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I don’t laugh at her lame ass joke.
“And you wouldn’t have done much different. I’m betting you’d have stayed with me and not chased him.”
A muscle tightens in my jaw as I pull up in the drive. She’s fucking right. I would have stayed with her once I saw herfighting an asshole, and saw the bruises. I’d be thinking, are there others? Or, I’d have fucking shot him.
When we get inside, I make her sit on the sofa and drink a bourbon. She has a couple of sips but puts it down. I make her tell the story over and over, trying to get anything at all from it.
But there’s nothing. She didn’t see the guy and ran into him, or rather, he put himself in her way, and then he hurled her into the wall. He tried to grab her, and she fought, and the girl, Rachel, I think her name is, came in.
Shit.
“I’m okay, Tizio, but I’ll take your cold, heartless exterior and heart surgeon bedside manner as you care.”
“Not fucking funny, sweet Karlee. You could have been hurt.” I ease her face up. The burn of her violet eyes firing my blood and the softness of her skin setting off all kinds of signals I don’t need right now within me.
“Just a bruise or two.”
“This isn’t a game,” I snap.
I’m being a bastard, I know, but what else am I fucking going to do? If I let myself really feel this, let it sink into me, soothe her the way she needs, something will crack open in me that I can’t afford to have cracked open, and I’ll lose my shit.
I’ll fucking tear this town apart to find her attacker and fucking kill him and everyone he knows.
That isn’t rage talking—just cold, hard fact.
Those kinds of things will land me where I can’t afford to be. In the cell next door to her brother.
The closest I’ve come to this kind of rage is when Mia and Blake were taken right under my nose. Fucking Mia shares a lot in common with Karlee. They’re both stubborn and full of fire. I won’t ever forgive myself for losing the two of them, for any amount of time, on my watch.
I can’t lose Karlee through stupidity and giving into my baser, vengeful urges.
“Tizio, I know it’s not a game. I got lost in work and I’m sorry.” She reaches for me.
I stand and step away.
“You don’t need to be sorry, okay? But be careful. I’ll pull you from school if I have to.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Yeah, Karlee, I fucking will.” My phone goes crazy, and I move off to the kitchen to grab something for her to eat. I slap together a sandwich and leave out a box of mac and cheese, the kind of shit I don’t eat but says comfort if I was twenty-two. I nab an apple and check my messages.
Wendy wants to know if Rachel should be fired. I text backno. After flicking through the rest, I addcome in to take over. There’ll be some De Luca men here too. No one gets in or out other than me.
Things are on fire. I knew about the fact there was some delicate De Luca negotiation with a party from the East Coast, and the boys and I had some official and unofficial things to take care of. All this couldn’t happen at a worse time, because I want to stay here with her, watching and protecting.
Returning to the living room, I hand her the food that she picks at, and I outline the plans for the evening.
“So, you’re leaving me?”
“I have work to do.”
Karlee looks down at the plate. “I see.”
“No, you fucking don’t. I need to be on my game tonight, and you . . . you undo that.”
She looks up, her grin bright like the morning sun.
“Don’t smile, kid. It’s not a compliment.”
