He Deserved It

CHAPTER 32 – Cold Hands

Dante liked grocery store parking lots.

People thought they were private. They weren’t. They were perfect. Wide open. Too ordinary for anyone to notice the shadows. And people were sloppy when they felt safe.

You saw it in how they carried their bags. How fast they crossed the blacktop. How often they looked over their shoulders, like guilt had weight.

He leaned against the side of his matte-black SUV, hood up, hands buried in his jacket pockets. To anyone watching, he was just another guy waiting for his girl to finish shopping. Maybe bored. Maybe scrolling t****k.

He wasn’t bored. And he wasn’t waiting on anyone.

He’d been following Lia Navarro for four days.

Not close. Not that sloppy, rookie s**t. Just enough to chart where she went. Grocery store. Pharmacy. Gas station, paying cash, eyes on the pump numbers.

And that was the thing.

She wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. She wasn’t acting nervous or changing her routes. No panicked calls. No dead drops. Just a girl living a quiet life.

Either she didn’t know where Jordan was…

Or she was hiding it so well it deserved respect.

Because truth didn’t come out in words. Truth showed up in the small s**t—the rhythm of a person’s steps, the way they breathed when no one was looking.

And Lia? She didn't move like someone who’d lost sleep.

Dante was starting to think maybe she really didn’t know a damn thing.

But patterns mattered. And Dante wanted to see if hers ever broke. That’s why he was here now.

He clocked her before she even stepped through the sliding glass doors.

Three plastic grocery bags swinging from one hand. Little sister in the other—kid about five or six, bouncing at her side like she’d had too much sugar. Lia was talking low, laughing at something small. A real laugh. Quick and soft.

She was… noticeable. The kind of pretty you didn’t see much in towns like this. High-cheekbone pretty. Billboard pretty. The kind of face that usually ended up on some rich guy’s arm or in the front row at a VIP lounge. But here she was, grocery bags digging into her fingers, hair loose around her shoulders, wearing a hoodie that didn’t match her shine.

No ducking her head. No twitchy scanning over her shoulder. If she checked the lot, it was instinct—girl alone at dusk with a kid to protect.

Nothing off.

Just a girl living her life.

And for some reason, Dante couldn’t look away.

Part of him kept circling back to that night, Jordan shoving his phone into Dante’s face, grinning like he’d won the lottery.

“Bro, look at her. That’s Lia. Tell me she’s not the prettiest girl in this town.”

The photo was burned into Dante’s brain: a girl with a bright grin, cheeks flushed pink, hair twisted up like she’d been laughing at something. Loud in the way light was loud.

But the girl he was watching now was quieter. Softer around the edges. Less flash. But somehow… more.

She wasn’t moving like someone with blood on her hands. Or cash stashed under her mattress. She was just living. Running errands. Making grocery lists. Tapping her fingers on the steering wheel at red lights.

And in four days, Dante had learned things he shouldn’t know about a stranger:

That she liked pineapple Jarritos, but only if the gas station cooler kept it ice-cold. That she always asked for extra cilantro at the taco truck off 4th and Main. That she double-checked the backseat of her car every time she got in, like she’d been taught to watch her own six.

None of that made her innocent. But it made her real.

And that… was getting under his skin.

Because every time he saw her laugh, part of him wondered what it would be like if she laughed at something he said. What it would be like to stand beside her at the taco truck, bitching about wait times, listening to her talk about nothing and everything.

And for half a second, a dangerous thought flashed across his mind:

A girl like that sitting at his mother’s kitchen table. Laughing. Baking cookies. Asking if he’d eaten enough that day.

Dante crushed the thought like a cigarette.

There was no version of his life where he brought home a girl like her.

He knew he didn’t know her. Not really. A few errands didn’t make her his. Didn’t mean she was clean.

But it was starting to piss him off how much he wanted to believe she was.

The girl in the photo was pretty. The woman in front of him was a problem he couldn’t stop thinking about.

He pushed the thought aside as footsteps crunched closer. Jorge strolled up beside him, cracking open a Sprite, the hiss loud in the quiet.

“You’ve been watching her a long time, D.”

Dante didn’t take his eyes off Lia. Watched her load her little sister into the beat-up Civic. Watched the way she smoothed the kid’s hair before closing the door.

Jorge tilted his can. “So… is she ours to handle?”

Dante’s jaw ticked once. Silence stretched while he tracked Lia’s every move.

Finally, he spoke, voice low enough not to carry past the SUV.

“She’s either clean… or she’s playing games.”

Jorge took a swig of Sprite. “Want me to pull her in? Ask some questions?”

Dante shook his head. Slow. Deliberate.

“Not yet.”

He didn’t answer Jorge again. He was too busy watching what she’d do next.

Lia climbed into the driver’s seat. Dropped her bag into the passenger side. Rummaged around until she found a tube of lip gloss and swiped it on in the rearview mirror. Quick. Unbothered. Like any girl getting ready to face the world again.

Then she glanced out her window, eyes sweeping over the lot—and right past Dante, not seeing him at all.

To her, he was just part of the background. Another guy in a hoodie leaning on a car.

She shifted into gear and pulled away, brake lights glowing red before fading into the dark.

Dante watched her go. He didn’t know why he kept looking. But he did.

He stayed leaning against the SUV, eyes on the dark stretch of road where her taillights disappeared.

Jorge crushed the empty Sprite can, metal creaking in the quiet.

Dante didn’t move. Didn’t say a word.

Clean or not, she was his problem.

And Dante always solved his problems.