Page 62 of Tempting My Mafia Monster

Maddox lifted his cuffed hands and grabbed the front of my dress at my waist. He pulled me closer until my body was trapped against his, my arms hanging between us. He peered down at me as he lifted his hands to my neck, the rough tape on his palms sliding up the sides until he cupped my face, admiring my features as if it were the last time. The heat from his body wrapped me in a false sense of security, one I could pretend would last forever.

He rested his forehead against mine.

For one tiny second, everything else faded away.

It was just us.

Just him breathing against my lips. His gaze burned into mine.

A moment. Before we both knew nothing would ever be the same.

“You belong with me,” he murmured. “Always.”

I’ll win for you. I’ll always win for you. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you. Even if it means you’ll hate me.

Tears already blurred my vision.

The doctor stepped behind Maddox, syringe in hand. My lips trembled as he raised it to Maddox’s neck this time. A choked whimper escaped me as I saw the exact moment I’d lost Maddox. Monster stared back. But he was still mine. They both were.

His jaw clenched so hard it looked painful as the doctor withdrew the empty syringe. The muscles in his neck bulged. His pupils blew wide, swallowing the lighter shades in his irises. His whole body seemed to sharpen with a predatory aura. The monster they all feared had been unleashed from its cage.

Yet he hadn’t taken his eyes off me, as if I were the only thing keeping him calm. As if the man inside was still trying to hold on to the one thing that made him human, because we both knew that the moment he looked away, he’d be lost to his darkness. As the seconds slipped by, I could see the losing battle raging inside him. The drugs were taking him somewhere brutal, somewhere necessary for what he had to do.

My brother was about to walk into an arena with that. And he wouldn’t survive it.

The doctor stepped away, his eyes guarded as he watched Monster’s reaction to the higher dosage. When he was convinced Monster wasn’t about to drop dead, he began packing away his equipment.

“Two minutes,” a soldier shouted from somewhere in the room. My heart roared in my chest as I stared into his black eyes, wishing there could be another way.

But there wasn’t. McKenna never gave me an opening.

There was only one choice left.

And it would break me forever.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Monster exhaled softly against my mouth. His hands tightened slightly on my face.

“Look at me.”

I forced myself not to be a coward. I looked at the man I loved with my entire soul as my fingers lifted the hem of my dress between us. They clasped the handle. I slipped the knife free from the holster on my thigh. My entire body shook, and tears raced down my cheeks. Monster looked down between us briefly. He spotted the knife. Then he slowly lifted his eyes back to mine.

My face scrunched with emotion too crippling to name, because there was no shock on his face. No anger. Just indifference.

I could barely breathe as I brought the knife to his side, beneath his injured ribs, hiding it between our bodies from the other eyes in the room.

“Raya…” he whispered, too gently. “Do what you have to, Little Monster.”

A broken sob ripped from my throat. “I have to give him a chance.”

“So do it.”

My hands wouldn’t stop trembling. I could barely make out his face through my blurred tears. “I can’t.”

He wiped the tears from my cheeks, his body trembling with the effort to keep his violence locked inside him.

I pressed the blade harder against his side, but I still couldn’t force it through his skin. I shook my head against his, showing him my weakness. My love.

A sad sort of smile curved his lips, and he moved his hands down between us. They covered mine on the handle, steady and warm. He guided the knife. My breath caught the moment the sharp blade pierced his skin and kept going deeper. He made a quiet grunt against my lips as he lifted his hands to grab my face once more.