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And when my brain really wanted to torture me, that incel shithead would appear. He’d come out of the shadows, wielding a knife, and he’d drag Sara off by her hair.
I’d get free for a moment, running after her, only to be stopped by two old Michaelson mobsters, long dead, who’d been almost as bad as my father. They’d kick my ass and I’d swear I’d hear Sal “the Reaper” Michaelson laughing from the shadows, where he’d been waiting to kill Sara after Zakary was done with her.
“Hey.” A soft touch on my arm made me jump and Sara jumped, too. I hadn’t even noticed her get up off the couch and cross to stand in front of me. “Are you okay? You spaced out on me again.”
Shit.I stared at her. I never did that, except around Ty sometimes, when I felt safe enough to slip deep in my head.I shouldn’t feel so comfortable around you.
“You look tired, Danny,” she said, and I wished I could move away, but the wall was behind me, and I’d bump Sara if I tried to go anywhere. She had me pinned and she knew it. I found myself desperately trying not to read more into it than Sara rightly fucking with my head as a little revenge.It can’t be anything else, right?
“Does it have to do with Lia?” Sara asked. I blinked, trying to sort through her words, and went to speak, and she held up a finger. “Don’t lie.”
Schooling my face, I said, “When I was nine, my maternal great-grandfather wanted to bring me back to Sicily and raise me as a Mafia prince.” Her brows furrowed slightly. “I used to visit every summer with my mother.” The only time we could get away from my father. “After she passed, when I was six, I lived there for half the year. Until I was nine, when I asked if I could stay, which pleased my mother’s family over there. Mybisnonnoeven picked out my future bride, my best friend Flaminia, who was funny and silly and a singer, from a long-lost royal family.” I paused. “But alas I look too Northern Italian, too Swiss. It worked out for Flaminia, she’s now one of the most famous opera singers in the world.”
“So, what was the real reason you didn’t stay in Sicily when you were nine?”
I blinked at Sara, and she gave me a look. “Besides being blond and the future bride, the rest of that was true, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said. An unsettled longing filled my chest. “Shit. You’re good.”
“Thank you.” She studied me. “What was the real reason?”
“Mybisnonnofinally met my father,” I said, and my smile twisted down, a fury raging through me. My father, who’d never visited before, who’d never cared about me, who’d been gladto get rid of me. Hatred and fear still filled me. “Before that, my bisnonnothough ‘the Reaper’ was a funny nickname. An exaggeration. After he met Sal, he realized it was far too kind a moniker and said that he couldn’t allow a demon’s offspring anywhere near his family.” I looked away. “My father wasn’t pleased and blamed me. Mybisnonnohad offered him a stipend for his son, and now he wasn’t getting that. Plus, I look like my mom.”
I hadn’t meant to tell her any of this and I was surprised when Sara gently squeezed my hands. She was quiet for a moment before she tried to tease, “Demon is a bit far, I think. But I’m sorry that happened.”
“Yeah, me too,” I muttered. “Never got to go back.”
“Jesus,” Sara said. Her eyes pierced straight through me, as though she could read all the ugly things that I’d tried to hide in the cracks of what should’ve been my soul. As though she saw and didn’t care. “What a bullshit thing to take out on a child.”
“Nah, if you met my father, you’d understand,” I said lightly.
“You are not to blame for his sins, nor does what he did to you make you less, Daniel.” Her voice was low and fierce, and I slowly looked back at her, a sort of panic squeezing through me. I wanted to push her away as much as I wanted to pull her against me. “Thank you for sharing that. And I think I understand a little better now where you were coming from.” Her chin dipped. “I had time to go through everything these pastfew weeks and I realized that Lia, the cop, all that shit—that was serious. I had tunnel vision.”
I needed to get away from this intensity, needed for Sara to stop looking at me with such compassion and understanding, even as she seemed a bit uncertain.
“Does this mean you forgive me, and we can finally fuck?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Daniel
The words escaped me before I could stop them, and Sara jerked back, outrage stamped into the lines of her face and hurt in her eyes. It gutted me even as I grimly acknowledged it had to be done. What was she doing, forgiving me, and acting so kind?
Sara is not stupid,said a quiet voice in my head.But you sure are.
“No, Daniel, it doesn’t,” Sara said and reached up to pat my cheek, her long manicure scratching at my scruff. “You poor thing, don’t confusepitywith forgiveness or kindness.”
A dull roar filled my head as her words hit home, hit me square in the face like a sucker punch, and next thing I knew, I’d grabbed her wrists and pinned her against the wall, snarling at her as she laughed. “I’d advise against pissing me off, Tailor.”
“But it’s so easy,” she purred. “Poor baby, you thought a little tragic back story would get you in my pants?” She snorted and I could feel my temper surging, along with an unholy amusement and a wicked arousal. “Demon offspring, please. Do you hear yourself, mobster boy?” She tossed her head. “No wonder you like having me around—it’s probably a turn-on to finally have someone call you out on your bullshit.”
I couldn’t think of a single retort, my mind a blank, and my jaw twitching, while Sara smirked up at me. Her lips were nude today, plump, bitable, and too kissable. Also, far too close, inches away as I slowly realized I’d bent my head down, the two of us breathing hard, daring the other to break. Worse, it came to me that Sara wasn’t fighting me, wasn’t trying to get away, but standing there, waiting to see what I would do.
More mind games.A soft groan escaped me and there was a flash of triumph in her eyes. She wanted to torture me.
“This is payback,” I said.
“Took you long enough.”
