“Mostly, I’m mad at myself. I-I shouldn’t have let my guard down?—”
“Porca troia, that’s the last thing you should take from this mess. I want you to let your guard down. You’re safe with me,duci. Sempri. Always.” He gritted his teeth. “I can’t wait to torture that fucker for proving that I’m lying to you, but I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure that you’re always secure?—”
“You can’t promise that,” I butted in, because I wanted to believe him. But I couldn’t. Life had proven otherwise. And not just last night.
That situation with Cade’s father-in-law. Losing Vinny. Killing Neev’s teacher. Da’s death…
Mob-adjacent or not, the underworld poisoned everything it touched.
And no matter how much I tried to avoid it—I was a part of it.
Whether I liked it or not.
“I can promise it,” he growled, drawing me away from my thoughts.
“Stan, youcan’t.I don’tneed you to. I’m a realist.”
His eyes shuttered like he was the one in pain. And maybe he was. But this kind left bruises on the soul, not the skin.
"Do you know how many people I've lost, Kitty?"
"We all lose people," I rasped. "It's life."
"I won't lose you." He snarled the words as one hand balled into a fist. "You can push me away and I'll let you. You can decide that you never want to see me again. And I'll let you. But you will always have Sicilian guards, whether we’re together or not, and you’ll be safe. I won't be the reason you die."
There were so many fucked-up things in that statement. Too many. And I was in too much discomfort to be horny. Truly.
But damn.
His red flags made me want to burrito myself in them.
Best. Blanket. Ever.
"What if I dated another man?"
Apparently, exhaustion and pain didn’t remove the sass from my DNA.
His jaw clenched so hard that I was sure he'd break his teeth.
"I might kill him, but your guards would make sure you weren’t around at the time."
I snorted. "I appreciate the restraint."
And like quicksilver, he shot me a grin. A sheepish one.
"You're mine, Kitty. Did you forget that?"
Despite the hot water, I shivered. "I didn't."
"You swear you knew I'd come for you?" When I nodded, he shifted until he was leaning against the side of the bath, one arm trickling into the water, a hand settling on my thigh. "My braveliunissa."
“I didn’t feel brave. Mostly, I felt angry.”
“Either way, it brought you back to me. But you’re wrong. Bravery is being afraid and still doing something about it.”
He rolled onto his knees, but that hand of his only wandered before it clamped down. Not enough to hurt, but for me to feel the connection between us stir to life. I saw it banked in his eyes and felt nothing but reassured—this went deeper than sex.
No matter his declaration last night, something uttered in the heat of the moment, the way he looked at me now was proof enough.
