Robin stayed at the bar drinking heavily. The plan took root as Sawyer watched him make a pass at an exquisitely dressed woman beside him. Sawyer knew she was a prosti-tute, and as his former boss became louder and more aggressive, he made a decision.

He left the bar. It was easy to buy the video camera. Even easier to make a deal with the hooker for the footage necessary to blackmail and ruin his boss. Sawyer watched the scene play out from the sidelines as Robin staggered and the woman took out her room key, leading him away. She nodded at Sawyer and held up a hand.

Five minutes.

He got up to nurse his beer at the bar while he waited.

And heard the voice.

“He probably deserves it, you know.”

His head swiveled. The woman beside him was dressed in pewter slacks and a charcoal cardigan, and had beautiful, long gray hair twisted up in a bun. The lines of her face were full of humor and grace, and her dark eyes were kind as she stared back at him.

“Scusi?”

The woman smiled and ordered a glass of Chardonnay from the bartender. “I was eating with my friend and over-heard the scene. He is your boss, no?”

Sawyer drummed his fingers on the wood top and glanced at his watch. Four minutes. “He was my boss. Got fired.”

She sighed. “Many people use power for the wrong things. What business are you in?”

“Hotels. We were meeting a client here, but I guess I was a bit too successful.” The hate and bitterness twisted inside him and made him nauseous. Sawyer pushed his beer away.

“Not sure why I thought it would be different,” he murmured to himself. “I was stupid to play by the rules.”

“No. You were brave. Believing in something good is the only thing that can hold us together.”

He paused and studied her. She smelled of sugar and cakes and sweetness. What was her game? His fingers slipped to the small bag that held the camera. He gripped it more firmly and took a swig of beer. Three minutes. “Trust me, I don’t live in the world of the fantastic. You need to protect yourself by using any means necessary. Only the strong survive.”

Suddenly, her hand grasped his wrist. His first reaction was to jerk away—he couldn’t stand anyone touching him without warning—but her skin was warm and her gaze steady as she looked at him. Not just on the surface, but down deep using those brown eyes, so Sawyer sensed she saw every one of his writhing, twisted demons. “Life is more than surviving, don’t you think? Life is about choices. Hard ones. There is something bigger than us out there, something called karma.

Every good deed goes back into the universe, and every bad one reaps retribution. Maybe not here on Earth, but later.”

He shook from a sudden onslaught of emotion. Sawyer sneered in mockery from the slight softening. “Bullshit, lady.

There is no hereafter, and happiness here means money, power, and taking what you want.”

Her smile was gentle and full of so much wisdom he sucked in his breath. “You’re wrong. I know what you want to do, and I don’t blame you. No one could. An eye for an eye seems appropriate. But you’ll only wake up emptier and needing more hate to fill you.” Her fingers tightened around his sudden hammering pulse. “I’m asking you to choose different. Today. Choose to walk away from this, and everything may change.”

Fear shook him like a teething puppy with a new bone.

“Who are you? You don’t know me, or him. You don’t know anything.”

“I know I see something in you that’s so much more than this.” Her grip eased, and she drew some euros from her purse and pushed them across the bar. Then carefully placed a business card next to him. “I’d like to help you. I know someone who runs a well-known hotel, and I think you’d fit in nicely. But you need to decide what you want more.”

Sawyer scoffed at the card that held the name La Dolce Famiglia with a delicate cake sketched on the front. A fucking bakery? A crazy laugh strangled his chest. He was ready to film a porno with a hooker and blackmail his boss. He lived in the garbage because that was what he knew was true.

Any attempt for anything real or clean would only disappoint him. And Sawyer had learned his lesson well.

Hope was deadly.

“Sure, lady. Whatever.” He tucked her card into his suit jacket to get rid of her. “Thanks for the offer.”

She closed her eyes briefly, as if he was her son and had let her down. When she opened them, her brown eyes gleamed clear and bright and sharp as the edge of a broken bottle. “I know you don’t believe me. I probably wouldn’t either. Still, the Lord gives us choices every day, and each tiny one makes up the framework of our life. This doesn’t guarantee terrible things don’t happen to good people. Innocent people.” A sadness clung to her like a cloud of perfume. “Your future can be changed by one decision. One good thing can offset a mountain of bad. But you need to choose.”

She picked up her wine and nodded her head with a grace that made him long for something beautiful in his life.

“Thank you for listening.”

The woman disappeared out of the bar as if she had been conjured up by some weird sorcerer from Harry fucking Potter. Sawyer glanced at his watch and pushed the strange encounter from his mind.

Showtime.

He drained his beer, paid, and took the elevator up to the eleventh floor. The key card to room 117 burned in his grip. He checked the hall and made sure all was quiet. No maid or foot traffic yet. Saywer hefted the camera and fiddled with the buttons, making sure he was ready to film the movie of his life. Finally. His first step of vengeance, even sweeter than beating the shit out of the boys who tried to jump him in the alley he called home or stealing from rich pricks who spent their endless amounts of money on coffee and designer clothes and fancy women.

He slid the key in the door and waited for the click.

The light blinked. Sawyer paused.

The image of Danny ripped past his vision. Of a little boy who looked up to him, who believed he was strong enough to protect him from the demons and keep him safe. His failure rose up to mock him, and years of bullshit and pain raged within his gut. His fingers trembled and he choked on nausea.

This would be his life. A life of no rules, no limits, just an endless spiral of emptiness. Panic reared, and he shook as if in a fever, his breath lodged in his icy chest.

The faint sounds of laughter drifted from behind the door.

A slurred insult. The sound of spanking and a low moan.

Sawyer knew he’d open the door to a scene from porn heaven.

He’d get his job back, get Robin fired, and never look back.

His past blurred into the present, the future. The woman’s words seared his brain until a bright light exploded in his vision.

One choice stood before him, clear and true, with precise consequences.

The other loomed ahead, fogged in mystery, ready to knock him back on his ass for taking a chance.

“oh, yes, baby, just like that, oh, feels good!”

Sawyer staggered back from the door and fought for breath. In a drunken stupor, he moved down the hallway and shot down the stairs, running faster and faster away from the demons. He burst through the doors, into the lobby, and out to the sidewalk, dragging in clean air, losing himself in the crowd of people busily shuffling past him with the goal of work, pleasure, family, food, life.

He didn’t know how long or how far he walked. Minutes.

Hours. Finally, he took out the card and studied the address.

He took a taxi, then the funicular into Bergamo, and finally reached the house. His hand shook as he raised it to knock.

The door swung open, and the woman from the bar looked at him.

“I didn’t do it.” His breath rushed out of his lungs. A strange sob rose to his lips. “I didn’t do it.”

The woman’s voice was wrapped in a loving strength promising safe haven. Promising something Sawyer didn’t believe existed. “I am so proud of you. What is your name?”

“Sawyer Wells.”

“Come inside, Sawyer Wells. We will talk. It will all be all right.”

He stepped inside and his life changed.

The memory shimmered and disappeared like wisps of smoke. He was betraying a woman he loved. If Julietta had any feelings for him other than sexual, he’d destroy her and hurt Mama Conte. Julietta was a woman with character, strength, purpose. She was loyal to her family and walked in the light. Deep down, he’d never be enough for her, and the longer they spent together, the more dangerous the outcome. Better to allow Julietta the distance she desperately craved. She deserved a man who was whole and could give her the kind of life she deserved.

Marriage. Babies. A full heart. Not someone who had nothing else to offer her other than good intentions and endless nights of sex.

No, he needed to end it now. Go back to the standard working relationship and be happy with memories.

His gut burned like acid.

“What are you doing?”

Sawyer jerked his head around. Wolfe stood in the doorway in a long-sleeved Nike shirt and boxers. His crazy hair stood straight up at wacky angles. “Nothing.” Sawyer’s voice was empty, as devoid of emotion as his own pathetic soul. “Go back to bed.” He was about to turn away when he caught the look in the boy’s eyes.