AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I press a kiss to the top of her head. “Our shared blood tethers us together. Remember that.” I carefully drape the silk over her sated sleeping form and gather my jacket from the edge of the bed.
Fear coils around my gut and it takes everything I have inside me to cross our room. I slip from the door with the taste of her on my tongue. I silently vow my life for hers if God only lets me live to see her again.
Enforcers are on either side of the elevator when I finally make my way to the front of my penthouse. Their attention snaps to me as I draw closer.
“Boss.”
I fasten one cufflink and then the other. “Lock this place down. Double the guards on all entry points and make sure she has what she needs. Let her believe I have left with instruction to care for her and that is it. She’ll have questions. Tell her I’ve moved on.” She has to believe I’ve gone in order for my plan to work.
“Boss?”
I hear the pain in my enforcer’s voice and turn my black eyes on them. Grim expressions look back at me. “It has to be this way, Tomas. Don’t question me.”
“How long do we have to lie to her? She’ll be crushed. What about the baby?”
My Amethyst makes friends wherever she goes and my tough ass enforcers are no more immune to her gentle nature than I am. I can’t blame them for looking like they want to kick my ass for hurting her.
I step into the elevator. “She can handle more than you think and you lie to her for however fucking long it takes to deal with the Callahans.”
“Yes, sir.”
I stab the button for the basement of my Chicago high-rise. Guilt presses on my shoulders. I’ll have to grovel for weeks, maybe even months, the next time I stand in this elevator. And I'll gladly pay whatever price she asks to stand at my jewel’s side again when that day comes.
Daddy will be home soon, my jewel. I only hope you wait for me.
CHAPTER 2
AMETHYST
“My jewel.”
I hear the words and I reach for the man behind the roughened voice but only blurred lines and pain lives in the haze of my dreams. Fear twines around my heart. Phantom barbs dig into the pulsing flesh with every thump. Pain grows.
Daddy.
He’s gone. I can feel it in my soul. The one man I opened my heart for is gone.
Pain unlike anything I’ve felt before squeezes me like a vice. Air sticks in my throat and refuses to fill my lungs. I roll to the side, clutching at my blanket, my body numb. Not for the first time in the last two months I wipe at the hot tears streaming down my cheeks as I wake.
It doesn’t happen every time I close my eyes anymore. And thank God for that. I would be rocking in the corner like a madwoman if I didn't have some semblance of control over my emotions.
My lashes fall closed. I mentally reach out for the man who stole my heart and left me with heartache, his ring and…
I spread my open palms over the swell of my abdomen.
“Momma’s here, little one. You’ll always have me.”
I pull to the edge of the bed, casting my gaze to the clock on my side table. I haven’t slept well since that night. I rub at the throbbing pain over my heart when his dark eyes linger in my thoughts. He knew what he was doing and waited until I was asleep to do it. I should have known he couldn’t keep a promise. Men like him live to break hearts, take lives and all in the name of wealth and power.
I stab my finger through my hair and drop my forehead to my knees.
What am I thinking? That’s not Oliver. At least I don’t think it is. We were only married a few months before he just walked out. Something is wrong, I can feel it like I can still feel the whisper of his touch and the hum of pleasure my body woke to. Only to find his side of the bed cold and empty.
Since I can’t get anyone to talk to me since I’m not the one paying them, I’ll have to find my answers another way. I’m not detective material but I’m not unresourceful either. My blue crime-loving father taught me a lot on how to survive. I’ve waited patiently long enough. Tiny red numbers flick over on the clock to show the late hour of the evening. It’s about time I stop being so patient. I don’t exactly have a lot of time before this baby is born and I refuse to go through all this alone. Or, if that is what fate has in store for me so be it. But I want to know one way or another. Do I have a husband or not?
I reach for the lamp and flick it on. I keep a stack of books beside my lamp, a glass of water and this.
Gold links slip through my fingers as I gather the chain holding our wedding rings. I hook it around my neck and send up a prayer that wherever my husband is, the mafia bastard feels the same pain eating at my heart as I do.
