Page 46 of Tempting My Mafia Monster

“My family can help save yours. If we escaped, we’d find them and protect them from Sean and—”

“No!” he snapped, his head whipping around over his shoulder without looking at me. A muscle in his jaw twitched as his nostrils flared. He wouldn’t change his mind. Angry tears welled in my eyes. He really would never leave. “I can’t go.”

“And I can’t stay!”

He turned around and met my furious gaze with indifference. I pressed my lips together to hold back the emotions threatening to spill out. I wanted to scream, stamp my feet, or throw something at his head for being so stubborn. But I knew neither would do any good. So instead, I marched away, grabbed a book, and slumped into the chair, pretending to read, even though the lines were just a blur of ink splotches. The silent treatment. Once again, it was the only control I had.

He came back in and grabbed his cigarettes, leaning against the door frame as he lit one. I could feel his eyes on me, so I turned the page, pretending to be engrossed in anything but him.

“Even if we made it past the guards outside without a bullet in our heads, he’d have set the dogs on us.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t even look up. Maybe that was true, but at least we’d have tried, not rotted away in this bunker like sitting ducks. He’d escaped once before. He knew he could do it again.

“You wanna be mauled by twenty rabid hounds, Little Monster? They’d rip that pretty face right off your skull.”

I flicked over another page. The tension crackled along with the cigarette as he took another inhale.

“Musician. Composer. Nurse. And now, a new talent.”

My gaze flicked up to him from under my eyelashes. He pointed at the book in my hand with his cigarette. “You’re reading upside down, Darlin’.”

I slammed it shut, lifting my chin to glare at him with all the fury I could muster. He tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. “You that mad at me, eh?”

“Mad?” I raised my eyebrows, letting a touch of my Italian fire show in a sarcastic tone. “Why would I be mad? It’s not as if I’ve just realised I’m no longer being held captive by a narcissistic Irish mob boss. I’m being held captive by you!”

His eyes flickered with hurt, and he stepped forward. “Raya—”

“Don’t!” I flung the book onto the bed and stood, pacing. My body shook with anger, but I wouldn’t shout. I could count the times I’d let my temper get the better of me on one hand. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t seething. “Have you thought about what happens to me if you lose a fight? What happens to the family you’re trying to protect by staying here? We all die anyway. You die, we die. Right? That could happen tonight.”

He rolled his lips and glanced away from me. “It won’t.”

“You’re not immortal, Monster. You’re made of flesh and bone, like the rest of us. One day, Sean might put you in a ring and bet against you. He could have you fight a man deadlier than you. Then what? You can’t trust he’ll want you alive forever.”

His shoulders tensed, his chest rising with each rapid breath as he tried to keep his emotions in check. I knew I shouldn’t push him too far, but I also knew I was getting through to him. He could see my point.

“You think I don’t know that?” he growled, his voice low and strained. His black eyes pierced mine, and my lips parted at the stories of suffering they held. I immediately wanted to reach for him and take it all away. “Why do you think I’ve endured all this…” He raised his hands, gesturing to the situation we were in. “Why do you think I took every beating and abuse as a child until I learned to fight back? Why do you think I endured endless days or weeks of blackness, starvation, and ghosts at the bottom of an open well? Why did I allow him to play his psychological mind games on me, giving me triggers I can’t control so I feel more beast than man? Why do you think I walk into that ring every time and kill men for a vial of ink to hide my scars?”

He stormed towards me as I stood still. The pain in my heart grew heavier with each admission of what he’d been through, and I still knew there was more.

“Because that’s my survival,” he growled. “I had to live through it. I’m still living through it, even when I want it to end. Dyin’ would be a mercy. But I made a promise. A blood vow I’ll never break. As long as I remain breathin’, so do they. And now, so do you. So yes.” He grabbed my face in his hands. “I’ll be fuckin’ immortal if that means you’ll be safe. I’ll bleed for you, break every bone in my body for you, scar every inch of my skin. Kneel at your feet and beg for you. But don’t ever ask me to let you go. Because I’m not capable of that. That’s the only thing that will kill me.”

I gulped as a tear slid down my cheek. He watched it fall, his face devoid of emotion, but I knew him well enough to see the tension flicker in his eyes. He hated seeing me upset.

I wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my face in his chest, breathing him in. His arms lifted around me, drawing me closer until there was no space between us.

God, if I could… if it were possible… I would crawl beneath his scarred skin and build walls around his heart with my own hands. I’d protect his mind from the demons that kept him trapped in his own hell. I would carry every pain ever inflicted on him, just to give him five minutes of peace. A few minutes of freedom from everything he’d done and from everything that had been done to him.

I tightened my arms around him, kissing his chest above his pounding heart, hoping he could feel what I felt for him. Then he might see himself as I did. When I looked at him, I didn’t see an evil monster. I saw the strength that held him together when most men would have shattered long ago; the quiet tenderness that lived in a blackened heart. I saw the fierce, stubborn way he did whatever he could to protect those he loved, and the small pieces of humanity that hadn’t been taken from him.

He thought he was worthless, something broken beyond repair.

But to me, he was nothing short of perfect.

Fight For Freedom

“Wakey, wakey, lovebirds,” Sean shouted through the peephole before he slid it shut with a loud clang and unlocked the door. Monster immediately sat up from where we’d been spooning on the single mattress, dozing in and out of sleep, putting himself between the Irish Boss and me. “Hate to tear the pair of you apart, but it’s time to make me some money, Monster.”

My eyes narrowed into a lethal glare as I sat up, feeling more hatred for this man than I ever had for anyone in my life.