Chapter 1 #4
My gaze is drawn to his left hand as he straightens his tie in an act that’s too casual for the situation.
A letter is inked on each finger, but I can only make out the E on his pinky and ring finger.
His rings obscure the rest. He still wears the insignia ring that belonged to his father on his index finger and the silver one I gave him for his birthday on his middle finger.
The onyx ring on his right hand is new. It’s my father’s wedding ring.
I don’t know what shocks me the most—that he stole that ring off the dead body of my father or that he hasn’t removed the one I gifted him.
When he smooths down his jacket, my gaze follows the action.
My senses are heightened. I notice every minute detail from the familiar smell of his subtle aftershave to the thick veins that run over the back of his hand.
The clean, short nails. I haven’t forgotten how big or strong those hands are. I always knew they had blood on them.
I force myself to look back at his face. At twenty-nine, he’s more devastatingly handsome than I could’ve ever imagined him. But it’s the vibe that rolls off him that hits me the hardest, the danger that he exudes as he slides his icy gaze from my eyes to the gun in my hands.
He’s different.
Empty.
Cold.
No, not different. He’s just finally showing his true colors.
I point the gun at his head. “Stay away from me.”
A sliver of a smile cracks through those sensual lips that used to worship my body and whisper lies in my ears.
Taking a step closer, he challenges me. “Tatiana.” His vocal cords are rough around my name.
The sound is rusted. Raw. He says it as if the syllables are new, as if he’s never uttered it before, never bit it out like a man in pain during the final throes of his pleasure when he emptied himself in me.
“After all this time, are those really the first words you want to say to me?”
I glance at the doorway, praying that Jazz and Noah will come home late.
I’ve played this scenario out in my mind many times.
I never had to wonder how it was going to end.
Dante has never been a man who did what someone told him to do.
I always knew I was going to have to shoot him.
What I didn’t know was how much it would hurt.
Seeing how much I hate him, the notion catches me by surprise, but there it is, a fragile remnant of regret that survived the destruction, fluttering between the hurt and hate in my heart.
He smiles wider. It’s a smile any other woman will find disarming, a dangerous smile, but its cruelty hits me right in the chest. I don’t tell him to get out of my house because he’s not going to listen. I’ll just have to let my trigger finger do the talking.
Fuck, but it hurts. Still. After all this time. A part of me can’t forget our history, but I can’t ignore what he’s done or why he’s here.
He takes another step closer.
I tighten my finger on the trigger. The resistance of the spring is both reassuring and terrifying.
Fuck.
My hands are shaking. Badly. I try to think about Noah, and then I try not to think at all. I’ve made this choice many times over—what I’d do if he found me—yet now that he stands in front of me, taking a life is harder than I thought.
Before I can come to a decision, he pounces.
He’s on top of me in a wink, grabbing both my wrists in one hand and forcing them above my head while wrapping the other around my neck.
My back hits the wall, the breath knocked out of my lungs.
He pins me in place with his big hand like an iron vise around my throat, barely letting me drag in oxygen as he wrestles the gun from my grip.
The minute my hands are free, I grab his arms, trying to pull him off me. Trying to breathe.
Not easing up on me, he flicks on the safety and slips the gun into the back of his waistband under his jacket.
His deep voice cuts through me like glass. “Is it loaded?”
I manage a nod.
He loosens his grip, giving me air without setting me free, and pulls his eyes into slits as he presses his body against mine. “Do you even know how to use it?”
He’s hard. After all this time and everything that’s passed, he wants me.
My body recognizes his touch. My belly heats, remembering our chemistry.
But it means nothing. It’s just a physical conditioning.
The parts that matter are lies, and his reaction as well as mine only piss me off, fueling years of suppressed anger.
The fury gives me an extra spurt of strength. I try to knee him in the balls, but he sees me coming and manages to deflect the blow, which lands on his thigh. He’s distracted for just a second, long enough for me to break his hold on my neck by slamming the narrow side of my palm on his forearm.
I’m free, running for the broken-down front door because it will take too long to unlock the back door, but I only get as far as the small entryway opening into the lounge before he catches me.
For what it’s worth, I fight as he pushes me up against the wall. We’re back to how we’ve been in the kitchen with him crowding me and his hand around my neck. He’s not strangling me, but he’s not letting me breathe freely either.
I flatten my hands on his chest, trying to push him away, but he doesn’t move an inch. His muscles are like a brick wall beneath my palms.
He clicks his tongue. “Bad girl.”
“Fuck you.”
“Tsk, tsk. Some mouth you’ve got. Swearing was never part of your vocabulary.”
Glaring at him, I banish my terror to a distant corner of my being because I refuse to give him my fear.
“I asked you a question, Tatiana. Do you even know how to use that gun?”
My throat burns inside. My voice scrapes through the ache as I push an answer out with loathing. “What do you think?”
His gaze plays over my features as if he’s trying to memorize them. A wry chuckle rumbles in his chest.
Bringing his mouth a hairbreadth from mine, he whispers words over my lips. “I bet you would’ve pulled the trigger too.”
I lift my chin to hold his gaze, ignoring the heat of his skin that burns through our clothes and focusing on the stony look in his eyes, eyes that are so similar to Noah’s. “If it’s me or you, then yes.”
He lets my neck go to grip my wrists in both his hands and pin them on the wall above my head. “Is that what you think? That I’m here to kill you?”
The action flattens my breasts. My nipples, which are naked under my T-shirt, rub over the steel-like muscles of his torso.
“Why else?” I bite out. “Didn’t you come here to finish what you’d started?”
For a fleeting moment, something like guilt flashes in those cold amber eyes, but then they turn hard, and his frosty smile is back in place. “I waited five years for this moment. Do you really think I’m just going to kill you?”
I swallow at that, regretting that I couldn’t see my plan through to shoot him. “What do you want? Haven’t you already taken everything?”
His reply is dark, filled with a sinister promise. “Not everything.”
I’m about to tell him to go to hell when a shadow falls through the open doorway over the floor.
No.
Please let the landlord be home. Please let it be him. He could’ve heard the noise and decided to investigate. But my hope is futile, and my prayers are unanswered, because a moment later, Jazz appears on the threshold, taking in the damage to the door with terror-stricken eyes.
I give a single shake of my head, urging her to run, but Dante’s senses have always been sharp.
He glances over his shoulder without letting me go. “Jasper.” The corner of his mouth that’s in my vision tips up as a grin stretches his lips. “What a surprise. How long has it been? Five years?”
She looks from him to me and back at him, her mouth opening and closing but no sound coming out.
No, no. Please, not this.
How can this be happening?
And then I know. I’ve been followed. I know that with deep-seated intuition. It was a terrible mistake to have ignored my instinct.
I think about that red truck, about what the guy could’ve seen.
I kept the curtains closed. The truck wasn’t there when I arrived or left.
He didn’t see Noah with me and Jazz. He wasn’t parked close to my house, or I would’ve noticed the truck.
This street has no trees. There’s nothing to hide behind.
No one broke into my house and discovered a little boy’s clothes.
He can’t know about Noah. As long as Jazz hasn’t said anything, there’s still a way out for Noah.
I plead with my eyes, begging my friend to take Noah away, but then my baby walks up behind her with his ball under his arm, and it’s too late.
Dante stills, clearly taken aback. “Who’s the kid?”
At the same time Jazz finds her voice to say, “He’s mine,” Noah drops his ball, runs to me, and throws his arms around my legs from the side, hugging me fiercely while forcing himself between Dante and me as he utters one distressed little word.
“Mommy!”
Dante’s gaze locks on mine over the sound. Confusion sets into his features, followed by disbelief. Jazz stands frozen to the spot, looking on helplessly as the truth is blown open like a landmine, the destruction imminent.
My knees threaten to give out as my heart stops beating. My breathing grows shallow. There’s a very good reason I kept Noah a secret. His father is a monster who murdered my family before stealing our assets and taking over my father’s territory.
That’s why Dante has been hunting me all these years.
That’s why he’s put a price on my head. There’s only one way I’ll never be able to make a claim on my inheritance, and that’s if I’m dead.
And now he knows he has an heir, someone else he can take away from me.
He won’t be happy with only the money and the shares.
Because Dante Morici has never settled for less than everything.