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“Remember what I told you about the O’Rileys?” Enzo asked Marco.
“Are you about to say something that’s gonna piss me off?”
“Yeah. I fucked up,” Enzo began. “I killed the oldest son.”
Marco nearly swerved into traffic at Enzo's confession. He jerked the wheel to straighten us out.
“Are you serious?” Marco asked, staring at me through the mirror like it was my fault. It was very indirectly my fault, but it was mostly Enzo's.
We had to enjoy the quiet for the moment because a storm loomed on the horizon.
ChapterEighteen
Enzo
Iain’t ever been afraid of death, and facing it only made me angry. I’d been shot at plenty. So why was I so shaken up? I dropped my face into Atheist’s neck, inhaling his scent. Like grass and dirt. He whined as I leaned against him. There’d been so many times I sat exactly like this, pouring my weakness into my goddamn dog. My best friend. I knew why I was so shaken up, but I didn’t want to admit it. Everything inside me fought against it.
Don’t even think about it. Let it go. Let her go.
Fucking Gia.
I had worked so damn hard to put distance between us. I let her go. The space would have eventually dissolved the ache until it became a dull throb. I kept telling myself we couldn’t be together because she didn’t trust me, but I knew the real reason. How could I run the business with her on my dick? I couldn’t. Then I found out she was shacking up with fucking Rosario, and I was done thinking with my rational head. All I could think about was her riding his cock or taking all of him inside her perfect mouth. I imagined his pleasure, because she was the most incredible source of it. I longed for it. I fucking needed it. A guy could only take that plaguing thought for so long. I was going to take her away from him and put her somewhere safe, under my watchful eyes. The problem with my plan was that I couldn’t keep myself from watching her. Salivating over her. It was fucking pathetic.
I glanced at my phone—one of the ways I kept tabs on her. She had the nerve to touch herself, knowing all too well how much it’d fuck with me. I wanted to be the fingers stroking between her legs and slipping inside her. The soft moans that left her lips should have been from pleasure I created.
I felt a pang of guilt over what I did to her—the whipping. I remembered the sound my belt made as it cracked across her perfect ass. I didn’tlikehurting her, but she had swung through every round of my patience. Even as tears fell and she actually listened for once in her fucking life, I didn’tenjoyher submission. I liked Gia’s fire, her drive, as annoying as it was. I didn’t like feeling her genuine fear. It was something I’d never faced, not as I threatened to take her sweet pussy, not when guns were drawn on her. I saw a glimpse of it when Lorenzo did what he almost did to her or when she found out about the hit on her father. I felt it smoldering around her, but it wasn’t the same.
It wasn’t fear ofme.
But there was something else there. The fear, the punishment, her anger—those things warped into something that dripped down her thighs with every crack of the leather. An uncomfortable push and pull of desire and hatred that fragmented us that night. I was fighting it so damn hard. As hard as I could.
When the gunshots rang out, I could only hear the beat of my heart slamming against my eardrums. It was a roar, drowning out everything else. Despite the disorienting thumps of my heart, I needed to protect Gia. Not myself. Gia. It was at that moment, as I threw my body in front of her to shield her from bullets, that I realized Gia would have to be dead for me to stop needing her. She’d have to be buried to keep me from thinking about her. What she was doing. Who she was doing. If she was fucking safe.
Atheist panted, his sides expanding against mine as he grew restless. I looked up, following where his dark eyes had fallen on something that made him wag his little nub of a tail.
Gia.
She stood in the doorway, and I don’t know how long she’d been there or how much she’d seen. I wasn’t allowed to be weak around others, only Atheist, who couldn’t speak about it. That damn dog knew too much. He knew all my secrets.
He whined again, and I smirked as I rubbed his massive head and let him leap off the couch. He rushed for Gia, slamming all his weight into her as she squatted down to greet him.
I sat back on the couch and gathered my composure. I had to. My first instinct was to push her away. My second was to draw her into me and kiss her like it would be our final embrace. I decided against speaking because I wasn’t sure I could control what came out, in either direction.
“Sorry to barge in,” she said as she gripped Atheist’s ear and stood up, letting the velvet fur fall out of her grasp. Her eyes met mine. I couldn’t read her. She was probably fighting her instincts, too.
“Come here,” I said, letting my second instinct take the lead.
She hesitated. Her muscles twitched as if she was going to come toward me, but they relaxed in place.
“Don’t make me ask twice, Gia.” My voice was stern, with growing agitation as my first instinct closed in. She was going to determine which one would win. I was giving in, extending the whole damn olive tree.Your move,I thought to myself. One of us had to give in order to take.
Just as my first instinct was about to rip through the ribbon at the finish line, Gia stepped forward and sat beside me, burying herself into my chest, much like I did to Atheist. I didn’t move my arms from the back of the couch as she wrapped her arms around me and clung to me. The moment I felt the heat of her against my body, my second instinct cut the legs off my first. It had no chance of making it to the end now.
My muscles twitched, wanting to wrap her up in my arms, but I kept still, forcing them to stay where they were. I shed my hesitation as I lowered my arms and wrapped them around her. She melted into me. I didn’t know what all this was. Was it all because of the shooting?
* * *
Gia
