Page 33 of The Doctor

“I don’t—”

He held up his hand. “What I mean to say is, you’re allowed to have needs separate from the people you help. I don’t want you to take the oath you gave me when you were seven so seriously that you fail to do anything for yourself. I want you to live your life to the fullest. Now, whether that means a wife and kids—”

“I’m not—”

“Or a husband,” he said, his raised brows cutting off my words. “Or a dog. Or even traveling to another country, or around this one. I know your mother always wanted to take you to Europe, but it never…”

It never happened.

Because she got sick.

She got sick and died and left me alone in the world, with no one other than this family—Paulo and the Syndicate—to lean on.

“She would have wanted you to do something for yourself, too, Zeno. Both she and your father. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t challenge you to be the man your parents wanted you to become.”

My eyes burned and blurred as my throat tightened to the point of pain.

Some days, it felt like he knew my parents better than I had. That the seventeen years between us had allotted him the time with them I’d never been able to have. I’d always clung to every word he ever spoke about either of them, just as I did now.

My father had been a doctor in the Syndicate when Paulo’s father was at the helm. My mother had been his faithful nurse, and I was his little gopher, helping him whenever I could. When my father was murdered before my eyes, my mother stepped in to do what she could to piece together—and hold together—the men and women of the Syndicate.

I’d promised Paulo, at the age of seven, that I would live my life for him if he’d avenge my father’s death.

And now he was telling me to live my life for me.

As if my service to him was done.

As if he were removing the shackles I’d placed upon myself that tied me to this world I’d never wanted to leave.

All I could think about were the things I knew I shouldn’t. A certain brown-eyed, blonde-haired hurricane that tore my life apart every minute she was in it. Her pretty pink pussy. Her gorgeous, sexy body.

The way she felt as I held her against my throbbing dick in the front seat of my car.

I wiped a hand down my face, trying to clear away the visions of Clara laid out on my bed, naked and dripping, waiting for me to tear into her and make her body my home.

I couldn’t want her.

I shouldn’t.

But it was getting harder and harder to tell myself no.

As if thinking about her manifested even more problems I didn’t need, Adalberto’s loud voice came blasting down the long hall, preceding him into the sitting room.

“Paulo, my friend, you should have told me you—” He stopped short, one foot inside the door, as his gaze landed on me. All his boisterousness halted, and it took a full minute for him to say another word. Before doing so, he dragged his wide-eyed gaze across my slumped form before he finally directed his attention to Paulo.

With his head cocked to one side and his face pinched, he quickly glanced at his watch.

“I thought we weren’t starting until six.”

Paulo tipped his head in my direction. “Zeno and I were just having a little chat.”

Berto stepped into the room with the type of caution that should be given to an uncaged lion. “Is it Clara? What’d she do this time?”

That scoff that burst from my lungs? Yeah, there was no stopping it. “I am more than just your daughter’s babysitter, Berto.”

“I know that,” he shot back, but the storm cloud that lived inside of me couldn’t be restrained in my current state.

“Do you?” I sat up in my seat. “Because you sure don’t act like it.”