My blood chilled as events that happened seventeen years ago slammed through me. Things I wanted to forget, but never could. The dots were all connecting. And if I was right…Jesus, if I was right…
Fear for her twisted my bowels, another long-forgotten emotion. One I hadn’t felt since I was a child. My mind raced as I shoved that fear down deep into the emotional lockbox I’d created out of necessity for my own survival. And now it would come in handy for Luna’s. I needed to be sure that what I suspected was true, though, before I acted on it. “I’m sorry, I need to go.” Quickly, I strapped on my holster and grabbed my jacket from her bed.
“What? Wait! Where are you going?” She followed me to the window.
“Stay here. Lock your door,” I told her. I allowed myself the luxury of looking back at her and memorizing her features one more time before I turned and opened the window. “Take this. Use it if you have to.” Reaching into my front pants pocket, I pulled out the small knife I carried on me at all times. I would’ve left her my gun, but I would need that if I was caught sneaking back off the property. “I’ll be back,” I promised.
With one last brush of my lips to hers, I slipped outside.
CHAPTER 15
Luna
Ilaid in bed for hours waiting for Tristan to come back, my mind spinning and my fingertips lightly touching my bruised lips, the knife he’d left with me tucked under my pillow.
What the hell was I doing? What was I thinking?
I needed to get my shit together and stop swooning over a mafia guy I knew absolutely nothing about except that he could make me come like nobody’s business.
He also killed for you.
My fingers stilled, and I dropped my hand back to the bed near my hip. That knowledge was more seductive than his kisses, I had to admit. Was that why I didn’t tell Gino about him? Why I reacted to him the way I did? Why my body was on fire for him even now? Other than my brother, I’d never known anyone who cared enough about me to protect me from anything.
Hell, I’d half expected to come home to an empty house tonight after Tristan’s parting words at the restaurant. The guard who was waiting for me when I left the bathroom had put me in an empty car for the ride home, and it wasn’t until I got to the house and found Gino drinking in his office that I knew he was still alive. I’d smiled through my disappointment and accepted the glass of wine he’d handed me, along with his apology. Then I’d taken a second glass of wine. And a third.
He didn’t scold me for hiding in the bathroom at the party. Instead, he drank along with me and started telling me about his dead wife. When his stories became stilted and his sentences trailed off, I’d fully expected him to fuck me. He always did when he drank like that. And when he didn’t, I started to worry that he would follow me to my room to do it. For the first time in a long time, shame and disgust had rolled through me, hoping that Tristan would show up, but not wanting him to see Gino using my body.
What would he do if he saw Gino fucking me through the window again? Would he watch like he had before? Or would he sneak into my room and kill him while he was still inside of me?
But to my surprise, Gino had smiled at me, smoothed my hair with his hand like I was a child, and sent me off to bed after telling me he’d see me in the morning. Glad to escape, I’d stumbled down the hall to my room and gotten changed. Then I’d sat on my bed and waited, much like I did now, for the man I knew would come.
My plan was to tell him this…thingbetween us had to stop. That I belonged to Gino. I’d made an agreement with him, and I was going to live up to my end. My brother’s future depended on it.Myfuture depended on it. I had to stop messing around like this.
And what about the guard he’d killed? Tristan had given no indication that he was even the slightest bit concerned about my being a witness to the murder he’d committed right here in my room, and I was beginning to believe that he genuinely wasn’t. As a matter of fact, he didn’t seem like a man who was concerned about much of anything except getting what he wanted when he wanted it, especially when it came to me.
However, when he’d shown up, his jaw tense and his dark eyes burning with lust, the words had dried up in the back of my throat, and I couldn’t recall the speech I’d prepared so carefully in my head.
I sighed and rolled over, putting my back to the door and facing the window. Then I threw off the blankets. A minute later, I was too cold and pulled them back over my legs again. My braid felt too tight, so I tugged on the strands until it wasn’t pulling my scalp, remembering how Tristan had gathered the mass of it in his hands and pulled it up to his nose. Then I had an itch in the middle of my back that I couldn’t reach, and it wouldn’t go away, so I got up and went into the bathroom. Grabbing my comb off the sink, I tried to reach it that way for a few seconds before I gave up and used the corner of the wall. Then I got back into bed and went back to watching the window.
My stomach growled, and I sighed. I hadn’t eaten much of anything today, and I’d been too upset to think about it when I’d gotten back here tonight. Rolling over, I stared at the door. It wasn’t locked. At least, not that I knew of. And Gino had drunk enough wine that I was pretty positive he’d be passed out by now. I could probably sneak down to the kitchen and find something to eat.
Then I rolled back over and faced the window again, worried that if Tristan returned and I wasn’t in here, he’d start searching the house for me. And what if he ran into Gino or one of the guards? What if they hurt him? Or worse? If I was being real, it was hard to imagine anyone who would be able to get close enough to that man to harm him without him knowing about it. But they had guns. You didn’t need to be close to someone to shoot them.
Closing my eyes, I tried to settle down enough to go to sleep, but all I could see was Tristan standing in my room, his jacket off and his shirt unbuttoned, showing off a strong chest with naturally tan skin and a light dusting of dark hair. I’d also seen what he’d obviously been trying to hide—the pink and white, puckered scars that peeked out from beneath the edges of his shirt. I wondered how many of those scars he had.
I don’t like to be touched.
I heard the creak of a floorboard out in the hall, interrupting my thoughts. My door opened, and I rolled over to find Gino standing half in and half out of my room.
“I thought you’d be asleep,” he told me.
For a moment, I couldn’t speak over the pounding of my heart. In the weeks that I’d been here, Gino had always been pretty predictable in his actions. And he’d never shown up in my room after sending me to bed. He either came with me immediately, or he didn’t show up at all. At least, that I knew of. Had he been coming to my room when I was asleep? Exactly how many men had been creeping around my room at night? “Um, no. Not yet.”
“May I come in?”
I didn’t answer him because I didn’t really think my answer would’ve mattered, and he didn’t seem to expect one as he stepped the rest of the way in and shut the door behind him. He turned back toward me, and I caught a flash of metal caught in the dim glow from the bathroom nightlight. Slowly, I pushed myself up to a sitting position. Despite my racing heart, I managed to keep my voice calm. “Gino? What’s going on?”
Using the barrel of the gun in his hand, he scratched his head, then let it drop back down to his side. “I’ve loved you for a long time, Luna. A long, long time.” His words were slightly slurred.
