called ahead and gave strict instructions to seal the door the moment both of us were on the plane. You might be important to Gavriel's operations now, but Mrs. Moretti calls the shots.”
I groaned. Grace was seriously a pain in the ass. "This isn't a game," I growled while sitting across from her and buckling my seat. "You're only going to slow me down."
She rolled her eyes. "I'm more than capable of handling my shit, Alessandro. I can't believe you were actually going to go without me. It's Nix. Nix! You were just going to fly to Mexico and not tell me?”
I rubbed my temples while the flight attendant brought a tray of champagne around. Grace grabbed both flutes and downed them. "I didn't want to get your hopes up. I also don’t need you interfering. I don't know what we are walking into, and quite frankly you are an impulsive problem I don't want to have to worry about. You're being selfish."
She looked incredulous, blinking a couple of times as if she were processing my words. "I'm being selfish? You just want to keep Nix to yourself," she yelled. The flight attendant looked like she wanted to be anywhere but here.
Grace wasn't wrong. Of course I wanted to keep him to myself. It's why we broke up all those years ago. I wanted Nix, and he wanted to fuck his way through the world. He wasn't monogamous in the slightest, and I was too insecure to handle knowing I'd never have his entire heart.
I couldn't help but chuckle at Grace's outburst though. Didn't she know? Time might have passed and the Nix we knew might not be the same Nix we're about to find, but he would pick her. Grace Moretti was the first person to ever be enough to hold Nix's attention. And that was something I didn't know how to process. "We've been through so much, Alessandro. Let me see this through with you. We both know it'll take an army to get Nix back."
"Last time we spoke, you thought he was dead," I replied. "Funny how you turn to hope when it suits you." I pulled out my folder of notes and stared at the aerial view of the building Phoenix was supposedly staying in. It looked fairly easy to get into and was in a nicer part of the city. I wondered how he was able to afford it.
"I don't think it's fair of you to accuse me of processing things differently than you. Just because my hope falters doesn't mean my love for him does."
Her words were like a knife straight through my heart. Tension coiled up within me like white hot barbs suffocating me with their painful sting. I hated this. I didn't want this for either of us. Grace loved Nix. It was a complicated situation. I didn’t want to feel jealous still—it had been five fucking years. But I didn’t like her little declaration. It just meant that I was already losing him. I wished she would have stopped loving him. It would make everything so much easier.
I looked at Grace. I mean really looked at her. I took in the fiery hair framing her face and the tight jeans clinging to her thighs. In typical Moretti fashion, she wore designer clothes from head to toe, and her heels were liable to break her neck in a chase.