“I can’t believe he snuck into Simone’s van. He barely made it out when she was attacked. What was he thinking?” I shook my head, still in disbelief. “Is this who he really is?” I wasn’t sure why the thought of Gio being like me and like my parents was an unsettling one. Maybe because I’d always seen him as this beacon of light among the dark. But I’d been naive. This was ourworld, and even though he’d stood on the sidelines for so long, I realized now he was always watching.
Kai rubbed reassuring circles on my back, and I closed my eyes, letting the calm of his touch relieve my worries. Being in his arms felt so right. It was a terrifying thought in some ways because I’d never needed anyone like I needed him at that moment.
“He saved your life,” I whispered, snaking my arm up over his bare abdomen. The soft thuds of his heart gradually accelerated…or maybe it was my own.
“He saved yours.”
I propped my arms on his chest. “I wasn’t the one with a shotgun to the back of my head.”
“Maybe not.” A slight smile tugged at his lips as his hand came up around the side of my neck. “But neither one of us would be here had he not snuck away. And I would have had the worst time in hell.” Kai’s hand tightened around my nape. “Knowing that son of a bitch had taken you.”
“Is that right, Cain?”
“I’m back to being Cain?”
I laughed and lifted my finger to his lips, tracing the soft contours. “Always.”
He pressed a kiss against my skin. “Will you?”
Montesinos was my family’s name. If Kai and I would only be married temporarily, I didn’t see a point in changing it.
“This isn’t real, Kai. You know that.”
“Feels pretty fucking real to me.” Turning on his side, he hauled me closer so that our bodies were flush, his cock hard against my abdomen. But somehow, we both knew sex wasn’t the plan here. Not tonight.
“Don’t do that,” I whispered, closing my eyes and lowering my face. “You know what this is and, most importantly, what it’s not.”
“Yeah,” he said, barely audible.
Several minutes ticked by, and while Kai hadn’t said anything more, his hold on me hadn’t loosened in the slightest.
And I was glad.
“Do you think your—that man who adopted you—is behind this?” I’d heard what had happened with Silas and Helena. As far as I knew, it had been nearly two years since anyone had heard from him. But all the people he had a vendetta against would be in one place together. And after all, my girls and I had a hand in his downfall when we took out that Russian prick.
“I don’t think so, but I can’t say for sure. Maybe you should ask your friend, Rocco, how they knew we’d hit that particular compound since he planned it.”
His words held accusatory undertones. I knew where his mind had gone, and maybe I’d had those thoughts, too. But this was Rocco. We’d known each other since the two of us were in diapers. He’d never put me in a position where my life was at risk—that much I was sure of.
“I plan to.”
“I’ll go with you.”
I scoffed. “I don’t need you to protect me, much less from Rocco.”
“Are you always this obnoxiously stubborn?”
“Always.”
His laugh vibrated against my body, and it replied accordingly. Heat settled in my belly.
“Reina,” he whispered to himself. “It means queen.” I nodded. “Mi reina,” he said again, as though testing the way the words rolled off his tongue. I squeezed my thighs together, my pussy throbbing. The phrase did things to me coming from his lips.
“Cain?”
“Hmm?” he said, his voice now thick with exhaustion.
“Go to sleep.”
