"You are welcome, mio allievo preferito. You have done very well."His favorite student and praise on top. It is good to hear even if I am only his stu...dent because I was worse than a bitch when he met me."Tell me more about her, though. She looks wealthy." She lives in a modest house and her and her husband are schoolteachers." She didn't buy a dress like that on a schoolteacher's salary." It was a gift from an admirer, or so she told me. Please, ask me no more about her. I do not like to talk. Sonny said, “I know that you’ve gotten some bad news, but you can’t let that hold you down. You’ve got to get on with your life.”“Just what I need ... advice from an asshole,” Mike said bitterly.“If you weren’t a cop, I’d take your ass outside, and kick the shit out of it,” Sonny said without anger.“That would be a real challenge,” Mike said sarcastically. “I bet you’d like beating up a one armed man.”“It wouldn’t be a challenge at all, and I doubt it would be much fun. I do think it’s damned. He scanned down a list of problems with the craft: “Structural Integrity Compromised”, “Unexpected Forces Affecting Craft Performance”, “Unable to Stabilize”. As he wrestled with what was happening, he was blinded as the interior was bathed in brilliant lights from outside.If he wasn’t distracted by the alarms—necessitating immediate action—he’d have remembered to close his eyes to avoid this problem. As he groped for the display he couldn’t see, squeezing his eyes closed too late to do any. Darcy smiled at the slight pout of disappointment on my face. He leaned down and kissed me softly."Don’t worry, all will be revealed in time tonight, as long as you are a good girl,” he whispered in my ear so softly and in such a low tone that I wondered if I had imagined it.Was it the breeze, was it a car engine in the distance, or was it honestly that voice that said, “If you’re a good girl”? All that registered in the millisecond before my knees buckled, and his arm immediately caught me,.