AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Matt is the one running everything right now. My job is to make sure the rules are followed. I’m an enforcer.”
“You have.” I insisted, the image of Liam’s bloody hands bringing more tears to my eyes, which I couldn’t stop from falling freely.
“Yes, I have.”
My heart stopped at his confirmation, a long, painful pause before sobs shook my body uncontrollably. I took my face in my hands, trying to hide from his eyes, but Liam pulled me to him, trapping me in his arms, soothing me with his scent and soft kisses.
I lost track of time as I cried in the embrace of a killer, my imagination running wild with scenes of violence that were all so familiar I could smell them.
“You’re okay,” Liam whispered on and on, trying to calm me back into a state where I could register his words again. “You’re okay.”
After what seemed like an eternity, I had settled after the shock, tears still falling from my eyes like raindrops, but my storm wasn’t raging as hard. Liam tilted my head up with his finger hooked under my chin, forcing me to face him. His eyes were red, his expression pained and tortured, and I fought the urge to kiss all of it away. I couldn’t, right? How could I care for him still?
“I would never hurt you,” Liam finally broke the silence. “You know that, right?”
I simply nodded. My voice was trapped in my throat with the truth to that question, and I just couldn’t dare to say it. I’ve been hurt before by people who should love me and protect me. It was an instinctive reaction driven by experience.
“You have fear in your eyes, Jamie. I know you are lying to me.”
I buried my head in his chest again, shielding myself from his knowing gaze, inhaling him once more before I left, not knowing if I was ever coming back.
Liam had been right. I was thinking about running. But the only thing making me want to flee was my conscience. How could I be okay with this? How could his revelations not have changed how much I feel for him?
I’m broken, and until now, Liam was the only one close enough to piece me together. I wanted him so badly, yet I didn’t know how I could ever take him now.
Chapter 20
Jamie
It took me two weeks to be able to say the damn word.
Mafia.
Ma-fi-a.
I couldn’t help the chill that ran freely down my spine each time the imagery and the word collided in my brain. The first time it slipped from my tongue was like I was losing a piece of me along with it.
Never in my wildest dreams could I have ever guessed that would be the big secret Liam was struggling to share. Matt had lifted that veil at Alison’s birthday party, and I was just too blind to see it for what it was.
I had tried to tie the image I had of Liam to what I assumed being in the Mafia was, and I simply couldn’t. Picturing his perfect hands stained in blood was too unreal to be true.
Right?
But it wasn’t. This was who he was, and more than his confession, what fazed me the most was my reaction to his revelation.
None.
Nothing.
Absolutely fucking NADA!
Nothing changed about how I felt. I should have been repulsed and scared and intimidated. But the only urge running through my body as I saw Liam expose himself to me was to hug him. Kiss away his fear of losing me. Love him until he had no doubt he deserved to be loved just as much as I did.
Instead, I left after asking Liam for time and space to wrap my head around everything. He did exactly as I asked. Still, despite going out of his way to keep at a distance during the day, he would send me a text every single night wishing me sweet dreams. No questions, no demands. Just a reminder that I was on his mind every night. As if the fresh red rose he left on my doorstep every day didn’t do that job well enough.
Right and wrong were waging a war in the comfort of my conscience, my moral compass falling from its high horse every time he won the rigged battle.
How could I be okay with this? How was I not packing my bags and leaving without a trace? How sick and twisted did I have to be for nothing about his gruesome reality to so much as dent the fire that burned inside me for this man?
