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But I wouldn’t. I hadn’t been a bastard and pushed her away just to hunt her down.
That’s exactly what I wanted to do.
This unfamiliar ache settled in the center of my chest, and it pissed me off. I finished the bottle, stumbled my ass into my bedroom, and willed darkness to claim me.
Fuck. I inhaled deeply and smelled the sweet scent that was all Liliana.
Bringing the sheets closer to my nose, I buried my face in them and waited for oblivion.
I should have gone after her, shouldn’t have pushed her away like the motherfucker I was. She was the only pure thing I had in my fucking life, and I’d tossed it away.
To keep her safe.
I closed my eyes and inhaled deep, picturing her still here with me, tangled in the sheets all perfect and naked. My hand was around her throat, her pussy leaking because I’d filled her up with my cum.
At least I could have her in my dark fucking dreams.
Chapter20
Liliana
It had been three weeks. Twenty-one days since Matteo had told me to go.
He’d been so angry with me during those last moments…the night I’d confessed how I felt, and he’d pushed me away.
I couldn’t deny that it hurt. God, it had fucking hurt like no other. But I knew he was lying.
I knew the hateful words he’d spewed at me were nothing but a tactic. It had worked, but he wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all me and himself.
He cared about me, and the fact it was clear he couldn’t process those emotions, ones that led him to create destruction all around him, told me all I needed to know.
He was a dangerous man, but one who cared about me deeply.
I remember vividly the way he looked at me, the way he touched me, and the way he whispered words in my ear when he thought I wasn’t listening.
I didn’t want to contemplate that he didn’t care for me as deeply as I cared for him. We were two opposite ends of the spectrum. He wasn’t good for me. That life. The danger that surrounded him.
All of that was nothing but a fuse waiting to be lit, the detonation of the bomb anticipating an explosion. And if I knew all of this, knew he wasn’t right for me—and I deserved better, deserved more—why was I so lonely?
Why did I feel like something was missing from my life? Something that was so profound it was hard to breathe, hard to think straight, because nothing made sense anymore?
I closed the front door to my one-bedroom apartment. The city I picked was hours from Desolation. It was clean. It was safe. Or it gave the illusion of safety. I wasn’t a fool in thinking just because I was gone from that cesspool nothing bad would ever touch me.
I knew how the world worked, how people and men operated in order to get their way.
Some places were nothing more than a level of hell waiting to burn you alive.
I’d gotten a job almost immediately after moving here. I didn’t need to work. Not after Matteo had given me so much money. I’d never be able to spend it in my lifetime. But until I knew what I wanted to do with my life, I had to keep busy.
Because I couldn’t stop thinking of him.
A part of me hated I couldn’t stop thinking about Matteo. I knew the things he did. I knew what he’d done to get to the top.
But I also knew how sweet he could be. Gentle and protective. As in…killing a man in his own home for touching me.
I replayed all those horrible things in my head, the words that had been said and the way he’d looked at me right before I left.
They ate away at me. Yet, I wanted to go back to him, slap him across the face, and tell him to wake the fuck up.
