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Not a man who would protect her just because she was his wife and the mother of his child, but a man who would love her.
Because I was in love with her.
Chapter 27 - Giselle
The midday sun cast a stark, blazing heat through the windows in the room and the sound of car horns blared from a distance. The room glowed and tiny, shimmering specks of dust floated in the harsh brightness of the sun, but I still felt enveloped in the cloaking darkness of my actions.
I drew my knees up and wrapped my arms around them tightly, heart beating fast and pounding against my ribcage. The weight of what I had done pressed down on me like a suffocating burden, too heavy to bear.
I picked at my fingertips, unintentionally remembering how it felt to press down on the trigger and watch a bullet fly through the air. I could not escape the vivid images of Angelo’s lifeless body. A life I took with my own hands.
And not just any life, my half-brother’s.
I just couldn’t get past it. I couldn’t get past the guilt. On the same day, after finding out he was my brother, I pointed a gun at him. Such a terrible twist of fate.
Tears welled up in my eyes, but they offered no relief. Angelo was dead. He deserved every bit of what he got, but it didn’t change the fact I’d murdered my own blood.
There was no way to undo what had been done and if I could go back in time and do something differently, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill him for a second time.
We shared the same father, but he wasn’t my family. Nikolai and my unborn child were, and I would bring the world down to keep them safe if I had to.
An abrupt knock on the door snapped my head up from my knees, and I dabbed my eyes with my sweater and cleaned my hands. I sniffled and reclined against the headboard.
“Come in.”
The door opened and in stepped a very beautiful young woman with blue eyes, short dark hair, and our eyes met. An eager smile spread on her face, and I recognized her in an instant.
“Emma?” I gaped. “Emma, is it really you?”
With the guilt temporarily evaporated and replaced by a flood of emotions, I flew out of the bed, opened my arms wide, and Emma fell in them, locking us in a tight embrace. There was a mixture of hearty laughter and tears and my head moved from side to side in a gesture of disbelief.
“Oh, Giselle,” she squeezed me in her arms. “I never thought I’d see you again.”
“I never thought I was going to see you again either,” I laughed between tears, and she wiped my eyes.
The door opened again, and Nikolai stuck his head through. When his dark eyes fell on mine, he offered me a comforting smile, and a curt nod before leaving. I placed a hand on my chest, grateful that he was kind enough to bring my friend to me.
Emma and I moved back to the bed to sit. She looked knowingly between the door and me, with the corner of her lips tugged upwards. “I see things have taken a serious turn since the last time we saw each other.”
My cheeks heated up and I rubbed my neck. “A lot of things have changed, Emma.” I flipped my hair over my shoulder with a cocky huff. “I know you missed me,” I uttered lightheartedly, but her eyes held seriousness.
“Giselle,” she clasped her hand over mine and her voice dropped by a pitch. “You don’t know how scared I was after they took you. I thought they were going to torture you or something. I thought you were dead.”
A soft laugh left my lips, and I patted her hand.
“There were times I did feel dead here, Emma. It took a while to get used to...” I waved a hand in the air, gesturing to the entire house, “All of this. Adjusting wasn’t easy.”
“But you did it, anyway,” she chortled. “I saw the way he looked at you. It was different from what I had imagined.”
Curios, I pursed my lips. “What did you imagine?”
“Typical mafia stuff?” she made a nonchalant gesture with her shoulders. “Coldness, bluntness, rudeness...”
We burst out in merry laughter and I wiped a tear from my eye. “That’s a whole lot. And yes, I did get a lot of that, especially from his eldest brother, Sergey. He’s the head of the organization. God, you should meet him, you’ll definitely get the full mafia vibes from him.”
Emma was quiet for a short while. Then, she said, “Is he hot?”
“He is. They all are. But Sergey is happily married...”
