My dick pulsed in protest.
Amanda wrapped her arm behind my back, leaning into me as we began to walk up the sand and over the dune. “I’m an adult now. I don’t want to wait. I wantyou.”
If it was bliss I felt earlier while, holding her on the sandy shore, it was boundless joy to hear that.
“You’ve been eighteen for less than seven hours,” I teased.
Her fist playfully punched my gut.
The groan that escaped my lips was real.
Stopping by the door, I pulled her in front of me. Her fingers gripped the hoodie at my back, her blue gaze shimmered as she stared up at me with shy excitement. Madonna, she was innocent. Eager and intoxicating. Was I a monster for wanting her? My life lay with the underworld.
What if I carve a different future?
I was already headed to college on a football scholarship. I didn’t have to become a Made Man.
“I love you, my sweet, beautiful flower,” I confessed in Italian.
“I know,” she responded.
“If we do this, there will be no one else for me.”
At my declaration, Amanda stilled. “That’s a heavy vow. I won’t hold you to it.”
I shook my head. “Forever.”
“Per sempre,” she repeated.
We opened the cottage door, and I let her pull me upstairs to the cozy little bedroom where we let our bodies write that confession in our souls.
Chapter 45 –Vincenzo
Amanda brushed off the panic attack from the boutique like it didn’t happen. She needed help. This was the second panic attack in the short time she’d been in Boston. Mental trauma was a serious condition, and I wasn’t trained to give her what she needed. But I would find someone.
I would help her.
And if her father wasn’t already destined for a slow, painful death, he was after this.
Amanda needed to know that she didn’t have to carry the weight of the world any longer. That she could give control away, that I had her.
My phone rang on the counter as I checked the browned chicken in the oven. It was done, so I shut the oven off, left the door cracked, and took the phone call into the weight-room.
“Well?” I asked.
“Hello to you, too,” Alexei chuckled.
I clenched my jaw. “Tell me you have good news.”Or I’ll do more than punch you for wasting my time.
“The hunt is set. The trophy buck you wanted will be here.” He gave me a date. “It’s up to you to provide the bait.”
I closed my eyes. What we needed was time. To do this, Amanda had to be on board. She had to want to fight with us and for us. The plan was simple: eliminate the external threat before destroying the local one. Loring was a man living on borrowed time. A selfish part of me kept him alive so that he could watch his empire crumble—something that was actively happening in the background. But if I went and killed him, which was highly tempting, I didn’t trust that his international contact would stay away. Better that both should fall and leave my wife a free woman.
“Give me a week,” I gritted.
Alexei protested, but I held firm. As much as I wanted the threat neutralized, it needed to be done carefully.
“It isn’t going to work if the bait doesn’t want to participate,” I argued.
