And yet…Karina washere.In my home.
In my bed.
After I shredded the last week, we’d spent together with a rusted, bloodied knife, my words sliced through her barrier of light, and I let the darkness seep in once more.
As anguish formed in her beautiful blue eyes, success was on the horizon.
Why did this success feel like I just lost the war?
What was the point of sitting on a throne when there was no one to sit beside you?
Because you were meant to be alone…quarantined away from happiness.
After I sent her away, I felt worthless. Then again, the only time I felt an ounce of worth was in her presence.
Why had I been so careless with the most precious thing to me?
You don’t deserve her.
I never had, which was why I had to let her go.
What the hell was wrong with me?
A whimper drew me out of my self-loathing thoughts, anchored down by the countless mistakes I’d made when it came to her.
She was wearing those yellow silk pajamas that made my cock weep. The last few hours had been a blur, a painful blur. There were so many things to do, so many phone calls to make and people to kill. The time to process wasn’t now. Now was the time to make my move, stake my claim.
So much to do.
And yet…my eyes wouldn’t move away from the woman in my bed.
When I returned about thirty minutes ago, I’d nearly shot Xander on sight for disobeying my orders. Hell, my bloodlust wasn’t even close to satisfied. Not tonight. Not after the venomous truth that fell from the Romano’s lips.
My man was instructed to stay in St. Louis for the next month to keep an eye on Karina, to make sure she was moving on and she was safe. I’d planned on staying away from her, no matter how much it would’ve tortured me. I’d suffered plenty of torture throughout my life; what was a little more?
I would run the empire, focus on baseball, and finally get the mafia into other spots—something Romano had been trying to do for years— and—my life would bebearable,just as it always had been. I would eat, sleep, breathe, kill until death finally found me. That was the fucking plan.
Until tonight.
I was equally pissed off and hopeful to find my man standing at the dock, waiting for me with a passive expression. Dread skated across my skin as I watched the steady rise and fall of her chest, her blonde hair splayed out on my pillow.
Did I want her here?
Yes.
Did I realize my idiotic mistake after being blown out of a window?
Yes.
Did this angel before me deserve to be dragged into my life of darkness because I wanted her there?
No.
How the fuck was she supposed to move on when she was in my bed?
She is where you want her. Take her.
I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose as a deep, much needed sigh left my lungs.
