Cupping her face, I tell her, “I need you to go to the bedroom and wait for me.”
Through blurry eyes, she shakes her head. “No,” she stammers through a full-body shake. “I can’t.”
Witnessing her disarrayed state makes me murderous. I’d like nothing more than to end Enzo for pulling this shit with her present.
“Don’t fucking touch her,” he roars.
I snap my head at him, narrowing my eyes to slits. “Be pissed all you want, but not even if you empty all the bullets into me, will I stop touching her.”
I wrap her in my arms, needing to comfort her as she sobs in my chest. “I’m so sorry. So sorry.”
“Please, stop crying. It’s killing me, baby girl.” I kiss the top of her head, and she claws her fingers in my chest as if making sure nothing can take me from her.
I stare down the asshole who came to my house to discover the so-called betrayal. Fuck, I should have known that the moment he suspected something, nothing would have stopped him from pursuing the truth.
One more night and I would have told him. But the asshole is fucking impatient. It’s my fault. I should have told him the first moment he returned.
“Let’s go home, Dahlia. Now,” he says with finality.
From deep within me, the need to claim her unfurls, and I grit my teeth. “She’s not going anywhere.”
His eyes turn to arrows ready to strike me down. “You really want to die, asshole?”
“Fucking try. You can rip my cold, dead body away from her,” I snap. Pulling her to my chest, I erase every inch of space between our bodies.
When Dahlia stops shaking, I urge her to the bedroom, but she rips herself from my arms and runs down the stairs.
For a moment, I forget Enzo is her brother, but an enemy I want to take apart for being a potential danger to her. I take off after her.
Luckily, he lowers the gun before she reaches him. She pushes at his chest, looking so hurt, my need to comfort her overriding my self-preservation instincts.
“If one bullet hits him, you can forget that you have a sister. I’d kill myself just to be with him.”
Her words rip through the air, more lethal than any bullet.
His eyes widen, eyeing me with pure malice. “What the fuck did you do to her?”
Glaring at him, I gnash my teeth, trying and failing by the second to keep myself under control.
I pull her to my side. Turning her around, I palm her face, watching him from the corner of my eye, needing to stay alert.
“Baby girl, please go upstairs.”
I must tread carefully. Not for his sake or mine, but for hers, the sunshine in my life who warms the cold nights, brightens my dark world, and lights up my entire being.
“We were planning to tell you. Tomorrow. You couldn’t have waited one more night?” she cries out, switching from an emotional mess to an angry one. They have that in common—being temperamental as fuck.
Enzo blinks at her as if not understanding what to think.
He paces, waving the gun through the air. “Since fucking when?” he demands.
Just then, my sister bursts through the door and notices the scene.
She rushes to Enzo, and they have a quiet, heated argument. I can’t hear with the adrenaline rushing through my body. The fight instinct blares in my ears, deafening me.
She stretches out her hand. “Give me the gun.”
He reluctantly slaps the Glock in her palm and leans against the wall, sulking.
