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“Glass,” is all I say. She’s got no shoes, and the floor of this room is a sharply glittering mess.
“I don’t care. I’d rather slice my feet open,” she hisses. I feel myself smile at that. My little Irish Songbird has a spine, that’s for sure.
I clutch her closer as I stride through the room and out the front door.
“You’re mine now, Songbird. And I won’t let anyone damage what’s mine. Not even you.”
Chapter 5
Elio
Outside, I see my younger brother Accursio. Though no one calls him his full name except our aunt and uncle. To everyone else, he’s Curse, the Titone family’s most feared assassin, deadly as a plague. As I approach with Deirdre, he shoves the corpse of the man I shot along with two others into his black Escalade’s trunk and slams it shut before turning towards us.
He knows what we’ve come for tonight. He knows Deirdre is mine. But when his dark eyes dip, ever so briefly, to her bare upper body in my arms, jealousy tightens in my gut.
It’s an absurd feeling. Curse is my most trusted man. My only brother. He’ll be my consigliere when I fully take over this family. I’ve literally walked through fire for him, and money can’t buy loyalty that an act like that earns. And besides that, he’s only ever wanted one girl, even though he hasn’t seen her since we were kids in Sicily. But even so, even knowing all this and seeing that there’s not a hint of lust in his gaze, I want to slug him just for looking at her.
I walk past him to my own black SUV, unlocking it and opening the door with Deirdre in my arms. My shoulder screams as I place her in the passenger seat. I don’t miss the way she shakes, and I shrug out of my suit jacket, holding it out to her. She glares at it as if it’s a venomous snake. I remember her comment about how she’d rather slice her feet open than be carried by me, and I know she’s too proud, or too angry, to take anything from me now.
But it’s too late for that. I already paid for the satin that sags, ruined, around her waist. Paid for the shoes lost somewhere in the snow. Paid for her whole fucking life the past year and a half, through the millions I loaned her father.
I stare down at her while she stares at the jacket, both of us unmoving, locked in a standoff.
I want to say, fine, and drop it. Let her be cold. Let her be proud and refuse me, even while she’s naked and trembling, even while she has absolutely nothing left in this world without me. Who cares if she takes the jacket? Who cares if she’s warm enough?
Apparently, I do.
Dio fucking help me. Even if you’ve never once helped me before.
I bend down to her, and she recoils, hunching against the leather seat. I wrap my hand around the back of her neck, forcing her forward enough so that I can slide the jacket between her spine and the seat. She’s tense under my hand, already straining backwards and away from me. I let go. My sudden lack of restraint on her makes her cry out with surprise, and the back of her head bounces off the cushioned headrest. I do up the jacket’s button at the front, my eyes catching on the blood smeared across her perfect pale skin. My blood.
Grim satisfaction is sick and hot inside me when I see the way I’ve marked her. The way I’ve stained her. Bled for her and bled on her.
I’m about to close the door on her when she reaches for me, her hand slipping between the flaps of my jacket, fingers wrapping around my wrist.
“Wait!” she cries. “My violin!”
“I’ll buy you a new one.”
I’ll buy her a whole symphony’s worth of shit if it means I can figure her out. Understand her hold on me.
But she shakes her head and looks so suddenly sad that it makes my jaw tick.
“I can’t leave it. It won’t take long. I know exactly where it is – under a table in the living room. Please,” she whispers.
And then I remember, casting my mind back to that stinking hot summer day and to what O’Malley said.
It was her mother’s, he told me.
And as if I’ve been called to battle, I straighten and turn back towards the house.
The violin belonged to her mother.
And now that I remember that fact, I can’t leave it behind either. I may be a scarred piece of shit, a monster, a murderer willing to take Deirdre’s very freedom away from her.
But I’m not willing to do this.
I’m too sentimental about mamma shit. My one fucking weakness.
