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Three more days passed in the same pattern. I spent my nights and mornings with Irina, only leaving her side on the rare occasion that Ivory needed to leave the estate, but she was more than happy to stay home so that I could be with Irina as much as possible.
The rising tensions in Chicago made venturing out into the city itself a nightmare. To top it all off, Matteo’s restrictions increased every time she tried, to the point that it became a nuisance.
In the late afternoon, I went to the gym to work off my stress and my frustration with the fact that there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t push Irina to open up to me. Couldn’t press her to work through the trauma that she wasn’t ready to handle.
All I could do was wait, and that was something I did not have the patience for. Especially not while watching her wither in on herself, and while knowing that she was better off without someone broken like me at her side.
“How’s she doing?” Enzo asked, stepping up to the bag next to me. His fist struck against it, the sound of his knuckles rapping in quick succession filling the silence as I fought for my breath. Sweat dripped down my face, and I raised a hand to wipe it clear.
“How the fuck do you think she’s doing?” I asked, snapping at him even if I didn’t intend to. The ridiculousness of a question like that settled over me, building the rage inside me until I felt like I would explode.
All of the Bellandi women had been in danger at one point. All of them had been threatened with abuse or rape.
But only my woman had been the one to suffer in such a way.
I hated the bitterness that had taken root inside my skin, flooding through me like something insidious meant to turn me against the only family I had. Didn’t Irina have enough to deal with already?
Why had my butterfly been saved less quickly than their women? Would she have been more worthy of saving if I’d been one of them?
“Easy,” Enzo said, raising his hands defensively. “You know I’m just hoping she’s at least healing physically.”
“It’s been a week. Doc says her arm will take three weeks, leg longer than that,” I said, resuming my pummeling of the bag in front of me.
“I’m sure she’ll heal better with you taking care of her. Knowing you’ll be there after she pulls through will give her something to look forward to, at least, after everything the two of you have been through,” Enzo said, hinting that Irina had told the girls just how much of an asshole I’d been.
I grunted without giving a commitment, warring with myself over whether Irina and I would ever be able to have a future together. The thought of hurting her after what she’d been through, of taking her roughly like I had before…
I’d break us both, and I knew I wasn’t capable of doing anything else.
Enzo froze, his fists no longer striking against the bag. “Don’t tell me you still haven’t pulled your head out of your goddamn fucking ass,” Enzo growled, spinning to face me fully as I pummeled the bag in front of me.
I wanted to ignore him, favoring the violence over voicing my concerns. “She’s better off without me,” I said, wincing when Ryker stepped up behind me. I hadn’t heard him come in, too distracted by the feeling of my knuckles battering against the leather.
“Talk some fucking sense into your boy,” Enzo said, turning his attention to Ryker behind me. Just the thought of the lecture I had coming my way from Ryker was enough to make me wince.
He understood better than most, but he’d never lived my side of the story.
“What happened to you when you were a kid wasn’t your fault, any more than what happened to Irina was hers,” Ryker said, grabbing hold of the bag and holding it still so that it stopped it’s rhythmic swinging. “Is she dirty?”
“No,” I snarled at him, feeling like a rabid beast as I punched the bag hard enough to rock him back a step.
“Exactly. And neither are you, you stubborn shit,” Ryker grunted, taking the hit with a smile. He knew he’d caught me between a rock and a hard place, because I couldn’t hold on to my mentality that I was stained by my past unless I believed the same to be true of Irina.
But there was one thing that was different.
One part of my past that wasn’t the same as her rape and assault.
I’d given myself willingly to avoid the alternative. I’d given myself willingly to afford food for Cesca.
My life might have started as rape, but by the time I was a teenager I was a prostitute for whatever man or woman wanted to go slumming. Irina was better than me; she’d never given her body to be used.
“I’m done watching you play games with her. Either want her or don’t. Either make her yours or don’t. But just know, if you walk away from that woman when she needs you most, you’re fucking dead to me,” Enzo growled, all the protectiveness he felt over Irina coloring his voice.
He’d failed her. Hadn’t protected her like his job dictated. She’d been the one to pay the price for his negligence.
“Just know,” he said, stepping toward me and getting in my face. Even with me taller than him, there was no doubting the restraint in his posture. He wanted to fucking throttle me. “If you don’t appreciate her? I’ll find her someone who fucking will,” Enzo added.
“Fuck,” Ryker sighed, hanging his head as red filled my vision.
I lunged, my shoulder connecting with Enzo’s midsection as I drove into him with all the force in my body. He stumbled back, falling to the mat beneath our feet.
I swung.
My fist connected with his jaw, slamming into it hard enough to snap his head to the side. He blocked the second blow, twisting his legs around mine and shoving me back off of him. He vaulted to his feet in a move that Sadie would have been proud of, leaving me to fumble to my feet in fury.
“Nobody fucking touches her,” I warned.
“Then man the fuck up and accept that she’s yours; otherwise you have no goddamn right to claim her,” Enzo said, ignoring the way Ryker shook his head at the two of us.
I moved again, stepping into Enzo’s space and battering at him with my fists. He blocked each blow consecutively, only a few breaking through the gaps occasionally.
His well-placed left hook caught me in the chin, sending me stumbling backward as he pushed me out of his space. He followed it with three fast jabs to my stomach, stealing the breath from my lungs so harshly that I folded in on myself.
I’d had plenty of training, knew how to fight the best of the best, but even I knew my blind rage worked to my disadvantage in the face of his calm.
Enzo shook his head, spitting out blood onto the floor at his feet. “You were right about one fucking thing. You don’t goddamn deserve her.”
He turned, striding for the door without another word. I glanced over to Ryker who shook his head as well, his face solemn. “What the fuck do you want? To double down and tell me how fucked my past made me?” I snarled.
Ryker sighed. “It isn’t your past that makes you unworthy of Irina. It’s the man standing in front of me now. Get your shit together or don’t, but stop pulling her along for this bullshit ride.”
He followed after Enzo, leaving me to rub the bruise forming on the underside of my chin.
“FUCK!”I roared, spinning back to the bag and pummeling it with heavy fists. My knuckles split under the force of it, giving me pain to sink into.
The least Enzo could have done was kick my ass, but the fucker knew I’d like that too much.
