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The distinct sound of thumps sounded from a few rooms down, and his anguished roar echoed through the walls. I lifted my hands to my face, pressing them against my lips to steady the tremble as my tears finally broke free and streaked down my cheeks in a flurry of desperate emotion. I wanted to fix it and needed to fix the pain I'd caused.
But I couldn't. I knew better than anyone that there was no fixing this.
The door opened slowly as he stepped back into the room, his face blank as he sat on the edge of the bed with a sudden drop of his weight. I stared at him, unable to go to him and make it better and just trapped by my own self-hatred. My eyes landed on the bloodied knuckles of both of his hands, the skin torn to a mess and his hands trembling despite his empty expression. "Lino," I sobbed, reaching out a hand to hover over his in horror.
"Come here," he whispered, his voice matching the emptiness of his face. I nodded, crawling forward on my knees until they touched his thigh. His face turned to mine suddenly, and the expression in his eyes nearly sent me flinching back. They were full of anguish, full of rage so intense that my heart stuttered in my chest.
Then he touched me, grasping me around the waist and with a hand behind my neck. He lifted me up and into his lap so that I straddled his legs, and his arm crushed me against his chest. His face went to my neck, tucked into the curtain of my hair as he breathed me in, and I cried into his shoulder.
He stayed like that for what felt like an eternity, just holding me while my brain raced with trying to figure out what was happening. "He was already dead for what he did to you, but now he'll suffer before I finally grant him the mercy of death." His breath tickled my neck, feeling menacing in the face of his declaration.
"No," I hissed. "I don't want that—"
He pulled his face from my neck, staring down at me in disbelief. "After everything he did, you're still protecting him?" Lino's rage boiled over the top, written in every feature of his harsh expression.
I reached out hesitantly, grabbing him around the nape of his neck. "I'm protecting you," I said in a ragged whisper. "He isn't worth the risk, the stain on your soul or the possibility that you could be caught. I won't lose you because of him."
He looked at me like I was insane. "You think it will leave a mark on me? Hurting him?"
"Of course, it will. Murder is murder, Lino. No matter what he's done—"
He let out a breath that was ragged. "Making him hurt the way he hurt you will be the greatest honor of my life." He pulled back suddenly, lifting me off his lap so he could stand and left me sitting in the center of the bed, wondering what the Hell had just happened. When he came back, his knuckles were washed clean of blood, though the ragged strips of flesh still looked raw and painful. When he reached out to pluck me off the bed, I didn't argue. I just wrapped my body around him again and let him carry me out of the bedroom and take me downstairs.
"What are we doing?"
"I'm making you dinner." He plopped me into one of the
stools at his massive island, and I watched as he pulled frozen puff pastry from his freezer. I smiled at him knowingly, because puff pastry meant one thing.
He was cooking me bourekas.
My head spun with the sudden change of atmosphere when he grinned at me. He only made me bourekas when he wanted something.
I just didn't know what it was.
Twelve
Lino
The last thing I wanted to do on the heels of Samara's confession was leave her side. There was no doubt in my mind that she was opening herself up to the future we had, even if she wasn't ready for the words themselves. Her body spoke for itself, and the way she instinctively wrapped herself around me and sought me out in her sleep told me everything I needed to know.
Samara and I were on the same page.
She was mine. Mine to protect and mine to love. Mine to worship and adore. Mine to touch and kiss and fuck.
Just like I was hers. Hers to look to for shelter and affection. Hers to wrap around her delicate little finger.
But the knowledge of what Connor had done to her was just too much for me to handle. She needed to be free of him, and I had the ability to make that happen. I just had to leave her side to do it.
"I need to ask you something," I murmured, setting my fork down. Samara sliced at the last grilled tomato of her breakfast, narrowing her eyes at me as if she'd had enough of my questions.
"What's that?" she asked.
"What did he want when he attacked you the other night?"
The tension left her body in a sudden burst of relief when she decided that line of conversation was safe. Well, relatively safe compared to the other topics we'd covered since the attack. "Money," she admitted.
"What happened to his trust fund?" I gathered up my plate and made my way to the sink to rinse and drop it in the dishwasher.
