I can’t promise that.Even though a part of my heart does.He’s saved my life three times now.Four, if you count locking me in that bedroom while he hunted and killed my family.
I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for him.And I probably won’t survive away from him.In all the craziness that is my life now, that’s the one irrefutable fact.Painful as it is to know, it’s comforting too.
Chapter24
MATTEO
I could see allmy grand plans coming to nothing if I had to go back to Ferro and tell him I lost Gianna.I could also very clearly see him killing me over the failure.But most of all, I could see her lost and alone in the world, with no one to turn to.Like one of those pretty canary birds escaped from its cage… falling prey to the first bigger bird that flew by, its shiny, pretty colors making it impossible to blend in.Goldie shines too bright, she wouldn’t be able to blend it.And she’d never been out on her own.She has no idea how this world works.Or how cruel and dangerous it can be.
So no, it wasn’t fear for myself and my future that had me running around the boardwalk, asking anyone and everyone if they’d seen a blonde in a black dress.Mostly I just got scared little shakes of heads and looks like they feared attack.They were right.If anyone had said the wrong thing to me, I’d probably kill them.
I got lucky in a small convenience store.The girl behind the counter was chatty, speaking in a thick Russian or Polish accent, popping a bright pink bubble at me as she told me about a short blonde in a black dress with no shoes on buying a phone and some sweats.She paid cash.Where the fuck did she get cash?
But that’s not the question I should’ve been asking.It’s where she went next.That the Russian woman didn’t know.Maybe she turned left, she thought.
I had no better lead to go on, so I followed it.And got lucky.Something gold shimmering in the darkness caught my eye.It was her dress, hanging off the edge of a foul-smelling dumpster in a foul-smelling alley.
There were only three ways out of that alley—further into the darkness, back to the boardwalk where she fled from me and to the beach beyond the boardwalk and away from all the lights and noise.
I followed my gut and went to the beach… because that’s where I’d go.
And I found her surrounded by five nasty businessmen or whatever, probably thinking they’d finally hit the jackpot for once in their life when they found her alone on the beach.
I enjoyed proving them wrong.And I would’ve killed the one who got closest to her if she hadn’t spoken to me.Not something a woman should see—a man killing in an animal rage.Even if it’s for her.Someone told me that once.Maybe my grandfather.He was full of old-world advice like that.
Useless if the way Goldie melted into my arms after I saved her is anything to go by.She’s still leaning on me heavily now as we make our way back onto the boardwalk.
I walk to the first hotel with lights still on in the lobby.It’s an old-style bed and breakfast with lots of wooden decor, brass accents and red carpets lining the floor.
She stops me before we can enter.“You’re covered in blood.“I’ll get us a room.”
“Your face is too,” I say, horrified at seeing traces of my bloody handprints on her cheeks.I use the edge of my shirt to clean it off as best I can.
She lets me do it, then holds out her hand, expecting my wallet and I hand it over without a second thought.Pretty dangerous, seeing as she had just run from me, but I doubt she’ll be doing that again any time soon.She’s a smart girl, my Goldie, quick to learn her lessons.
The lights in the lobby make her hair and her skin glow.I follow at a distance, keeping to the shadowy areas and a few minutes later, she has us booked in and a porter in a jacket that matches the red carpet and the brass decor shows us to our room on the second floor.A suite with a huge bed and not much else in it.As it should be.
The sea stretches out beyond the large windows and the air in the room is almost as fresh as out by the ocean.She goes to the window as soon as we enter and gazes at the shimmering darkness stretching out towards the horizon.I join her.
“What the hell were you thinking?”I ask.“Where’d you even get the money for a phone?”
If she’s wondering how I know about that her face isn’t showing it.I saw it in the sand next to the nasty guy I pulled off her and put it in the pocket of my jacket before draping it around her shoulders.I’ll get it out and get rid of it later.Because right now, she looks like she’s ready to drop.
“The chips, I pocketed some.”I didn’t even know her dress had pockets, tight as it was.
“I didn’t think I’d fail so badly so fast.”Her voice is so faint that the sound of the waves from beyond the double pane glass of the windows almost drowns it out.
“You didn’t fail.You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”I want to kill those bastards all over again for daring to scare her like they did.
She shivers so hard a whimpering sound escapes her lips.
“Come on, let’s get you warmed up.”
I take her hand and lead her to the bathroom.She goes willingly, floating beside me as if carried by water.
The bathroom is larger than I’d expected it to be, big enough for a shower and a clawfoot bathtub with a view of the ocean.I run the water for a bath despite how much I want to rip her clothes off and take her against the steamed-up shower stall.Fighting always makes me want to fuck and fighting for her has taken that to mind-altering heights.
But she’d just had the fright of her life, she deserves to be pampered.And she’s not the kind of girl you just fuck.She’s the kind of woman you take your time with.And I plan to.
