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Shit. War was war, and men died. Though I felt each loss keenly, family was different. It warranted retribution.
“Do they know we had him?” I asked.
Tommy nodded. “How do you think I found out it was him? O’Hara has offered a bounty for whoever took him.”
I stared through the windshield at the glittering skyscrapers that towered around us. “Then we own it. Send the body back as a message. Keep taking our drugs and this is what happens.”
Jackson smirked, and I wondered, not for the first time, if anything bothered him. “Want me to sew his fingers back on first?”
Tommy clipped him around the back of the head.
They would retaliate, and O’Hara wouldn’t be coming for my soldiers. He’d be coming for my family, and these two and Nero were the closest thing I had anymore. And the woman I had just publicly declared as my fiancée…
I threw open the back door. “I’ll go see Nero in the morning and warn him. Put a halt on everything again except the Pérez shipments.”
“Rafe won’t—”
“Fuck Rafe right now. We have Paddy O’Hara out for blood, and we can’t do shit until we get this rat.” The mob would always be three steps ahead until I found whoever it was. “Find him.” And when we did, I was going to make a motherfucking ordeal out of his death. I stepped out onto the quiet sidewalk and went back to the penthouse. The sexual tension that had been drowning me had now ebbed away in the face of that violent dose of reality, and I went to bed.
* * *
A scream tore me from sleep. The glowing red numbers on the clock read two in the morning. Another shrill scream and I was up, grabbing the gun from the nightstand and palming it. I stepped into the hall and tiptoed my way to Emilia’s room, quietly pushing open the door, half expecting to find some Outfit fuck trying to kill her. And maybe they were…in her dreams. The light from the TV screen was enough to highlight her thrashing form and the slight sheen of sweat that covered her bound body.
Placing the gun on the dresser, I took a seat on the edge of the bed and touched her arm. “Emilia.”
Her eyes snapped open, and then she was trying to get away from me, but she couldn’t because she was still tied to the bed. In her half-lucid state, she panicked, fighting and pulling, her breaths coming in ragged pants. I’d seen her in the throes of a nightmare on camera before, but this was different.
“Emilia, stop.”
She didn’t, and I had to physically pin her down to be able to free her. She was shaking and crying by the time the cuffs fell from her wrists, and when she tried to scramble away, I yanked her into my arms. Her attempts to fight me off were weak and half-hearted, as though whatever stalked her dreams had stolen her fire. I suspected it had more to do with her punishment than the nightmare itself. I felt the moment she submitted to me. It was perfect. Almost fucking spiritual. But she’d dropped a wall, some vital barrier, and it didn’t surprise me that her demons were taking full advantage.
The hard set of her shoulders slowly softened, and she burrowed her face into my throat, tears wetting my skin. And I liked it because I wanted her at her darkest, her most broken. I wanted every single part of her, including those she didn’t yet know, and the ones I would unleash. But most of all, I wanted the vulnerability she never showed.
“Breathe, piccola. It’s just a nightmare.” My fingers swept through the silky strands of her hair as the scent of my shampoo clung to them. Another way I’d marked her.
I was waiting, braced for the anger that was always simmering in her, but it never came.
“Sleep, princess.” I pulled her down onto the bed and tucked her against my side.
She didn’t fight or argue, and that was worrying. As was the fact that she let me hold her long after her tears had stopped wetting my chest. I wasn’t sure if it was a gift or a curse because my little kitten was so very broken right then. I had to wonder what kind of demons could steal her spirit from her.
16
Emilia
I woke to the dim light of my glorified prison cell, a low pounding ringing through my skull. It took me a few groggy seconds to notice the thick arm around my waist and the hot, heavy weight of a body pressed to my back. Giovanni. Memories of last night assaulted me, and I wrenched away from him, nearly falling out of the bed before stumbling to my feet.
He sat up, hair messy, sheets pooling at his hips. I hated that he looked so hot and well-rested and sated from jerking off on me. Meanwhile, I stood here in the stupid dress he’d made me wear, covered in his come, exhausted from the nightmares and strung tight enough to snap. He’d spanked me, tied me to a bed, and then held me while I cried. And I’d let him. I let him. In one night, Giovanni had left me more emotionally exposed than I’d ever been, but not by choice. It was a violation of the worst kind.
