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Thoughts and emotions collided. I waited to come down from the high of what we’d just done. I waited for the shame and humiliation to set in.
But they didn’t.
There was only need when I looked into Finley’s eyes, bone-deep and aching, strong enough to push everythingelse away. Baldeon was dead, and now we were different, especially me.
Loyalties collided. The need to get away from the Salvatores and put my own family first tore me apart.
What did I want?
The truth stood somewhere at the edge of his darkness, desperate to step into my light. “I don’t know.”
He closed his eyes for a second. I swallowed hard.Wait! I screamed in my head.I want you…
The words conjured the fantasy. The moment I said them, he’d come to me. The apartment was empty, guards standing at the entrance downstairs. Would they stand aside for Finley?Yeah, they would.There was no question about that. They’d let him walk through and take the elevator all the way up to my room.
Adrenaline burned in my veins.
And then?
Then there’d be no stopping this.
Maybe it was inevitable. Because to me, he wasn’t acold fishlike everyone said.To me, he was…strong and familiar, buried deep under my skin. Kat was right, hewasdangerous, only not like they all thought. He was fire, burning all the way deep into my soul
“Look at me,” I demanded, desperate to claim that pain in his eyes. Dark eyes met mine through the camera. I wanted this, deep down. I’d wanted this forever. “This is going to change us now, isn’t it?”
There was a flinch in the corner of his eye. His fingers combed his hair back. “Yeah, I guess it will.”
This was the point of no return.
One simple phone call.
I hadn’t meant for this to happen.
“You want me to forget this?” he questioned, his stare confronting. The camera angle shifted, coming closer. “Answer carefully, Anna. Once you do, there’s no going back.”
He was giving me an out here, and it was one more reason to feel even more for him. If I said yes…what then? Then he’d look at me like he looked at everyone else cold and distant, barely a second glance. He’d move on, burying that hunger hilt deep in one of the other Mafia daughters just waiting for their turn.
Could I handle that? Could I stand to see him with another? Something inside me quaked with fear. “No,” I answered with barely a thought. “I don’t want that at all.”
One careful nod, and he eased the camera away. But the hard rush of an exhaled breath carried through the speaker of my phone.Relief…the clenched fist eased inside me. The image trembled as his phone let out abeep.Frustration sparkled in his gaze as he looked away and muttered, “I have to go.”
“Okay.” I readied myself for the blow.
“But Anna…”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t go anywhere alone, okay? Not for a goddamn second, not foranythingoranyone. You want something, you call me. Promise me.” There was an urgency in his voice.
I gave a nod. “I promise.”
“I…” he started, a small smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “I enjoyed your call.”
He may as well have saidI missed you, Anna. I missed your voice, your presence.A tremble raced through my chest. “I enjoyed it, too.”
“Sleep well,” he murmured, his gaze meeting mine for a second before the video died.
And in the wake of that darkness, it all hit home.
