24. CHIARA
I’m a fucking mess.
It’s been two days since I saw what Killian kept in his little room of horrors, and since then, I’ve done everything within my power to avoid him like the plague, but when you live within the same home and your bedroom doors are only feet apart, avoiding someone is a lot harder than it sounds.
I miss him. That’s insane, right?
I miss his touch. His warmth. His stupid delicious rich accent.
I want his arms around me, his lips on my body, and those deadly eyes locked on mine. But most of all, I just want him. I want things to be the way they were before I discovered his little room of horrors.
God, I hate this.
Don’t get me wrong, I see him more than I care for at the moment. His presence within this home is impossible to ignore. He’s everywhere. Every room I walk into, he’s right there taking care of business. I feel his deadly gaze on me like lasers in the night, and while I hear his voice, it’s never directed at me.
He’s trying to give me space. At least that’s what I assume. A man like Killian DeLorenzo isn’t the kind of man who would usually care about giving a woman the space she needs to process, but for some reason, he’s always given me exactly what I needed in his own demanding way.
There’s no doubt he cares for me, and I’m sure the words I spoke to him in his bedroom the other night have penetrated his soul in the worst ways, but I had to be honest with him. How could I not? What I saw in those pictures, on those screens . . . I haven’t been the same since.
How could I ever love someone who’s capable of such brutality? I can only imagine how he tore the woman to pieces in that interrogation room while searching for Monica’s name. I don’t even know who the woman is or which of the DeLorenzo men she’s married to, and yet I feel a responsibility to her. Whatever she went through in that room is on me because I refused to give Killian Monica’s name when I had the chance.
Is this what my life is going to be like? Am I damned to become that cruel and unforgiving? Will there be a point where my soul is so damaged that shit like this will simply roll off my back like water off a duck’s feathers? I don’t want that life. I just want him without all the bullshit that comes along with it. Why does that have to be so hard to ask for?
I was doomed from the moment I met him.
He told me he wasn’t my hero. I should have believed him.
Making my way through this ridiculously ginormous house, I turn into the kitchen to find Krista hidden behind a mountain of boxes with a pair of kitchen scissors in her hands. She happily tears the boxes open like a kid on Christmas morning, and I can’t help the smirk that pulls at my lips.
“What the hell is all this?” I ask, walking deeper into the room and making myself comfortable at the counter as I gaze over the few opened boxes, trying to figure out what’s inside.
“I need help,” Krista says. “The power has gone to my head.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I laugh, my brows furrowing.
“When you first arrived, Killian gave me his credit card and told me to purchase anything you required, and I haven’t been able to give it back,” she explains. “I can’t stop shopping. Add to cart has become my favorite phrase, and that little rush you get when you click the checkout button . . . Holy shit, girl. I have a sickness. You have to take this card away from me.”
“I don’t want that thing,” I say, horrified by the idea of having access to that much money. Actually, I wonder just how much money it is we’re talking about here. Millions or billions? Surely it’s not billions, right? Because that would be insane. Is this swipe your card and suddenly you’re the owner of an NBA team, or is it more like swipe your card and suddenly you’re the owner of the free world?
I’m willing to bet it’s the second option.
The thought of that much money makes me sweat.
“Are you just going to sit there and look horrified, or are you going to help me open all these boxes?” Krista says as she pulls out a bedazzled dog collar. While it’s absolutely stunning, I’m almost ninety-nine percent sure we don’t have a dog here.
“What the hell is that for?” I ask, getting up and reaching for a box as she hands me a pair of scissors.
“I told you, it’s a sickness,” she says. “Besides, how am I supposed to know if you might need this or not? I was tasked with supplying you with everything you might need. I’m just trying to be efficient at my job.”
“Wait,” I say, my hands pausing on the box before me. “All of this shit is for me?”
“Who else would it be for?” she throws back at me. “I don’t need any of this crap.”
I roll my eyes and gesture toward the bedazzled dog collar. “And I do?” I ask, just as I feel the familiar shift in the air, warning me that Killian has just walked into the room. It’s always the same. I sense him before I see him, and I feel his presence before I smell him.
Those laser eyes lock onto me, and it’s almost a searing pain, but one that belongs only in my imagination as I do everything in my power to focus solely on the box in my hand.
Killian moves around the kitchen, each step bringing him closer and closer and making it harder to breathe. God, I wish I could simply get over it and be okay with this. I need to throw myself into his arms and feel that protection he can offer because when I’m with him, when his strong arms are wrapped around me, I feel as though nothing could ever harm me. I’m safe with him, despite the terror I feel simply being within his presence.
He strides past me, and I can’t help but shift my gaze as I look over him, dragging my hungry stare over his wide shoulders and down his tall frame. He’s so unbelievable.
“What the fuck is all this shit?” he questions, looking over the mountain of boxes.
Krista’s eyes widen in panic. “Uhhhh . . . Just a few things I picked out for Chiara.”
Killian pauses, his gaze shifting over the boxes before reaching toward the table and picking up the bedazzled collar. “Really? This is something she required?”
“Don’t look at me,” Krista says, shrugging her shoulders and glancing toward me. “It’s none of my business what she intends to do with it. Besides, how well do we really know her? She could have a BDSM kink and is just waiting for the day you put her in a collar, and when that day comes, I think it’s important that you’re prepared.”
My jaw drops as I gape at Krista, but before I can get the words out, Killian responds. “I will not be putting my wife in a dog collar. If she so desires to wear such articles, I have a perfectly acceptable collection for her to choose from.”
“Okay, I’m just putting it out there because it’s something I need to make clear—nobody is strapping a collar around my neck.”
Killian nods as though this is normal conversation. “Understood. Collars are out of the question. However, at some point, we should discuss what sexual fantasies you want to explore.”
My cheeks immediately begin to burn, and I avert my gaze back to the boxes on the table, furiously cutting through the tape to avoid the awkwardness of having this conversation with Krista standing right here—a conversation I know she’s going to demand more details about the moment Killian has taken off.
I feel his intense gaze on me as I tear open the box, but something seems off and my hands freeze. This box isn’t packed like a normal order you’d receive from any online store, and it’s taken me until now to realize there isn’t even an address label on the front.
My brows furrow, and I open the box with caution, waiting for something horrible to jump out at me, only as I peer inside, I find nothing more than a crumpled piece of paper that looks as though it’s been torn from a notebook.
Reaching in, I pull out the paper and straighten it out before glancing over the words.
SMILE, BITCH!
“What the fuck?” I mutter, grabbing the box again and checking over it to make sure I didn’t miss an address label. “Is this supposed to be for me?”
Killian plucks the paper from my hand before quickly scanning over it, his whole body stiffening in the process. Barely a moment has passed before he turns and begins scanning the property line, way in the distance. “What are you looking—”
Movement far in the bushes catches my attention and before I even get a chance to finish my sentence, Killian grabs me and throws me to the ground. “DOWN!” he roars just as a loud BANG echoes through the distance and something shatters the floor-to-ceiling glass window.
My heart leaps right out of my chest as a panicked squeal tears out of me. “What the fuck?” I screech as Killian moves like lightning to return fire, but it happened so damn fast I can’t even recall the moment he reached for a gun.
“Get her out of here,” he roars. “Safe room.”
Killian’s men pour into the room, each of them quickly falling into position as Krista scrambles around the kitchen counter, gripping my wrists and pulling me toward her. “What’s happening?” I yell over the sound of the gunfire.
“Don’t know,” she yells back. “But my guess is some kind of hired hit.”
The fuck?
“Come on, we have to get out of here.”
She pulls me harder, and my gaze shoots up to search for Killian, desperation pounding through my veins, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Bullets whiz past me, plunging into the wall behind my head, and I quickly realize that had Killian not thrown me down, it’d be my blood and brain matter splattered around the wall, not an array of missed bullets.
My heart pounds faster than it ever has before, and when I don’t move fast enough, one of Killian’s men physically yanks me to my feet and clutches my arm in a death grip, shoving me along. Krista scrambles to her feet, and before I know it, I’m inside Krista’s pantry being shoved through a wall into some kind of safe room.
“What’s happening?” I rush out, whipping around to face the guy, but before I can even fully make out his features, a heavy metal door slams closed between us, plunging the room into a heavy silence.
“Hey,” Krista says, clutching my arm and turning me to face her. “It’s okay, we’ll be safe in here until the threat is neutralized. Killian won’t let anything happen to us.”
“Holy fucking shit,” I breathe, immediately beginning to pace the room, before actually taking a second to glance around and realizing this room could double as a livable bomb shelter. There’s a small bed, an attached bathroom, and a shelf filled with food, water, and weapons. “What the hell is this place?”
“It’s my safe room,” Krista says. “There are a handful of safe rooms scattered throughout the property. You’d be surprised just how often they’re used.”
My hands shake, and I continue pacing. “This is insanity. There’s a literal gunman outside.”
“Killian will have him taken care of in a matter of seconds,” she tells me before striding across the small safe room to a screen. She pulls a remote off the little shelf the screen rests on and turns it on, and I watch as she flicks through different camera feeds.
The front gate. The front door. The pool area. The maze. The kitchen. Then finally, the back portion of the property behind the pool, right where I’d seen the shooter hidden within the bushes.
Killian’s men are everywhere, guns at the ready as they race toward the threat, bullets trading back and forth. Killian leads his men like a warrior, and I’m completely mesmerized—and honestly, a little turned on.
He’s incredible. He didn’t even flinch before throwing himself into battle. His strength and courage are like nothing I’ve ever witnessed, and it occurs to me that perhaps he is the way he is for a reason. He’s not going around killing people for sport, he’s defending the very family he vowed to protect, even if it means putting his life on the line. If his enemies saw the DeLorenzo family as weak, they would be picked off one by one, and that’s not something Killian would ever allow.
He kills out of necessity.
He does the unthinkable because the weight of his family’s survival rests solely on his shoulders. And right now, he’s reacting to a threat. He’s protecting the people he cares about, and in this case, he’s out there protecting me.
Without him here right now, I’d surely already be dead.
I watch the very moment Killian disappears into the thick bushes at the very edge of the property line, the very bushes he warned me not to go running in, and I suck in a gasp. Fear booms through my veins, paralyzing me with every ferocious beat of my racing heart.
How can Krista stand by so calmly while he puts his life at risk? He could die at any moment, and the last proper thing I said to him was that I could never love a man like him.
Tears fill my eyes as my hands begin to shake. None of this is okay.
“He’s going to be alright,” Krista soothes, moving in beside me and latching on to my hand. She squeezes it tightly as her gaze remains locked on the same damn screen. “Killian knows what he’s doing. He was trained to be the best.”
The mere seconds feel like hours when I finally see Killian emerge from the thick bushes, his men dragging a man behind them. They stand just outside the bushes when they shove him to his knees in front of Killian.
There’s no sound on the screen, but it’s clear they’re having a heated conversation, and judging by Killian’s stance, he’s pissed. The gunman obviously isn’t giving him the answers he’s looking for, and when his gaze shifts upward and he says something to his head of security, the gunman panics and launches to his feet.
I suck in a gasp, horror booming through my chest, and before a scream can even tear from the back of my throat, the hitman snatches a gun from the holster of one of the younger guards, shoves the tip to the bottom of his chin, and pulls the trigger.
Horror consumes me, and I watch as the gunman falls lifelessly to the ground—a portion of his skull no longer intact—and if I thought Killian was pissed before, now he’s filled with rage.
“What—what just happened?” I ask, my heart booming so fast, it hurts.
“He chose imminent death over the brutality of Killian’s interrogation,” Krista explains. “And believe me, it was the wisest move he’s made all day. Nobody comes out of interrogation without deep scars.”
A shiver sails down my spine and I watch as Killian reprimands his security for allowing the hitman close enough to take his gun. And with that, he turns and stalks back toward the house. It’s not long before he walks right out of frame, and for a moment, I’m filled with overwhelming heaviness.
Is this really what he has to deal with on the daily? No wonder his heart is so full of darkness. Had that been anyone else who had to deal with that, they’d be in therapy for years, but not Killian. He shakes it off as though the trauma will somehow make him stronger.
There’s a sound at the door of the safe room, and as the mechanical locks release, the door opens wide, revealing Killian framed by the sunlight streaming in through the broken kitchen window. His dark eyes immediately come to mine, locking onto me like a hunter seeking his prey, and before I know it, I’m sprinting across the safe room.
I fly into his arms, crushing my face against his chest and inhaling that deep woodsy scent. His strong arms close around me, holding me tight enough to leave bruises across my ribs, but I don’t dare pull away or complain.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmur against his wide chest as he scoops me up and walks us out of the safe room and back through to the kitchen.
He places me down on the counter, stepping into me as he takes my chin and tips it up to meet my stare. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Angel,” he tells me as his gaze sails across my face. “Are you okay? Did you get hurt?”
I shake my head. “I’m fine. I just . . . I hated seeing you run out there. You risked your life to protect me.”
“A man came onto my property to launch an attack on my wife. What did you expect me to do? Let him have you?”
“No, of course not,” I say, reaching up and cupping both sides of his face in my hands, sensing the fire burning within him and watching it slowly fade. “Seeing you like that . . . I was wrong to tell you that I could never love you. I misjudged you without giving you the chance to explain, and I hate that something could have happened to you and the last thing you would have remembered of me was being a bitch to you for the past few days.”
Killian pulls back, freeing his face from my hands. “You were well within your rights, Chiara.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“It’s not important,” he says. “I’m sure you have many questions about what you saw, and we can talk about that when you decide you’re ready, but for now, I need to know what happened in that bathroom with Monica.”
“Monica?” I question. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“That hitman wasn’t here for me, Chiara.”
My brows furrow. “You think Monica hired him for . . . what? For me?”
“Yes. Now tell me what happened in the bathroom. Did she say anything to you before she attacked you?”
I shrug my shoulders, trying to remember everything that went down, despite having spent the past week doing everything in my power to try and forget. “She ummm—” I pause, letting out a heavy breath filled with reluctance. “I really don’t want to make matters worse.”
“You had a hitman shoot at you. How much worse do you think it’s going to get?”
There’s no denying it, the asshole has a good point, and I finally give in, telling him what he needs to know. “Okay, I’m paraphrasing here, but basically, she was saying that I was one more obstacle in the way of her and Sergiu taking over if you were to . . . you know, end up six feet under.”
His face scrunches as if not following where I’m going with this. “If you were to knock me up, your child would inherit your . . . throne, or whatever you call it. But if I was out of the way with no chance of having your child, they would be one step closer to the top.”
Killian’s brows furrow. “That’s what this is really about?” he questions, letting out a heavy sigh. “She’s going to all this effort to try and take you out for the hope of one day getting to call the shots.”
“Yep.”
“Fuck, that woman has always been such a petty bitch.”
My brow arches, a little shocked at the words that just came tumbling out of his mouth. I’ve heard the filthiest things a man could ever say from him behind locked doors, and I’ve seen the brutal evidence of what he’s capable of in the name of protecting his family, but I’ve never quite heard him like that.
When speaking of his family, Killian always does so with high regard and respect, but now that Monica has shown her cards and her loyalty has been questioned, there’s not even a scrap of respect left for her.
I can’t lie, now that Monica has taken this bullshit so much further than a scrappy fight in a too-small bathroom, the idea of justice is suddenly a little more thrilling.