Vacation with the Shifty Shark

🦈 Antonella "Nella" DeLuca — I left Jersey to get away from men like him.

The gold chains. The cologne. The smile that's all charm and zero conscience. I know exactly what Nico Torretti is the second he walks into my Miami bar — the same kind of dangerous mistake my mother warned me about every Sunday dinner while my father yelled in the background. But I've always preferred swimming in deep waters.

He says he's here about my debt. I say he can park his designer swim trunks on a barstool and watch me earn it back — five days, Spring Break weekend, then he gets his money and gets out of my life.

He agrees. Then he doesn't leave. Sharks don't, once they smell something worth staying for.

He's behind my bar every night. Tasting my margaritas like he's grading them. Scaring off every guy who gets too close. Circling me like I'm something he wants to sink his teeth into.

I should be afraid of him.

But this hulking loan shark doesn't scare me. And that's the part that should terrify us both.