Normally when I wake up in a new place, my first reaction is panic. It usually only lasts a handful of seconds, but ever since I was taken in college and woke up in the trunk of a car, it takes my mind a moment to process that we’re safe.
Except apparently waking up surrounded by the scent of Colten is all my brain needs to know nothing and no one can hurt me.
That’s not quite the case, though.
Because the man himself has the power to destroy me.
I reach for my phone, where I dropped it on the bedside table, blinking sleepily at the handful of notifications waiting for me.
I’ll need to call my mom before she finds out what happened from someone else. Lord have mercy if it gets back to her before I have a chance to tell her.
An email catches my attention, my heart clenching so hard in my chest that I can barely breathe past the mix of panic and hope that slams into me.
Mafia Matchmaker
You have a perfect match!
A perfect match?
It’s not exactly uncommon for the algorithm to find someone perfectly compatible, I just didn’t think it would happen to me. I didn’t dare hope for such an outcome because I doubted I even had a soulmate.
My thumb shakes as I silently hype myself up to open the email.
Don’t get ahead of yourself,I remind myself. Just because the algorithm considers us a perfect match doesn’t mean that whoever’s name I find in the attached profile is going to be a good person.
Everyone that signs up for the Mafia Matchmaker goes through a round of checks, but at the end of the day, every single person is connected to organized crime, which means there’s always a chance they’re a shitty human being.
I swallow down my nerves and allow my thumb to tap the screen, but the contents have my heart clenching for an entirely new reason.
It’s not possible.
There’s no way Colten Pierce is my perfect match.
Because that would mean I’ve had the person I was meant to be with right in front of me my whole life.
I stare at the screen for long seconds, reading over the words in front of me, but none of them are processing.
This is insane. No, we’re well past insane right now.
This is impossible.
A thought niggles in the back of my mind that tears my eyes off the screen in front of me.
Colten’s known about this for…days maybe.
There’s a clause in the consent I signed with the matchmaker outlining that whichever party is more ingrained in the day-to-day operations of the organization is alerted to a match first. Sometimes that looks like hours, but most of the time it’s days or even weeks.
Which means Colten more than likely knew last night when he came to the restaurant that we were matched, and he almost definitely knew this morning when he was kneeling at my feet applying salve to my injuries.
Why didn’t he say anything?
Why would he wait for me to find out through an email instead of telling me himself?
Before I can catch myself, I’m flinging the bedroom door open, a mixture of anger and hurt swirling around in my stomach.
An unsuspecting Colten turns, a flicker of concern appearing on his face before amusement takes its place.
He knows he’s about to get chewed out.
